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.