Martin Luther King adopted Mahatma Gandhi as his guru; Nelson Mandela also acknowledges his debt to the Mahatma. In truth, the principle of satyagraha, when honestly practised, can help resolve many conflicts of today and tomorrow. It is the science of conflict resolution of the future.

In the Mahatma’s message at Transvaal may lie the lasting solution to the agonising uncertainties that have beset the globe in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York. Bush’s infamous ‘axis of evil’ will be neutralised and eradicated not by a war or victory or holocaust but by focusing on creating a world with mutual trust alongside the pursuit of military strategies to dismantle the Al-Qaeda network. A new foreign policy must be framed, one that starts from trust in others and does not end up creating new terrorists.

The writer is a senior Congress politician, former chief minister of Karnataka and head of the Oversight Committee on reservations