Call for "Ahimsa Day", International Day of Non-Violence, on January 30th

Call for "Ahimsa Day", International Day of Non-Violence, on January 30th

In a world torn asunder by battles for wealth, power, glory and revenge, a gentle voice was raised early this year, asking for the madness to stop. Their heads in the clouds, young children from various lands -- who were at the International School of Paris but could have been elsewhere -- may indeed have had their feet firmly on the ground.

With childlike faith in the sanity of most human minds, they resolved to send a call to women, children and men across the world to suffer no longer through the catastrophes wrought upon them by those waging the deathly battles. Flying in the face of 'reality', they began imagining ways in which life on earth could be made more beautiful.

Working on Attenborough's film "Gandhi" in a language class, girls and boys from different countries set about talking sense in hesitant English. Not the first, nor last, to wish or work for a better world, they did come up with an interesting idea.

First of all, they felt, everyone needed to take a day off. To stop and think over whether the grown men who run the affairs of the world really understand what they are doing. To each other, to their own humanity, and to the earth, air and water that nurture life. The word that best seemed to describe what we are doing was "violence", himsa, in its many forms. Violence for the domination and superiority of this or that group, supposedly held together by essential ties of religion, or culture, over some other group. Violence to grab in greed what is everyman's need and could be shared in peace. Violence even for the control of what is unnecessary -- what we could do without, at least until all in the human family are properly fed, clothed, sheltered and cared for.

The students noticed thousands of young and old, uninvited by governments, streaming into Paris for the European Social Forum, drawn by a similar hard-nosed utopia -- "A better world is possible!". Learning of the World Social Forum coming up in Bombay in January 2004, they proposed January 30th as the special day for introspection, hoping that weightier voices would take up the cause in Bombay.

January 30th, because it is the day of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination by a man moved by puny ambitions. Ambitions of power and glory of a single "proud nation" for which Gandhi, who believed that all humanity was one family, had to die.

The children were brimming with ideas. Stop all wars at least for a day. Use arms budgets to provide drinking water. Use no money (the best things in life are free). Don't touch a car on that day (the need for oil leads to war). Reclaim the streets -- get to know your neighbors. A No-Logo day, no branded clothes or shoes. And so forth. To each his or her gesture, no matter how small, in all conscience.

Indeed, the best way to improve the world may be to improve oneself, rather than tell others how to live. None of us may have found the Truth, the correct Path. Perhaps the biggest Mahabharata, the hardest epic battle of all, is the battle against anger within ourselves.

It was Shirin Ebadi of Iran (Nobel 2003) who, grasping the significance of the children's call, spoke to young girls in the most modest of schools in Bombay, about non-violence (a-him-sa, "absence of the desire to hurt"). She spoke about the human family, of movements of national or religious pride leading to war and murder. She said that on January 30th, she would pray for peace in the world. The Indian girls promised to do the same. In Paris, on January 30th 2004, groups of children and teachers, unconcerned about official approval, observed their first Ahimsa day at school, and accross the river under the Eiffel tower.

Could we heed the message of the children in Paris and Bombay ? On January 30th, let each of us, wherever birth or fate has put us on our planet, stop in our routines and scrambles, and do some things differently. Let us remind governments, 'experts' and armies that they are only entitled to act in our name, for the common good. What sets us apart from the other creatures of the world is our power of imagination. Let us use it, in our classrooms, workplaces, homes and neighborhoods, so that on Ahimsa Day, improving ourselves, we could make the world a better place.