Mahatma Gandhi would be for peace

Kathmandu, Nepal, March 25 — Mahatma Gandhi once said, "The root cause of ignorance, extremism, crime, and social disorder is violence." If we remember Mahatma Gandhi's biography, we can see that South Africa opened his eyes to human suffering. His return to India was in order to rescue many people from suffering. How great he was. Buddha, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi are the epitomes of nonviolence. Mahatma Gandhi's teachings of self-rule and his philosophy of reconciliation are what we need today to get out of the quagmire we are in.

Violence is the deliberate infliction of psychic or physical pain by one person upon another person. In psychic torture, by my definition, the pain is nearly as much as beatings or humiliation.

All peace lovers using the nonviolence method assume an anti-violence stance. However, even though this is a way to reduce violence at least somewhat, we should also consider that asocial behavior of all kinds is a consequence of a combination of ignorance and aggression - which formal education partially helps, and employment partially helps - but nobody pays any attention to these sources of our problems.

Thus, today we desperately needs another Mahatma Gandhi to get us out of our dire situation. Gandhi is the leader I have always admired the most. He stands tall amongst all world leaders. His philosophy and teachings have resonated around the world, and he sets an example as a leader of nonviolence, spiritual living, and independence. What Gandhi did to uplift the Harijans in India, Abraham Lincoln did to liberate the African American slaves in America. Today our violence-prone world, with its wars, terrorism, and genocide, needs another Gandhi to show us the way with peace and love marches and prayers.

If Gandhi was here today, he would at least have stood up to speak the truth and lead people to understand, reconcile, and establish a permanent peace. He would certainly have supported the ideas of democracy, freedom, and representation of the people. Gandhi would have seen to it that no people would be left out of being represented by the governing body.

India struggled to modern nationhood through the courage of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi represents the light, beauty, and strength of the human spirit in times of global war, totalitarianism, and economic upheavals. Nepal today desperately needs a Mahatma Gandhi to get out of its current political turmoil and anarchic situation. He would have appealed to the Nepali people with long marches and prayer meetings to come to terms with truth and peace. Mahatma, in his own way, would have demanded that the Maoists first surrender all arms and renounce all forms of violence before being accepted into the mainstream as a political party.

A Nepali social worker, Kamal Pandey, told me, "Besides Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are also held in high esteem. The world has seen many leaders come and go, but these have stood the test of time for me. B.P. Koirala is the only true leader from Nepal. I have sometimes wondered what Gandhi would say if he was here amongst us today. What would he have said about the Iraq war, about Afghanistan, and about the situation in Nepal?" He added, "Gandhi would plead with all Nepalis to preserve their self-respect, identity, and work."