Higher Education Minister V.S. Acharya said on Sunday that people should emulate the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. He was garlanding the statue of Mahatma Gandhi at Bhujanga Park here.
Mr. Acharya said the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi were relevant even now.
The younger generation needs to be told about Gandhiji. A woman Nirmala Kamath had given her ornaments to Mahatma Gandhi during freedom struggle when he had visited Udupi in February 1934, he said.
Special lecture
At a special lecture on Mahatma Gandhi organised by the Gandhian Study Centre of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) College, historian B. Surendra Rao said the underlying principle of Mahatma Gandhi's thoughts was that all people were governed by certain moral principles.
It was the conscience which should guide people. People should regularly do a self-audit. “Some of Gandhiji's ideas might have become obsolete, but even after critiquing him, he still stays with us,” he said.
Some Gandhian ideas were utopian. Mahatma Gandhi spoke of village republics. But this was opposed by the architect of Constitution B.R. Ambedkar who felt that if all powers were given to villages, the country would remain backward as villages had worst forms of casteism. The Khap panchayats in some villages had shown the dangers of casteism.
The generations after Independence had forgotten the Gandhian ideals.
Mahatma Gandhi was an indefatigable writer of letters. His writings should be contextualised. The three books written by him were My Experiments With Truth , Satyagraha in South Africa , and Hind Swaraj .
