GANDHIGIRI

I have still not watched the film that has created the atmosphere of
debate or controversy about the word : GANDHIGIRI but since the
use of this word has induced turbulance in Indian politics and among
some followers of MAHATMA GANDHI I cannot help myself...I must
say what I think about the so-called Gandhigiri.

Gandhiji had died about 11 years before my birth.So, I did not have
chance to see him alive.The impressions I have in my mind and my
heart are reflections of what I heard or read about the man whose
name was:MOHANLAL KARAMCHAND GANDHI.

The word Gandhigiri is for me the Indian edition of the word...
Gandhi-ism.I do not understand why some people have objection to
the use of the word: Gandhigiri.Perhaps because in general, the words
ending with -giri in Hindi are those words which have hateful meanings
we tend to feel that the word Gandhigiri may reduce the effectiveness
of Mahatma Gandhi.But I don't think Mahatma's image in the minds
of people is so superficial that words like Gandhigiri could erase it
from the brains of a large mass.

Albert Einstein once told about Gandhiji : "The Posterity would
hardly believe that such a man of flesh and blood had lived in this
world."This is what Gandhiji's credibility was and will be in future-
for generations to come.The young generation of India might not
have a true image of the great man because they are living in a
world which has turned more materialistic during the years that
followed Gandhiji's death.What they study in schools is more a
burden to them because they have a mindset that they are studying
it for marks and not for knowledge.Our syllabuses are so heavy with
some unnecessarily included subjects that important facts lose
their relevance and students always remain in a state of confusion
so they react very aggressively to the characters of history or science
and forget them as time passes by.

Then there are people in this country who publicly criticise Gandhiji
for the Partition of India at the time of Independence.Some scold him
for giving more than necessary impetus to the cause of backward
class.The modern generation is then misguided and the young of
this country have a blurred image of the great man in their minds.

I think people in other countries have more respect for Gandhiji
than we the people in India have.You find people from France and
Sydney coming to Sabarmati Ashram to study and understand
Gandhiji.You also find people residing in the neighbourhood of the
same Sabarmati Ashram for more than a decade and they have
never thought of visiting it.This is the respect we Indians have for
the Father of Nation.On the other hand Gandhiji is the only
personality to have statues in most of the countries of the world.

Coming back to the word GANDHIGIRI :Is it relevant in today's
world?This is the central question asked by or debated by all.
As far as I am concerned Gandhigiri has to some extent lost its
significance if what we are referring to is Gandhi-ism of Mahatma.
The reason is not that Gandhi-ism of Mahatma has its weaknesses
but that we have been weakened by our systems, our political
as well as social parameters have forced us to become victims of
wrong notions prevailing about Gandhiji and his philosophy.

So far as GANDHIGIRI is concerned I would like to refer to the
Late Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi who enjoyed a distinct
place in Indian politics.Her Gandhigiri was quite different from that
of Mahatma Gandhi but in today's world her Gandhigiri is or at
least it appears to be more relevant.Mahatma's Gandhigiri is more
a spiritual approach and it may work on individual level but when
it comes to an aggregative approach his 'giri' may not work. The
'giri' of Indira Gandhi is more a practical way of life where people
are driven by the criterion of 'the survival of the fittest' and
therefore, it works at all levels.

What we need is a proper blend of both the types of GANDHIGIRI !

( This is my post no. 25. Click on blog archive to see my other posts.)

POLITICS : SOME THOUGHTS

(1) I am not an old,experienced hand at politics. But I am now
seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about
any political campaign is how to win without proving that you
are unworthy of winning.
................................................Adlai Stevenson

(2) Man is by nature a political animal.
.....................................................Aristotle

(3) I used to say that politics was the second lowest profession
and I have come to know that it bears a great similarity to the
first.
..............................................Ronald Reagan

(4) There has never been a perfect government, because men
have passions; and if they did not have passions, there would
be no need for a government.
..................................................Voltaire

(5) You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
.............................................James Thurber

(6) Too bad all the people who know how to run the country
are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.
...............................................George Burns

(7) Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big
appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
.........................................Ronald Reagan

(8) Political ability is the ability to foretell what is going to
happen tomorrow, next week, next month,and next year.
And to have the ability afterward to explain why it didn't
happen.
......................................Winston Churchill

(9) You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain
honest.
................................Louis McHenry Howe

DEMOCRACY : SOME THOUGHTS

(1) Democracy is a form of government you have to keep for four years
.....no matter what it does.
.................................................Will Rogers.

