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Ram Pratap

GandhianManagementThe Paragon of Higher Order Management

GandhianManagement

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GANDHIAN MANAGEMENTISBN 978-81-7992-959-9

© Ram Pratap

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In the Memory ofmy father Sri S.R. Verma

andbrother Mr. Sri Pratap

�

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It is solely due to the continual persuasion of my wife-Shashi, daughters-Divya and Amrita, and son-Yuvraj, thatthis manuscript was expeditiously worked upon, and givena final shape for publication.

Over the years, I could not give them their due share in mytime, which ethically they should have claimed. I, therefore,express my deep feelings and unfading sense of gratitudeto them for giving me moral support in creating this pieceof work.

—Ram Pratap

As I perused the voluminous works on MahatmaGandhi, explored the vast field of his activities, andanalysed his life in search for a purpose, I learnt a

great deal about him. And as I went in deeper, I gotconvinced more and more of his eminently high managerialcalibre and global management values, which he applied inhuman resource management and organisationaldevelopment for constructing a new society of higherorder, where ethics and human values find respectable placein interactions and business transactions.

As I continue to elaborate on that in the followingchapters, I will gradually drop the word ‘Mahatma’pre-fixed reverentially to his surname ‘Gandhi’. The onlyreason being that my intent is to discover in him a facet ofmanagerial feat not yet dealt with by any earlier researcher.This introduction will, I hope, assume great value amongstmanagers everywhere.

I have sought to throw light on his principles and practicesbuilt on his indomitable philosophy of truth, love andnon-violence. It is at this juncture that the GandhianSchool of Management Thought emerges radicallydifferent from any other school of management.

I have quoted, wherever required, views of many thinkers,scholars, managers and humanists-occidental and oriental– from different communities and countries, regions andreligions, cultures and customs. Facts and figures havebeen drawn from major historical events testimonials,meetings, commissions, conferences, UN newsletters,reliable articles, dailies and the books of celebrated authorsin global circulation. However, the present analysisrepresents my own thoughts.

viii Gandhian Management

INTRODUCTION

I have, unless unavoidable, refrained from quoting theviews of avowed pro-Gandhians in support of his strongpoints, and also avoided the views of diehard criticsobviously to stay out of subjectivity.

I am conscious and aware that even the best analyst orresearcher may feel discontented as I do in makingpresentation on a subject as deep and vast as Gandhi. Imay also invite displeasure and incur the dissatisfaction ofother scholars on some points of disagreement. If I evermeet or encounter such a predicament, I would not take itby surprise. However, I still hope that readers would findthis book novel and interesting, and that the GandhianSchool of Management will be accepted exclusively as anew School of Management Thought, worth emulation formaking this world a better place, for making corporatemanagement more cognisant of human values and moreresponsible to social needs.

“Generations to come, it may be, willscarcely believe that

such a one as this ever in flesh andblood walked upon this earth”

—Albert Einstein

�

The life of Mahatma Gandhi1 has always been aclassic and exotic subject, of great interest toscholars around the world. They have discussed

him in so many ways, in one context or the other, andstudied him from so many sources, viz. modern Indianhistory, British colonial history, his biographies andautobiography, books by renowned authors, journals, andhis works (a Government of India publication), articles,special workshops and international or nationalconferences and symposia. The screening of the featurefilm ‘Gandhi’ directed by Richard Attenborough in theearly ’80s, and ‘The Making of the Mahatma’ by ShyamBenegal in the ‘90s, brought his life closer to the eyes ofthe common man. Time and again, Gandhi and his

Introduction xiiixii Gandhian Management

society: middle class, rich, poor, young, old, affluent anddeprived, privileged and underprivileged; workers, thinkers,scientists, academicians, administrators, missionaries andpoliticians.

