Was reading a book by Acharya Binova. In one of the articles in that he was describing about the novel idea that Gandhijee had called Shanti Sena (Peace Army)! There were many things which struck me while reading that article.
First of all, Gandhijee proposed of this thing as a replacement of state army and paramilitary forces. While fighting for independence, Congress promised people that the expenditure on defence forces would be reduced drastically after independence. Secondly, Gandhijee has always dreamed of a society with minimal intervention and control by the state. So he proposed this scheme of Peace Army, where the soldiers will be followers of peace and will be ready to do anything (peacefully) on the orders of the commander. And if they have to die following that order, they wont die with any remorse; rather they will die with kind compassion in their hearts!
Binova rightly termed this idea as a seed, whose time has not come. As a step towards it, he discussed let us first try to replace police force by Shanti Sena. And he went on to describe that Shanti Sena will be a Seva Sena on peaceful days, whose duty will be to serve the society. And if there is any unrest or trouble, they will go with love and compassion to control it. And to reduce state control, he even proposed that the cost of the "army" will be borne by donations from the community.
Reading it I strongly felt that this is fully realisable. Then I thought, why a veteral Gandhian like Anna Hazare is demanding for a state machinery of Lokpals? Can not we create a nonviolent morale police force? Leave alone a peace army, we seem to be unable to think of a morale army! If we can not make people stop corruption by love and compassion, then first of all how can we even think of controlling violence with love-n-compassion; and secondly there is something greatly wrong in our own national character.
Lastly, if ever it was the time for the ideas of Gandhi to come from seed to the form of a tree, now is the time; and we are the generation to make it happen!
