Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

• Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world

• Gandhi is commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi

• He is known in India as the Father of the Nation

• Born and raised in a Hindu Bania community in coastal Gujarat, and trained in law at the Inner Temple in London, Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights

Early life and background

• His grandfather was Uttamchand Gandhi, also called Utta Gandhi

• Jain ideas and practices influenced Gandhi particularly through his mother who was a devout Jain

• The Indian classics, especially the stories of Shravana and king Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood

• The couple's first child was born ,but survived only a few days

• Gandhi's father, Karamchand Gandhi, had also died earlier that year

English barrister

• Gandhi traveled to London ,England

• His time in London was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother upon leaving India

• Gandhi tried to adopt English customs ,including taking dancing lessons for example

• Influenced by Henry Salt's writing was elected to its executive committee

Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893 1914)

• Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa

• Indians in South Africa were led by wealthy Muslims

• Gandhi considered them all to be Indians

• He realized he was out of contact with the enormous complexities of religious and cultural life in India

Non-cooperation

• Gandhi criticised both the actions of the British Raj and the retaliatory violence of Indians

• Gandhi expanded his non-violence platform to include the swadeshi policy the boycott of foreign-made goods

• Gandhi exhorted Indian men and women ,rich or poor

Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)

• Gandhi stayed out of active politics

• He focused instead on resolving the wedge between the Swaraj Party and the Indian National Congress

• Gandhi pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominion status or face a new campaign of non-cooperation with complete independence for the country as its goal

Negotiations

• The conference was a disappointment to Gandhi and the nationalists

• This was the start of a new campaign by Gandhi to improve the lives of the untouchables

• Gandhi wanted to avoid being a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj

• Gandhi returned to active politics again in 1936

• He did not restrain the Congress from adopting socialism as its goal

Quit India

• Gandhi favored offering non-violent moral support to the British effort when World War II broke out in 1939

• This was Gandhi 'sand the Congress Party 'smost definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from India

• Gandhi and his supporters made it clear they would not support the war effort unless India were granted immediate independence

Partition and independence, 1947

• Gandhi was opposed to the concept of partition as it contradicted his vision of religious unity

• The Muslim League passed a resolution for them to divide and quit

• Gandhi suggested an agreement which required the Congress and Muslim League to cooperate and attain independence under a provisional government

• Gandhi was infuriated and visited the most riot prone areas to stop the massacres

Assassination

• The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu nationalist with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha

• Gandhi's memorial Gh t, New Delhi, bears the epigraph H Ram ,

• These are widely believed to be Gandhi 'slast words

• Jawaharlal Nehru'saddress to Gandhi

Influences

• Historian R.B. Cribb argues that Gandhi 'sthought evolved over time

• He grew up in an eclectic religious atmosphere and throughout his life searched for insights from many religious traditions

• Themes from Jainism that Gandhi absorbed included asceticism

Truth and Satyagraha

• Gandhi dedicated his life to the wider purpose of discovering truth

• Bruce Watson argues that Gandhi based Satyagraha on the Vedantic ideal of self-realization

• Gandhi borrowed Christian-Islamic ideas of equality ,the brotherhood of man

• Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons

Nonviolence

• He was the first to apply it in the political field on a large scale

• Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth

• Gandhi realized later that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage

• Gandhi came under some political fire for his criticism of those who attempted to achieve independence through more violent means

Intervention in Palestine

• One of Gandhi major strategies first in South Africa and then in India was uniting Muslims and Hindus to work together in opposition to British imperialism

• All major political groups in India opposed a Jewish state in Palestine

• This led to discussions concerning the persecution of the Jews in Germany and the emigration of Jews from Europe to Palestine

• He did not ,however

• Gandhi thought the Zionists in Palestine represented European imperialism and used violence to achieve its goals

• Philosopher Martin Buber was extremely critical of Gandhi 'sapproach and in 1939 wrote an open letter to him on the subject

Vegetarianism and fasting

• Stephen Hay argues that Gandhi in London looked into numerous religious and intellectual currents

• Gandhi was close to the chairman of the London Vegetarian Society

• Gandhi became a strict vegetarian

• Gandhi used fasting as a political device

• Gandhi noted in his autobiography that vegetarianism was the beginning of his deep commitment to Brahmacharya

• His final fast in 1948, after India was independent, was lauded by the British press

• Alter argues that Gandhi 'sfixation on diet and celibacy were much deeper than exercises in self-discipline

Swaraj, Self-Rule

• Rudolph argues that after a false start in trying to emulate the English in an attempt to overcome his timidity

• Gandhi was a self-described philosophical anarchist

• Gandhi believed that society should be the exact opposite

• His idea was that true self-rule in a country means that every person rules his or herself and that there is no state which enforces laws upon the people

• He responded saying ,in my experience

• Tewari argues that Gandhi saw democracy as more than a system of government

• Democracy was a way of life

Literary works

• Gandhi was a prolific writer

• The book was translated into English the next year

• He edited several newspapers including Harijan in Gujarati

• Gandhi wrote several books including his autobiography

• His other autobiographies included : Satyagraha in South Africa about his struggle there

• He wrote extensively on vegetarianism ,diet and health ,religion ,social reforms

Followers and international influence

• Leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States, including Martin Luther King and James Lawson, drew from the writings of Gandhi in the development of their own theories about non-violence

• The former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was a follower of the non-violent resistance philosophy of Gandhi

• Bhana and Vahed commented on these events as Gandhi inspired succeeding generations of South African activists seeking to end White rule

• Lanza del Vasto went to India in 1936 intending to live with Gandhi

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