History has always inscribed their names on its pages andhumankind has always bowed before those who abdicatedtheir power and positions, sacrificed comforts, wealth andeven their lives for the welfare of society, remedying thecause of hunger, famine, poverty, disease and inequality.Humanity also remembers those who fought incessantlyagainst tyrannies and atrocities. Despite the birth of suchgreat luminaries on this planet, and with millions of theirfollowers and disciples in their time and after, the miseriesand woes of the people could not be alleviated, and theconflict of warring nations could not be resolved. Thismust have impelled Nobel laureate Tagore2 to express hisanguish a decade before the death of Gandhi: “Perhaps hewill fail as Buddha3 failed, as the Christ failed to wean menfrom their inequities, but he will always be remembered asone who made his life a lesson for all ages to come.”

If Mahatma Gandhi’s failure on any count is to be gaugedagainst the parameters taken to be the basis of failure inthe life of Buddha and Christ, Tagore then does not seemto have meant at all the word ‘failure’ as used in commonparlance, but in an inverted metaphorical sense, it signifiesthe greatness of these great beings. An appraisal3 ofTolstoy in the words of Mahatma Gandhi would attest tothis very fact: “To say therefore that Tolstoy on his own

philosophy have been resurveyed, rediscovered and re-institutionalised by the majority of leaders and publicfigures of most countries across the globe.

Everyone tried and still tries to understand him, and hisobject-oriented plans and programmes (e.g. newspaperpublication in South Africa and India; alignment of Indiandiaspora; mill workers issues; conferences and meetingswith British emissaries; movements, etc) that he executedat different times through a prismatic vision of one’scultural educational political socio-political, socio-economic, socio-religious and psycho-social backgroundsattached consciously or subconsciously to one’s percep-tion. He had been apotheosized as a great spiritual leader– a sage (Mahatma) and ascetic; he had been characterisedas a religious and political leader and also an apostle ofpeace; he had been loved as a surrogate father of the have-nots and underprivileged, and had been acclaimed as thebedrock of India’s struggle for freedom. Prof. GilbertMurray1, a British classical scholar, extolled him as a‘modern genius of world significance’ and that “for everyoppressed nationalist in every continent, he became achampion, a matinee idol”.

While many historians have accredited him overwhelminglyfor India’s independence struggle, a few others havecriticised and even held him responsible for thepartitioning of undivided India, and the mayhem thatfollowed soon after Independence. His followers andadmirers include men and women of yesteryears and ofpresent times. They belong to all sections and strata of

1. Mahatma Gandhi - His Life and Ideas’ by C.F. Andrews, p. 191,

Reprint 1987, Anmol Publication, New Delhi.

2. Rabindra Nath Tagore – a poet and philosopher; he got the

Nobel Prize for literature in the year 1913 for his work

‘Gitanjali: Song Offering’.

3. Young India’, 20 September, 1928.

Introduction xvxiv Gandhian Management

had chosen different paths, through their unique program-mes, methods and means, hoping for a global society – aworld fraternity – to dawn one day upon this Earth.

After all, human life has its own limitations. Any quest,goal or mission undertaken may remain unfinished,unattained in one’s life span. We work with constraintsand we achieve within limits. There would remain anepistemological limitation to our understanding of things,of Nature and of the Universe in an absolute sense as canbe drawn from the Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle5 inquantum mechanics (physics) and Godel’s IncompletenessTheorem6 in mathematics. Thus, certainty or completenessin absolute terms in the results of human endeavours hasto be ruled out. ‘Limit’ is innately associated with man’sreach, still excellence lies in stretching this reach andnarrowing down the gap hereon to absolute perfection.Hence, there is nothing unusual if the Gandhian modelcould cannot resolve all complex human and socialproblems in their entirety, but surely, what is unusual, isthat it still holds out a promise for a better world.

Nobel Laureate Physicist Eugene Wigner, while commen-ting on the Uncertainly Principle of Heisenberg, said thatthe hidden variable that does not allow us to reach theabsolute certitude (truth) is the consciousness of a person(scientist). My own interpretation of the hidden variableis that it is the ego which cuts into conscience andinterferes with the knowledge and understanding of the

admission failed to reach his ideals does not detract a jotfrom his greatness; it only shows his humility.”

