As we enter the 150 birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, how relevant is he and his teachings in the contemporary India are points to ponder. Gandhiji’s memory is not limited to the currency notes Reserve Bank of India prints or the annual birthday celebrations on October 2 or his death anniversary on January 30 or in the numerous roads, institutions and government schemes. His teachings on Ahimsa (Non-violence) is still discussed among world leaders at a time when the globe is torn between violent activities and terrorism and other fissiparous tendencies and also at a time when extremism is on the rise and so are the number of hate crimes against India’s minorities and depressed classes, Gandhi’s ideas are more relevant than ever. In ‘a polarised nation and a violent world,’Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi continues to be such a figure of inspiration across the globe even after nearly seven decades of his assassination.

Mahatma Gandhi often spoke about how his life was altered by a single book — John Ruskin's 'Unto This Last'. It was this book that reaffirmed Gandhi's intuitive feeling that true civilisation is not the ability to build elaborate structures or design complex technology. True civilisation, for Gandhi, is that which enables human beings to tap the higher faculties of love, compassion and brotherhood. And these qualities depend not so much on knowledge stored in books but in how the living practice of these values manifests itself generation after generation.

After nominating Jawaharlal Nehru as his political heir, two years before his assassination, he wrote a letter to him. It encapsulates his views about true India. “If India is to attain true freedom, sooner or later the fact must be recognized that people will live in villages, not in towns, in huts not in palaces. My ideal village will contain human beings…men and women will be free and able to hold their own against anyone in the world, " he wrote. This is relevant even today.