My response to the question of borders

Essay by khaitan_sunilA-, November 2004

download word file, 3 pages 4.3

Downloaded 21 times

A SEASON OUTSIDE

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.

-         Mahatma Gandhi                ÂÂ

'A Season Outside' looks at the concept of non-violence through the prism of the story of the Indian Partition and the Tibetan Freedom Struggle. On one hand we have a country where Lord Buddha enunciated the very doctrine of non violence and which unambiguously had the greatest proponent of non violence ever but which itself has forgotten the nuances of the ideology while on the other hand we have a country which has been forcefully occupied by a foreign invader and yet chooses to demonstrate its opposition through non violence .

'A Season Outside' is a journey in introspection and soul searching which looks at a country that was and the countries that are. It looks at the significance of non violence in the modern context and seeks to find its applicability, understanding it as a philosophy and as a way of life.

'A moment comes which comes but rarely in history, when we step from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance'

The aforementioned words from the famous 'Tryst with Destiny'speech of Pt. J L Nehru encompass the intense joy, the ecstasy that freedom was and yet this transition from the old to the new was not without its pound of flesh as the Muslim League on June9,1947 had accepted a proposal by Great Britain on the division of India along caste lines. And the rift created by the division is visible still today and if anything it ahs deepened many miles since.

Violence takes many manifestations and one such is the ritualistic...