Gandhigiri

“War seems to be part of the history of humanity. As we look at the situation of our planet in the past, countries, regions and even villages were economically independent of one another. Under those circumstances, the destruction of our enemy might have been a victory for us. There was a a relevance to violence and war. However, today we are so interdependent that the concept of war has become out dated. When we face problems or disagreements today, we have to arrive at solutions through dialogue. Dialogue is the only appropriate method. One-sided victory is no longer relevant. We must work to resolve conflicts in a spirit of reconciliation and always keep in mind the interests of others. We cannot destroy our neighbors! We cannot ignore their interests! Doing so would ultimately cause us to suffer. I therefore think that the concept of violence is now unsuitable. Nonviolence is the appropriate method.”

— Dalai Lama

Recently “Lage Raho Munnabhai” won the National Award for Best Popular Movie for the year. If you think about it, the movie belonged to a different genre all together. The movie brought back something from the past that we had forgotten about. It repackaged it and named it “Gandhigiri”.

The movie theme was based on Gandhigiri. The way they highlighted the use of Gandhi’s ideals was commendable. A lot of credit for this goes to the writers Raju Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra & Dr. Abhijat Joshi who happened to come up with such a good movie with a social message.

We all seem to have forgotten the “Mahatma” the Father of our Nation who seem non-existent in our today’s life. Except that we see his face on the hundred rupee note, his statues in parks and portraits in government’ offices under which officials take bribes.

His teachings of non-violence seems to have lost in history, as we stood ground to more than 50 years of independence of a country he fought for and died. The country now is in turmoil of corruption and violence. The movie happened to have brought back the Gandhi to life as people started to read more about his teachings and resorting to Gandhigiri.

The movie has its moments where a pensioner has to strip himself to get the government official to approve the grant of his pension fund as he does not have enough money to give bribe to him. Then there was this scene where a boy happened to lost all his father’s money and was contemplating suicide. Telling the truth to his father takes a lot of courage.

After the movie was released, there was news of people taking up Gandhigiri all around the country. There was news that flowers were being sent to the HRD minister Arjun Singh who seemed to be hell-bend on increasing the reservation quotas in IIT, IIMs where merit should be given a priority. Around 2000 debt-stricken farmers in India’s cotton growing Vidarbha region resorted to protest with flowers pursuing a bank to disperse loans.

Gandhigiri seems to be a hit with the youngsters who seemed intrigued with his teachings and simple living. You will find that there over 840 communities created on the Orkut site for Gandhigiri. If that is not enough, one can also do a search on google to find websites formed to spread the Gandhigiri and the teachings of the Bapu.

It is really fascinating to see how a movie can have its effect on the people. Let’s hope that this helps in eradicating the corruption and violence which has become rampant in the Mahatma’s nation. For now,

“GANDHIGIRI ROCKS”