Critics who say that Gandhi had failed because he couldnot avert India’s partitioning, and could not prevent com-munal riots, should recall former UN Secretary GeneralKofi Annan’s bitter disappointment, expressed in thecontext of the USA-Iraq War of 2003, in a meetingconvened at the request of the Arab League and NAM4: “Allof us must regret that our intense efforts to achievepeaceful solution through this Council did not succeed.”

Should that unfortunate cataclysm water down alldedicated efforts that Annan has made for global develop-ment and harmony? In spite of this human catas-trophe,the purity of purpose with which the Secretary General hasalways stood, remains unblemished, and his compassionand increasing concern for global issues are unquestionable.His profound grief for the dead in the UAS-Iraq war andanguish for those living the aftermath, is reflected in hismassive efforts in bringing humanitarian aid to the victimsand placing responsibility on the UN Security Council forthe reconstruction and rehabilitation of post-war Iraq.

It is no revelation that Gautam Buddha, Lord Jesus Christand Mahatma Gandhi had practised and preached truth,love and non-violence and worked for sustaining humanwelfare and values, so as to bring harmony, peace and animplicit order in society. They had similar perceptions ofthe world, and similar prescriptions to eradicate peoples’ills and miseries. But to accomplish their mission, they

4. UN News Letters, Vol. 28; 29 March 4 – April, 2003, UN Information

Centre, New Delhi.

5. The principle of uncertainty/indeterminacy, as enunciated by Nobel Laureate

Werner Heisenberg, mathematical physicist and

founder of quantum mechanics.

6. Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem: p.250, ‘Mathematical Logic’

by S.C. Kleene, John Wiley & Sons Inc., N.Y.,1967

Introduction xviixvi Gandhian Management

Gautam Buddha and Lord Jesus have been deified andMahatma Gandhi not yet. Both Buddha and Jesus lived inseclusion, either alone or with their disciples, isolatedfrom common man, but Gandhi lived in the midst ofcommon men. What makes Gandhi essentially differentfrom Buddba and Christ is that: (i) no miraculousincident is attributed to him; (ii) he all alone synthesisedtruth, love and non-violence into a juggernaut andtransformed it into a corporate movement too powerful tobe ignored; (iii) Gandhi was determined to empowerdespondent society and wanted it to be independent,responsive and responsible; and (iv) that he imbibed andupheld reasonable and testable truth ever cherished inHinduism, Islam and Christianity to enlighten his ownconscience, thus creating a separate weltanschauungbenevolently interactive with all the communities andpeople of all kinds.

If Science is nothing but a research for truth, as stated byNobel laureate C.V. Raman7, Gandhi is to be regarded as asocial scientist, for he never used any ad hoc method in hissearch for solutions to the problems he encountered in hislife. He studied the genesis of problems, the groundrealities and legal implications; only then he decidedmethods and means to attain the goal. Also as a socialengineer, he was always reinventing himself and hisenvironment by applying checks and balances to adapt tothe changes without changing his rock-solid philosophy.His approach for managing man, machine, materials andmethods, were not derived from any legislation, force orfright, but were the distillate of humanitarianism and an

absolute truth. Truth (reality), non-violence (tolerance)and love (non-prejudice) are organically linked and are thesubtle and intrinsic attributes of human conscience,originating in the sub-atomic domain. They play a decisiverole in our understanding of ‘being’, ‘seeing’ and‘knowing’, assuming all other physical conditions, toolsand apparatus to be mechanistically perfect. Error meansdeparture from truth, and the scale of departure is thedegree of falsity, the severity of which depends on themagnitude of departure that should be observable, measur-able and also controllable to a great extent, by a person ofhigher conscience who may or may not be religious orspiritual.