(2) Democracy is a form of government which may be rationally defended,
.....not as being good,but as being less bad than any other.
.......................................William Ralph Inge.

(3) The man who is selling newspapers outside the houses of parliament
.....can safely leave his papers to go for a drink and his cap beside them:
.....anyone who takes a paper is sure to drop a copper in to the cap. But
.....the men who are inside the houses of parliament-they cannot trust
.....oneanother like that,still less can the government they compose trust
.....another governments. No caps upon the pavement here.
...............................................E.M.Forster

(4) If you want to understand democracy, spend less time in the library
.....with Plato and more time in the buses with people.
........................................Simeon Strunsky

(5) Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the
.....people are right more than half of the time.
...........................................E.B.White

(6) Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better
.....than we deserve.
................................George Bernard Shaw

(7) That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom
.....democratic.
..................................Woodrow Wilson.

SUCCESS : SOME THOUGHTS

(1) Success is a journey, not a destination.
.....................................................................Ben Sweetland

(2)A man with a(successful) career can have no time to
....waste upon his wife and friends, he has to devote it
....wholly to his enemies.
............................................................John Oliver Hobbes

(3)Failure is not the only punishment for laziness:there
....is also the success of others.
.........................................................................Jules Renald

(4)There is only one success- to be able to spend your
....life in your own way.
............................................................Christopher Morley

(5)Six essential qualities that are key to success:
....Sincerity
....Personal integrity
....Humility
....Courtesy
....Wisdom
....Charity
.......................................................Dr. William Menninger

(6)Apparent failure may hold in its rough shell the
....germs of a success that will blossom in time, and
....bear throughout eternity.
..........................................Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

(7)How can they say my life isn't a success? Have I
....not for more than sixty years got enough to eat
....and escaped being eaten?
.........................................................Logan Pearsall Smith

FRIENDSHIP- SOME THOUGHTS

(1) Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved,
is the greatest happiness of existence.
..........................................................Sydney Smith.

(2) Enemies publish themselves. They declare war.The friend never
declares his love.
.............................................................Thoreau.

(3) A friend that ain't in need is a friend in deed.
...........................................................Kin Hubbard.

(4)True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom
known until it be lost.
.............................................Charles Caleb Colton.

(5) Everybody is not capable of being a friend, but anybody has
it in his power to be an enemy.
...........................................................Anonymous.

(6)There are three kinds of friends: Best friends, Guest friends,
and Pest friends.
...........................................................Henry Adams.

(7)We die as often as we lose a friend.
..........................................................Publilius Syrus.

(8) Love demands infinitely less than friendship.
.................................................George Jean Nathan.

(9) Friendship is by its very nature freer of deceit than any
other relationship we can know because it is the bond least
affected by striving for power, physical pleasure, or material
profit, most liberated from any oath of duty or constancy.
........................................Francine Du Plessix Gray.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT MARRIAGE

• ***In all matrimonial associations there is,I believe,one
  constant factor- a desire to deceive the person with
  whom one lives as to some weak spot in one's character
  or in one's career. For it is intolerable to live
  constantly with one human being who perceives one's
  small meanness.It is really death to do so- that is why
  so many marriages turn out unhappily.
  
  .......................................Ford Maddox Ford
  
  ***If the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body the man
  who eats two dinners at a sitting may perhaps attain
  greater enjoyment but not his object,since the stomach
  will not digest two dinners.
  
  If the purpose of marriage is the family the person who
  seeks to have a number of wives or husbands may possibly
  obtain much pleasure therefrom,but will not in any case
  have a family.
  
  .........................................Leo Tolstoy
  
  ***Divorce,in fact, is not the destruction of marriage,
  but the first condition of its maintenance.
  
  ...................................George Bernard Shaw
  
  ***Marriage may often be a stormy lake, but celibacy is
  almost always a muddy horse-pond.
  
  ...................................Thomas Love Peacock
  
  ***The chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two
  to bear them, and sometimes three.
  
  ..........................................Oscar Wilde
  
  ***The great secret of successful marriage is to treat
  all disasters as incidents and none of the incidents
  as disasters.
  
  .....................................Harold Nicholson
  
  ***Today, he admits, he gave his sons just one piece of
  advice."Never confuse I LOVE YOU with I WANT TO MARRY
  YOU."
  
  .......................................Cleveland Amory