Gandhi's originality

UR A has said that Gandhi was the only original thinker of the times. While it may sound excessive, he was almost alone in standing by the wisdom of the country, the country's practices, unapologetically facing its strengths and defects, and then accepting the responsibility to cleaning up the defects. And in the midst of a firly westernized leadership including Nehru and others. It took great clarity and courage. And originality.

Most other leaders were based on borrowed theories. Borrowing the best thoughts from outside is good, but one needs to be rooted in the best of one's own idiom. Only such a philosophy will be accepted by a country's people, and will lead to their own inner flowering and growing self confidence.

The concept of Civil Disobedience being native to India is brought out fascinatingly by Dharampal. Gandhi had the genius of tapping that which was completely 'of the people'.

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Sethuraman Pasupathy Original thinker or otherwise, he is the only leader, reformer, statesman, saint, karma yogi who had the inner strength, the reach, the will and the acceptance across our land from every strata of our society which in my opinion no other man or woman have achieved for our country in this yuga. Perhaps he was the reason the country did not implode.

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Aparna Krishnan The present fetish among the intelligentia with proving he was flawed can make for an interesting psycological study ! He had human flaws and made human errors, and he was the the most harsh with himself also. But to focus on these to the exclusion of his infinite contribution is a sad commentry on the commentators. imo.