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Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of Satyagraha – a philosophy that is largely concerned with truth and ‘resistance to evil through active, non-violent resistance’ – which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known in India and across the world as the Mahatma, meaning “Great Soul.” In India, he is officially accorded the honor of Father of the Nation.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Being Beneath the Dirt

At the age of 13, Gandhi was married through his parents’ arrangements. Despite his own interests, he followed his parents’ direction to study law and train as a barrister. With little success in establishing a law practice in Bombay, India, he took interest and applied for a part-time job as a high school teacher, but was denied the position. He managed to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but was forced to close down that business when he ran afoul of a British officer. He was imprisoned for many years on numerous occasions.

After closing his business, Gandhi accepted a year-long contract from an Indian firm to a post in South Africa, which was then part of the British Empire, as was India. During the time he spent practicing law in South Africa, Gandhi faced racial discrimination directed at Indians. There, he witnessed firsthand the racism, prejudice, and injustice against Indians in South Africa. Incidents that occurred there served as an awakening to social injustice and help to explain Gandhi’s subsequent social activism. He started to question his people’s status within the British Empire, and his own place in society.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

Upon returning to India from South Africa, where he had enjoyed a successful legal practice, he gave up wearing Western-style clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. Gandhi adopted the practice of weaving his own clothes from thread he himself spun. He wore a traditional dhoti to express the simplicity in his life; he dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India. He lived simply, organizing a monastic community, called an ashram, which was self-sufficient in its needs. He lived on a simple vegetarian and, later, fruitarian diet.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

Gandhi’s chosen “weapons” in the fight against injustice were non-cooperation and peaceful resistance, advocating the principle that all violence was evil and could not be justified. He first employed peaceful disobedience in the Indian community’s struggle for civil rights in South Africa. Then, when he returned to India from Africa, he organized poor farmers and laborers to protest against oppressive taxation and widespread discrimination. Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of non-violence, but he was the first to apply it in a political field on such a huge scale. The concept of nonviolence (ahimsa) has a long history in Indian religious thought.

During his time in South Africa, he assisted the Indian community in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote. He called on his fellow Indians to resist through non-violent means: refusing to register and engaging in other forms of resistance. Though unable to halt the bill’s passage, Gandhi’s campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. A seven-year struggle ensued in which thousands of Indians were jailed (including Gandhi), flogged, or even shot. Because of the harsh methods employed by the South African government in the face of peaceful Indian protestors, the public outcry finally forced the government to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi.

Reaching Fruition

Gandhi’s first major achievements took place in an extremely impoverished area of India. He organized a detailed study and survey of the villages, accounting for the atrocities and terrible episodes of suffering, including the general state of degenerate living. Gandhi established an ashram there, organizing scores of his veteran supporters and fresh volunteers from the region. Building on the confidence of villagers, he began leading the clean-up of villages, building of schools and hospitals, and encouraging the village leadership to undo and condemn many social evils.

Because of his influence in the aforementioned region in India, Gandhi was arrested on the charge of creating unrest. He was ordered to leave the province. Hundreds of thousands of people protested and rallied outside the jail, police stations, and courts, demanding his release. Even during his arrest, Gandhi organized protests and strikes against oppressive taxation and suppression by the British. During this agitation, Gandhi’s followers began to address him as Bapu (Father) and Mahatma (Great Soul).

Leaving a Legacy

Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for the alleviation of poverty, for the liberation of women, and for brotherhood amongst different religions and ethnic groups. Among the most arduously sought objectives was the independence of India from British rule, and one of the non-violent resistance movements that was most successful at upsetting British rule was a protest against the tax on salt, in which Gandhi led thousands of Indians on a 248-mile walk to sea in order to make salt themselves. Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people. The British Government agreed to set all political prisoners free in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement.

Gandhi intensified his demand for independence during World War II, when he drafted a resolution calling for the British to Quit India. This was the most definitive revolt by Gandhi and his party, aimed at securing the British exit from Indian shores. Gandhi and his supporters made it clear that they would not support the war effort unless India was granted immediate independence. With mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale, Quit India became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle. While being held under arrest for two years, beginning in 1942, Gandhi suffered the loss of his wife, who passed away after 18 months imprisonment, and he himself nearly died from a severe malaria attack. Still, he refused to call off the struggle. At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands.

Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace Prize, although he was nominated five times between 1937 and 1948. Decades later, the Nobel Committee publicly declared its regret for the omission, and admitted to deeply divided nationalistic opinion denying the award. Mahatma Gandhi was to receive the Prize in 1948, but his assassination prevented the award. Today, Gandhi is officially honored in India as the Father of the Nation.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”