MAHATMA GANDHI - the greatest of our leaders. He lit the imagination of the entire nation. There is a basic lesson of Indian History. Our people have always taken their moral standards from their rulers; the people have risen to great heights when they have basked in the glow of noble kings or leaders. The present generation is waiting for a leader who will make it relearn the moral values, and who will inculcate in the people, as Gandhi did, a sense of the responsibilities which fall on every citizen of a free society.
The waste of human ability energy and money on armament will continue unabated, and diversion of world resources to development will remain a pipe dream, so long as man does not learn the great lesson which Gandhi preached so convincingly in our own times-viz. non-violence is the law of our species. The diversion of world resources to development stands no practical chance of being heeded unless and until the balance of terror is replaced by the balance of terror is replaced, by the balance of reason.
Although it is true that India has been an integrated nation since olden times; it is also true that on the present context Gandhian values have special significance for national integration. Today communal amity has become essential for national integration and hence Gandhi gave it the highest priority. By communal unity Gandhiji did not mean merely paying lip service to 'bhaibhai-ism'. He meant it to be an unbreakable heart unity'. In the religious context Gandhi emphasized that communal unity has to be based on equal respect for all religions. Everyone, Gandhi said, must have the same regard for other faiths as he had for his own. Such respect would not only remove religious rifts but lead to a realization of the fact that religion was a stabilizing force, not a disturbing element. Gandhi's basic axiom was that religion since the scriptures of all religions point only in one direction of goodwill, openness and understanding between men and men and between community and community.
Gandhiji regarded education as the light of life and the very source from which was created an awareness of oneness. Gandhi believed that the universality of religion can best be realized through the universlization of education, and that such universalization was the spring board for national integration. Harmony is not brought about about overnight. Gandhi advocated the process of patience, persuasion and perseverance for attainment of peace and love for harmony and was firmly convinced of the worth of gentleness as panacea for all evils. Communal harmony had the pride of place in Gandhi's constructive programme. He taught us the dignity of labour as a leveling social factor that contributed to a national outlook in keeping with the vision of new India. he always believed that a nation built on the foundation of non-violence would be able to withstand attacks on its-integrity from within and without.
Gandhi pleaded for the humanization of knowledge for immunization against the ideas of distrust among the communities of the nations and the nationalities of the world. He wanted to take the country from areas of hostility into areas of harmony of faiths through tolerance, so that we could work towards understanding each other. His mass contact programme was specifically aimed at generating a climate of confidence and competition and eliminating misgiving and misconceptions, conflicts and confrontation.
Gandhi also held that bridging the gulf between the well off and the rest was as essential for national integration as inter-religious record. HE said that we must work for economic equality and social justice, which would remove the ills caused by distress and bitterness. He said that we must work for economic equality and social justice, which would remove the ills caused by distress and bitterness. He stressed that the foundation of equality, the core of harmony will have to be laid here now and built up brick by brick through ethical and economic satisfaction of the masses.