Read the following
passage and answer the questions:
Gandhi's overall social
and environmental philosophy is based on what human beings need rather than
what they want. His early introduction to the teachings of Jains, Theosophists,
Christian sermons, Ruskin and Tolstoy, and most significantly the Bhagavad Gita,
were to have profound impact on the development of Gandhi's holistic thinking
on humanity, nature and their ecological interrelation. His deep concern for
the disadvantaged, the poor and rural population created an ambience for an
alternative social thinking that was at once far-sighted, local and immediate.
For Gandhi was acutely aware that the demands generated by the need to feed and
sustain human life, compounded by the growing industrialization of India, far
outstripped the finite resources of nature. This might nowadays appear naive or
commonplace, but such pronouncements were as rare as they were heretical a
century ago. Gandhi was also concerned about the destruction, under colonial
and modernist designs, of the existing infrastructures which had more potential
for keeping a community flourishing within ecologically-sensitive traditional
patterns of subsistence, especially in the rural areas, than did the incoming
Western alternatives based on nature-blind technology and the enslavement of
human spirit and energies.
Perhaps the moral
principle for which Gandhi is best known is that of active non-violence,
derived from the traditional moral restraint of not injuring another being. The
most refined expression of this value is in the great epic of the Mahabharata,
(c. 100 BCE to 200 CE), where moral development proceeds through placing
constraints on the liberties, desires and acquisitiveness endemic to human
life. One's action is judged in terms of
consequences and the impact it is likely to have on another. Jainas had
generalized this principle to include all sentient creatures and biocommunities
alike. Advanced Jaina monks and nuns will sweep their path to avoid harming
insects and even bacteria. Non-injury is a non-negotiable universal
prescription.
1. Which one of the
following have a profound impact on the development of Gandhi's holistic
thinking on humanity, nature and their ecological interrelations?
(A) Jain teachings
(B) Christian sermons
(C) Bhagavad Gita
(D) Ruskin and Tolstoy
2. Gandhi's
overall social and environmental philosophy is based on human beings’:
(A) need
(B) desire
(C) wealth
(D) welfare
3. Gandhiji's deep
concern for the disadvantaged, the poor and rural population created an
ambience for an alternative:
(A) rural policy
(B) social thinking
(C) urban policy
(D) economic thinking
4. Colonial policy and
modernisation led to the destruction of:
(A) major industrial
infrastructure
(B) irrigation infrastructure
(C) urban infrastructure
(D) rural infrastructure
5. Gandhi's active
non-violence is derived from:
(A) Moral restraint of
not injuring another being
(B) Having liberties,
desires and acquisitiveness
(C) Freedom of action
(D) Nature-blind
technology and enslavement of human spirit and energies
0 Comments
Post a Comment