He attended Khanqah gatherings there at Riverside. "[451], Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is a national holiday in India, Gandhi Jayanti. To persuade his wife and mother, Gandhi made a vow in front of his mother that he would abstain from meat, alcohol and women. After British authorities arrested Gandhi in 1922, he pleaded guilty to three counts of sedition. He was assassinated in 1948, shortly after achieving his life goal of Indian independence. The sorrowful incident has undoubtedly advanced the Harijan cause. He wrote his views down on paper but shyness prevented him from reading out his arguments, so Hills, the President, asked another committee member to read them out for him. Gandhi cited race history and European Orientalists' opinions that "Anglo-Saxons and Indians are sprung from the same Aryan stock or rather the Indo-European peoples", and argued that Indians should not be grouped with the Africans. Upon his first appearance in a Durban courtroom, Gandhi was asked to remove his turban. Introduction: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, a coastal town in present-day Gujarat, India. In Kheda, Vallabhbhai Patel represented the farmers in negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection and released all the prisoners.[100]. After Gandhi's arrest, the women marched and picketed shops on their own, accepting violence and verbal abuse from British authorities for the cause in a manner Gandhi inspired. Thousands of Indians joined him in Dandi. He tried to adopt "English" customs, including taking dancing lessons. Mahatma Gandhi was a prominent Indian political leader who was a leading figure in the campaign for Indian independence. He found it humiliating, struggling to understand how some people can feel honour or superiority or pleasure in such inhumane practices. Gandhi also mentioned in the letter that the viceroy received a salary "over five thousand times India's average income. [334] Gandhi began experiments with these, and in 1906 at age 37, although married and a father, he vowed to abstain from sexual relations. [233] Gandhi grew fond of Hinduism, and referred to the Bhagavad Gita as his spiritual dictionary and greatest single influence on his life. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works. We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come. [233][234][235], His comparative studies of religions and interaction with scholars, led him to respect all religions as well as become concerned about imperfections in all of them and frequent misinterpretations. He became one of the most respected spiritual and political leaders of the 1900's. He 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-co-operation with complete independence for the country as its goal. "[276] George Orwell remarked that Gandhi's methods confronted "an old-fashioned and rather shaky despotism which treated him in a fairly chivalrous way", not a totalitarian power, "where political opponents simply disappear. Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood. A different basic education model, he believed, would lead to better self awareness, prepare people to treat all work equally respectable and valued, and lead to a society with less social diseases. [34][36] Gandhi was deeply influenced by his mother, an extremely pious lady who "would not think of taking her meals without her daily prayers... she would take the hardest vows and keep them without flinching. '[229], Gandhi, in his autobiography, called Rajchandra his "guide and helper" and his "refuge [...] in moments of spiritual crisis". According to Markovits, while Gandhi was alive, Pakistan's declaration that it was a "Muslim state" had led Indian groups to demand that it be declared a "Hindu state". [286], While Gandhi expressed mostly positive views of Islam, he did occasionally criticise Muslims. [143] Gandhi vehemently opposed a constitution that enshrined rights or representations based on communal divisions, because he feared that it would not bring people together but divide them, perpetuate their status and divert the attention from India's struggle to end the colonial rule.[145][146]. [135] Regardless of Gandhi's apprehensions and views, Indian women joined the Salt March by the thousands to defy the British salt taxes and monopoly on salt mining. [150] According to Jaffrelot, Gandhi's views evolved between the 1920s and 1940s; by 1946, he actively encouraged intermarriage between castes. [179], The British reluctantly agreed to grant independence to the people of the Indian subcontinent, but accepted Jinnah's proposal of partitioning the land into Pakistan and India. [122] In 1921, Gandhi was the leader of the Indian National Congress. His method of non-violent Satyagraha could easily attract masses and it fitted in with the interests and sentiments of business groups, better-off people and dominant sections of peasantry, who did not want an uncontrolled and violent social revolution which could create losses for them. [158], Gandhi dedicated his life to discovering and pursuing truth, or Satya, and called his movement satyagraha, which means "appeal to, insistence on, or reliance on the Truth". 