What Gandhism means to me

Today is Mahatma's birth anniversery. This is a day when I never forget to just think over the relevence of gandhian ideals in todays world in general and also in my personal life.
Gandhi is certainly as relevant if not more for the country today. His vision for the country and his dreams for the community as a whole still hold good for India. He taught us that irrespective of obstacles you encounter, you should pursue the goals you have set. His ideals reflect true values of humanity and encourages to participate in tasks that would promote the greater good of society at large.
If we just look back to days when Gandhi was pursuing his aim thru non violence means, we can conclude it was a different world.One has to be reminded that in those days there was much less communication and hardly any knowledge of what was going on in far corners of the world. The sympathy of impartial outsiders uninvolved in the local issues was not easy to come by – since they did not know about the local issues till months,. Knowledge of government repression or police brutality – if they were known at all – by virtue of some daring reporter's exposé of government's actions, was way in the future. That is why in the Third World countries, the governments still try to control the media; and, for example, in the case of numbers of persons killed in a police shooting, they report much less than the actual numbers.
This made the task of communication far more difficult in those days. Gandhi had to garner sympathy from local inhabitants on the opposite side by his dignified moral actions, wherever he protested the brutal actions of inhuman regimes. Time and again he commanded and got the pledge of total non-violence from his followers in the face of extreme provocation and brutality. In the process, when non-violent protesters marched to protest some government action and the police acted against them by resorting to a baton charge or shooting, the local solidarity and sympathy of opponents tended to lie on the side of the non-violent protestors. And, thus, minimal physical harm resulted.
This lowering of hurdles led to larger mass participation in subsequent non-violent reactions to each police action or repressive regulation. It was both brilliant and effective tactics in those days of isolation, when sympathy had to be earned from among the local partisans of the opposition.

sadly we are missing these methods in any agitation these days and the cruel fact is that through violent methods some kind of success is also being tried to achieve, notwithstanding the fact that such achievement are no achievement and in fact they lead to more unrest and pain to human beings.
Although I have been great admirer of gandhi right from my childhood, it is only last year I was involved in a project on Gandhi. During this process I had a bit of nervousness with respect to quality n timely completion of project, even i had some kind of quarrel, wrangle and arguments with my colleague. Even a fall out with my project partner seemed possible. But as we moved on project, we got passionate with project and ultimately a beautiful programme was produced. I got a feeling of Gandhian philosophy which made me more considerate , caring, selfless and understanding. Today I have best kind of luv n friendship with my project partner. Such is the power of Gandhi. If you honestly try to understand him , he will make desirable changes in you.
what I also learned is that what you do , do it with passion n determination.Whether you are an ordinary person or a celebrity, you can do without passion only if you can do without life because it is passion alone that determines the extent to which you are alive.

Salute to this greatest MAN of 20th Century.