OCTOBER 2ND..GANDHI JAYANTHI..!!

WRTTEN ON OCTOBER 2ND 2009...

Gandhi Jayanthi:
Today our great nation and the whole world celebrates the birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, our beloved “Mahatma”.
Undoubtedly Gandhi was a reckoning factor in India achieving our independence from British Imperial Raj. Gandhi always worked for upliftment of weaker sections and envisioned an India developed on every front may it be education, may it be villages, and may it be weaker sections of society.
What perplexes me is, the fact that we celebrate this great soul’s birthday as a holiday in India. I am not condemning the fact that Gandhi should be respected for his achievements. From what I learnt about Gandhi’s ideologies he literally lamented a person who is lazy and who doesn’t do any work. He always thought nation’s are built by hard working people.
Imagine the number of industries that are not productive because it is a holiday. Imagine the lax in government schemes to be implemented because it is a holiday. The fact is national productivity is halted because of October 2nd being a holiday. Gandhi never said nor implied nor even encouraged the idea of declaring his birthday as a holiday. Now if someone has to argue that in other developed countries birthday’s of popular leaders are Holidays and why not Gandhi’s birthday as a holiday, I completely disagree with that mentioning the fact that we are still a developing nation.
From the inspiration I get from Gandhi’s principles and ideology, I feel that had he been alive today he would have NEVER allowed our great nation to celebrate his birthday as a holiday.

Jai Hind
Suresh Matta
chilldesi@gmail.com