Gandhi was born in an upper middle class Hindu-Bania(business class) family; Gautam Buddha was a HinduKshatriya Prince; Jesus was born of Jewish Mother Mary inimpoverished conditions. Each had a different backgroundand different phases of developments, but they allnurtured a common vision. They shared pains, agony,anguish and sorrows with one and all; they were caring,concerning and compassionate having love and sympathyfor all; they were kind and considerate, tolerant andforgiving in keeping with the philosophy of non-violence;they were seekers of truth, hence disciplined, determined,and undeterred.

Perhaps to vindicate a universal truth that some corehuman values and a code of ethical conduct are alwaysessential for our sustainable development and livingtogether, they had come on this earth in different ages, indifferent societies and in different civilizations, yet theycherished a common goal. 7. ‘C V. Raman- A Memoir’ by A. Jayaraman, p.130, Affiliated East West

Publisher Pvt. Ltd. 1989, Madras (now Chennai)

Introduction xixxviii Gandhian Management

restoring human dignity. Ultimately, the day came andNelson Mandela took over in 1994 as the first blackPresident of independent South Africa. On beinghonoured with the Bharat Ratna award in 1990 by theGovernment of India, Nobel Laureate Mandela said: “Thepolicies of Mahatma Gandhi are much more relevant eventoday.”

After returning from South Africa (SA) in 1914, Gandhitested his philosophy in his own homeland, India, andused his managerial acumen to lead masses and activatemass movements many a time. The impact of his personawas so deep and irresistible that it changed the mindsetsof the people not only of this country, but of the world atlarge. He showed them a new method of non-violent andnon-invasive management, and how to settle differencesand grievances through dialogue, persuasion and passiveresistance. Oliver Wendell Holmes of the Medical Schoolat Harvard encored: “What another man has taught as apersonal discipline, Gandhi has transformed it into asocial programme for the redemption of the world.”

Curt Coffman, American co-author of the best seller ‘First

Break all the Rules, What the World’s Greatest Managers do

Differently’ — said at the Smart Talk (organised byHindustan Times on August 13, 2003 in New Delhi) thatgreat managers are people like Katherine Graham(Chairman, Executive Committee, Washington Post), BillGates (Chairman, Microsoft) or Mahatma Gandhi. Hisstatement distinctively underlined Mahatma Gandhi as agreat manager of very special class.

Dispelling contempt for the past, and dispensing with thearrogance of the present, if we look without prejudice into

outcome of self-actualisation and introspection sustainedby an inner force and inner discipline. He experimentednon-invasively on the mind and conscience of the people,ruled and ruling, of two big subcontinents – South Africa(SA) and India, then under the subjugation of the Britishimperial power.

He wrote in the daily Harijan8: “Somehow or other thewrong belief has taken possession of us that ahimsa (non-violence) is pre-eminently a weapon for individuals and itsuse should, therefore, be limited to that sphere. In factthis is not the case. Ahimsa is definitely an attribute ofsociety. To convince people of this truth is at once myeffort and my experiment.”

Without any official position and power, he remained anunchallenged and unmatched leader who controlled thepsyche of millions of people from all rungs of the society,soliciting their unflinching support for about half acentury. After all, plans are not made in a huff and successis not achieved in a jiffy. It takes decades to build a societyand centuries to stabilise a nation. Since his struggle wasagainst imperialism and the abuse of imperial power, it wassimply impossible for anybody to mark a beginning orperceive an end. Though the field of his operation wascomplex and vast, he still demonstrated an exceptionalmanagerial prowess and a unique managerial finesse.

