Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi
Mohandas Gandhi was easily one of the greatest political leaders of the twentieth century, yet he had no power what so ever. He was just a man, who influenced a non-violent revolt to gain India’s independence. Unfortunately after India did gain their independence, the struggle was not over. Gandhi was still in no form of power, and only was an adviser. As he had struggled throughout his life for India, been imprisoned for many years for India, it is interesting how on the evening of one of his usual prayers, an Indian waits in the crowd to kill him. On January 30th 1948, Bapu (Sanskrit for “father” commonly used with Gandhi and the “father of India”) was shot and killed, while having his nightly public walk. Mohandas Gandhi was one of the most powerful political leaders of the twentieth century, because of his strives for the independence of India through non-violent consent.
Mohandas’ first enthusiasms towards non-violent resistance was discovered in South Africa when he was severely discriminated and realized something had to be done about the harsh discrimination towards blacks and Indians in South Africa. In South Africa he adopted his ideology of the devotion to the ‘truth’. “Gandhi launched his first civil disobedience campaign, using a technique he called Satyagraha, a Sanskrit word. Satya means truth and love; agraha means firmness or force. Satyagraha is often translated as “truth force.””1 He began to create a peaceful resistance, and using no violent measures. Many Indians and blacks were jailed but in the face of peaceful blacks and Indians simply trying to get more rights peacefully, the South African General had no choice but to negotiate with Gandhi, giving him his first of many vi...
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...d advise violence.”5
Gandhi did not advicate cowardism, and certainly was not one. Infact Gandhi was never afraid. “If I die by the bullet of a madman, I must do so smiling. Should such a thing happen to me, you are not to shed one tear.”6 Mohandas Gandhi’s strive towards the independence and freedom of the Indian people, elevated him to being one of the most powerful and influential people in the twentieth century. Not only has he inspired people in his nation, but in countries around the world, in the struggle in peaceful and non-violent civil disobedience, instead of bloodshed.
Bibliography
Cheney, Glenn Alan, Mohandas Gandhi. New York: Grouer Company, 1983.
Malaspina, Ann, Mahatma Gandhi: and India’s Independence. Berkeley Heights: Enslow Publishers, 2000.
Mohandas Gandhi,” Wikipedia, 27th September 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
Mohandas Gandhi was a non-violent promoter for Indian independence.He was married young at 13,and went to London to go to law school.Gandhi got his degree there and was on his way to being a lawyer.He went to his first case,but couldn't even speak. Gandhi then got invited to South Africa from a businessman. Gandhi’s luck their was no good either.European racism came to him,after he got kicked off of a train,because he was “colored” and was holding a first class ticket.When Gandhi fought back because of it,was arrested and was sent to jail.After this, he became know as as a leader.Gandhi returned to India in 1896,and he was disgusted by it.British wanted them to wear their clothes,copy their manners,accept their standards of beauty,but Gandhi refused.Gandhi wanted people to live free of all class and wealth.Gandhi tried so hard and was more successful then any other man in India.They won independence in 1947. Gandhi’s non-violent movement worked because,Gandhi used clever planning, mass appeal, conviction, and compassion to win independence for India.
The mission of Gandhi’s life was to help the people of India free themselves from British rule. Many people have struggled for independence. They have fought bloody battles or used terrorism in an attempt to achieve their goals. Gandhi’s revolution was different. He succeeded as an independence leader with the use of nonviolent methods. The young Mohandas Gandhi did not seem as a boy that would become a great leader. He changed as he studied in Britain and practiced in South Africa. He fought for the rights of Indians in both South Africa and India. Gandhi believed that all people in the world are brothers and sisters. He didn’t hate the English. Actually, he saw a lot that was good about them. His nonviolent means of revolution was referred to as satyagraha, which is a combination of two Sanskrit words, satya, meaning truth and love, plus agraha, meaning firmness. Many people were influenced by satyagraha.
