We miss him...

We miss him ……..

      He was a grand old man, frail looking, half naked, with a stick for support to walk around(India), round spectacle, with energy beyond his age, his will stronger than his body, belief in principles dearer than life, supremacy of soul always over the body, concern for humanity 24x7, quest for the truth his life’s mission. There was nothing glamorous in his personality but still was magnetic in his appeal, he never considered himself an erudite but the contemporary intellectuals, brilliant men and women followed him, he never aspired for political power but held sway over the largest political party, his moral writ was what alien rulers were afraid of, he was not an exceptional orator but every spoken word of his pierced heart and above all he was unmatched in his transparency and  experiments, he called them experiments with truth.

     A very modest student, fearful of god, rather everything, became a story, difficult to believe in modern history, of how a common man evolved and ultimately reached to sainthood. He was a man with revolutionary ideas in every walk of life from politics, religion, God, naturopathy to spinning yarn; the spectrum covered everything that humanity needed to live a better life in this world. He was very simple in articulating his life as just a quest of truth but still had mystical aura around him. His life had a mission and his every minute a task, all for humanity.

     Before him we knew only one way of struggle, fighting for rights and that was brute force. The battles and wars in the human history are all with human blood strewn around; we knew revolutions where the unjust rulers were defeated by the freedom fighters but not without bloodshed. In all these battles the tragedy of human race was always underlined; its expected elevation to higher moral platform was always undermined. Few good men did won but not without their own blood or of some good enemies. These all were continuations of medieval methods of wins and defeats; never there were ethos of modern, elevated humanity.

    He was the first freedom fighter who proposed, practiced and proved with exceptional success that the most effective weapon is not sword or gun, but the human force with moral strength and belief in the principles of non violence. It was beyond the imagination of everybody then. It was a revolutionary concept, obviously all were skeptical about it, its failure was presumed, the effectiveness questioned but it stood the test of time, its success the whole world watched in awe. He was the one who said “Win the heart of the enemy, change him, you win but he doesn’t lose”, you don’t need guns and swords for this, you need iron will and faith in non violence. He was the first person in modern history who fought with enemy without a weapon in hand, and succeeded as well. He raised the question what needs more courage, killing or dying happily for just cause without resorting to violence? He was the inventor, explorer and practitioner of the most potent weapon mankind had ever seen that could win the battle but without bloodshed.

  He was the champion of life in tune with nature. He was a believer in the naturopathy and experimented a lot in this area in those tumultuous years of political turmoil. He insisted on keeping the needs at minimum. Mother earth has enough for the needs of entire humanity but not enough for the greed of even one man, was how he tuned his philosophy of life. As a leader he was unique in his insistence, before you preach, practice first. His life has many stories where he experimented with himself first and then wanted people to act. When he arrived from South Africa and came to terms with the harsh realities of poverty in India he decided to dress according to majority of India, half naked because most didn't have enough to hide all the body. What has changed ever since, not the divide between leaders and followers but the standard of living. Leaders live in luxury and people in misery, no wonder there is a crisis of credibility. People believed, even more than closest relatives, what that old man said. Now every sentence of a leader is being seen in the light of deception. Leaders preach people of India and practice exactly opposite. The graph of wealth of leaders is in ascendancy but for masses not connected politically it is always descending to lower and lower level.

  All his life he longed for the society free of violence. He had an opportunity to resort to it for the freedom struggle, nobody would then have objected to it because that was the only method known to get the rights, independence back from the tyrant, alien, oppressive regime. But he stuck to the principles of non violence. What we now see around, mobs in search of opportunity to resort to stone pelting, destruction of public properties, violence on street and at home  as well, at slightest of provocation and most casual reason the people are ready to kill, brainwashed fanatics are prepared to blow themselves and kill innocents, they don't fear own death but kill remorselessly, for them the deadly weapons like grenades, AK-47s are toys to kill, feel they are given license by religion to kill people for no  fault of theirs, they have firm belief that they will get a seat near God by killing his children, in the name of God they become demon unleashing the reign of terror  on humanity. Complete antithesis of what that old man lived life for.

  At political stage in our country also the leaders take recourse to arousing the sentiments of  people by raising the issues of identity, want to show the political muscle by violent demonstrations, some even go to the extent of political murders. Since winning the election is supreme the means don't matter, criminals find safe heaven in political parties, every election means deaths on the streets in clashes, encircling the humanity by every possible divider. Caste, region, religion have all become tools of gaining power but for him caste discrimination was a sinful act that  must be eradicated and faith in the religion, an instrument to come closer to the ultimate Truth, we call God. 

   We are all embroiled in all the divisive elements from caste to culture, region to religion; he was in true sense above all these. No political party go to his teachings politically perhaps  they are useless in fetching votes but they are ready to follow anything, may be wrong, even dangerous to the health of society just to seize power. He could have become anything from President to Prime Minister in independent India but was content in dousing the communal flames during partition.

   He never was above controversy but his intentions, commitment to non violence was never in doubt, in fact when agitation failed to adhere to the principles of non violence he did not hesitate to call it off. True leader is the one who gives society what is good for it, not what it wants, wrote Pundit Nehru in the forward to the biography of that old man. Today we have a competition of populist schemes and policies that are counterproductive to the social and economic fabric. For the foundations of his philosophy he invariably but eclectically, turned to religious beliefs,  often attracting the criticism from elements with modern and secular credentials.

    Even though we are living in the modern world full of means to get materialistic pleasure, we are a world completely out of harmony with itself. He was the one who could harmonize all his beliefs, personal life, fight for justice and total adherence to Truth and non violence. The mankind has so often displayed its suicidal tendencies, today is not an exception. The race to invent new weapons to kill more and faster,  nuclear  weapons with the destructive power of unimaginable proportion, search of  chemical weapons, has always been relentless, the hunt for the material supremacy reckless, discrimination and deprivation rampant, violence part of routine, justice delayed, terrorism an accepted reality, divisive policies order of  the politics, human greed pushing the world on the brink of destruction, human suffering, pain, agony in ascendance and  sympathy, love, affection all waning. Kindness is faltering against the hurricane of violence, man wants to kill man, in this chaos the voice of common man is lost in the background, peace and harmony missing, society disintegrating, the candle of compassion diminishing………….. We miss him.

 Bapu we miss you………