It was a happy surprise to walk into this class and see so many old friends! I am delighted that so many of you signed up for another class with me: what usually happens is that I get students only for one semester and, just as I am getting to know them, the semester ends and we rarely meet again.
I'm hoping that this semester you are going to do a whole lot more talking and that we will get to discuss a lot more issues - I always learn a lot from you guys.
This, then, is just a short post to welcome you to class and to remind you not to say "As we all know."!!
Our discussion this week is to be "Mohandas Gandhi - Success or Not?"
This is a discussion that could go in many different directions - the most obvious being whether or not Gandhi achieved in his lifetime what he set out to do. But, simply for interest I have attached here one or two items from the "Net which have nothing to do with his hopes for India but show that, long after his death, his spirit lives on. Does this, I wonder, Make him a "successfull" man?
I found this in an article about Dr. Martin Luther King, the man who fought and died for civil liberties in America: According to Arun Gandhi, “Although both [Gandhi and King] lived at different times, there was a spiritual bond between the two and we must honour that spiritual bond. Both shared the same dream that people would live in peace and harmony without looking at each other’s differences.”
Washington, Jan. 12: Quoting Mahatma Gandhi’s famous remark “an eye for an eye and soon the whole world is blind”, George Ryan, the outgoing governor of Illinois, last night commuted the death sentences of all of 167 persons who have been waiting in prisons in the state to be transported to the electric chair or for lethal injections.
Two Gandhians, former South African President Nelson Mandela and anti-apartheid crusader Bishop Desmond Tutu, both Nobel Peace Prize-winners, helped him arrive at the decision, Ryan said in a speech in Chicago yesterday to a thunderous and standing ovation.
Mahatma Gandhi's approach to achieving justice through non-violence is increasingly finding official acceptance in the world.
The Brazil Police is[sic] now studying ways of Mahatma Gandhi in an effort to curb violence. Under a project entitled "The Mahatma Gandhi and Non-Violence", the Sao Paolo police will brief the forces on Mahatma's peaceful opposition to British rule in India and applying pacifist methods to achieve justice.Mahatma Gandhi's approach to achieving justice through non-violence is increasingly finding official acceptance in the world.
Representatives of different peace-making organizations participating in a peace march across Eurasia entitled to "The New Age without wars and Nonviolence" holding a joint prayer at the monument of Mahatma Gandhi in Moscow recently (ITAR - TASS/PTI)Courtesy: Mumbai Samachar, issue dated August 14,1998.
An environmental activist holds a poster of Mahatma Gandhi as protestors try to block the arrival of a controversial nuclear waste train traveling to the storage centre of Ahaus in Germany on April 3, 1998. (Pic. courtesy : Asian Age)
Mohandas Gandhi was a man of wisdon and has left behind him many of his thoughts:
"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."
- One of the last notes left behind by Gandhi in 1948, expressing his deepest social thought.
Source: Mahatma Gandhi [Last Phase, Vol. II (1958), P. 65].
One cannot reach Truth by untruthfulness. Truthful conduct alone can reach truth. T-8-38
We may not go about parroting [repeating words without meaning them] truth and non-violence and steering clear of them in our daily life. T-5-180
Where there is truth, there also is knowledge which is true. TIG-20
Truth and nonviolence are both the means and the end, and given the right type of men, the legislatures can be the means of achieving the concrete pursuit of truth and nonviolence. T-4-161
The patriotic sprit demands loyal and strict adherence to nonviolence and truth. T-2-92
Truthful conduct alone can reach truth. MM-248
Openness of mind strengthens the truth in us and removes the dross[rubbish] from it if there is any. MM-342
To find truth completely is to realize oneself and one’s destiny, i.e. to become perfect. MM-18
Those who are truthful, nonviolent and brave do not cease to be so because of the stupidity of their leader. T-5-128
To a true artist only that face is beautiful which, quite apart from its exterior, shines with the truth within the soul. T-2-159
The propagation of truth and nonviolence can be done less by books than by actually living on those principles. T-5-93
Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. T-7-178
Persistent questioning and healthy inquisitiveness are the first requisite for acquiring learning of any kind. MM-377
I'm hoping that this semester you are going to do a whole lot more talking and that we will get to discuss a lot more issues - I always learn a lot from you guys.
