"My patriotism is not an exclusive thing. It is all-embracing, and I should reject that patriotism which sought to mount the distress or exploitation of other nationalities." --Mahatma Gandhi

While India continues to flex it's nuclear muscles with it's second missile test in a week, the message of it's political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi appears to be falling on deaf ears. Gandhi, murdered on this day in 1948 by a Hindu extremist at the age of 79, believed in and practiced passive resistance. Gandhi's most potent message, "An eye for an eye only makes the world blind," is commonly seen at peace protests today.

Mahatma (Mahatma means great soul) Gandhi, born in Gujarat, India was married (by arrangement) by the time that he was 13. He studied law in London, England, then returned to India where he practiced it briefly, before moving to South Africa. There he started a movement for civil rights, succeeding in changing some rules before he returned to his native home where he was welcome by many fellow Indians who respected his views.

Although Gandhi practiced nonviolent rebellion, his beliefs of justice and equality landed him in jail on more than one occasion. Gandhi's famous 'Salt March' was a protest against British rule that declared Indians were not allowed to produce salt. (They could only purchase it from licensed salt factories.) In 1930, supported by thousands of protestors, Gandhi organized a twenty-four day march to the ocean where he produced salt from the sea.

In 1942 Gandhi led the 'Quit India' movement. Hindu nationalists felt that Gandhi was pro-Muslim when he tried to placate the violence that occurred during the riots between Hindus and Muslims at the time of India's Independence. Seen as a traitor, he was subsequently (largely) blamed for the partition between India and Pakistan. Gandhi, who felt that his government was not being fair towards Muslims and towards Pakistan, had intended to leave India and end his life in Pakistan, though he himself was Hindu.

Gandhi felt that poverty was the worst form of violence. He also believed that the earth provides enough to satisfy everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed. In a desperate need to follow in Gandhi's courageous footsteps, all of us must rise up and help put an end to the violence of impoverishment that plagues millions of people worldwide. This requires helping to put an end to the corporate gluttony that steals food from the bellies of starving babies, both in Afghanistan and right here in the good ole' u.s. of a, where we claim to be "proud americans" "standing united".