Mahatma Gandhi – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – Putlibai putra, Kasturba pati [2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948]. 155. 77 years of his Punya Tithi. 1717 hrs. Martyrs’ day. Time magazine named The 14th Dalai Lama, Lech Wałęsa, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Aung San Suu Kyi, Benigno Aquino Jr., Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela as Children of Gandhi and his spiritual heirs to nonviolence. The Nobel Committee publicly declared its regret for the omission and admitted to deeply divided nationalistic opinion denying the award. Gandhi was nominated in 1948 but was assassinated before nominations closed. That year, the committee chose not to award the peace prize stating that “there was no suitable living candidate”. According to one Nobel Committee: Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace prize, whether the Nobel committee can do without Gandhi is the question.
Tagore called him Mahatma for the first time. Subhash Chandra Bose and Sarojini Naidu referred to him as Father of Nation. Many started calling him Bapu.
A BBC Poll in 2000 voted Gandhi as the greatest man of the millennium. Innumerable streets, roads, and localities in India are named after Gandhi. Including Mahatma Gandhi District in Houston, Texas, United States. Statues everywhere in India, and many outside. Image on the Indian currency notes. Some temples too. Including one in Kanyakumari; at Sambalpur; at Kadur in Chikmagalur; one 70 km from Hyderabad. Stamps in 150 countries. 120461 Gandhi Asteroid. Many Ekalavyas. Leading need not always be through inspiring talks. Writing. Conversations. Coexistence. Actions could do the trick, several times. Indian Opinion started by Gandhi was an example. Books like Hind Swaraj. Young India, Harijan, Navajeevan. Letters-mails-blogs. 50,000 pages. Daily writing. Prayers, Songs, Stories, Plays. Daily actions, and practices. Ashram(s) help. Travels help. Can we follow his great vows: Satya, Ahimsa, Brahmacharya, Asteya, and Aparigraha – truth, non-violence-love-care, celibacy, non-stealing/usurping, and non-attachment? For sarvabhuta, sarvadaa, and sarvatra. Can we be satyaagrahis? Relying on truth, nothing but the truth? Relying on soul force? Do we dream, vision, of amrt phala during amrt kaal? Do we pursue them?
It appears that the logic – defining a problem, designing a solution, implementing, and measuring impact – is inadequate, given our interconnected, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous system world. Interwoven dimensions, issues around the issue of concern for us. Dynamics have been ‘reduced’ to static snapshots, divorced from evolution happening in parallel. Abstraction, simplification, and easy representation turning out as misrepresentation. Static frames fail. Dynamic realities need evolving solutions, equations, connections, and relationships. This essence gets skipped, if we are not very careful. Can we and our communities, community leaders be co-creative? Can we move from inclusion to belonging? We belong there, we co-own. We seek, we do, and we benefit. With the willingness, space and abilities. More than coordination, management. More than mechanics, mechanisms.
Can we build teams, forums, and platforms? Their capacities. Can we be a family, community? Local, national, and global. Teams within teams. Global at local levels. One-to-one, one-to-five, and one-to-twenty.
Yes, we can. If we coexist, flowing. Flows in the flows. In N? Sambandhayoga for 7L.
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