His indefatigable work in South Africa which lasted fortwo decades, sowed the seeds of strong will in the nativesand immigrants to unite and work with zest and zeal, andgrit and guts for securing their fundamental rights and

8. ‘Harijan’, 25 August 1940.

xx Gandhian Management

the gestalts of Gandhian management, the world can stilllearn a few very important lessons to avoid pitfalls, andavert crisis and catastrophe in the future.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement iv

Preface v

Introduction ix

1 The Kernel of Gandhian Management 1

2 The Carillons of Super Leadership 11

3 Compare and Contrast with other ManagementThoughts 31

4 Self-Management 43

5 Management by ‘Say-no’ 53

6 Management by Effective Communication andInformation Flow 61

7 Management by Principles of Natural Justice 75

8 Ethics in Strategic Management 85

9 Welfare Management: Some Important Aspects 99

10 Object oriented management through appropriatemethods, means and practices (OOMTAMP) 115

About the Author 129

THE KERNEL OF GANDHIAN

MANAGEMENT

1

The Kernel Of Gandhian Management 3

applied his philosophy as a litmus test to confirm hisprinciples, and as a fire-test to warrant his practices. It isthe integration of this philosophy with his principles andpractices that adds a new dimension to the field ofmanagement. It defines a new set of management valuesand hence a new school of management thought.

Most corporates and competing institutions often issuetheir mission statements in which they declare theirphilosophy by defining their identity and stating in broadterms their intent or goal, competitive edge or strength,target groups and markets.

IBM aims at supplying intelligent information, hence theirinnovations give foremost consideration to accuracy, quick-ness, compactness and security which are cruciallyimportant in making decisions in a competitive environ-ment. Microsoft overcomes the barriers of languages bystressing on research and development in many suchsoftwares that are user-friendly and which use symbols andicons to convey similar meanings in different languages. Ithas, therefore, gained worldwide acceptability andpopularity.

Nokia cell phones are ‘connecting people’, and BPL is‘believing in the best’. Johnson & Johnson promotes itsbaby products with an accent on body care ‘with tenderlove’. Sony believes in people-oriented policies so that aperson hired by an organisation can be accepted as a wholeand is not dichotomised in virtuous-self and vicious-self.The Tatas, leader in the Indian automobile sector, combinerobustness with sophistication. The Birlas promote theirproducts through cultural and religious activities. BajajAuto advertises its products with focus on family

“The earth is sustained through Truth.”—Atharva Veda 14-1-1

“The Vedas, I feel convinced, will occupy scholars forcenturies to come.”

—Prof. Max Mueller

“Let there be no compulsion in the religion, Truth standsout clear from error”.

—Koran

“Truth is difficult to listen to, more difficult to speak,and most difficult to practice, though it is simplest,purest, and clearest since it is irreducible, irrevocable

and irreversible.”—The Author

�

The bedrock of Gandhian management is theGandhian philosophy, which is a monolithicstructure of truth, love and non-violence. Gandhi

The Kernel Of Gandhian Management 54 Gandhian Management

technique and the reliability of the data from primary orsecondary sources. If all these parameters are bias-free anderror-free, they add credence to the results that can beaccredited as ‘true’. However, our access to the ‘absolutetruth’ may still be denied by Nature, for our under-standing of ‘being’, ‘seeing’ and ‘knowing’ of the minutestobject and event (shorter than a femto-second) – thebuilding block of this universe – has been so far verylimited. Such limiting zones are formed in our thoughtprocess alone, because the evolution or dissolution of ourmental fields effected by internal and external stimuli,defines our analytical power and comprehension up to acertain point of accuracy, beyond which uncertaintybecomes larger than the observable object or events of themicro-domain. If we accept it as an inherent limitationimposed by Nature in reaching the ultimate truth, Gandhimust then be regarded as one of the greatest corporatemanagers and human resource developers of the twentiethcentury. Or as Nobel Laureate Rabindra Nath Tagorefamously said, “He was a living truth at last, and not onlyquotations from books.”

Gandhi knew that common masses cannot managethemselves for perfect non-violence, and elements ofimperfection are unavoidable. That is why Professor GeneSharp1 of Harvard University argues that according toGandhi, although imperfection in practicing perfect non-violence is inevitable, one’s duty is therefore to striveconstantly for the least imperfection.

