Mahatma Gandhi's Thoughts Make Debut in China

Gandhian philosophy is relevant to China as it is experiencing too much of consumerism after a rapid economic growth bringing in deleterious social effects, Nazareth said.

"It is everyone's interest to know what might be antidote for this. You can have very shining smart cities but if you have distress in the countryside," he said, highlighting the problems faced by India in dealing with Naxal attacks.

"In China's context, most well established regimes are brought down by peasant uprisings. So therefore to keep track the deleterious impact of the rapid economic growth, this is where Gandhi's philosophy is relevant," he said.

Also Gandhi emphasised truth which is missing in all the countries today with "spin-masters at work, to make untruth the truth", he said.

"All the countries are suffering as dishonesty has become rampant. I do not know about China. Gandhi is the only modern leader who has spoken about the importance of sticking to the truth," he said.

In a meeting attended by a number of students specializing in Indian studies, Nazareth also dealt with the contradictions between Mao's power flows through the gun philosophy and that of Gandhi's non-violence.

Citing problems faced by U.S. in putting down Taliban in Afghanistan despite over a decade's war, he said "when people are not afraid to die there is no way you can defeat them. So power does not grow out of the barrel of gun.

The forces of the soul are much more powerful than what comes out of the barrel of the gun. The world history in the last 50 years has shown that," he said.

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