Gandhi's Wisdom Lets Religion And Politics Mix

suchandra · September 21, 2008

Gandhi's Wisdom Lets Religion And Politics Mix

Academic puts forward quest for peace

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/city/story.html?id=bd38aba3-0160-4429-8924-ed9d7e5d234f

Wayne A.Hols, For the Calgary Herald

published Saturday, September 20 2008

The news from India has not been good. In the state of Orissa, Hindu groups accuse Christian missionaries of unfair recruitment tactics in their attempts to convert lower castes of society.

Last December, five Catholic churches, 48 village chapels, two seminaries, half a dozen hostels and four convents were destroyed in communal violence.

In August of this year, a Hindu religious leader, Swami Lakshmanananda, and some of his disciples were killed in their ashram.

This month, the Press Trust of India reported that several Hindu temples were attacked by Christian radicals.

In the land where Mohandas K. Gandhi, the grand mentor of peaceful religious coexistence, is venerated, sectarian violence spreads as each new provocation heightens bloody reciprocation. These tragedies mock what Gandhi envisioned.

Sectarian violence on the Indian subcontinent reminds us that the dangerous blend of radical religion and politics are not limited to places like the Gaza Strip or the Sudan.

Little more than a half-century ago, Gandhi ingeniously led his nation to independence from Imperial Britain as harsh political turmoil roiled the Hindu and Muslim communities.

In some ways, India is a very different nation today, but in others, it remains much the same. A big question of that time continues to haunt and intrigue people of good will in our time. Could the application of Gandhian principles that would knit political and religious factions into a common quest for peace reframe our vision for the world today?

A Calgary academic with a lifelong admiration for Gandhi believes they can, with a certain adaptation.

In his book Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony, (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Antony Parel, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Calgary, writes that contrary to commonly held views in western democracies, Gandhi believed religion and politics should creatively co-mingle and not be separate entities.

Gandhi demonstrated this truth could be practised in one's personal and communal life. By extension, it could also serve the best interests of people on a societal scale.

He learned from studies in ancient Vedic cosmology that right action could be aligned with the best democratic values he saw emanating from the West. Discoveries from his own culture's primal traditions contained universal values inherent to all humanity.

Balance and harmony -- where neither secular nor religious philosophies dominated but served each other -- formed his core principles.

He taught that ethical, esthetic and spiritual values must underlie our politics and economics. People of faith must learn to live in the real world; integrating the spiritual with the practical in their daily behaviour.

India has had a long history of inter-faith struggle. Now, however, Gandhi could serve as a fatherly inspiration; challenging his children to reclaim their ancient values.

Concurrently, Gandhi has a message for would-be "true" believers of all faiths. Go deeper than a shallow reading of your religious heritage. Use the primal values of your traditions to build bridges, not walls.

- The Gandhi Society of Calgary will hold its ninth annual dinner and lecture on Sept. 28 at 6 p.m. at the Inn on Crowchild. Tickets and information from 403-283-2004, 403-547-9879 or 403-220-7361.

Wayne Holst teaches religion and culture at the University of Calgary and co-ordinates adult spiritual development at St. David's United Church.