Mahatma Gandhi And Irom Sharmila
By Koijam Ravi *
India is often called as or known as the land where the great leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Satyagraha personified, was born.
The Great Gandhi's preachings on Satyagraha is in itself a phenomenon and still today its revered worldwide.
Though Mahatma Gandhi set a benchmark for the whole world to follow, the sad part of the story is that his preachings have lost its due importance in practical terms in today's date in Indian Society (its land of birth).
The recent movie -"Lage Raho Munnabhai"-is a testimony to my argument.
Another example, I would like to bring in here is the story of our very own Irom Sharmila who has been fasting for the last around eight years without break.
Whatever she is doing , it is the first of its kind and can easily put to shame all those who claim themselves to be a true Gandhian.
It saddened me a few months ago when I came across the NDTV poll where she was nominated for the ,"Unsung heroes of 2007", when
she should have been in the list of nominations for the "Best Citizen Of 2007".
The kind of route she has adopted for meeting her demands and her sincere commitment to this route deserves highest recognition and applause as an Indian keeping in mind the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.
India is a democratic country and everyone is free to voice his or her opinion within the framework of the Indian Constitution and Sharmila's protest epitomizes what can be the done by the most law abiding citizen.
Her democratic protest as per my knowledge is not laced with self-beneficial motives but is for a cause affecting the society as a whole and this justifies why she needs to be listened.
My point is she needs a positive response from our leaders and by positive response I don't mean that our leaders should succumb
to her pressure; by positive response I mean generating a conducive atmosphere for discussion where the merits and demerits of the case would be discussed upon, where her demands would be listened to by the potential listeners and where she would get answer to each and every of her demands.
Alas, none of the prominent leaders seem to be too keen to take a step towards the above said direction (these are the same leaders who always hang a potrait of Mahatma Gandhi in their room).
Perhaps, all the leaders are scared of her.
If Sharmila is wrong , she needs to be convinced that she is wrong by the leaders or else if they aren't able to convince her then its their failure as leaders.
* Koijam Ravi contributes to e-pao.net for the first time. The writer can be contacted at [email protected] . This article was webcasted on October 02nd, 2008.
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