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THE MESSAGE OF GANDHI
concept, even the labourer has to behave like a trustee in providing his skills. Gandhi, if alive, would have opposed tooth and nail the direction of our economic planning as a result of which inequality has grown, unemployment has increased and more than forty percent of our people live under a subsistence level.
Gandhi also belived in a decentralized economic and political order and was opposed to the concentration of power at the centre. People may be fooled by centralized socialism for a time, but sooner or later they will discover its reality. At present our rulers have betrayed the ideals of Gandhi. Hiṁsā and intolerance are on the increase. Prohibition has been scrapped. The programme of rural reconstruction has been given up. All the old fervour for the uplift of our fellowmen has given place to acquisitiveness and selfishness. Surrounded by a world given to much mental and physical violence, Gandhi tended to put a great deal of stress on the virtue of Ahimsā or nonviolence. Gandhi is essentially the teacher and exemplar of a dynamic social ethics, the aim of which is to evoke and to release the positive forces of love from spiritually sensitive men and women so as to strengthen the moral texture of society. Such a society alone can provide the sustenance and stimulus for the allround growth and fulfilment of its members.
Gandhi's principle of Ahiṁsā has been inscribed in the spirit of India for more than two thousand years. Mahāvīr, Buddha and Vaishnavism have made Ahimsā the substance of millions of souls. The way to peace leads to self-sacrifice. This is the message of Gandhi, the conscience of immortal India. Gandhi says that India's message to the world is self-sacrifice.
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