Tagore, Gandhi's ideas best way to counter terrorism: Prez

Terming terrorism as a serious challenge for the international community, President Pranab Mukherjee today said the ideas of truth, dialogue and non-violence espoused by Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi provide the best way forward.
"What is terrorism. What is the definition of terrorism. Terrorism has no respect for religion, border or nationalities. It believes in only one thing and that is wanton destruction. Today terrorism is a serious challenge for international community," Mukherjee said at Uppsala University here.
The President said that enduring peace can only be established on the basis of humanity's moral and intellectual solidarity as political and economic agreements will not on their own build a lasting peace.

Speaking on "Tagore and Gandhi: Do they have Contemporary Relevance for Global Peace?," Mukherjee said Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore firmly believed that world peace could never be achieved until big and powerful nations curbed their desire for territorial expansion and control over smaller nations.
The President said if Tagore was the intellectual and spiritual torch bearer of global peace, it was the Mahatma or the great soul who showed the world that Satyagraha or truth force and Ahimsa or non-violence can be marshalled to create a more just world.
"I have no hesitation in stating that the ideas of truth, openness, dialogue and non-violence espoused by Tagore and Gandhiji provide the best way forward for a world confronted with intolerance, bigotry and terrorism," he said.

Speaking from the same podium from where the Nobel laureate had addressed the gathering in 1921, Mukherjee said their values and their vision are more relevant today than any time before in a world desperately searching for permanent solutions to conflicts and tensions.

"These ideals therefore need to be propagated far and wide, especially amongst the youth," he said.
The President said that in Tagore's view, war was a consequence of aggressive western materialism that developed in the early part of the 20th century, with science divorced from spirituality.
"According to the poet, the East and the West must meet on a common ground and on terms of equal fellowship: where knowledge flows in two streams -- from the East and from the West and in their unity is perceived the oneness of truth that pervades and sustains the entire universe. As he put it pithily: It was Buddha who conquered the world, not Alexander," Mukherjee said.

He said it happens rarely in history that two seers, two persons who are capable of addressing not only their times but generations to come, work in close dialogue.
He said the simultaneous presence of Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi is a unique blessing that modern India received and we believe that this good fortune places upon us a special responsibility to involve ourselves actively in the promotion of dialogue amongst different religions, faiths, cultures and civilisations.