Sep 17, 2006: News- Times of India: Gandhi kaun hai?

    IT was the chaiwallah on the sets of Lage Raho Munnabhai who brought things into perspective for all of us. The film’s director Rajkumar Hirani has been regaling fans with the story of how this boy, when told the working title of the film – Munnabhai Meets Mahatma Gandhi – rolled his eyes and asked ‘Munnabhai toh theek hai, yeh Mahatma Gandhi kaun hai?’ According to Hirani, this is illustrative of Bapu’s standing in Modern India. When citizens fail to recognise the ‘Father of the Nation’ – the very man who made their Indianness possible – it’s certainly something to jerk you away from your iPod.

    And if Gandhiji’s name doesn’t bring 100 per cent recall, what of the precepts he stood for? Truth, communal harmony, equality, non-violence, social service… All the sterling qualities – dubbed Gandhigiri – showcased so beautifully and shown to work even in today’s times in Lage Raho Munnabhai, don’t find so many takers in real life. Ninety-one-year-old ham radio enthusiast Bob Tanna, who was actively involved in the freedom struggle and regularly passed on crucial messages via his radio, says, “It does make me feel bad that people are forgetting the Gandhian principles today. The world is going so fast, younger people don’t remember the past and they don’t value what we had to do to achieve a free India.”

    Times Life’s eight-city survey spanning Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune, yielded statistics that have startled the experts. According to our survey, 64 per cent of Indians and a whopping 90 per cent of Delhiites believe that Gandhigiri does not work in today’s world.

 

Today’s youngsters really seem to be rediscovering the magic of the Mahatma via Munnabhai. Says 19-year-old Xerxes Mistry, “I had gone to see the Eternal Gandhi multimedia exhibition and although the effects were super, it didn’t bring Gandhiji and his principles alive like Lage Raho Munnabhai did. After seeing the movie, I started to think whether his way would actually work in fixing my day-to-day problems. It would be awesome if they did, so maybe I’ll try it out…”

    Young Congress MP Milind Deora is convinced that the Gandhian way is “very effective and very participatory”. He believes it’s a compassionate way of bringing people together towards a goal rather than divide them and a permanent way of delivering results, which does not result in any backlash and instability. “Both Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr used these methods successfully,” avers Deora, saying that the Gandhian principles are timeless and generic and can be applied to anything, from politics to business. “It’s about creating an environment where your convictions are clearly visible and you can outsmart your opponents in a positive way rather than a contrived one. I don’t consciously apply these principles in my life, but yes, where they’re effective, I’d certainly use them,” he says. Industrialist Nadir Godrej too believes that Gandhism is quite relevant even today. “The Gandhian values of understanding and respecting others are of great value. Co-operation, too, is very important in the modern world. I don’t see how aggression can be of any value. Determination is, of course, very important. But we should not confuse determination with aggression,” he warns.

    Psychotherapist Dr Anjali Chhabria concurs: “There is a thin line between being assertive and aggressive. In the Gandhian way, you have to be assertive and calm, and keep working tirelessly towards your goal without getting affected emotionally. Being non-violent doesn’t mean you have to be meek. Although you may not quite want to turn the other cheek when someone slaps you, you can choose to fight back or make a stand for what you believe in, in a non-violent manner.” And although Dr Chhabria thinks that Gandhigiri may not be the easiest way out, she is convinced that it can work. “But for this to happen, you need to be more confident, have the conviction that you are correct and true. If you have the courage of your conviction to stand even when no one else is with you, then it will surely work!” she says. And the fact is, all of 63 per cent of our survey respondents across the country (ranging from 90 per cent of Bangaloreans to 30 per cent of Puneites) said they’d prefer to try and resolve a dispute calmly rather than getting violent with the aggressor!

   
 According to Michael Potegal, assistant professor in the Division of Paediatric Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, USA, who has been researching genetic aggression, aggression is inherent in everyone. But equally deep in our genetic behaviour are friendship behaviours and altruism, so war and homicide are not the inescapable outcome.

    
Dr Chhabria has observed this too. She says, “The reason people loved the Munnabhai movie is because the average Indian is honest and positive. It’s just that people tend to see what’s happening around them and get swayed.” And our poll threw up a heartening statistic as well. Sixty per cent of Indians believe that honesty gets the job done much better than using crooked ways and means. If they’re thinking what we’re thinking, it looks like there’s hope for India yet!

Publication:Times of India Mumbai;

Date:Sep 17, 2006;

Section:Times Life;

Page Number:41

 

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