An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide: Resolving Greivances With Ahimsa

About eight years ago, the Bureau of US Immigration had posted on its website the last date to apply for B-1 Visa, to be August 31st of that year. Many Indian professionals who were in the US on temporary work visas were planning to apply before that last date. All of a sudden, these professionals noticed on the Bureau’s website that the director of that organization moved the date for application up by two months - now June 30th - and as a result many applicants got caught off guard. They were in a desperate situation as to what to do, because the last date had already passed.

Some applicants wrote emails to the Director of the Bureau to reconsider her decision, but she would not budge. Now all of these applicants, instead of shouting slogans outside her office, sending nasty emails, and all such things, decided on a very novel and Gandhian idea for conflict resolution. They all decided, via email, that each and every one of them should send  - on one given day  - a floral bouquet via FTD to the office of this Director of Immigration.

The very next morning, the FTD vans started pulling up in front of the Directorate and started unloading and delivering floral bouquet after bouquet. Before the day was over, nearly 30,000 bouquets were delivered to the office of the Director. This became a big scene as the hundreds of FTD vans were coming and going all day long and delivering flower bouquets.

Very soon, there was no room for all of flowers. The national news media picked up this sweet and amusing story and broadcasted it on television all day long. The Director very quickly realized her mistake, relented, and changed the application date again to August 31st. Since there was no room to house all these bouquets, the Director decided to donate all of them to the Walter Reed Army Hospital where wounded soldiers from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were being treated. They too were very pleased with the flowers.

All was resolved very amicably and peacefully, all the applicants got lots of free and positive publicity, soldiers got flowers and everyone was a winner. One can see here that there are always many non-violent ways of resolving conflicts. I wish we would pay more attention to such means and avoid unnecessary and protracted fights.