Introduction:
Why is Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi a Mahathma? Under the sky, very few have been very honest
when the blunder is in his or her side. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is a unique
person who was ready to admit whatever the blunders he has done in his life. He
is a man with the qualities of honesty, modesty, and humanity as he has been
fed with those personas from his childhood by his mother and housemaid. A small
incident shows his great quality.
Gandhi has been
taken by his friends for smoking and eating meat without the knowledge of his
family. Gandhi has broken his elder brother’s bracelet and sold it for his
overheads. After observing the street play “Harichandra katha” with his mother,
he has realized that the truth deserved to be spoken always. So, realizing all
his flaws, he wrote down a letter to his father saying that he had stolen and
sold his elder brother’s bracelet and also once he had eaten mutton with his
friends without the knowledge of his family. On seeing that letter, his
bedridden father shed tears so as Gandhi. His father felt really very proud of
his son for being so ingenuous. His tear was not for Gandhi’s erroneous
activities but for his unadulterated honest quality. Later, he has written the
book “The story of my experience with truth” that bears out his integrity. He
is really an incomparable person, who has accomplished incredible achievements
in his political life with the mightiest weapons of truth and non-violence.
M. K. Gandhi:
The one-man
army, the initiator of non-violence, Mr. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on
October 2, 1869 at Porbandar in western India. His father, Karamchand Gandhi,
was a Dewan or Prime Minister of Porbandar. His mother, Putlibai, was a very
religious lady and left a deep impression on Gandhiji's mind. At the age of 13,
the little schoolboy Mohandas was married to a girl of his own age. After some
local education, Gandhi decided to go to England to study law. He gained his
mother's permission by promising to renounce from wine, women, and meat, but he
defied his caste's regulations, which prohibited travel to England. There he
joined the Inner “Temple law college” in
London.
Gandhi's Experiments in South Africa:
By the time
Gandhi returned back to India in 1891, his mother passed away. Since he was
hesitant and introverted, he was not that successful in his profession. So he acquired
the opportunity of representing an Indian firm in Natal, South Africa for a year.
In South Africa, he faced brutal incidents by white people against black
people. That was the black and white segregation which woken Gandhi up from his
shyness and coyness. He was literally thrown away from the train despite he was
holding the first class boarding pass. In another incident, he was kicked off
by a Policeman from the platform. The reaction of Gandhiji cannot be imagined
by anyone on the earth. He took the size of the footprint from his shirt and
darned a pair of boots and gifted to the Policeman.
In those days,
in South African buses, there was a segregation of seats for black and white
people. If white people boarding the bus and no place in their side, black
should get up and give them his place. The great social activist and prominent
leader in the American-African civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr.
and the “the first lady of civil rights” Rosa Louise McCauley Parks followed
the method of this great Indian, Mr. Gandhi for fighting the discrimination
between black and white. That was the method of non-violence and
non-cooperation movement. When we recall the Montgomery movement for the view
of the effective non-cooperation movement, we can realize the tremendous impact
of the non-violence across the world.
Non-Violent
Campaign in India:
The British
colonial rule was at the peak then. In May 1915, Gandhi founded the Satyagraha Ashram for his family and co-workers near the textile city
of Ahmedabad in Gujarat. He admitted the so-called ‘untouchables’ in his Ashram
and he was also ready to live in their slum area. And he led a magazine called
‘Harijan.’ All these attitude and divine qualities of him made the great poet
Rabindranath Tagore gave Gandhi the title "Mahatma," meaning
"Great Soul.” Gandhi began wearing homespun dresses called ‘Khadi’ to
thwart foreign cloths in order to
encourage self-sufficient village industries and thus help alleviate poverty in
India. The very unique way he handled to combat British was civil disobedience.
Dandy March and Civil Disobedience Movement:
The Indian
Congress wanted self-government and believed war for independence. Gandhi
started using the mightiest weapon, “Fasting,” with the demands of reducing
land revenue by fifty percent, eradicating the salt tax, and prohibiting
alcohol. Then Gandhi wrote a long letter to Viceroy Irwin on March 2, 1930
informing him that civil disobedience would begin on March 11. Gandhi decided
to disobey the Salt Laws, which forbade Indians from making their own salt,
because this British monopoly especially struck at the poor.
Beginning with
78 members of his ashram, Gandhi led a 240-mile march to the sea that took 24
days. A 60,000 people assembled, and hundreds were arrested. The jails were
filled with at least 60,000 offenders. Amazingly, enough there was virtually no
violence at all; the people did not want Gandhi to cancel the movement. Gandhi
was arrested before he could invade the Dharasana Salt Works, but the
Nightingale of India, the poet Sarojini Naidu led 2,500 volunteers and warned
them not to resist the blows of the police. Devotees of Mahatma continued to
march in hour after hour and were beaten down with steel-shod lathis by the 400
police; but they did not try to fight back, and the injured were dragged away
by women. Finally, on March 5, 1931 they signed the Delhi Pact that treated
India as an equal with England and provided for constitutional issues to be
discussed at a Round Table Conference in London. Civil disobedience was called
off; prisoners were released; and salt manufacture was permitted on the coast. In
May 1934, the All-India Congress endorsed Gandhi's proposal to suspend the
civil disobedience campaign except for specific grievances.
Quit India Movement:
In the clash of
Germany and British in 1938, India was announced to be a party of the British,
which Gandhiji did not want to happen. Sir Stafford Cripps left the country
amidst unparalleled excitement. Immediately after the return of Sir Stafford
Cripps, Gandhi announced 'Quit India' as the war cry for the Indians. On
July 14, 1942, the Congress Working Committee approved the well-known 'Quit
India' Resolution, at Wardha. This Quit India movement was the
last and strongest weapon to get the independence from the British Empire,
which Gandhiji applied.
This way the
great people gathered under the great leadership of this noble old man and got
us Free India. A great war has come to an end because of this old man who could
not walk without the help of a cane. That old man did not believe in any deadly
weapons like knife, AK 47, or cannon but only truth and non-violence. This
divine personality was assassinated by Nathuram Godse at January 30, 1948, with
the sound ‘ah’ not ‘hey ram’ as he was extremely weak and scrawny.
“I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth
and non-violence are as old as the hills.” - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
. Even though I am penniless 
as of now, I feel as though I am the queen 
of this Universe . I would be very grateful to the Almighty if this bliss retains in my heart 
. I am gonna rock this world 
if this support lasts forever 
.
