Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Terror attacks and Mahatama Gandhi

The terrorist have time and again very clearly stated that they have no remorse for the actions of killing many innocent humans and it is their way to send a message to certain parts of the world.

It would be useful to assess what would one of the greatest proponents for non-voilence, the father of Indian Nation, Mahatama Gandhi (Bapu) done if this was to happen in his time and age.

I am not an expert on Bapu or "Gandhi giri" but with whatever I have known, read and heard from history and more, the following two things come to my mind:

a) Bapu would have definetely planned and implemented / taken action, done something about it. Bapu would never just speak about issues but also take action.

b) Bapu would have planned something like a dandi march to the terrorist camps wherever they are on the face of earth without fearing that the terrorists would have fired and killed ... he would have taken a peace yatra and lakhs and lakhs would have followed him.

Interesting imagine, lakhs of peaceful protestors from across the country, assembling at Pakistan border and then walking across to Pakistan and to the locations where the terror training camps are in peaceful protests against their attacks.

In today's times, I think the politicians will not let this happen. Forget Pakistan authorities, even Indian authorities will not permit such a peace march suggesting that lives of their citizens are at risk. But who would have the courage to stop Bapu, if he was here and decided to do such a thing..

Also some interesting dimensions if this peace march was to happen now..
- will minorities and the other nationalities such as Americans and Brits join such a peace march ? and will their Governments allow their citizens to join even if they were willing?
- will the terrorists fire and kill the peace march protestors if they were ever to reach the terror camps?
- will a non-violent demostration have any impact on the terrorist and their leaders so that they refrain from the current style of violent protests for whatever cause they seek to achieve? will there be another Jalianwalla baug?

Unable to get any clear answers for the above, I continue to think what Bapu would have done. An more ideas on what Bapu would have done are welcome, do let me know, maybe we will find the novel action plan we all need for deal with the crisis through concrete action rather than mere talk and protests..

I do not know much about the background of developments in Thailand, but whatever I hear in the news it appears that a peace protest similar to Bapu's non-cooperation movement at Bangkok airport has brought the issue to the fore and the concrete action is resulting in the issue being dealt with by the authorities.

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