Anna Hazare: A Gandhian or an un-Gandhian

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gene Chapman on December 24, 2011 at 8:06pm

I would like to find this liquor maker and see if he will allow Gandhiji's personal belongings to be on display at the Mahatma Gandhi Global Library and Book Exchange building, should we ever find a way to build it.  Then, over time, we might persuade him to let the items into India for permanent display.

In fact, Gandhiji was a World figure, and I think anywhere his items are displayed, we all stop and think.  The items should be best used for Gandhian purposes in a global traveling display, I think.  Their very presence could stop a war.

Permalink Reply by GandhiServe Foundation on December 25, 2011 at 4:13pm

Good idea, Gene! Please contact Mr. Mallya and find out the whereabouts of those items: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijay_Mallya

Best, Peter

Permalink Reply by Gene Chapman on December 25, 2011 at 5:22pm

Thanks for the link, but it looks like he may be beyond my ability to know how to contact him.

Permalink Reply by GandhiServe Foundation on December 25, 2011 at 7:54pm

“If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.”

- Walt Disney

Permalink Reply by suneel krishnan on December 27, 2011 at 4:08am

so the question is who is a gandhian?

on beating the drunkards- for this stand by anna, we need to understand what was the position in ralegan siddhi, before anna's entry in to the village.please check this link

http://www.fao.org/docrep/X5669E/x5669e06.htm

//

By 1975, prior to intervention by Mr. Anna Hazare, the village had become quite notorious with all sorts of social evils, moral down fall and with badly shattered economic conditions. In general, the village presented the profile of a poverty-stricken and debt-ridden society. Scarcity of water was key to distress which limited the prospects of agriculture. The water table was below 20 m, most of the wells used to dry up during summer and the drinking water had to be fetched from the neighbouring villages. The high rate of surface run off, due to high degree of slope and lack of vegetative cover had washed away the top fertile layer of the soils. Barely 20 ha of the village area was under irrigation. As a consequence the agricultural production was too meagre to support and sustain the livelihoods of the people particularly the resource poor farmers. Not even 30% of the food grain requirements could be met from rain-fed mono-cropping practised in the village. About 45% of the villagers had a single meal/per day and about one-third of the households missed their meals every alternate day.

The poor farmers and agricultural laborers forced by their poor economic conditions had only two options - either to migrate to nearby cities of Pune and Bombay to find some manual mobs or join the army of laborers working under Employment Guarantee Scheme of the Government by commuting a distance of about 22 km daily. Any short fall in the earnings had to be met by borrowing from the money lenders (Sahukars), the Shylocks of the times. The inability to repay the loans often led to further indebtness and bondage. An enterprising villager being depressed by his impoverished condition went to the neighbouring village and mastered the technique of distilling liquor by using 'Shindi' grass which grew in abundance in the area. His success attracted many more in the trade and by 1975 as many as 40 illicit liquor distilling stills came up. Even school children fell in the den of drinking. The wide spread alcoholism brought many undesirable and anti-social elements and the village emerged prominently on the crime records of the police department who along with money lenders exploited every bit of opportunity for their selfish ends.

The combination of poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, indebtness, mutual suspicion, use of money and muscle power for malpractices, not only shattered the village economy but also degraded the social/community life. Majority of children were denied access to education - hardly 10% children attended schools, drop out rates were high. It was difficult for girls to step out in village streets which were full of rogues and drunkards. Social strife and tension became routine, conflicts and crimes were common. The community was divided along the lines of caste, creed, political following and economic status. Thefts, arrests, extravagance on festivals and marriages, funeral rites, discrimination against lower castes (dalits) and atrocities on women were common. Women had to bear the brunt of drunk males in various forms. Children were denied of their basic rights to minimum needs, women were humiliated and all the old value systems and cultural norms of a civilized society had receded to the rock level.

The devastating drought of 1972 made the situation from bad to worse. The Government in its bid to help fight the drought, constructed a percolation tank but due to faulty design, lack of supervision, and high rate of percolation, it failed to serve the purpose. Another help came from Tata Relief Committee and Catholic Relief Society in the form of construction of check dams, deepening of wells and provisions for medical relief. Despite all these, much could not be achieved in any of these initiatives due to lack of people's participation.//

this was the situation prior to anna's entry in to ralegan.people were not in any listening mood, he slowly worked over the situation.gandhiji's ideals call for- love in place of hate.even this punishment is not to kill or emasculate a person, but indeed it is like a parental conditioning, which is part of culture of india.he chose- violence against cowardice, indifference and inactivity, may be anna's life and experiences made him to think on a strategy.i donot justify this. also - the media highlighting this part alone is indeed a joke, in his 35 years of public life, all his achievements are not because of violence.anna is no gandhi, thats for sure, but doesnt mean that he is a gandhian.

Permalink Reply by vikram reddy on December 28, 2011 at 1:27am

i just wonder why some intellectuals worry that anna's approach is not Gandhian especially in reference to drunkards...but, why they ignore Gandhi himself campaigning for recruiting soldiers village to village for first world war and more in the service of british? world war 1 is not violence for these people but, aggressively disciplining drunkards is the worry for these peace lovers? what you call this hypocrisy or what?