Read this:
http://lalljessica.blogspot.com/

I fail to get the import of your post. Are you suggesting that the circumstances that prevailes between the 1920’s and 40’s no longer prevail and hence we must not attempt Gandhigiri any more?

“Who polices the police, who educates the educationists, who watches the watchdog, who makes law for the lawmakers etc or to sum up “Who keeps the keeper?”

I understand your distress, buy I wish to point out that things as bad when Gandhi attempted Satyagraha. A govt. that was committed to governing the people of India was oppressing, nay looting the people of India.

I do not claim his philosophy to be perfectly correct. Or effective. It was never very effective.

I suppose I understand you wrongly, but you seem to suggest that Gandhigiri be applied selectively. I respect your point, but it would look like duplicity to me.

Criticise Gandhi, by all means, but please offer one whole substitute that we can apply uniformly.

Many have commented “what can one person following Ghandi do?”

I have two replies to this: first of all, if you do right, you will have done what is right, no matter what the other person does. The other person has power to hurt you, but not to take away your character.

Second: Ghandi was an educated man, he wasn’t just a man who followed non-violence, but also a genius who knew the system and the problems with the system. To have success following Ghandi, you can’t just follow non-violence; you must make yourself better in all ways, smarter, more able to challenge the system successfully, as he did.

We do have corruption in America – for example, a small town near me tried to charge people “off the record” money for speeding tickets in return for not putting the ticket on their driving history. However, in that case, outraged citizens reported to the state government, the town was ordered to stop doing that, the individual policemen were punished, and the money was restored. It does make a big difference when every person is outraged by unfair treatment and speaks up. Sometimes it seems like too much trouble to speak up over a small thing, but allowing small things to pass (like the driver asking for extra money) leads to a culture where larger matters are also allowed to pass. So speak up when you are treated unfairly!

I hope my comments don’t seem too ignorant, since I know so little about India. Thank you for the links, so that I can learn more.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

A very nice article and couldn’t have agreed with you more. Somewhere in your blog I also read the statistics about how many believe in Gandhigiri. In my review of the book Freakonomics, I spoke about Malthus’s essays on population which seems to be related to this (if you want to bring economics into it). If you look at the broad picture, it’s all a big and seemingly unbreakable (under usual circumstances) viscious cycle. Thanks for viewing my blog.

I had added you in my blogroll so it will be easier for me to jump on your blog. Yeah thanks alot for dropping your thoughts on my blog really appreciate it. Buddy now update your blog:))

One thing though. That ‘practically everybody cheats’ (or ‘what will a truly invisible person do’ types) statement is a hotly contested one. Did you read Freakonomics?