Our people do not kill with bullets, they use words to kill the essence. They destroy the sense and sensibility and even the sensitivity which makes us human.
In the present scenario, the text has been brutalized, its soul drained and words lie scattered like dead bodies in the battlefield of time.
Dr. Jernail Singh Anand | India
Words, whose soul has been sucked, are scattered around, like dead bodies, waiting for community burial. Call great men for final rites of all that was good in human tradition.
If Mahatma Gandhi comes today, he will have more difficult time than he had with the British. Gandhiji is considered an apostle of peace, who represents a timeless philosophy, i.e. the precious legacy of India’s thought systems and spiritual tradition. Mercifully, he was born in a time when truth meant truth, and falsehood meant falsehood. People were, what they were, good or evil, and they could be trusted for that. But these times are different, which make aberrations of men with such sensibilities.
When we say, ‘peace’, the expression evokes a state of happiness, joy and equilibrium. But, utter the word ‘non-violence’. It conjures scenes of blood bath, and communal riots, to which we are advised to say ‘No’. Peace is the religion of a positive faith, propagated by Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Gautam Buddha. However, in Non-violence, we have to contend with a changed scenario in which violence is a way of life, which has to be denounced and disowned.
Why ‘peace’ undergoes a transformation and becomes ‘non-violence’? Because words are not mute witnesses of our emotions, they are active agents of an invisible eco-system. They attack the mind of the reader, and the revolution begins there. They act like loaded missiles which are shot from a distance. One may ask: why was Gandhi different from Buddha though both gave the message of Peace and co-existence?
A counter question can be: How relevant will be Buddha if he comes alive in this scenario? If he gives his message from Sarnath again, and his language is plain, and does not flirt with socio-political nuances, he can be tolerated. But Guru Nanak Dev ji faced a hostile reaction from the aggressors, when he attacked Babur, describing his forces as ‘Paap ki Janj’ [the marriage band of sinners]. Mahatama Gandhi too had to contend with an empire, which had never seen the setting sun. Therefore, he had to be mentally and morally equipped to take on the powerful British Empire, which believed in violence.
The Core Issue
If Gandhi comes again, will he again resort to Satyagraha, or Non-cooperation, or the idea of Non-Violence? The British Govt. was very insensitive, and committed atrocities on Indians. Jallianwala Bagh massacre is a living example, and fighting these people on their terms [i.e. armed engagement] would have led to collective suicide. In S. Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom, we see a blend of the Gandhianism as well as the philosophy of Guru Gobind Singh Ji. He shook the foundations of the Empire not only by the bombing of the Parliament, but also by his decision not to run away. Same thing was repeated by another brave Sikh S. Udham Singh who killed Michael O’Dwyer, and did not run away after that. It is clear that both the philosophy of the Gurus
[Choonkar Az hama Heelte dar guzasht, halal ast burden v shamsheer dast’: these lines are ascribed to Guru Gobind Singh ji, which, when translated mean: when all other options at peace are exhausted, a man is justified in taking up arms] and the philosophy of the Satyagraha came together to force the British to free India and transfer the power to the people of India.The Murder of the Word
In the present scenario, the text has been brutalized, its soul drained and words lie scattered like dead bodies in the battlefield of time. People, who believed in truth, the power of the word, in good and evil of men, feared God, and were afraid of Hell – have been replaced by a set of people, for whom words are no more than dead skeletons in the museum of contemporary history.
It is man’s smartness, which has got the better of his wisdom, and combined with knowledge, he has attacked all the sources of his own strength. The scriptures, the family, the teacher, and the religious places – everything which added meaning to the word has been destroyed. We have destroyed nature also, which was a source of wisdom for mankind. In order to understand what we are saying, just think how we turn and return to the animal kingdom. As clever as a fox, putting all eggs in the same basket, a bird in hand is better than two in bush. Everything is becoming irrelevant when nature and its denizens are margined off.
In this world scenario where values have lost their natural placement, if Gandhi comes again, I wonder if concepts like non-violence will be enough. Our people do not kill with bullets, they use words to kill the essence. They destroy the sense and sensibility and even the sensitivity which makes us human. Violence or non-violence, I think, do not matter in this world, which has no faith in anything but power, wealth and luxury. The British Empire he fought against, was cruel, not shameless. Gandhi may have to first start a movement for ethical revival of mankind, and restoration of the sanctity of the human text. And he may suffer lack of funding too, because the highly educated corporates of today, are the fourth generation of old industrialists, [now extinct], who, once on his suggestion, had funded the Vishwa Bharati, have no faith in philanthropy without returns.
Read: Cause and Effect — A New Dance
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Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, based in Chandigarh, is an Indian poet and scholar credited with 170 plus books of English literature, philosophy and spirituality. He won great Serbian Award Charter of Morava and his name adorns the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. He was honored with Seneca Award LAUDIS CHARTA by Academy of Arts & Philosophical Sciences, Bari, Italy 2024. He is Founder President of the International Academy of Ethics and conferred Doctor of Philosophy (Honoris Causa) by University of Engineering & Management, (UEM) Jaipur. Email anandjs55@yahoo.com
