10-24-2006, 05:35 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-prem+Oct 24 2006, 04:25 AM-->QUOTE(prem @ Oct 24 2006, 04:25 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> Let Gandhi sleep in peace. We need to have good burial for present Gandhism. Gandhi might have been relevant before 47, not so now in 21st century.
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The point is not to either deify or demonize any politician of yesteryears, who may very well have made a virtue out of necessity. No problem with that. Happens all the time. It is for us to understand the epoch, compulsions, conditions of those time, and learn something and move on - only not to repeat any mistakes, if they had made any. If we want a 21st century India, we must understand, to start with, a deep deplection, a dispassionate process that focuses on accurate history, and political organization and institutions, on power (and privilege) and authority, players involved and their compulsions, and the behavior of rulers and subjects (not homogenous in India's case, with sub and concurrent histories and all the above categories again, within that), as they are major forces of social human activity. We have to deconstruct and unlearn before we learn anything and build on that. Don't you agree?
[right][snapback]59584[/snapback][/right]
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The point is not to either deify or demonize any politician of yesteryears, who may very well have made a virtue out of necessity. No problem with that. Happens all the time. It is for us to understand the epoch, compulsions, conditions of those time, and learn something and move on - only not to repeat any mistakes, if they had made any. If we want a 21st century India, we must understand, to start with, a deep deplection, a dispassionate process that focuses on accurate history, and political organization and institutions, on power (and privilege) and authority, players involved and their compulsions, and the behavior of rulers and subjects (not homogenous in India's case, with sub and concurrent histories and all the above categories again, within that), as they are major forces of social human activity. We have to deconstruct and unlearn before we learn anything and build on that. Don't you agree?