Gandhi

Last year on this day, I asked a 9 year old kid last year, ‘Viv, What’s on Oct 2 every year?’.
Pat came the innocent reply, ‘Yipee, a school holiday’.

Has October 2 reduced to being merely a holiday?

I can sure dust off Vivek’s answer as being just a happy reply from an innocent kid. But the thought stuck and I have read a little about Mahatma from then, comparing the vast amount of information available on him.
I have always seen people criticising this man, the man who was one of the chief architects of India. From what I have been gauging from the major percentage of the critic populace is their ‘lack of information’. To form an opinion, one ought to keep enough facts, figures and statistics as their pedestal.
Some blame him for the partition. I pity them for their historic quotient deficiency. Mahatma was never in favour of partition. Mahatma fasted for more than ten days as a protest in Calcutta against the idea of partition. Mahatma added the lines ‘Eeshwar-Allah tero naam, sabko sanmati de bhagwan’ in an already existing hymn minus this lines. He believed in equality and this can be read in any acclaimed life history book on him. Some accuse him of being the shrewdest politician. He apparently never wanted to be involved in politics. He went to a village and lived in a hut but people flocked around and it came to be known as the ashram.
To err is human and so he would have too. He has also been pointed at for calling off ‘Non-cooperation Movement’, a severe bullet wound in Brit arm. I am not assuming anything as I could not get a hand on the reason for this. It would be wonderful if anyone of you could enlighten me of the cause for calling off the movement, other than of course the Chauri-Chaura incident.

In Gandhi’s own words, “I am used to misrepresentation all my life. It is the lot of every public worker. He has to have a tough hide. Life would be burdensome if every misrepresentation had to be answered and cleared. It is a rule of life with me never to explain misrepresentations except when the cause requires correction. This rule has saved much time and worry.”

A very respected Principal of my school always said, "Read about the great men history has left for you to learn from them. Keep the good and discard the rest, for they too, were humans".