Views On News by S. Sankaran
I was really alarmed on reading a news item wherein our Army resorting to Gandhian way of non-violence by forming a human chain to prevent the intrusions of Chinese Army crossing over the international border.
The news run thus:
“Up in the Sikkim Himalayas, the Indian Army is engaged in a strange Gandhian tussle with Chinese Army along the international border. Troops are forming human chains to stop the numerous intrusions by the Chinese forces from across the border.
“We are literally forming human chains to stop the Chinese from crossing over,” explains a senior officer. “If they come in groups of 20, we may assemble 50 men. We hold hand in hand and form this chain. They can’t after all push us and cross in.”
There were many intrusions recently by the Chinese forces along with our northern Himalayan borders, but the Indian Government were not assertive in dealing with these border violations perhaps due to the precarious position in which the Government has to heavily depend upon the left parties’ support. And Left parties allegiances towards Communist China are well known!
It is really ironical to make our army men in this
piquant situation. This makes us to scan the pages of our past independence
struggle.
A leaf from the past Indian history: “Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence is a noble path, but, unfortunately, the path had led to the emergence of two surreal perceptions amongst our political leaderships.
They are 1. a non-violent
India would have no enemies and hence the armed forces would become redundant
after independence. 2. Indian Army was used as a tool by the British to
suppress the freedom movement and should be shown its place.
In the above context, Major General K.M. Cariappa (later the first Indian Commander-in-chief) called on Gandhiji in December 1947 and sought his advice on how he should put across the concept of ahimsa to his soldiers whose dharma was to fight for the nation. The Mahatma pondered over the question and replied: "I am still groping in the dark for the answer. I will find it and give it to you one day." A month later he fell to an assassin's bullet, and Cariappa never received an answer. But by then the first of our illusions had already been shattered in October 1947, when Pakistani hordes came pouring into Baramulla and it was only the Indian Army's gallantry which saved the Valley.”
Non-violence may be good to redress grievances amongst the people of the same nation and not to be applied, when dealing with other nations. Army’s actions against enemies are not violence, but gallantry and without army’s valiant actions, we cannot defend our motherland.
Let us salute our Army and let us not make them puppets in the eyes of other nations and that too, our powerful and belligerent neighbors.
Whether Mr.Manmohan Singh’s Government is listening?
Note:
For Mahatma Gandhi’s views on army’s roles of nations believing non-violence as their principle theory, please refer the following article:
Mahatma Gandhi On Non-violence for Police and Army
Even in a non-violent state a police force may be necessary...Police ranks will be composed of believers in non-violence. The people will instinctively render them every help and through mutual cooperation they will easily deal with the ever decreasing disturbances...Violent quarrels between labor and capital and strikes will be few and far between in a non-violent state because the influence of the non-violent majority will be great as to respect the principle elements in society. Similarly, there will be no room for communal disturbances....
A non-violent army acts unlike armed men, as well in times of peace as in times of disturbances. Theirs will be the duty of bringing warring communities together, carrying peace propaganda, engaging in activities that would bring and keep them in touch with every single person in their parish or division. Such an army should be ready to cope with any emergency, and in order to still the frenzy of mobs should risk their lives in numbers sufficient for that purpose.
If the non-violent society is attacked, there are two ways open to non-violence.
Option 1: To yield possession, but non-cooperate
with the aggressor.
Option 2: Prefer death to submission.
The second way would be non-violent resistance by the people who have been trained in the non-violent way...The unexpected spectacle of endless rows upon rows of men and women simply dying rather than surrender to the will of an aggressor must ultimately melt him and his soldiery...A nation or group which has made non-violence its final policy cannot be subjected to slavery even by the atom bomb.... The level of non-violence in that nation, if that even happily comes to pass, will naturally have risen so high as to command universal respect.
In accordance with these views, in 1940, when invasion of the British Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British people (Non-Violence in Peace and War):
"I would like you to lay down the arms you
have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler
and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your
possessions...If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate
them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man,
woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to
them."
In a post-war interview in 1946, he offered a view
at an even further extreme:
"The Jews should have offered themselves to
the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from
cliffs."
Gandhiji is Mahatma and one should tune their minds and thoughts pure to understand and follow his words, thoughts and paths.
To know more, click the link below:
Web Addresses:
http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/gandhi.htm
Further Informations about Mahatma Gandhi
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