USA PRESIDENT AND HIS SPEECH ABOU MAHATMA GANDHI IN USA, ON MAHATMA GANDHI SERVICE DAY.

Washington, D.C. 13 October (Asiantribune.com): "Mahatma Gandhi’s portrait hangs in my office to remind me that real change will not come from Washington - it will come when the people, united, bring it to Washington" said United States Senator Barack Obama, the democratic Party presidential candidate for November 4 election, issuing a statement last week on Mahatma Gandhi Service Day. Mahathma Gandhi - Barack Obama: Gandhi's significance is universal. Countless people around the world have been touched by his spirit and example - his victory in turn inspired a generation of young Americans to peacefully wipe out a system of overt oppression that had endured for a century, and more recently led to velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe and extinguished apartheid in South Africa.
The Service Day coincides with the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi India’s spiritual leader who led a non-violent campaign to end the British colonial rule in India.
Mohandas Gandhi is revered throughout the world irrespective of geographic borders, religions and nationalities.
Following is the full text of Mr. Obama’s statement on Mahatma Gandhi Service Day that fell on October 2:
"Dear Friends,
It's a pleasure for me to join today in commemorating Mahatma Gandhi's day of birth, celebrated across America and around the world by service to our neighbors and other good works. Gandhi's commitment to creating positive change by bringing people together peacefully to demand it resonate as strongly today as they did during his lifetime. Through the power of his example and his own unshakeable spirit, he inspired a people to resist oppression, sparking a revolution that freed a nation from colonial rule. In formulating his strategy to achieve freedom, Gandhi had a choice, and he chose courage over fear.
America faces many choices as we work to address the challenges of our time. We must act from a place of strength and conviction to reclaim the high road and position of moral leadership that has defined the United States at its best.
Gandhi's significance is universal. Countless people around the world have been touched by his spirit and example - his victory in turn inspired a generation of young Americans to peacefully wipe out a system of overt oppression that had endured for a century, and more recently led to velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe and extinguished apartheid in South Africa. Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of their great debt to Gandhi. His portrait hangs in my office to remind me that real change will not come from Washington - it will come when the people, united, bring it to Washington.
This is a pivotal election. This is our time for change. For far too long, we've watched as ordinary Americans work harder and harder for less and less. We've watched our standing in the world erode as we continue to lose American lives in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged. I need you to stand up and work for change. Let us all rededicate ourselves, every day from now until November 4th, and beyond, to living Gandhi's call to be the change we wish to see in the world.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama"
- Asian Tribune -

MR OBAMA AND MAHATMA GANDHI

Gandhi’s birthday, or Gandhi Jayanti, is celebrated every year as the International Day of Non-Violence. The Mahatma, who was born on 2 October 1869, would have turned 140 this year.
Mr Obama said: "Gandhi's teachings and ideals, shared with Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1959 pilgrimage to India, transformed American society through our civil rights movement.

    "The America of today has its roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi and the nonviolent social action movement for Indian independence which he led.

"We must renew our commitment to live his ideals and to celebrate the dignity of all human beings."

The praise comes a month after Mr Obama said that Gandhi would be his ideal dinner guest. Speaking to pupils at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, he was asked what person, alive or dead, he would like to dine with.

He said: “I think it might be (Mahatma) Gandhi, who’s a real hero of mine.

“It would probably be a really small meal because he didn’t eat a lot.”

The President has been given a book of Gandhi quotes to mark the anniversary. The author of Quotes of Gandhi, Shalu Bhalla, had a copy of the book delivered to Mr Obama after she heard about his comments at Wakefield.

NON VIOLENCE AND MODERN STATE.

It is not possible for a modern State based on force nonviolently to resist forces of disorder, whether external or internal. A man cannot serve God and Mammon, nor be 'temperate and furious' at the same time. It is claimed that a State can be based on nonviolence, i.e., it can offer nonviolent resistance against a world combination based on armed force. Such a State was Ashoka's. The example can be repeated. But the case does not become weak even if it be shown that Ashoka's State was not based on nonviolence. It has to be examined on its merits.....

There can be no nonviolence offered by the militarily strong. Thus, Russia in order to express nonviolence has to discard all her power of doing violence. What is true is that if those, who were at one time strong in armed might, change their mind, they will be better able to demonstrate their nonviolence to the world and, therefore, also to their opponents.

NON VIOLENT STAGE[SWARAJ]

  In Swaraj based on ahimsa, people need not know their rights, but it is necessary for them to know their duties. There is no duty but creates a corresponding right, and those only are true rights which flow from a due performance of one's duties. Hence rights of true citizenship accrue only to those who serve the State to which they belong. And they alone can do justice to the rights that accrue to them.

