Gandhi Used Non-Violence To War Against Violence
The birthday of one of the world's greatest leaders, Mahatma Ghandi went by relatively unnoticed in Fiji on October 2.
Gandhi's birthday is commemorated in India as a national holiday and in schools in Fiji that are named after him as Gandhi Jayanti while worldwide the day is celebrated as the International Day of Nonviolence.
Mahatma Gandhi born on October 2, 1869 was the leader of India's non-violent independence movement against British rule and in South Africa, he advocated for the civil rights of Indians.
Born in Porbandar, India, Gandhi studied law and organised boycotts against British institutions in peaceful forms of civil disobedience.
In the late afternoon of January 30, 1948, the 78-year-old Gandhi, weakened from repeated hunger strikes, clung to his two grandnieces as they led him from his living quarters in New Delhi's Birla House to a prayer meeting.
Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, upset at Gandhi's tolerance of Muslims, knelt before the Mahatma before pulling out a semiautomatic pistol and shooting him three times at point-blank range.
The violent act took the life of a pacifist who spent his life preaching nonviolence . Mahatma means ‘high-souled' or ‘venerable' and was applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa.
Violence of any form comes with the creation of fear and on most occasions a person is scarred for the rest of his or her life, whether it is the one violence was inflicted upon or on being the person witnessing the act being committed. Violence maybe described as applying physical force intended to hurt, injure, wound or kill someone. It is often inflicted with brute force, ferocity, savagery, cruelty, sadism or barbarity.
Women and children are usually the targets of domestic violence and often, because of our culture and the “way we are brought up”, everything is kept under wraps.
The courts often refer to them as “the most vulnerable” in society.
Through awareness campaigns and the continuing cases now being reported, more people are now facing the full brunt of the law.
Our culture and values, or anyone's, for that matter, is important and sacred and needs to be retained and passed down from parents to children.
By doing this, we will create a society that will see a decline in the incidence of violence. As the great Mahatma Ghandi said, “A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people,” , “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”