Mahatma Gandhi: Father Of The Nation
Thinker, statesman and nationalist leader, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi not only
led his own country to independence but also influenced political activists of
many persuasions throughout the world with his methods and philosophy of
nonviolent confrontation, or civil disobedience.
Born in Porbandar in Gujarat on October 2, 1869, his actions inspired the great
Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore to call him "Mahatma" ("great soul"). For him,
the universe was regulated by a Supreme Intelligence or Principle, which he
preferred to call satya (Truth) and, as a concession to convention, God.
Since all human beings partook of the divine essence, they were "ultimately
one". They were not merely equal but "identical". As such, love was the only
proper form of relation between them; it was "the law of our being", of "our
species". Positively, love implied care and concern for others and total
dedication to the cause of "wiping away every tear from every eye." Negatively
it implied ahimsa or 'non violence'. Gandhi's entire social and political
thought, including his theory of Satyagraha, was an attempt to work out the
implications of the principle of love in all areas of life.Gandhi himself felt
that he was most influenced by his mother whose life was an "endless chain of
fasts and vows" as a devout adherent of Jainism, a religion in which ideas of
nonviolence and vegetarianism are paramount.
Married by arrangement at 13, Gandhi went to London to study law when he was
18. He was admitted to the bar in 1891 and for a while practiced law in Bombay.
From 1893 to 1914 he worked for an Indian firm in South Africa. During these
years Gandhi's humiliating experiences of overt racial discrimination propelled
him into agitation on behalf of the Indian community of South Africa. He
assumed leadership of protest campaigns and gradually developed his techniques
and tenets of nonviolent resistance known as Satyagraha (literally,
"steadfastness in truth").
Returning to India in January 1915, Gandhi soon became involved in labor
organizing. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre of Amritsar (1919), in which troops
fired on and killed hundreds of nationalist demonstrators, turned him to direct
political protest. Within a year he was the dominant figure in the Indian
National Congress, which he launched on a policy of noncooperation with the
British in 1920-22. Although total noncooperation was abandoned, Gandhi
continued civil disobedience, organizing protest marches against unpopular
British measures, such as the salt tax (1930), and boycotts of British goods.
Gandhi was repeatedly imprisoned by the British and resorted to hunger strikes
as part of his civil disobedience. His final imprisonment came in 1942-44,
after he had demanded total withdrawal of the British (the "Quit India"
movement) during World War II.
Gandhi also fought to improve the status of the lowest classes of society, the
'Untouchables', whom he called harijans ("children of God"). He believed in
manual labor and simple living; he spun thread and wove cloth for his own
garments and insisted that his followers do so, too. He disagreed with those
who wanted India to industrialize.
Gandhi was also tireless in trying to forge closer bonds between the Hindu
majority and the numerous minorities of India, particularly the Muslims. His
greatest failure, in fact, was his inability to dissuade Indian Muslims, led by
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, from creating a separate state, Pakistan. When India
gained independence in 1947, after negotiations in which he was a principal
participant, Gandhi opposed the partition of the subcontinent with such
intensity that he launched a mass movement against it. Ironically, he was
assassinated in Delhi on January 30, 1948, by a Hindu fanatic who mistakenly
thought Gandhi's anti-partition sentiment were both pro-Muslim and
pro-Pakistan.
Gandhi's intellectual influence on Indians has been considerable. Some were
attracted by his emphasis on political and economic decentralisation, others by
his insistence on individual freedom, moral integrity, unity of means and ends,
and social service; still others by his satyagraha and political activism. For
some students of India, Gandhi's influence is responsible for its failure to
throw up any genuinely radical political movement. For others, it cultivated a
spirit of non-violence, encouraged the habits of collective self-help, and
helped lay the foundations of a stable, morally committed and democratic
government. Gandhi's ideas have also had a profound influence outside India,
where they inspired non-violent activism and movements in favour of
small-scale, self-sufficient communities living closer to nature and with
greater sensitivity to their environment. Prominent among these are Martin
Luther King in the United States and, more recently Nelson Mandela in South
Africa.
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