1947 Revisited Chief Minister Parrikar's comment on the invasion of Goa must have gladdened the hearts of the majority of Goans, and made a few sad. "Had India invaded Goa in 1947, then we Goans would have been free like all the other states in India," said Manohar Parrikar.
I agree with the Chief Minister's view and share his sentiments fully. Had we in 1947 sought to get rid of the Portuguese colonialists, as we did the British colonialists, the endless debate on the issue of annexation or liberation of Goa would not exist as it would be seen today as a fight against colonialism, Portuguese and British. In 2014, more than sixty years and two new generations after the departure of the Portuguese, it is neither Dayanand Bandokar nor Jack Sequeira who is leading the fight for Special Status for Goa. With the BJP government in power at the Centre and State too, it is probably none other than CM Manohar Parrikar who is destined to create history. The ball is with him. Can he score? We need to understand the context of the Chief Minister's statement. His point of view is reasonable. In 1947, what was unreasonable was the presence of a strange and complex man who wanted to free India of colonialism with the power of love and non-violence. He saved a lot of blood from being shed unnecessarily. The freedom movement saw little blood; it was the separation of India and Pakistan which created a bloodbath, and which Gandhi was against although he finally accepted the inevitable. This unreasonable man in 1947 opened the eyes of the world to the power of non-violence, and - to give the devil his due - the British showed they were civilized, practical and mature enough to realize that the sun was setting on the British empire in India and in Africa. Gandhi created a revolution in political values and way of thinking in the twentieth century. Even beyond the grave, his philosophy influenced the civil rights movement in the United States as well as the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He has, without doubt, influenced millions all over the world - including Albert Einstein, the father of the nuclear bomb which decisively ended the Second World War. Which other Indian has such a profound, moral influence on global politics in the twentieth century? No other Indian is even in the same league! And, in this age of potential nuclear warfare, is there a better philosophy for the survival of the human race than non-violence? The advanced countries in the world are more aware of this fact than less advanced nations. Is it because they have more to lose? The atomic bombs which devastated two Japanese cities at the end of the Second World War were no more than fire crackers compared to nuclear weapons today. Gandhi's presence looms bigger than ever. Gandhi's influence perhaps is greater in countries outside India than our own. After Independence, the Congress Party used this hero of the human race and an Indian par excellence as nothing more than a mascot, a symbol of honesty and respectability to loot the country for more than half a century! The young and innocent girl that was the Congress Party at the time of Independence grew up to become the Mother of Corruption. Nowadays the media often ignores Mahatma Gandhi's great achievement and misleads readers with the information "he slept with young girls." This eccentric man who was married when he was eleven would have young girls sleep next to him to see if he still had sexual desire in his old age. The phrase, however, "to sleep with" was famously highlighted by President Clinton, who said that he had not slept with Monica Lewinsky when he was cross examined about his relationship with her. The phrase, he said, usually means having had sex which he had not had with Monica. Today, the whole world knows he didn't sleep a wink. The two great diseases through the centuries has been colonialism and nationalism. All the world powers, at one time or another, have fallen under its spell. Some have learnt their lessons well, others have not. During the Second World War Germany was in love with the idea of the superman race, which allowed Adolf Hitler to seize power in a democracy and then to destroy a large part of Europe, gassing to death millions of Jews and other people who did not belong to the superior Aryan race! Hitler even refused to shake hands with Jesse Owens after he won the hundred metre race because he was a black man. If Hitler were alive today, I wonder what he would have to say about President Obama. Today, Germany has bid goodbye to the insane vision of a superior race and is at peace with all countries, a great pillar of strength of the European Union. While there are differences within the EU, there cannot be a war. This is a great European victory which people all over the world admire and envy, with the hope they too can achieve the same. For those of us who live in the twenty-first century, the greatest challenge is the survival of humanity and our planet. With the number of nuclear bombs available that can destroy the world a hundred times over and the growing trend of global terrorism, our future might well be in the hands of a mad man or two and is as dicey as the gambling tables of the casinos on the River Mandovi. Not all the nations subscribe to peace. Some are stuck in the bog of nationalism. The great Soviet Union broke up, as all empires do. Some insane leaders cannot accept this fact and use force, as is what is happening now to the people of the Ukraine. These leaders do not share a civilized vision; they still think brute force is the only way to victory. In fact, it is the opposite: using force is an admission of the inadequacy of a culture and civilization. In this case, it is an old and once great culture that is Russia which has broken down, and the leaders of a nuclear power should know the dangers of using brute force. But they have not learned their lesson yet, as have the British on the issue of Scottish independence and the Canadians on that of Quebec. If Gandhi were alive today, he would applaud the moral values of Britain and Canada and their high level of civilization and culture.
