Of Gandhi Ji, Satyagraha and Its Relevance

Munna Bhai and his potent weapon of Gandhigiri has forced moviegoers, particularly the youth of the nation to sit up and take a note of the "Gandhian Philosophy".
It has triggered discussions on the efficacy and potency of Gandhian Philosophy, to which an entire generation had earlier lost out on.
It was in this very month 100 years back i.e. on 11th September , 1906 , that , faced with racial discrimination in South Africa, Gandhi ji launched "Satyagraha" against the British colonial rule and gave the sermon of 'truth and non-violence" .
And it was the same weapon of Satyagraha that he subsequently used successfully to liberate India from the clutches of the same very British rule.

One of the most famous instance in which Gandhi ji used Satyagraha to achieve his righteous cause, was his march to Dandi, a costal area in Gujarat Province of India.
With this march he along with his followers managed , not only to lodge his protest against the unjust Salt Tax Levied By British Raj but also managed to mobilize the common man to rise up against the unjust practices of the empire , thus becoming the turning point in India’s freedom struggle .

At that time Gandhi Ji must have thought ,that once the Britishers would be sent packing their bags and a government-which was of the people , by the people and for the people had been established , along with the installation of necessary infrastructure required to run a democratic polity , then the Satyagraha will become increasingly irrelevant and redundant--as then-- the government would be obviously expected to be “people oriented” and sensitized towards the welfare of the teeming millions of the people who would have voted it to power .

Sadly , Gandhi Ji was wrong , little he would have realized at that time that even after 60 years of independence, the citizens of this country would have to resort to his old weapon of Satyagraha even for getting done most mundane of the tasks by the government machinery .

He would have never even dreamt that the citizens would have to fight hard, even for most fundamental of their rights.
It would have been very anguishing for him, when he would have seen from up there that injustice, inequality and corruption have become a norm rather than an exception in this country.
His soul must have felt hurt when it would have seen the student goons in Ujjain openly threatening their professors in broad daylight and eventually beating one of them to death, right in front of top police officials of the state. Worst still, that it took more than 5 hours and only after a lot of media hue and cry and public protest, that the police lodged an FIR for this broad daylight Murder.

It would have hurt him – Not because people had to use Satyagraha, but instead, on seeing that the people of this country have to fight tooth and nail to get justice -- Justice - from the Government whom they have themselves voted to power, to work for them.

This is just a tip of an iceberg, every day we hear stories of people protesting against the investigating agencies and the justice dispensing system for their lackadaisical and callous attitude, because of which the criminals are at large and conviction rate is the abysmally low.

The Priyadarshini Mattu, Nitish Katara and Jessica Lal murder cases are the case in point; here the investigating authorities had done everything to ensure that the culprits (the big shots) are able to come out scot-free. It was only after peaceful protests and the pressure built up by the people that the authorities were forced to act tough later on.

It is only after Satyagraha that the government wakes up to the miseries of the people who have been displaced (without offering them a meaningful compensation package) from their lands (in the name of infrastructure development).

It is only after Satyagraha by the people that an honest Engineer of the Maharashtra State electricity board is reinstated after he was unlawfully suspended. His crime being that he disconnected the Electricity connection of the house of Chief Minister of Maharashtra for non payment of pending electricity bills running into lacs of rupees.

These are just some of the few issues that have hit the headlines in the recent months, nobody knows how many similar cases go unnoticed, in this vast country.

However, an obvious positive, out of all these issues, is that - after all the bad beginnings the government was eventually forced to perform its duties. And this was all achieved by the methods of "peaceful protest" taught to us by Gandhi Ji.


Amidst all this, some very difficult questions are begging answers -- for how long will people need to Light Candles at India Gate?? Or, how many more online petitions will one need to sign?? Or how many "Get well Soon" cards would the people will need to send, in order to get accomplish even the most trivial of the things, the things which are obviously expected from the government of the people.

These questions are difficult to answer, but one thing is very clear, and that is, that, the onus is now on the youth who now form the 60 percent of the nation's population to strike back – to not be mere spectators to all this - to take a vow that they'd stand up against any injustice being done by the cartelization of Politicians, Bureaucrats and Contractors.

It might take time to achieve their objectives but surely a time will come when through this tried and tested weapon of Satyagraha the people will get a government which is accountable and answerable to them - and thus will be able to fight back their Second Freedom - The freedom from Corruption, inactivity, and inefficiency of the Empire.
Long Live Gandhigiri.

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