On 11th September 2006 India celebrated 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha Movement, of India Freedom Struggle. If
we look back in history, Mahatama Gandhi launched the modern non-violent resistance movement. Gandhi called it "Satyagraha”, in South Africa.
Birth of Satyagraha
On 11 September, Gandhi chaired a meeting of more than 3 000 there. The town's Indians were protesting against the Transvaal Asiatic Law Amendment
Ordinance, says Eric Itzkin in Gandhi's Johannesburg, birthplace of Satyagraha.
The ordinance required all Asians to obey three rules, those of eight years or older had to carry passes for which they had to give their fingerprints; they would be segregated as to where they could live and work; new Asian immigration into the Transvaal would be disallowed, even for those who had left the town when the South African War broke out in 1899 and were returning. The meeting produced the Fourth Resolution, in which all Indians resolved to go to prison rather than submit to the ordinance. "My people were excited - even a worm can and does turn - and there was talk of wreaking vengeance. I had then to choose between allying myself to violence or finding out some other method of meeting the crisis and stopping the rot, and it came to me that we should refuse to obey legislation that was degrading and let them put us in jail if they liked. Thus came into being the moral equivalent of war."
Passive Resistance
Despite Satyagraha, the ordinance became law in 1907, and passive resistance was used by the Transvaal's Indians to oppose discrimination.
TODAY
This day has brought forth some shocking facts. It says that today there are 2 bullets per person in the world - enough to kill us all, twice over. There is no dearth of
weapons on the earth. There is a weapon for every 10 people. India needs to be more concerned for proliferation of small arms like the US. U.P. alone has more illicit weapons than licensed ones in Britain. Some statistics tells us how severe the threat is:
v Every minute a person is killed by illegal use of small weapons.
v 639m illegal small weapons in the world
v 80-90% of illegal arms trade starts off legally but becomes illegal due to various loopholes
v 60% of small weapons globally are with civilians
v Over 6000 killed every year in India by illegal weapons
Compare the 2 dates. It’s shocking to read the facts of the 2 great days in the history of mankind. Satyagraha propagated non-violence and after 100 years there is a bullet for every person in India, by illegal weapons.
India should act for proliferation treaty for small weapons, immediately. Such days must ignite the hidden fires in our leaders and make them think, ‘Are We fulfilling our duties as Leaders to Our Masses’.