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Sairantri Pathak
John Ruskin, like many other Victorian writers, were making use of traditional institutions
like religion for social purpose. Unto This Last, is one of the biblical stories of the Old
Testament, in which the owner makes equal payments to all the workers, even to one who
comes last when the work is finished. The owner says, “I will treat all equally, hence my
payment will go even unto the last.” The philosophy of this story influenced Gandhi so much
so that it was translated into Gujrati and then in Hindi. Gandhi used the term “Sarvodaya”, a
Sanskrit term meaning 'universal uplift' or 'progress of all', as the title of his 1908 translation
of Ruskin's tract on political economy, and came to use the term for the ideal of his own
political philosophy.
The two pillars of Gandhi’s political philosophy are truth and non-violence. All his
progressive social and political movements were carried out by means of “nonviolent
resistance”, sometimes also called “civil resistance”. Gandhi, thus, popularized the practice of
achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience,
injustice has inspired many subsequent political figures, including Martin Luther King Jr. of
the United States, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko of South
Africa, Lech Wałęsa of Poland and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar. Gandhi's work in South
Africa, for the improved rights of Indian residents living under the white South African
government inspired the later work of the African National Congress. Many, especially
Mandela, languished for decades in jail, while the world outside was divided in its effort to
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remove apartheid. Martin Luther King Jr., a young Christian minister and a leader of the Civil
Rights Movement, seeking the emancipation of African Americans from racial segregation in
the American South, traveled to India in 1962 to meet Jawaharlal Nehru. The two discussed
Later Gandhians, like the Indian nonviolence activist Vinoba Bhave, embraced the term as a
name for the social movement in post-independence India which strove to ensure that self-
determination and equality reached all strata of Indian society. Often called “Acharya”
(Sanskrit for teacher), he is best known for the “Bhoodan Movement”. He is considered as a
National Teacher of India and the spiritual successor of Mohandas Gandhi. Bhave's religious
outlook was very broad and it synthesized the truths of many religions. This can be seen in
one of his hymns "Om Tat Sat" which contains symbols of many religions. His “Jay Jagat”
i.e. "victory to the world" finds reflection in his views about the world as a whole. Bhave
observed the life of the average Indian living in a village and tried to find solutions for the
Lanza del Vasto, western disciple of Mohandas K. Gandhi, worked for inter-religious
dialogue, spiritual renewal, ecological activism and nonviolence. In 1957, during the Algerian
War, del Vasto started a movement of protest against torture. He fasted for 21 days. In 1958,
he demonstrated against the nuclear power plant in Marcoule, France, which produced
plutonium for nuclear weapons. In 1963, he fasted for 40 days in Rome during the Second
Vatican Council, asking Pope John XXIII to stand against war. In 1972, he supported the
farmers of the Larzac plateau against the extension of a military base while fasting for 15
days.
India, in its present time, is writhing under severe inequalities in respect of economy, politics,
gender, casteism, and others. We have witnessed various types of non-violent movements
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being carried out by common peoples of the country to protest against such inequalities. The
Movements, were all carried out through the spirit of non-violence; and in many cases such
movements helped to bring about social and political changes in our country. I, therefore,
heartily support the philosophy of non-violence, and I think it is the best possible method to
bring about positive changes in our society. Whenever I see the equal rights of people are
being violated, the individual rights of people around me are being crushed, I try my best to
stand by those people and protest against such kind of exploitation. It is not only in our
society, but also in my school, in my family, I see such kind of exploitation of human rights,