Nonviolence Daily

Nonviolence Daily is a thought-for-the-day from Gandhi with a short and inspiring commentary from Professor Michael Nagler from the Metta Center for Nonviolence.

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Nonviolence Daily

Day 362

October 01, 2024 • The Metta Center for Nonviolence • Season 2024 • Episode 362

0:00 | 1:37

The greatest tragedy is a hopeless unwillingness of the villagers to better their lot.

-Gandhi January 9, 1937

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To put this in perspective, it's good to realize that basically the whole of India was characterized by village life. There were something like 700,000 villages in that subcontinent. And one of the great acts of domination, of exploitation that happened not only in India has been shown to have happened in ancient Palestine, so on and so forth, is the domination of the countryside by the city, of the village by the metropolis. And that infuriated Gandhi because it was stifling the best of which human beings were capable.

We cannot relate as an individual to the whole. We need intermediary circles, as he was just pointing out. So, life in the village gives us an ideal context for realizing our unity with all of humanity and all of life.