1. ‘Non-violence: Moral Principle or Political Technique’ by Gene Sharp, an article from

the book ‘Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’, Editor, Verinder Grover, p 60.,

Deep & Deep Publication, 1998, New Delhi, India.

happiness and togetherness.

Gandhi, too, carved a philosophy, which he nurtured andupheld throughout his life, only to be known later asGandhian philosophy. The importance of the humanfactor in contemporary management can be seen in itsfinest form in Gandhian management. His humanitariancanvas was so global, and clarion call for natural justicewas so intense, that he became an institution by himselfmuch before the world discovered this reality.

The three cardinals of Gandhian philosophy, truth, loveand non-violence, are so coherent, cohesive and co-focal,that all together they stand like a solid rock. The absenceof even one breaches the wholesomeness of the structure.However, all these elements ought to be understood acrossa much wider plane and in a much deeper sense beyond thethreshold of their common meaning.

Truth is difficult to listen, more difficult to speak, andmost difficult to practice, yet it is simplest, purest, andclearest since it is irreducible, irrevocable and irreversible.Knowing ‘truth’ means knowing the ‘reality ’. Humans bynature are truth seekers, and they have always beeninquisitive, investigative and argumentative to probe morethan what they know, to go deeper than what they see inthemselves, others and their surroundings, and anythingelse with which they can interact through physical sensesand mental processes. Truth is the aim of a scientist; truthis the goal of judicature; and, for a saint or a prophet,truth is the name of God. But certain parameters, whichdecide the end results, should also be checked out beforearriving at the truth; and they are: credibility of an analystor experimenter, dependability of an instrument or

The Kernel Of Gandhian Management 76 Gandhian Management

well from our exercises in the pursuit of science that fear,fright and coercion also strongly interfere in the process offinding truth as they also create perturbation, distort ourperception and delude our findings. What one logicallydeduces is that for scientific management, a manager hasto manage the affairs of an organisation without ego,pride, predilection, prejudice, jealousy, hatred, coercion,fear etc., because they all reflect violence in one form orthe other.

Hence, the absence of truth and love on any pretext, and/or the presence of ‘violence’ in any form would interferewith SWOT analysis and PEST analysis, and wouldjeopardise the setting of SMART goals, while all these are,in fact, important tools of organisational management. Itis ironic that Gandhi has been often misquoted by a fewcritics as a symbol of ‘weakling’ and has been mistaken asfailed, because they measured his success with a narrowand myopic view arrested within the frame of materialgains and gratifications. What they failed to notice is theparadigm shift that Gandhi actuated in human resourcemanagement — the very basis of modern corporatemanagement.

At the Millennium World Peace summit held at the UNheadquarters, New York, in the last week of August, 2000,about 1,500 religious and spiritual leaders from 75 faithsand 92 countries assembled (as reported by media) andunequivocally affirmed the dire need to establish peace andharmony in the world. They condemned violence and

SWOT : Strength, weakness, opportunities and threats

PEST : Political, economic, social and technological environments

SMART: Specific, measurable, achievable and time-bound

The second element of the Gandhian philosophy is love,which too has varied meanings and shades in differentsocieties, and for different groups of people. One mayinstantly relate it to liking, fondness, passion, infatuation,attachment and adoration whereas, in Gandhian context,we must expand its horizon to encompass compassion,empathy, sympathy, kindness, reverence, esteem anddevotion. We need to transform our mind-set frompassion to compassion, from antipathy to empathy andfrom individuality to plurality in order to understand theexpounded meaning of love.

The third important element of his philosophy is non-violence. Which does not only mean non-killing, non-aggression or non-injury, but also being free fromprejudice, jealousy, hatred, animosity, pride and ego, sincethese elements too implicitly cause some kind of perturba-tion, a sort of violence towards one’s self or others. As aresearcher in the fields of science and management, I havealways experienced, be it with myself or my peer group,that presence of the above said elements inhibit therecognition of truth in others’ work, and create hurdles insearching for the truth within and assessing oneselftruthfully. Truth and science, hence scientific management,are closely linked to each other.

