Gandhi Raj Kafle

Talking about Mahatma Gandhi to students today may be a case of classical wisdom. This is because Gandhi is lovingly remembered.

However,   his opinions are not followed in policy and programmes in a true sense.  

Is it appropriate to behave like this for the Mahatma, who tried to interpret problems with timeless Vedic and inter-religious values? 

But talking about the Mahatma in reference to this under-review book “Bidhyarthika Lagi” (For Students); it is like the hidden truth, which shines as timeless knowledge not only for today’s generation but for the future ones also.

Senior litterateur Dr Tulsi Bhattarai has nicely written an introduction about Gandhi’s wisdom filled life and about his farsighted views, which he expressed to students.
In this context, what must be said is this book should have been published long before because  Tarini Prasad Koirala, one of the junior brothers of B.P. Koirala, had translated the book in Nepali when he was imprisoned after disastrous political incident of 2017 BS.

This means this book had come into being five or six decades ago and it would have been better and timely had it come immediately after the translation.

Anyway, the book has finally come out. But the story of its coming, too, is interesting. It is like this. The old and decrepit manuscript of the book was handed over to Oriental Publication Chief, Hari Gautam, by  journalist Shanker Tiwari. Dr Tulasi Bhattarai read  it and then found it useful even for today’s time.

Thus, it has been published with hopes to take Gandhi’s advices to students and other interested readers in the Nepali language.

Are these interactive writings for students really relevant as they were produced in Gandhi’s time? We cannot even find the physical presence of the translator, Koirala, and original editor of the book Bharattan Kumarappa. Maybe Mahatma Gandhi himself has been an unbelievable personality of grandfather or great grandfather’s generation in this time.

Can people of the present time follow Gandhi and his teachings?

Are there any political parties in his own country India or in this part of the region or in the world to read properly and practice his advice? Or, we can also ask questions this way: Has Gandhi not become a man to talk about only for idealism and not to be serious to do personally or work for country’s educational policies? The book under review is relevant to discuss these questions from Gandhi’s authentic views of Nepali readers.

Now, let’s see what Gandhi had said. "Ethics, moral character and religion are synonymous words," he has explained. He also warns, "If students of today think willpower is meaningless for them, we must realize how miserable we have become."

Gandhi’s was a politically boiling period of time because India  had to be free from British rule and he knew students’ supports to this purpose was vital. In this backdrop, Gandhi should have appealed for all kinds of help from youngsters like students. But he did not; he wanted students to be practical, aware, fearless and morally strong instead of doing politics directly or resorting to any kind of violence to uproot the British rule in India.

In this book, what we find is that he has happily responded to queries of students from different parts of India.

But the essence of his answers to them in it is to alert them not to be a tool of politicians. Gandhi repeats the ideal of Sanskrit for this purpose: Sa Vidhya Ya Bimuktaya -- means students should try their best to be free from all kinds of bondages of life. Here, the meaning of bondage is not limited only to political freedom; it should be understood in a broader sense. To overcome bad characteristics personally, to do work selflessly and without greed, to serve needy people, try to be self-reliant and increase knowledge not to be only competitive to copy western style of learning but giving priority to our own values also come into the meaning of educational freedom for students.

This book contains myriad of life related themes to talk about with students for Gandhi.

Some of them are religion, moral character, violence and anarchy, politics, education, creative works, marriage and family planning. While talking about religion, he has properly focused on inter-religious values. Kindness, service to people, respect to parents and nation and devotion to own nation are the virtues, which are important to all religions. So, Gandhi argues, once students know this inter-religious value, it will be a great knowledge to increase social and religious harmony.

Gandhi has also spoken about girl education, dowry system, untouchables, widow marriage and gender equality in this book and he is empowered by the true norms of Vedic Sanatan Dharma and is unconcerned with the illogical traditions of society while addressing students. He has urged teachers not to give so much importance even to textbooks learning, instead, they themselves should be morally and behaviorally model for building good characters in them.

In this book, Gandhi has not asked students to catch flags of political parties and do politics. He had even stopped students who were eager to participate in the movement to free India from British rule, then. But Gandhi has shown several best things to do for them, like supporting their parents in family work, participating in awareness programmes and talking about own nation’s identity and power with illiterate villages to humbly make them courageous for national purposes.

   In our times, when partisan politics is at a new high and students are encouraged to do politics, the thoughts of Gandhi need to be remembered properly.  In fact, his views are for practising to be broadened personally and to make society humane and loving. This book, which is in Nepali, should be welcomed because it contains precious experiences and knowledge based thoughts of Gandhi for students.