Gandhi’s nonviolent movement worked because he didn’t believe in segregation and didn’t follow the British’s rules for Indians. When coming back from prison in 1859, things changed in India. The people if India were forced to mimic the English on how they dressed, copy their manner and accept their standards of beauty. When hearing this, Gandhi didn’t accept it and started his movement. According to the background document,” he shed the cloths that made him look like a British lawyer and dressed in a poor man’s traditional loincloth.”(Background document) By do...
“ First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” (Mahatma Gandhi). Gandhi was born in 1869 in Porbandar. Throughout his life Gandhi helped those in need. He was taught that everyone and everything is holy. He married at the custom age of 19 and went to London to study law. The thing that helped Gandhi promote nonviolence is that he worked his entire life saying that violence didn’t change the way people acted. He lived his life saying that an eye for an eye only made the whole world blind. Gandhi’s nonviolent movement worked because he had something to prove and everyone else in the world agreed with him.
In conclusion Gandhi’s background made him who he was, giving him an idea of how to get India’s independence, and his impact on India help people realize you can fight with knowledge and nonviolence to change a way of life. What makes a person strong and brave it’s the person who works hard to make something right.
1948, January 30th, the assassination of Gandhi. “Just an old man in a loincloth in distant India: Yet when he died, humanity wept." This was the observation of a newspaper correspondent at the death of Mahatma Gandhi. The tragedy occurred in New Delhi as the gaunt old man walked to a prayer-meeting and was engulfed by one of history 's great ironies - a life-long pacifist and promoter of non-violence struck down by an assassin 's bullet. Gandhi 's violent death came just months after the realization of his long sought-after goal -
“My ambition is no less than to convert British people through nonviolence and thus make them see the wrong they have done to India.” (Document A, Paragraph Two) Gandhi clearly said he did not want to hurt the Europeans, he believed the Europeans forcing ways of life on the Indians was unjust, but he did not want to respond with any negative emotions. This peaceful approach remained a tactic within the movement because as Gandhi held firm to it, his loyal followers mimicked that as well. Gandhi’s words to Lord Irwin, “I do not intend to hurt a single Englishman.” (Document A, Paragraph One), were proven to be truthful ones when six years later the march at Dharasana occurred. While police begin to beat his followers with steel clubs, Gandhi’s peaceful remained cemented within them all. “Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows.” (Document B, Paragraph
Martin Luther King once said, “Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him”. Throughout history, people have committed numerous acts of crime from stealing to fighting, to war. These acts of violence had never done any good to mankind but had continuously harmed mankind. Mahatma Gandhi was a leader who had promoted and inspired people across the world to continue the acts of Ahimsa. Gandhi spread his acts of Ahimsa inspiring the American Civil Rights Movement, Nelson Mandela, and Harper Lee showing that Gandhi’s beliefs of non violence should be continued.
From the onset of man fighting for freedom or his beliefs, the question has always been whether one person can make a difference using words rather than wars. Philosophically, the concept of civil disobedience would appear to be an ineffective weapon against political injustice; history however has proven it to repeatedly be one of the most powerful weapons of the common man. Martin Luther King Jr. looked at the way African Americans were treated in the United States and saw an inequality. By refusing to pay his taxes and subsequently being imprisoned for a night, Henry David Thoreau demonstrated his intolerance for the American government. Under British rule, India remained oppressed until Mohandas Gandhi, with his doctrine of non-violence lead the country to freedom.
