During my childhood days,I always wondered why M.K.Gandhi ,fondly called as Bapu was referred to as Father of Nation and what made him so popular across India.His ideas and principles were known to people from centuries and he himself acknowledged that he was inspired by his mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale.Then what was so special about him and how he succeeded in leading one of the largest mass movement in India always intrigued me.Recently I came across his book "My Experiment with truth" which answered most of my question.But then began a series of new questions mainly pertaining to the idea of father of nation.Why India after so many decades of its independence could not produce any national leader who would be equivalent to his stature.After much thinking and again going through his book,I found my answers.
A man should ideally be judged by his action which is a result of his thought process.And his thought process is stimulated by his surroundings,his knowledge and his upbringing.As parents are often referred to as first teacher of a child,so their action make a lasting impact on a child.Secondly teachers who is often a child builds the future block of a child.So,if a child has proper upbringing he can surely achieve greatness in life.Today,our education system seems to be xerox copy of western model without incorporating Indian values and principles which should ideally be the backbone of any education policy.Children's are taught to memories their lessons rather then imbibing them in their real life.Gaining knowledge should be an activity based process rather than mere rote learning process.Gandhiji experimented a lot on how to impart proper education to a child and though he himself lamented that he could not provide proper education to his children but he was confident enough that his teaching and especially the way he imparted lessons would make his children good human being.His experiments provide valuable insights to all of us and especially to our policy makers who need to thoroughly understand his philosophy and implement them wherever possible.
Gandhiji taught us a valuable lesson about the necessity of experiments.The need for experiment arises when one is dissatisfied with what he have and wants to change the existing one or create a new one.The entire human civilization has evolved because of human curiosity and its insatiable appetite for change.Human civilization which have been adaptive to changes have existed and those which didn't perished.But the resistance to change is even greater and it needs great courage to go for a change.Thus people who go for experiments tends to be successful while other lag behind.Gandhiji himself use to experiment a lot regarding his practices,belief and way of living.He himself acknowledged that only through his experiment he has been able to devise his ideas and successful in implemented them.At the same time he warned that one should not blindly follow him or his ideas and should experiment on his own to check whether he can follow them to achieve his objectives.
(To be continue...)
