article writing on what if ghandi ji was here in present rcenerio
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Explanation:
I
I feel privileged to inaugurate the Gandhi Lecture Series being organized by the Government of India in major universities of the world.
It is indeed an honour to be here at this esteemed Centre of learning situated amidst such breathtaking beauty.
I stand before you in a spirit of humility to speak about one of the greatest figures of history, whose experiments with truth began in your country. For me as an Indian, a visit to South Africa is a pilgrimage.
The world knows greatness in many forms. There are the great, who won celebrated military victories. There are the great, who have deepened our knowledge of the physical universe. There are the great who have helped us understand the workings of the human mind. There are the great who by their inventions have transformed the way we live.
Mahatma Gandhi stands in a category of his own. He too was an inventor but of a different kind, an inventor of a unique way of protest, of struggle, of emancipation and of empowerment. His generalship lay not in making war but in waging peace. His weaponry was not arms and ammunition but "truth force", "satyagraha" as he called it. The moral universe was his field of action. He explored a whole new dimension of the human psyche, its capacity to willingly accept suffering, even unto death, not to attain the kingdom of heaven, but a better world here and now, by bringing about social and political change.
II
On June 7, 1893, a young Indian barrister, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was evicted from a train at Pietermaritzburg station for being a non-white. I have never understood he later remarked, how any man can derive pleasure from the humiliation of another? A spark was lit which was to change the course of world history.
On September 11, 1906, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi launched the first satyagraha campaign from the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg . He issued a clarion call for nonviolent resistance against racial discrimination, oppression and injustice. He described satyagraha as a force born of truth and the love of nonviolence, a moral equivalent of war.
After 21 years in South Africa where his views took shape and were tested and refined, he carried the torch of satyagraha to India. The world saw with amazement how this unique technique energized millions of men and women to bring a mighty empire to its knees.
III
Mahatma Gandhi, the person was a many-sided personality to an unusual degree.
He was a man of peace who did not hesitate to fight for what he believed to be right.
He was a political strategist who shunned conventional politics and held no office.
He was a thinker and a philosopher who was, first and foremost, a man of action.
He was extraordinarily pragmatic and adapted himself to changing situations without compromising or abandoning his basic values.
Mahatma Gandhi respected tradition. Yet, he was also an iconoclast.
He was deeply religious. But his was a religion that drew from every faith, a religion that was all-inclusive.
He embodied spirituality. But his was a spirituality rooted in an abiding concern for the poor and the deprived, of service to and empowerment of the disadvantaged and underprivileged.
He was impatient for cataclysmic change. Yet, he shunned violence in any form as an instrument to force the pace of change. In his own words “ non violence is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction, devised by the ingenuity of man”.
The popular picture of Gandhi is that of a highly solemn and earnest person. His mission was indeed a lofty one but his personality was full of lightness and humour. Once, reacting to criticism that he was wearing merely his usual loin cloth, sandals and shawl when invited to tea by King George and Queen Mary, he said, "The King had enough on for both of us."
Although Mahatma Gandhi was a true revolutionary, he was that rare exception a revolutionary who could laugh.
IV
The simple truth is that instead of diminishing in relevance, Mahatma Gandhi has actually become all the more pertinent in the 21st century. Whichever the challenge we confront, you can be sure that the Gandhian way is a real, live option, an option that informs and illuminates.
But we would be doing him great injustice if we didn’t interpret, in contemporary terms, what he spelt out in the context of his times. He would have wanted us to experiment and find our own way without compromising our fundamental beliefs.
Mahatma Gandhi bequeathed to us three guiding principles: Ahimsa (or nonviolence), Satyagraha (or the force born of truth and nonviolence) and Sarvodaya (or upliftment of all). It is the value of these principles that we have to rediscover if we want to deal effectively with today's challenges.