The ideologies of Gandhi are still very much applicable in today’s society and worth implementing, be it any part of the world. Many people have closely studied the concepts Gandhi emphasized upon and one such personality is 87-year-old Harris Wofford who has closely studied ideologies of Gandhiji. We will look at some of the thoughts he shared recently.
Wofford himself implemented several of principles Gandhi believed in such as that of “ahinsa” (nonviolence). One example being of the period when civil rights movement was going on. Additionally at the time of presidential campaigns in 1960, he made Kennedy agree to call MLK’s wife after MLK got arrested.
After this incidence, MLK’s father repealed his opposition about having any Catholic president and since MLK’s father had good hold over black community, it helped Kennedy take almost 70% votes of black community and assisted him in very marginal electoral victory over his opponent. Thus, it was a good strategic move by Kennedy to call MLK’s wife that can be said was critical to his electoral victory.
Proper Governance
In present world, many social, economic and political elements in our lives are becoming unstable which are directly caused by problems in governance. Gandhi was of the opinion that society in general needs to follow normative principles of governance.
These principles would be useful in calibrating politics, managing social movements and harmonize public and private spheres of life.
Peace
In Venezuela, the change in regime did not create any problems. New political entities have come to power promising to rectify the problems which were present but failed in their efforts and did not follow the democratic processes. Some of the precepts of Gandhiji included “ahinsa” and “satyagraha” which have been used in Venezuela to counter relentless censorship and propaganda.
This makes it clear that if any government turns violent against its citizens who are engaged in protesting peacefully then finally such government would have to quit.
To conclude we will say that democracy demands a lot from our politicians and the elections give common people the tools to get the incumbent out of power and usher in leaders who will be able to govern them properly. However, this does not happen all the time and more often than not new politicians coming to power behave in similar fashion to their previous counterparts and attempt to only fulfill their vested interests.
