The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Thursday, 2 October 2014

NO ONE CAN OWN THE MAHATMA, GREATS LIKE HIM ARE FOR THE UNIVERSAL HUMANITY

There is a heightened competition on to own the Mahatma, the brand 'Gandhi'.

There is one group, having a huge resurgence in Indian politics taking the centrestage of governance and heading the first majority government in the country in 30 years, that is looking to make the crux of a phase of Indian history contemporary, by bypassing the period of the Indian political history when the 'Gandhi' word also came to be associated with the first political family of India. The resurgent group wants to take away the 'Gandhi' word from this political legacy, in order to own it, or in order to make it the central tool of its political packaging.

The other group that has traditionally claimed to own 'Gandhi' is not going to let it be so. This group that claims to own the 'Gandhi' surname in the name of the ideological commitment to the Gandhian thoughts failed to follow the path laid by the Mahatma.

Likewise, even the resurgent group cannot claim to follow the path of the Mahatma.

But, both main political groups, Bhartiya Janata Party and Indian National Congress, have locked horns in owning the word 'Gandhi', in claiming the brand 'Gandhi 'associated with the Mahatma.


It was again on full display today, October 2, the birth anniversary of the Mahatma, the day that is also the birth anniversary of another great Indian, freedom fighter, Gandhian and former prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri.

But no one can own them. The rush to own the icons like Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi or Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is futile. They are of humanity. Their ideals, their values speak to the humanity. They speak for the humanity.

Great Indian icons like the Swami and the Mahatma are now the universal icons. India, the world over, is recognized by their names.

Many who don't know much about India know much more about the Mahatma. It can be said beyond doubt that no Indian can do what a British, Sir Richard Attenborough, did with his 'Gandhi' in 1982, and what an English actor did by assimilating the Mahatma so deeply that it is beyond imagination to think even if there can be anyone else to play the Mahatma on screen than Sir Ben Kingsley.  

Attenborough's Gandhi is still and will remain the first introduction to the teachings and the life of the Mahatma for many Indians as well as the people and generations the world over. Unfortunately, the master storyteller, Sir Attenborough, is no more with us. This is the first year of watching 'Gandhi' when he is not with the humanity.

No political party or ideology can own the Mahatma. He is a universal brand, a brand that speaks for the greatest contemporary political visionary. A universal brand that is becoming more and more relevant for the world populations with increasing threats of terrorism and extremism.

Thankfully, there is no rush to claim Lal Bahadur Shastri so far, though being known as the hero of the India-Pakistan was of 1965 that India won during his terms as the prime minister. That makes him a potential choice. Yes, like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, he was also a Congress member. But he was first a Gandhian and then a Nehruvian socialist. Also, his humble background, his contribution to the Indian freedom struggle and a simple life (instalments of his car were still due when he died while still in office) place him above the party politics for most of the Indians. His slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan (Hail the soldier, Hail the farmer) still reverberates in Indian psyche. 

He was one of the few great pre-Independence Indians who remained the same person even after two decades of experiencing being in power in country's most powerful power citadels. Let's see when he comes on the radar. 

Yes, but it is always good and beneficial for the social structures when political outfits try to align them with the Mahatma or other Greats, for doing so would require following the Gandhian thoughts and the Gandhian path, if the intent is honest.

And humanity is at the core of the Gandhian thoughts. 

Tribute to the greats on their birth anniversaries. 

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com