Everyone possesses the right to tell lies or resort to goondaism. But the exercise of such right is harmful both to the exerciser and society. But to him who observes truth and nonviolence comes prestige, and prestige brings rights. And people who obtain rights as a result of performance of duty, exercise them only for the service of society, never for themselves.

Swaraj of a people means the sum total of the Swaraj (self-rule) of individuals. And such Swaraj comes only from performance by individuals of their duty as citizens. In it no one thinks of his rights. They come, when they are needed, for better performance of duty.

Under Swaraj based on nonviolence nobody is anybody's enemy, everybody contributes his or her due quota to the common goal, all can read and write, and their knowledge keeps growing from day to day. Sickness and disease are reduced to the minimum. No one is a pauper and labour can always find employment. There is no place under such a government for gambling, drinking and immorality or for class hatred.

The rich will use their riches wisely and usefully, and not squander them in increasing their pomp and worldly pleasures. It should not happen that a handful of rich people should live in jeweled palaces and the millions in miserable hovels devoid of sunlight or ventilation.....

In nonviolent Swaraj there can be no encroachment upon just rights; contrariwise no one can possess unjust rights. In a well-organized State, usurpation should be an impossibility and it should be unnecessary to resort to force for dispossessing a usurper.

NON VIOLENCE VERSUS POWER.

By its very nature, nonviolence cannot 'seize' power, nor can that be its goal. But nonviolence can do more; it can effectively control and guide power without capturing the machinery of government. That is its beauty.

There is an exception, of course. If the nonviolent non-co-operation of the people is so complete that the administration ceases to function or if the administration crumbles under the impact of a foreign invasion and a vaccum results, the people's representatives will then step in and fill it. Theoretically that is possible.

But the use of power need not necessarily be violent. A father wields power over his children; he may even punish but not by inflicting violence. The most effective exercise of power is that which irks least. Power rightly exercised must sit light as a flower; no one should feel the weight of it.

The people accepted the authority of the Congress willingly. I was on more than one occasion invested with the absolute power of dictatorship. But everybody knew that my power rested on their willing acceptance. They could set me aside at any time and I would have stepped aside without a murmur.

Prophets and supermen are born only once in an age. But if even a single individual realizes the ideal of ahimsa in its fullness, he covers and redeems the whole society. Once Jesus had blazed the trail, his twelve disciples could carry on his mission without his presence.

It needed the perseverance and genius of so many generations of scientists to discover the laws of electricity, but today everybody, even children use electric power in their daily life. Similarly, it will not always need a perfect being to administer an ideal State once it has come into being. What is needed is a thorough social awakening to begin with. The rest will follow.

To take an instance nearer home, I have presented to the working class the truth that true capital is not silver or gold, but the labour of their hands and feet and their intelligence. Once labour develops that awareness, it would not need my presence to enable it to make use of the power that it will release.

NON VIOLENCE AND DEMOCRACY

Science of war leads one to dictatorship pure and simple. Science of nonviolence can alone lead one to pure democracy.

Democracy and violence can ill go together. The State that are today nominally democratic have either to become frankly totalitarian, or if they are to become truly democratic, they must become courageously nonviolent.

Holding the view that, without the recognition of nonviolence on a national scale, there is no such thing as a constitutional or democratic government, I devote my energy to the propagation of nonviolence as the law of our life, individual, social, political, national and international.

I fancy that I have seen the light, though dimly. I write cautiously for I do not profess to know the whole of the Law. If I know the success of my experiments, I know also my failures. But the successes are enough to fill me with undying hope.

I have often said that if one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself. Nonviolence is the means, the end for everyone is complete independence. There will be an international League only when all the nations, big or small, composing it are fully independent. The nature of that independence will correspond to the extent of nonviolence assimilated by the nations concerned. One thing is certain. In a society based on nonviolence, the smallest nation will feel as tall as the tallest. The idea of superiority and inferiority will be wholly obliterated.

...The conclusion is irresistible that for one like me, wedded to nonviolence, constitutional or democratic government is a distant dream so long as nonviolence is not recognized as a living force, an inviolable creed, not a mere policy. While I prate about universal nonviolence, my experiment is confined to India. If it succeeds, the world will accept it without effort. There is however a bit BUT. The pause does not worry me. My faith is brightest in the midst of impenetrable darkness

NON VIOLENCE AND GOVERNMENT.

The Government cannot succeed in becoming entirely nonviolent, because it represents all the people. I do not today conceive of such a golden age. But I do believe in the possibility of a predominantly nonviolent society. And I am working for it.

There remains the question as to whether in an ideal society, there should be any or no government. I do not think we need worry ourselves about this at the moment. If we continue to work for such a society, it will slowly come into being to an extent, such that the people can benefit by it. Euclid's line is one without breadth, but no one has so far been able to draw it and never will. All the same, it is only by keeping the ideal line in mind that we have made progress in geometry. What is true here is true of every ideal