Mohandas Gandhi is an Indian lawyer and a spiritual leader that led a successful nonviolent resistance movement against the British colonial power. “The tactic of nonviolence civil disobedience in the Civil Rights Movement was deeply influenced by the model of Mohandas Gandhi, (...) Gandhi 's approach of non-violent civil disobedience involved provoking authorities by breaking the law peacefully, to force those in power to acknowledge existing injustice and bring it to an end”. (1) “Provoking authorities by breaking the law peacefully” this is an example of how nonviolent disobedience allows the message to stay focused and reach the point where people in power cannot ignore. Violent actions draw the media away from the message and fuels the rich and powerful; those who hide behind barriers in order to mute the underprivileged. An example of underprivileged people is African American’s during the 1950s who were treated like second class citizens. “Laws separated people of color from whites in schools, housing, jobs, and public gathering places”. (3) The types of methods used to fight against segregation are, “One of the ways African American communities fought legal segregation was through direct action protests, such as boycotts, sit-ins, and mass civil disobedience”. (1) This is how nonviolent disobedience is fought
...Because of Gandhi’s power, his flaw, and his catastrophe, one would say that Gandhi fits the model of a Greek tragic hero. Gandhi’s power was his heightened goodness, proven by his innumerable civil disobedience acts, where he continued to fight even while he was regularly jailed. His flaw was his tolerance and acceptance of everyone which led to his catastrophic assassination by Nathuram Godse. Gandhi’s teachings of nonviolence and peace still live on today, as they have inspired many other human rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Gandhi’s teachings are responsible for the successes of civil rights movements in other countries. He not only helped free India from British rule, but also gave people new thoughts about violence and imperialism around the world. Even today, India continues to live and remember the tutelage of Gandhi.
In Machiavelli’s “The Qualities of the Prince”, Machiavelli states that, "A wise ruler, therefore, cannot and should not keep his word when such an observance of faith would be to his disadvantage" (Jacobus 48). If Mohandas Gandhi had followed the advice of Machiavelli, he would not be revered as the wise and great leader that he was. Mohandas Gandhi used his philosophy called Satyagraha to gain followers and to achieve his goal of freeing India from British colonial rule. Satyagraha is defined as a concept introduced in the early 20th century by Mohandas Gandhi to designate a determined but nonviolent resistance to evil (Encyclopædia Britannica). This requires that a person who decides to break a law considered unjust must accept the consequences of that decision. The use of Satyagraha had brought a lot of hard...
Mahatma Gandhi, a nationalist and spiritual leader was perceptive and objectively so, perhaps most eminently when he instructed his zealots, “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win” (Mahatma). Gandhi has a remarkable sagacity at a young age and strengthened it throughout the succession of his life. Although the aforementioned quote merely previews the extent of his intellect, it effectively summarizes his political approach. After becoming a member of the Indian National Congress Gandhi had the potential to become a most influential leader for the Indian people, and he did. Gandhi committed his political title towards fighting against the unlawful oppression of British rule. His method of fighting, however, was a politically innovative, mental type of fight. As a firm believer in the value of Pacifism, Gandhi developed the theory of non-violent civil protest and vowed to prevent his followers from succumbing to the allure of bloodshed. The irenic nature of Gandhi’s leadership won him the admiration of many Indian people, and is now considered to have political genius prestigious enough to be studied today (Mahatma 2). In some instances, studying Gandhi’s political strategy demonstrates the benefits of an actively participating governed majority. In today’s society, many people tend to make uneducated political decisions and sometimes even refrain from making one completely. In a variety of circumstances, related to any category of politics, from the election of a new president to the enactment of new laws, a group of Americans remain unrepresented because of their refusal to exercise their right to vote. A topic such as gun control would be a fitting example of a subject that while put ...
Gandhi was a great man in a lot of ways he was born on October 2, 1869 in Western India. At the age of thirteen he married Kasturbi who was also thirteen before his father died. When he did his mother sent him to law school in England this was in 1888. While he was there he fell in love so to speak with the nonviolent ways of the Hindu scriptures of the Bhagavad-Gita, and in the bible tellings of Jesus.
Ever wonder what to do when you are in a situation that most people react in violence? Ever think that violence is the only way out? Mahatma Gandhi is a very inspirational role model who not only reacted to violence without violence but overcame it and (for the most part) succeeded in life without violence. He was a victim of bullying and segregation and looked past the odds and was inspirational for many people.