Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-1948), was one of the foremost spiritual and political leaders of the 1900's. The Indian people called Gandhi the Mahatma (Great Soul). He helped to free India from British control by a unique method of nonviolent resistance, and is honoured by Indians as the father of their nation. Gandhi was slight in build but had almost limitless physical and moral strength. He was assassinated by an Indian who resented Gandhi's programme of tolerance for all creeds and religions. The great scientist Albert Einstein said of Gandhi: "Generations to come will scarcely believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood."
Gandhi's belief: Gandhi's life was guided by a search for truth. He called his autobiography The Story of My Experiment with Truth. Gandhi said that truth was God, and his aim in life was to achieve truthfulness in thought, word, and deed. Ahimsa (nonviolence) was to him the highest virtue. By nonviolence, Gandhi meant not merely the absence of violence, but also loving concern for all life. He believed that truth could be known only through tolerance and concern for others, and that finding a truthful way to solutions required constant testing. He taught that to be nonviolent required great courage. Gandhi overcame fear in him self and showed others how to overcome fear. He lived a simple life and thought it was wrong to kill animals for food or for clothing.
Gandhi developed a method of direct social action based upon principles of courage, nonviolence, and truth, which he called satyagraha (truth-force). In this method, the way people behave is more important than what they achieve. Satyagraha was used to fight for India's independence and to bring about social change. Where the method was used against British rule, it gave rise to what was called civil disobedience. Gandhi and his supporters used satyagraha to fight for India's independence, and to bring about social change.
A successful campaign of satyagraha involves five basic stages. First, there must be some perception of injustice. Examples of such injustice include a landlord charging excessive rent, and the treatment of people belonging to the caste (social class) known as the untouchables. Other examples include discrimination against minorities, and British rule in India.
The second stage requires the necessity of a proper response. The victim of injustice usually accepts the situation out of fear or else resorts to violence. Gandhi claimed that both these responses were wrong. A satyagrahi (one who practises satyagraha) fights injustice nonviolently and with courage.
The third stage involves choosing the field of action. The victim must decide how to highlight the injustice. Often the victim chooses deliberate, nonviolent defiance of the unjust law and is prepared to suffer the consequences.
The fourth stage covers conduct in a campaign of satyagraha. The satyagrahi aims at winning over an opponent through love and self-sacrifice. The satyagrahi must never exploit an opponent's weakness. During World War II (1939-1945), in India, Gandhi suspended his civil disobedience campaign from Dec. 12, 1940, to Jan. 4, 1941, so that British officials could enjoy their Christmas holiday without being called out to make arrests.
The fifth and final stage is the resolution of the conflict. A satyagrahi tries to see an opponent's point of view, and a satyagraha is claimed to be successful only when both sides feel that they are winners.
Satyagraha, this new, unique method of solving conflicts, was Gandhi's greatest legacy to mankind. His method proved itself when India gained independence from the British, leaving little lingering sense of bitterness. This method has since been used in many other parts of the world. It was highly successful in Martin Luther King's struggle against racial discrimination in the United States. Today, many groups of activists, involved in causes such as nuclear disarmament, animal rights, and environmental protection, use these Gandhian methods to good effect.
Gandhi's early life. Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India. His parents belonged to a Vaisya (merchant) caste of Hindus. Young Gandhi grew up in an atmosphere of religious tolerance and the acceptance of the teachings of various Hindu sects, as well as Jainism. He was a shy, serious boy. Even as a child he resisted the temptation to lie or cheat. When he was 13 years old, he married Kasturba, a girl of the same age. Their parents had arranged the marriage according to custom. The Gandhis had four children.
At the age of 19, Gandhi travelled to England to study law. In London, he began to develop his philosophy of life. He remained a vegetarian under difficult circumstances, and studied the great Indian religious classic, the Bhagavad-Gita. He also turned to the New Testament of the Bible and to the teachings of the Buddha.
In 1891, Gandhi returned to India to practise law, but met with little success. In 1893, Gandhi went to South Africa to do some legal work. South Africa was then under British control. Almost immediately, he was abused because he was an Indian who claimed his rights as a British subject. He saw that all Indians suffered from discrimination. His law assignment was for one year, but he stayed in South Africa for 21 years to work for Indian rights.
