The Hindu Business Line : <I>Is Gandhiji relevant? </I>

As part of a discussion on the Narmada Bachao Andolan leader, Ms Medha Patkar's indefinite fast to draw attention to the hardships of those displaced by the construction of the Narmada dam, one of the TV channels conducted a spot poll of viewers on whether the Gandhian methods were outdated in the present context. It should not have come as a surprise to anyone when 87 per cent of the viewers answered in the affirmative.

This confirms an indirect survey I used to conduct when I was chairman of the committee to select post-graduate students for admission to a management institute. In the course of five years, almost all the young boys and girls who were asked for their views on Gandhiji considered him irrelevant to the present times. Not to talk of India as a whole, he has become a back number in the State of his birth, Gujarat, which has witnessed the fall of politics to low depths and a number of violent riots in the period since Independence.

The values Gandhiji stood for — being true to oneself and one's cause, dealing with one's adversaries in a spirit of honesty and sense of fair play, adhering to non-violence at all costs, readiness to court suffering for one's conviction and leading a life of austerity and simplicity — are all of eternal relevance. The quintessence of his teachings, that without purity of means there can be no worthwhile ends, is true for all times and climes.

The problem is that materialism, consumerism and opportunism have caused such a ravage that, barring a few like Ms Patkar, members of the generations after Gandhiji are utterly bereft of the tough moral fibre that practising of his methods requires. He was himself an exemplar of the lofty precepts he placed before the people, whereas crass selfishness and flaunting one's riches have become the hallmark of the post-Independence era.

Thus, the fault is not that of Gandhiji, but of those who have debased his methods and fouled up public life.

B. S. RAGHAVAN