Nilanjan Kanjilal

Gandhi was born rich, educated abroad, was a qualified lawyer, and had a dutiful wife – basically the works. But he admonished all of that and instead practised simple living – high thinking, non-violence, celibacy, vegetarianism, abolishing all foreign stuff – boy! That's a tall order, I must say.

Let me set things in the correct perspective by saying that I am no world-thinker nor am I overtly concerned with the well-being of the society at large. On the contrary, I believe all individuals should take care of themselves in the best possible manner and society takes care of itself.

This preamble is only to qualify the need for the countless debates we have had on this topic since time immemorial to the point that it has almost become fashionable for people to speak on the relevance of Gandhism in modern times.

Today, after 58 years of the old man's demise, here I am again attempting to view this age-old debate with a fresh, objective perspective.

Ok, let me begin by asking three simple questions: Is life relevant? Is truth relevant? Is morality relevant?

As I see it, and pardon my impudence if it makes the learned intelligentsia of this world cringe, these three questions basically are the cornerstone of Gandhi's philosophy.

Gandhi was born rich, educated abroad, was a qualified lawyer, and had a dutiful wife – basically the works. But he admonished all of that and instead practised simple living – high thinking, non-violence, celibacy, vegetarianism, abolishing all foreign stuff – boy! That's a tall order, I must say.

The times have changed a lot since when 'Bapu' was alive. Mahatma Gandhi did not have a web identity. Neither did he possess the latest Nokia handset. Nokia probably was just a small fishing equipment firm in Finland then. Speaking of the relevance of his principles today is like comparing chalk and cheese.

Today the world has become much more materialistic, thanks to the advent of technology. The world has shrunk, metamorphosed itself into a small village; globalisation is in. We have access to the best of breed stuff all across; in fact to a much larger extent than our west bred first cousins. We are living in a 24 x 7 world - agile, awake and aware. In such a scenario, it would be detrimental for our own well-being, if we as consumers deprive ourselves of choices. And in the larger picture detrimental to the nation's economy.

Continuing our wanderlust in the larger picture, I am not very sure if Gandhi's policies on non-violence would hold water in today's scenario. For all we know, Gandhi preached non-violence as he realized that it would be impossible to fight an organized battle with the limited resources at disposal.

What makes a man follow or advocate a doctrine is dependant on his immediate social and economic conditions. Would Gandhi have preached the same if he had the backing of the largest trained army available at that time? Or had the wherewithal to get access to the latest in military warfare? I doubt that.

And history would be a bad reference point here because we have innumerable instances across the globe of both violence and non-violence attaining/not attaining desired results.

All in all, I feel Gandhism is relevant in parts and would always remain so till the time life, truth and morality remain relevant for us. What needs to be done by us as responsible denizens is to understand the fundamentals of his principles and then ourselves be prudent judges of how best to use them to improve our lives today and for the future generations to come.

Nilanjan Kanjilal

Nilanjan Kanjilal, 29, an engineer and MBA, works with Infosys Technologies Ltd. as Associate Consultant at Hyderabad. He attended Effective Living and Leadership Course at Asia Plateau in 2002 while studying at Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management.