Gandhi led many campaigns for Indian rights in South Africa and edited a newspaper, Indian Opinion. As a part of satyagraha, he promoted civil disobedience campaigns and organized a strike among Indian miners. He was arrested many times by the British, but his efforts brought important reforms. Gandhi also worked for the British when he felt justice was on their side. He was decorated by them for medical work in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 and the Zulu Rebellion (1906).
Gandhi fully developed his philosophy of life in South Africa. He was greatly influenced by Leo Tolstoy's essay, "The Kingdom of God Is Within You," and John Ruskin's book Unto This Last. But the greatest influence on him was the Bhagavad-Gita, which became an unfailing source of inspiration. Gandhi believed that all life was a part of one ultimate spiritual reality. The supreme goal was self-realization, the realization that one's true self was identical with ultimate reality. He believed that all religions contain some elements of truth, and this accounted for his own religious tolerance. For him, the best guide to self-realization was the Gita. The Gita advocates action without desire. Such action leads to non-possession and equability (even-temperedness)--two virtues practised by Gandhi with increasing zeal throughout his life.
Gandhi experimented with communal living at the Phoenix Farm and the Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, and later at Sabarmati Ashram, in India. There he practised voluntary simplicity, a way of life designed to offer an alternative to the increasingly competitive, stressful, and violent atmosphere of Western civilization. Voluntary simplicity means reducing material wants to a minimum and reaping spiritual rewards instead; emphasizing service; and practicing manual labour. Gandhi himself served as teacher, cook, nurse, and even scavenger. As a social reformer, he fought for the emancipation of women, the removal of the tradition of Untouchability (low caste or class status), and for Hindu-Muslim unity.
In his social philosophy, Gandhi replaced the Marxist emphasis on class struggle with the theory of trusteeship. Landowners were to see themselves as trustees, honour-bound to use their property for the benefit of society. In this way, class struggle would yield to sarvodaya (welfare of all). In politics, Gandhi taught that everybody should take part in a democratic system having its roots in villages or neighbourhoods. In his speech and writing he used everyday language that was simple to understand.
Gandhi's independence campaigns. In 1914, Gandhi returned to India. Within five years, he became the leader of the Indian nationalist movement.
In 1919, the British imperial government introduced the Rowlatt bills to make it unlawful to organize opposition to the government. Gandhi led a satyagraha campaign that succeeded in preventing passage of one of these bills. The other was never enforced. Gandhi called off the campaign when riots broke out. He then fasted to impress the people with the need to be nonviolent. His belief in the cruelty of imperial rule became more intense after the Amritsar Massacre of April 13, 1919. A British general ordered his men to fire on an unarmed crowd, and almost 400 Indians were killed. This made Gandhi even more determined to develop satyagraha and to win independence through nonviolent resistance.
Gandhi began a programme of hand spinning and weaving about 1920. He believed that the programme helped the fight for independence in three ways: (1) it aided economic freedom by making India self-sufficient in cloth; (2) it promoted social freedom through the dignity of labor; and (3) it advanced political freedom by challenging the British textile industry and by encouraging mass participation in the Indian movement for self-government.
In 1930, Gandhi led hundreds of followers on a 386-kilometre march to the sea, where they made salt from seawater. This was a protest against the Salt Acts, which made it a crime to possess salt not bought from the government.
During World War II (1939-1945), Gandhi continued his struggle for India's freedom through nonviolent disobedience to British rule. He was jailed for the last time in 1942. Altogether, he spent seven years in prison for political activity. He believed that it is honourable to go to jail for a good cause.
Freedom and death. The United Kingdom granted India freedom in 1947. But Gandhi did not take part in the Independence Day celebrations. The partition of India into the two nations of India and Pakistan grieved Gandhi. He was also saddened by the violent rioting between Hindus and Muslims that accompanied the partition. He had worked for a united country and had urged that Hindus and Muslims should live together in peace.
On Jan. 13, 1948, at the age of 78, Gandhi began his last fast. His purpose was to end the bloodshed among Hindu, Muslim, and other groups. On 18 January, their leaders pledged to stop fighting and Gandhi broke his fast. Twelve days later, in New Delhi, while on his way to a prayer meeting, Gandhi was assassinated. Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic, who opposed Gandhi's programme of tolerance for all creeds and religions, shot him three times. A shocked India and a saddened world mourned Gandhi's death.
Gandhi was loved and admired by millions throughout the world because he lived his ideals in an age of cynicism. He insisted on honorable means instead of the principle of the end justifying the means, lived a simple life in a world of mounting complexity, and practiced nonviolence in a world of escalating violence.