This, then, is just a short post to welcome you to class and to remind you not to say "As we all know."!!
Our discussion this week is to be "Mohandas Gandhi - Success or Not?"
This is a discussion that could go in many different directions - the most obvious being whether or not Gandhi achieved in his lifetime what he set out to do. But, simply for interest I have attached here one or two items from the "Net which have nothing to do with his hopes for India but show that, long after his death, his spirit lives on. Does this, I wonder, Make him a "successfull" man?
I found this in an article about Dr. Martin Luther King, the man who fought and died for civil liberties in America: According to Arun Gandhi, “Although both [Gandhi and King] lived at different times, there was a spiritual bond between the two and we must honour that spiritual bond. Both shared the same dream that people would live in peace and harmony without looking at each other’s differences.”
Washington, Jan. 12: Quoting Mahatma Gandhi’s famous remark “an eye for an eye and soon the whole world is blind”, George Ryan, the outgoing governor of Illinois, last night commuted the death sentences of all of 167 persons who have been waiting in prisons in the state to be transported to the electric chair or for lethal injections.
Two Gandhians, former South African President Nelson Mandela and anti-apartheid crusader Bishop Desmond Tutu, both Nobel Peace Prize-winners, helped him arrive at the decision, Ryan said in a speech in Chicago yesterday to a thunderous and standing ovation.
Mahatma Gandhi's approach to achieving justice through non-violence is increasingly finding official acceptance in the world.
The Brazil Police is[sic] now studying ways of Mahatma Gandhi in an effort to curb violence. Under a project entitled "The Mahatma Gandhi and Non-Violence", the Sao Paolo police will brief the forces on Mahatma's peaceful opposition to British rule in India and applying pacifist methods to achieve justice.Mahatma Gandhi's approach to achieving justice through non-violence is increasingly finding official acceptance in the world.
Representatives of different peace-making organizations participating in a peace march across Eurasia entitled to "The New Age without wars and Nonviolence" holding a joint prayer at the monument of Mahatma Gandhi in Moscow recently (ITAR - TASS/PTI)Courtesy: Mumbai Samachar, issue dated August 14,1998.
An environmental activist holds a poster of Mahatma Gandhi as protestors try to block the arrival of a controversial nuclear waste train traveling to the storage centre of Ahaus in Germany on April 3, 1998. (Pic. courtesy : Asian Age)
Mohandas Gandhi was a man of wisdon and has left behind him many of his thoughts:
"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."
- One of the last notes left behind by Gandhi in 1948, expressing his deepest social thought.
Source: Mahatma Gandhi [Last Phase, Vol. II (1958), P. 65].
I was very upset at the end of last semester when I found that, despite class discussions and even though I had written specifically that plagiarism was unacceptable there were still students who did not seem to understand that copying from another - whether a friend or a book or The Internet, is stealing someone elses property. It is lying by presenting the work as one's own. It is dishonest in every way. Here, then, are just some of the many things Gandhi said...so much better than I could...about Truth.
One cannot reach Truth by untruthfulness. Truthful conduct alone can reach truth. T-8-38
We may not go about parroting [repeating words without meaning them] truth and non-violence and steering clear of them in our daily life. T-5-180
Where there is truth, there also is knowledge which is true. TIG-20
Truth and nonviolence are both the means and the end, and given the right type of men, the legislatures can be the means of achieving the concrete pursuit of truth and nonviolence. T-4-161
The patriotic sprit demands loyal and strict adherence to nonviolence and truth. T-2-92
Truthful conduct alone can reach truth. MM-248
Openness of mind strengthens the truth in us and removes the dross[rubbish] from it if there is any. MM-342
To find truth completely is to realize oneself and one’s destiny, i.e. to become perfect. MM-18
Those who are truthful, nonviolent and brave do not cease to be so because of the stupidity of their leader. T-5-128
To a true artist only that face is beautiful which, quite apart from its exterior, shines with the truth within the soul. T-2-159
The propagation of truth and nonviolence can be done less by books than by actually living on those principles. T-5-93
Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. T-7-178
And finally, here is one sentence which expresses what I try to explain as the way foriegnors regard education:
Persistent questioning and healthy inquisitiveness are the first requisite for acquiring learning of any kind. MM-377
No comments:
Post a Comment