By IANS,
New Delhi : Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi Saturday strongly advised against labelling all Pakistanis as terrorists and shared his three-point mantra for India to become a world power, one of which was that people in the country should stop stereotyping on the basis of religion.
“India is a country of so many rich people. But there are also immense exceedingly poor people in India. And for the country to really emerge as a world economic power, of which India is capable, I have three points to share,” Rajmohan Gandhi said.
The Mahatma’s grandson was speaking at a lecture organised on the 50th death anniversary of Gandhi’s close aide J.C. Kumarappa, who died at Jan 30, 1960. Jan 30 is also observed as Martyrs’ Day to remember Mahatma Gandhi who was assassinated on that day in 1948.
Rajmohan Gandhi’s three points for India to become a world power are – “India should stop worshipping greed, India should give up the idea of high and low and India should say no to stereotyping (on the basis of religion)”.
Elaborating, he said the wealth of natural resources should be made available to locals “who deserve it”. He was referring to the unrest in India’s resource-rich tribal dominated central India where people are opposing the government’s move to give mining projects to private companies.
“It (resources) should not be given to some, making them richer and dislocating locals. This is being greedy.”
Speaking against stereotyping, he said some people are being considered high and “some worthy of contempt”. “This should stop,” he emphasised.
“No stereotyping please. No generalizing. No divisions of people because of who they are or on the basis of their caste, colour and religion,” Rajmohan Gandhi said in his 10-minute speech.
“Look there is no doubt that Pakistan has terrorists and the state is supporting some groups. But every Pakistani is not a terrorist and every Pakistani has not to prove he or she is not a terrorist,” he said.
The lecture was organised by Tamil daily Dinamani, a unit of the New Indian Express group.