A LETTER TO GANDHIJI

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  Wednesday, 02 October 2013 10:18
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Respected Gandhiji,

Happy Birthday ….The new way of greeting…Ordinarily I would not have written this as a letter to you  I would have posted this as a message on your face book page but here goes.

We have read a lot about you. It would be heartwarming for you to know , your ideology has influenced millions of people all over the world.  In fact a friend of mine just returned from Quebec said there is a statue of you in the Central Square. At every major world summit  your name is mentioned as an icon as the world ‘fights’ for peace…

That’s the world,  but have we in India forgotten you? How can we? You are on every banknote that we trade.  Every city and town has its main road named after you. Every police station  and government office has a portrait of you benignly watching over all that happens below. Across television there are serials inspired by your life. Your famous movement of Satyagrah movement  is now a movie. Like God in the temple,you are everywhere Ji and yet nowhere…  

As for politics your influence is indelible. The “Gandhian” way of leadership is central to the country. The descendants of your friend Nehruji  run the affairs of the nation. Your name now has a  “topi”  to it. Whenever the need arises your name is used in our great Parliament by politicians of every hue to further their cause of peace, nonviolence  and secularism.

The politician of our Modern India loves you so much that he just can’t get enough of you. Yeh Dil Mange More as they say…So he hoards notes with you on them in thousands of crores ..his way of comforting himself that there still is a Gandhi who influences and insulates him.

60 odd years after we received our freedom we talk prosperity  but are bonded to the vagaries of funds that flow in and out of our country as we turn from self sufficiency to globalization as our economic model. Economic policies often wink at national  interests and encompassing growth as we  march toward economic prosperity. Meanwhile the poor and their simple needs remain simple.

On a day like today I’d like to remind myself of what you once said, “The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice and Politics without principles”

Baki Bapu saab theek hai

Thank you Gandhiji, for your sacrifice. Thank you for our freedom. Wish you were here.

A Young Indian

Please write a letter to Gandhiji in your Comment box below…and show your gandhigiri and love toward this greatest leader….

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