Nobel Laureate C.V. Raman2 meticulously draws asemblance between truth and science: “Science is nothingbut a research for truth. Truth not only in the physicalworld, but in the world of logic, psychology, behaviour andso on. The virtue of a truly scientific frame of mind is thereadiness to reject what is false and untrue.” We know as

2. ‘C.V. Raman: A Memoir’ by A. Jayaraman, op. cit.

The Kernel Of Gandhian Management 98 Gandhian Management

President Clinton, in a philosophical mien, exclaimed4

under oath: “It is in the hands of the Congress, and thepeople of this country, ultimately in the hands of God.”Behold, the President did not outright controvert thetruth; he did not deny his love; and he did not resort toretaliation or counter allegation (a form of violence)against his adversaries and their accomplices who chose todisrupt his career, disgrace his image and bring discord inhis family life. Only simple modesty on the part ofClinton, implying respect for all three cardinals ofGandhian philosophy, swung the public opinion poll asconducted by market research groups, in his favour,exonerating him of his misdemeanour – if it was – andendorsing his continuance in office. Even the laterimpeachment move against him failed in the U.S. Senate.

It is also worth noticing here how emphatic Henry Hyde,Chairman of the judiciary committee of the US House ofRepresentatives, had been about searching truth alone. Hetold the House in this context: “We do not make anycharges, we simply begin the search for truth.” One alsosees there an event with a strange coincidence of time andplace, when American congress took a historic decision toerect a memorial of Mahatma Gandhi in Washington D.C.,and President Clinton accorded his approval on Oct. 28,1998.

I have purposely brought in here this specific reference tothe case of Bill Clinton. Americans have always beeninterested in the philosophy and methodology of Gandhias much as Gandhi had faith in their capability tounderstand and respect human values. He5 once said; “I am

4. The Times of India, Dec., 1998.

issued vigorous statements3 on the subject ‘Towards AWorld Movement For Non-Violence’. Betty Williams, theNobel Peace Laureate from Northern Ireland, stressed inher speech that practicing non-violence is not for thefaint-hearted, as it requires exemplary courage. Ela Gandhi,granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi and member of theSouth African Congress, reiterated: “Non-violence is not apassive concept but an active one-one that demandscourage and love, not hatred.”

We don’t really know how sincerely and seriously thepeople who participated in this summit have pledged andcommitted themselves to Gandhian philosophy and topropagating the concept of peaceful co-existence on earth.But we expect that futurity shall respect, more than everbefore, the men and women who possess these attributes.Society shall always admire those who can show evenmoderate sense of respect for truth, love and non-violence.

To corroborate this conjecture, let’s recall an incident atthe White House at the turn of the century. How narrowlydid former President Bill Clinton escape the politicaldisaster during his last tenure! What factors havecontributed in bailing him out? His alleged affair withintern, Monica Lewinsky rocked the Presidential Officeand the news made headlines in all leading newspapers andmagazines. In this sensational case, the issues related totruth, love and non-violence (tolerance) were foundsurfacing very frequently and were noticed prominently inalmost all the meetings and proceedings of Prosecutionand Defence.

3. The Times of India, 31 Aug., 2000.

10 Gandhian Management

THE CARILLONS OF

SUPER LEADERSHIP

2

interested in the United States and in Americans always.There is a special bond of sympathy between us, I believe.The Americans can understand our desire for indepen-dence.’

The laws of truth are global; suppression of truth alwayscaused upheavals in public and politics, while justreverence or reconciliation with the truth very often settleddown the storm of war and the heat of destruction.Gandhi6 once said: “Politics bereft of religion is deathtrap.” Religion to him was first humanity and omnipresentGod, while God for him was another face of the truth.

5. ‘Mahatma Gandhi: Letters to Americans’, compiled and edited by

Dr E.S. Reddy, Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan, 1998, Mumbai

6. Young India, 3 April 1924.