1-16 of 234 results for "mahatma gandhi biography" The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Mahatma Gandhi's Autobiography with a Foreword by the Gandhi Research Foundation by Mohandas K. Gandhi and Mahadev Desai | Oct 1, 2016 He stated that spiritual studies must encourage "a Hindu to become a better Hindu, a Mussalman to become a better Mussalman, and a Christian a better Christian. On 5 May he was interned under a regulation dating from 1827 in anticipation of a protest that he had planned. Gandhi usually wrote in Gujarati, though he also revised the Hindi and English translations of his books. [359][360], Nai Talim evolved out of his experiences at the Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, and Gandhi attempted to formulate the new system at the Sevagram ashram after 1937. Cribb states that Gandhi's thought evolved over time, with his early ideas becoming the core or scaffolding for his mature philosophy. He warned such a transfer would still be English rule, just without the Englishman. [358] Nehru government's vision of an industrialised, centrally planned economy after 1947 had scant place for Gandhi's village-oriented approach. Every revolution begins with a single act of defiance. [82] During a speech in September 1896, Gandhi complained that the whites in the British colony of South Africa were degrading Indian Hindus and Muslims to "a level of Kaffir". [377], To Gandhi, the economic philosophy that aims at "greatest good for the greatest number" was fundamentally flawed, and his alternative proposal sarvodaya set its aim at the "greatest good for all". Philosopher Martin Buber was highly critical of Gandhi's approach and in 1939 wrote an open letter to him on the subject. [227] Gandhi exchanged letters with Rajchandra when he was in South Africa, referring to him as Kavi (literally, "poet"). [39], At age 9, Gandhi entered the local school in Rajkot, near his home. [290], One of the strategies Gandhi adopted was to work with Muslim leaders of pre-partition India, to oppose the British imperialism in and outside the Indian subcontinent. [438] Gandhi was a central figure in the 2006 Bollywood comedy film Lage Raho Munna Bhai. According to the pact, Gandhi was invited to attend the Round Table Conference in London for discussions and as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. However, Gandhi said that if he would not let Manu sleep with him, it would be a sign of weakness. In Britain, Winston Churchill, a prominent Conservative politician who was then out of office but later became its prime minister, became a vigorous and articulate critic of Gandhi and opponent of his long-term plans. [185], Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed his countrymen over the All-India Radio saying:[186], Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it. [191] Nehru used Gandhi's martyrdom as a political weapon to silence all advocates of Hindu nationalism as well as his political challengers. [390], Gandhi also wrote several books including his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Gujarātī "સત્યના પ્રયોગો અથવા આત્મકથા"), of which he bought the entire first edition to make sure it was reprinted. He went on to live in South Africa for 21 years. "[404] King sometimes referred to Gandhi as "the little brown saint. Also Known As: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mahatma ("Great Soul"), Father of the Nation, Bapu ("Father"), Gandhiji. He believed that each vegetarian should experiment with their diet because, in his studies at his ashram he saw "one man's food may be poison for another". In Gandhi's view, those who attempt to convert a Hindu, "they must harbour in their breasts the belief that Hinduism is an error" and that their own religion is "the only true religion". "[356], Gandhi rejected the colonial Western format of the education system. [344], Ambedkar's criticism of Gandhi continued to influence the Dalit movement past Gandhi's death. ", Rudolph, Lloyd I. [284] He also read the Islamic prophet Muhammad's biography, and argued that it was "not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. [440], The 1979 opera Satyagraha by American composer Philip Glass is loosely based on Gandhi's life. He was decorated for his courage at the Battle of Spion Kop. He had advised Gandhi to be patient and to study Hinduism deeply. Gandhi played an active role in the negotiations, but he could not prevail in his hope for a unified India. Ambedkar worked with other Congress leaders through the 1940s and wrote large parts of India's constitution in the late 1940s, but did indeed convert to Buddhism in 1956. He stated that "when the war was declared, my personal sympathies were all with the Boers, but my loyalty to the British rule drove me to participation with the British in that war". That year, the committee chose not to award the peace prize stating that "there was no suitable living candidate" and later research shows that the possibility of awarding the prize posthumously to Gandhi was discussed and that the reference to no suitable living candidate was to Gandhi. [63] He was not allowed to sit with European passengers in the stagecoach and told to sit on the floor near the driver, then beaten when he refused; elsewhere he was kicked into a gutter for daring to walk near a house, in another instance thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to leave the first-class. Gandhi then launched a new Satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930. [314] He considered it a violence against animals, something that inflicted pain and suffering. [43] In the process, he lost a year at school but was later allowed to make up by accelerating his studies. [304] Gandhi's life is better viewed as exemplifying his belief in the "convergence of various spiritualities" of a Christian and a Hindu, states Michael de Saint-Cheron. [12][13] Among them was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest.[13]. Prominent Muslim allies in his nonviolent resistance movement included Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Abdul Ghaffar Khan. [35] His mother came from the medieval Krishna bhakti-based Pranami tradition, whose religious texts include the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavata Purana, and a collection of 14 texts with teachings that the tradition believes to include the essence of the Vedas, the Quran and the Bible. Among them was one of Gandhi's lieutenants, Jawaharlal Nehru. "[30] The Indian classics, especially the stories of Shravana and king Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood. Some European employers even banned the donning of white Khadi caps in office. Sarojini Naidu was an India political leader best known as the first female President of the India National Congress. [320], Beyond his religious beliefs, Gandhi stated another motivation for his experiments with diet. Upon arrival, he stayed with the local Modh Bania community whose elders warned him that England would tempt him to compromise his religion, and eat and drink in Western ways. [339][340] None of the women who participated in the brahmachari experiments of Gandhi indicated that they had sex or that Gandhi behaved in any sexual way. Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in eight volumes, Chaman Nahal's Gandhi Quartet, and Pyarelal and Sushila Nayyar with their Mahatma Gandhi in 10 volumes. [331][332], Along with many other texts, Gandhi studied Bhagavad Gita while in South Africa. During the South African War, Gandhi was a stretcher barer. His methodology sought to treat all professions equal and pay everyone the same. [42], In May 1883, the 13-year-old Mohandas was married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Makhanji Kapadia (her first name was usually shortened to "Kasturba", and affectionately to "Ba") in an arranged marriage, according to the custom of the region at that time. [104][105][106] Gandhi's support to the Khilafat movement led to mixed results. [343], Gandhi spoke out against untouchability early in his life. Gandhi returned to active politics in 1930 to protest Britain’s Salt Acts, which not only prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt—a dietary staple—but imposed a heavy tax that hit the country’s poorest particularly hard. He ended up doing so much and changed the world just by the power of his ethics. [92] Gandhi agreed to actively recruit Indians for the war effort. Gandhi was kicked by a police officer out of the footpath onto the street without warning. [163], In 1942, Gandhi now nearing age 73, urged his people to completely stop co-operating with the imperial government. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.[9]. Gandhi’s mother belonged to an affluent Pranami Vaishnava family. These records indicate that despite being underweight at 46.7 kg Gandhi was generally healthy. I lay no claim to super-human powers: I want none. [128]However Congressmen, who were votaries of non-violence, defended Bhagat Singh and other revolutionary nationalists being tried in Lahore. [115] Turkey's Atatürk had ended the Caliphate, Khilafat movement ended, and Muslim support for Gandhi largely evaporated. "[383], Gandhi called for ending poverty through improved agriculture and small-scale cottage rural industries. The British Government agreed to free all political prisoners, in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. [262][263][264] The untouchability leader Ambedkar, in June 1945, after his decision to convert to Buddhism and a key architect of the Constitution of modern India, dismissed Gandhi's ideas as loved by "blind Hindu devotees", primitive, influenced by spurious brew of Tolstoy and Ruskin, and "there is always some simpleton to preach them". [348] His other autobiographies included: Satyagraha in South Africa about his struggle there, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, a political pamphlet, and a paraphrase in Gujarati of John Ruskin's Unto This Last. Even after Gandhi’s assassination, his commitment to nonviolence and his belief in simple living — making his own clothes, eating a vegetarian diet and using fasts for self-purification as well as a means of protest — have been a beacon of hope for oppressed and marginalized people throughout the world. However, he did not appreciate the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady and was frequently hungry until he found one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. [97], In 1918, Kheda was hit by floods and famine and the peasantry was demanding relief from taxes. In his autobiography, he admits that they left an indelible impression on his mind. However, the Hindu leaders including Rabindranath Tagore questioned Gandhi's leadership because they were largely against recognising or supporting the Sunni Islamic Caliph in Turkey. [44], Gandhi believed that swaraj not only can be attained with non-violence, but it can also be run with non-violence. But he lived and died for his own principles of life. Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace prize, whether Nobel committee can do without Gandhi is the question". Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Gandhi's early self-identification with truth and love as supreme values is traceable to these epic characters. [430] On 28 April 1947, Sarojini Naidu during a conference also referred Gandhi as "Father of the Nation". At other times, he acknowledged that he knew little about Buddhism other than his reading of Edwin Arnold's book on it. "[285] Gandhi had a large Indian Muslim following, who he encouraged to join him in a mutual nonviolent jihad against the social oppression of their time. By 1924, Atatürk had ended the Caliphate, the Khilafat Movement was over, and Muslim support for Gandhi had largely evaporated. I have known them intimately in South Africa. [93][94] In contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants. At the battle of Spion Kop Gandhi and his bearers moved to the front line and had to carry wounded soldiers for miles to a field hospital because the terrain was too rough for the ambulances. The 1989 Marathi play Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy and the 1997 Hindi play Gandhi Ambedkar criticised Gandhi and his principles. He is also called Bapu in India. Later, Navajivan was also published in Hindi. [387] However Gandhi himself did not approve of the notion of "Gandhism", as he explained in 1936: There is no such thing as "Gandhism", and I do not want to leave any sect after me. However, Gandhi's empathy towards Islam, and his eager willingness to valorise peaceful Muslim social activists, was viewed by many Hindus as an appeasement of Muslims and later became a leading cause for his assassination at the hands of intolerant Hindu extremists. He returned to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but he was forced to stop when he ran afoul of a British officer Sam Sunny. Mahatma Gandhi was a great freedom fighter. When Gandhi sailed from South Africa in 1914 to return home, Smuts wrote, “The saint has left our shores, I sincerely hope forever.” At the outbreak of World War I, Gandhi spent several months in London. With his health failing, Gandhi was released after a 19-month detainment in 1944. [147] He based himself in a small cell-bedroom at Kingsley Hall for the three-month duration of his stay and was enthusiastically received by East Enders. He was born into a Hindu merchant caste family to Karamchand Gandhi, diwan of Porbandar and his fourth wife, Putlibai. Mohandas Gandhi. [239][240] Winston Churchill also compared Gandhi to a Sufi fakir. [265][266] Winston Churchill caricatured Gandhi as a "cunning huckster" seeking selfish gain, an "aspiring dictator", and an "atavistic spokesman of a pagan Hinduism". Thousands of Hindus and Muslims were murdered, and tens of thousands were injured in the cycle of violence in the days that followed. [85], White soldiers stopped Gandhi and team from treating the injured Zulu, and some African stretcher-bearers with Gandhi were shot dead by the British. (eds.) In August 1947 the British partitioned the land with India and Pakistan each achieving independence on terms that Gandhi disapproved. People would spit on him as an expression of racial hate. [339] Gandhi slept naked in the same bed with Manu with the bedroom doors open all night. (1967) from section, Yasmin Khan, "Performing Peace: Gandhi's assassination as a critical moment in the consolidation of the Nehruvian state.". After a brief trip to India in late 1896 and early 1897, Gandhi returned to South Africa with his wife and children. In 1906 Gandhi, for the first time, organized a non-violent resistance against the Transvaal government's registration act. Jean-Luc Nancy said that the French philosopher Maurice Blanchot engaged critically with Gandhi from the point of view of "European spirituality". [437] The 1996 film The Making of the Mahatma documented Gandhi's time in South Africa and his transformation from an inexperienced barrister to recognised political leader. He continued that "He's somebody I find a lot of inspiration in. [112][113][114], By the end of 1922 the Khilafat movement had collapsed. in 1937. Meanwhile, the Muslim League did co-operate with Britain and moved, against Gandhi's strong opposition, to demands for a totally separate Muslim state of Pakistan. On returning from South Africa, when Gandhi received a letter asking for his participation in writing a world charter for human rights, he responded saying, "in my experience, it is far more important to have a charter for human duties. [71] However, a new Natal government discriminatory proposal led to Gandhi extending his original period of stay in South Africa. [173][174] Gandhi suggested an agreement which required the Congress and the Muslim League to co-operate and attain independence under a provisional government, thereafter, the question of partition could be resolved by a plebiscite in the districts with a Muslim majority. Women, to Gandhi, should be educated to be better in the domestic realm and educate the next generation. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. Rather than buy British-manufactured clothes, he began to use a portable spinning wheel to produce his own cloth. She died in Gandhi’s arms in February 1944 at the age of 74. [381][382] Historian Kuruvilla Pandikattu says "it was Nehru's vision, not Gandhi's, that was eventually preferred by the Indian State. [267], Although Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of nonviolence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a large scale. His doctrine of ahimsa lay at the core of unifying role played by the Gandhian Congress. It is an effort not to systematise wisdom but to transform society and is based on an undying faith in the goodness of human nature. Gandhi took Gokhale's liberal approach based on British Whiggish traditions and transformed it to make it look Indian. He viewed Islam as a faith that proactively promoted peace, and felt that non-violence had a predominant place in the Quran. No longer able to pledge allegiance to the British government, Gandhi returned the medals he earned for his military service in South Africa and opposed Britain’s mandatory military draft of Indians to serve in World War I. Gandhi became a leading figure in the Indian home-rule movement. [65] Gandhi began to question his people's standing in the British Empire. Srinivasa Ramanujan was a mathematical genius who made numerous contributions in the field, namely in number theory. While in Poona, a bomb was thrown by an unidentified assailant (described only as a sanatani in the press[351]) at a car belonging to his entourage but Gandhi and his family escaped as they were in the car that was following. [177], Archibald Wavell, the Viceroy and Governor-General of British India for three years through February 1947, had worked with Gandhi and Jinnah to find a common ground, before and after accepting Indian independence in principle. Gandhi also wanted to avoid being a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj. Gandhi had a clash with Subhas Chandra Bose, who had been elected president in 1938, and who had previously expressed a lack of faith in nonviolence as a means of protest. [176] The violence on Direct Action Day led to retaliatory violence against Muslims across India. Gandhi refused to endorse the view that economic forces are best understood as "antagonistic class interests". He committed himself early to truthfulness, temperance, chastity, and vegetarianism. Gandhi's shyness was an obstacle to his defence of Allinson at the committee meeting. [294] Gandhi accepted this and began having Muslim prayers read in Hindu temples to play his part, but was unable to get Hindu prayers read in mosques. But he dropped out and returned to his family in Porbandar. If Indians refused to co-operate, British rule would collapse and swaraj would come. On 9 April, Gandhi was arrested. Violence against any human being, born poor or rich, is wrong, believed Gandhi. [63] The most profound influence on Gandhi were those from Hinduism, Christianity and Jainism, states Parekh, with his thoughts "in harmony with the classical Indian traditions, specially the Advaita or monistic tradition". [132] Congress estimates, however, put the figure at 90,000. He writes: "It haunted me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without number." Gandhism designates the ideas and principles Gandhi promoted; of central importance is nonviolent resistance. Gandhi and the Congress withdrew their support of the Raj when the Viceroy declared war on Germany in September 1939 without consultation. [281], Gandhi believed that Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism were traditions of Hinduism, with a shared history, rites and ideas. When violence between the two religious groups flared again, Gandhi began a three-week fast in the autumn of 1924 to urge unity. He treated all the human beings as the children of God. Their disagreement is the first known example of Gandhi challenging authority, despite his shyness and temperamental disinclination towards confrontation. Gandhi's ideas of protests, persuasion skills and public relations had emerged. Gandhi assumed the leadership of the Indian National Congress and advocated a policy of non-violence and non-cooperation to achieve home rule. The 2007 film, Gandhi, My Father was inspired on the same theme. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to stop religious violence. He was critical of Christian missionary efforts in British India, because they mixed medical or education assistance with demands that the beneficiary convert to Christianity. The political base behind Gandhi had broken into factions. Indira Gandhi (19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician. Godse and a co-conspirator were executed by hanging in November 1949. It did not lead to inner transformation or moral advance or to the Christian teaching of "love", but was based on false one-sided criticisms of other religions, when Christian societies faced similar problems in South Africa and Europe. mahatma gandhi biography.docx Page 3 of 6 Influenced by the Gita, Gandhi wanted to purify his life by following the concepts of aparigraha (non-possession) and samabhava (equability). [142] Churchill attempted to isolate Gandhi, and his criticism of Gandhi was widely covered by European and American press. [330] He used the legends of Hindu goddess Sita to expound women's innate strength, autonomy and "lioness in spirit" whose moral compass can make any demon "as helpless as a goat". Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as Mahatma Gandhi, was a Hindu thinker, lawyer, and politician, born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India. His father Karamchand Gandhi was the Diwan of a small princely state (Porbandar) of Kathiawar during the British Raj.