Gandhi, please come and save this world!

Today is the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and we are at a point in history when we desperately need Gandhi's ideology of peace, tolerance, non-violence and minimal living. We are faced with a growing concern on Climate Change and Global Warming that the scientific community has been warning us, we have the menace of racial divisions in our communities, after fighting for decades, terrorism is a problem we have been unable to defeat, we are at the verge of a major technology revolution which is going to further aggravate the situation of low-skilled jobs all over the world.

India, the country that Gandhi envisioned as a secular, inclusive democracy, has completely forgotten his values. The politicians have deliberately eroded his values for personal gains. We have seen one corrupt politician after the other and the wave is just not coming to an end. They use Gandhi just for symbolism but they have long lost his message of humanity and minimalistic life. 2019 alone saw the most devastating floods and the worst heatwave in recorded history. If we have to save this world for future generations we need truly selfless leaders like Gandhi who are going to work tirelessly to find some groundbreaking solutions instead of focusing on personal enrichment.

I grew up in central Mumbai which was sort of this base of the rebel freedom fighters during the British rule in India. Personally I am a humanist from my youth days, so I grew up with this dilemma about Gandhi, because of the picture painted by everyone around me. So, I did not have any special admiration for Gandhi till the late 1990s when I came to the United States. San Francisco is where I understood the true values and the message of Gandhi from an American friend who had studied Gandhi in college (how ironic). I started reading more about Gandhi, visited the Gandhi statue at Pier 2 a few times and he has been my idol ever since.

So why does the world admire Gandhi? Why do great world leaders such as Dr. King and Obama consider Gandhi as their idol? Is it because he gave us freedom? No. Tilak/Agarkar vs. Gandhi/Nehru vs. Bose can be considered as the 3 ideologies during the Indian freedom struggle. All of them were working selflessly towards a shared goal of Independence, but the differentiator was Gandhi understood the British mindset. The violent struggle was not even resulting in a dent on the British empire. The Indian rebels were fighting the Indian army and humanity was the only one losing. So, Gandhi pursued his non-violence movement and that got a lot of attention in the west. Because of this, the British were compelled to finally give freedom to India after the end of world war 2 and the formation of the UN. So for his immense care and concern for everyone, he is truly the Father of Nation.

Today we need everyone to adopt his message of humanity and treat everyone equally irrespective of their religion, caste, color or gender. We need to adopt the philosophy of living a simple life and reduce our personal carbon footprint. India always had a low per capita carbon emission, but because of the huge population, India is facing the worst impact of global warming. We need leaders who don't look at climate solutions as a personal enrichment opportunity. If we have to reduce the burning of coal for producing electricity, we should not promote new coal mining projects. If we have to reduce the use of wood for cooking, we have to provide some real incentives to the rural population. To step into the future, we need leaders who unite us so that we can focus on the real challenges facing us. We need leaders who don't just fake stats, with no change on the ground. We need leaders who truly care for everyone and this planet we live on.

Gandhiji, we miss you. The world badly needs you today!

#GandhiJayanti #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #WorldPeace