Gandhi - Guevara

It is always the simple things that catch thy breath.

Before I start, let me make it clear,I was and am not a Gandhian. I don't think  I can ever achieve as high a pedestal as is required to qualify myself to be called or to call myself a 'Gandhian'.

You ask me what I've got?

Recently-I was ashamed to have known this only recently- I came to know about the visit of Che Guevara's visit to India.
I have read his books on Guerrilla warfare and his Motorcycle Diaries,but was ignorant of the possibility of him making a visit to the country that was taking shape from the spoils of the greatest struggle ever know to form a nation.

Che Guevara being greeted by an Indian

Well, the best thing of knowing this interesting trivia is that it makes us dig a little deeper to know that Che actually admired Gandhi and his methods of Non-violence.

For Che,hunger is a violent condition forced upon the hungry and he finds violence an unavoidable method to counter it. For Gandhi, violence is a boomerang, which once unleashed against the oppressor would only return to chase the oppressed.

Despite Che's strong ties to violence his endorsement of Gandhi's non-violence is a historical  and a significant possibility of food for revolutionary thought, not to forget the impending nature of the possibility of changing the views on the intimacy that two ideologies that are perceived to be diagonally opposite can possibly hold.

Well,the fact is, as children we were brought up basing our conscience on the basis of morals that the simple but splendid wisdom that Panchatantras lend us, as an ancient civilization.

We have many adages that have a moral scrutiny on us. I had one doubt after reading that if two great leaders of opposite ideologies could embrace the possibility of tolerance towards the other ideology so much,why can't we?
Why do most of have revolutionary thoughts that are, more often than not directed towards violent means? Why?

Is it that 'Tit for Tat' the most understandable moral we got from our ancestors? Was it that easy to implement? Probably yes. When a highly inferred 'Athidhi Devo Bhava', with a universal domain goes out,the highly self-centric and carelessly construed 'tit for tat' comes in. It is applied,in a crudely reverse-engineered form. Sadly,it is understood as a violent form. Even Gandhiji was not against it, when carefully observed:

"First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win!"

The same holds with religion I guess.
Blasphemy,when not allowed, more often than not gives rise to a new religion. Catholic blasphemy gave rise to Protestant ethics considering the broad contours in which we take religion as a way of living. Blasphemy inherent in the inquisitiveness of certain religions  is one that reinforces the faith in perennial tolerance. Sometimes, asking questions becomes more important than finding the answers. I think this reinforces that change need not always be revolutionary or sudden. It is not supposed to be whimsical or overhauling. May be the best the change can adapt to depends on its subtlety of engaging in tolerance towards  blasphemy.

Look at us,in a vacuum, if all the above discussion was null and void,when someone comes and slaps us, if the person next to you says slap back, whether or not you think twice before doing it, you ll never ask him back 'Are you mad?'. But when the same person asks you to show him the other cheek, you surely will.

I never understood the concept of radical change. So here is my question: Is radicalism the first-to-go solution, really? I am confused. Are ideologies mass-driven because they can be easily instilled and retained till the objective is attained?


May be, for the generations to come, Tit-for-Tat will not be a distorted reverse-engineered violence. Hope can never die right...
True, there are no Blacks and Whites, there is always a grey we can never overlook. May be the best medicine is in fact Tolerance, or may be there is no one panacea that holds good. Of-course, War is Qualitatively different from a Struggle, A revolution from a eased-in-change! 

Seriously, Do opposites really exist at all?
What can I say, I am back to square one.It IS the simple things that catch thy breath.