MAHATMA GANDHI-THE LEGEND OF PEACE

ABOUT HIM-

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi known as Mahatma Gandhi (Mahatma means Great soul) also known as father of India. He is a patriots, and became a leader for Indian independence movement. He used Non-violence way as a weapon against British Government for Indian independence. He was also ordinary person like us but his great willingness and his moral sensibility make him a Legend. His genius, so to speak, was an infinite capacity for taking pains in fulfillment of a restless moral urge. His life was one continuous striving, an unremitting sadhana, a relentless search for truth, not abstract or metaphysical truth, but such truth as can be realized in human relations. For Gandhi in "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe", wrote Einstein, "that such a one as this, ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."

EARLY LIFE-

MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, a small town on the western coast of India, which was then one of the many tiny states in Kathiawar. He was born in middle class family of Vaishya caste. His grandfather had risen to be the Dewan or Prime Minister of Porbandar and was succeeded by his son Karamchand who was the father of Mohandas. Putlibai, Mohandas's mother, was a saintly character, gentle and devout, and left a deep impress on her son's mind.

Mohandas went to an elementary school in Porbandar. He was seven when his family moved to Rajkot, another state in Kathiawar, where his father became Dewan. There he attended a primary school and later joined a high school. Though conscientious he was a "mediocre student" and was excessively shy and timid. He was pure vegetarian, but for a patriotic thought once eat meat.

While he was still in high school, he was married, at the age of thirteen, to Kasturbai who was also of the same age.

YOUNG LIFE AND HIGHER EDUCATION-

After matriculating from the high school, Mohandas joined the Samaldas College in Bhavnagar, his father had died in 1885. By suggestion of a relative he was gone to study for barrister to England for three years. He sailed on September 4, 1888, for Southampton-aged eighteen. A few months earlier Kasturbai had borne him a son.

On 1st year he had some problem to adjust mainly with his food. But he found a vegetarian restaurant in Farringdon Street.

On the end of   2nd year he was introduced to Sir Edwin Arnold's translation in English verse of the Gita-The Song Celestial priceless worth. And he started to read it regularly.

About the same time a Christian friend whom he had met in a vegetarian boarding house introduced him to the Bible. He found it difficult to wade through the Old Testament which put him to sleep, but he fell in love with the New Testament and specially with the Sermon on the Mount. He also read Sir Edwin Arnold's rendering of Buddha's life-The light of Asia-as well as the chapter on the Prophet of Islam in Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship. The attitude of respect for all religions and the desire to understand the best in each one of them were thus planted in his mind early in life.

Having passed his examinations Gandhi was called to the Bar on June10, 1891, and sailed for India two days later.

RETURN OF BARRISTER MOHANDAS-

When he reached Bombay he learnt to his profound sorrow that his mother had died. When he rose to argue it in the court 1st time, his nerve failed him and he could not utter a word. Having failed to establish himself in Bombay, Gandhi returned to Rajkot where he started again. In this predicament came an offer from Dada Abdulla & Co. to proceed to South Africa on their behalf to instruct their counsel in a lawsuit. Gandhi jumped at it and sailed for South Africa in April 1893.

AT SOUTH-AFRICA BEGGINING OF PATRIOT LIFE-

He rouse his tone against racial snobbishness and against the position of Indians to pay poll tax of £3.In Natalia he helped Indians against the bill of their Govt. to de franchise Indian. At that time even The Times admitted the justice of the Indian claim , and for the first time the people in India came to know of the hard lot of their compatriots in South Africa. After that he  enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme Court of Natal.

After 3year he came back for six month to India to meet his family. When plague broke out in Rajkot, Gandhi volunteered his services and visited every locality, including the quarters of the untouchables, to inspect the latrines and teach the residents better methods of sanitation.

After a short stay because of telegram from Natal he went to sail for Durban with his wife and children in November 1896. Just  a step in Durban all people are their beating ,kicking him because of a false news by their Govt. But a English lady rescued him bravely.

At 1899 during the Boer war ,with the help of Dr.Booth, he created a indan ambulance corp of 1,100 people to help Govt.

At 1907 Gandhi started satyagrah (his strike name) against the Black Act. 1908, he was arrested and sentenced to two months' simple imprisonment two time next is at September 1908. In February 1909 he was arrested a third time and sentenced to three months' hard labour. In 1911, a provisional settlement of the Asiatic question in the Transvaal brought about a suspension of the satyagraha.

At that time Supreme Court ruled that only Christian marriages were legal in South Africa, turning at one stroke all Indian marriages in South Africa invalid and all Indian wives into concubines. This provoked Indian women, including, Kasturbai, to join the struggle.

At that time almost 55000 Indian labour were in strike and other thousands of in jail. Gandhi was released and, in January 1914, a provisional agreement was arrived at between him and General Smuts and the main Indian demands were conceded. In July 1914, he sailed with his wife for England where Gokhale(Indian patriot) had called him.

Before sailing, he sent a pair of sandals he had made in jail to General Smuts as a gift. Recalling the gift twenty-five years later, the General wrote : "I have worn these sandals for many a summer since then even though I may feel that I am not worthy to stand in the shoes of so great a man."

ENLIGHTEN OF MAHATMA IN INDIA-

On his return to India in 1916, Gandhi developed his practice of non-violent civic disobedience still further, raising awareness of oppressive practices in Bihar, in 1918, which saw the local populace oppressed by their largely British masters. He also encouraged oppressed villagers to improve their own circumstances, leading peaceful strikes and protests. His fame spread, and he became widely referred to as ‘Mahatma’ or ‘Great Soul’.

As his fame spread, so his political influence increased: by 1921 he was leading the Indian National Congress, and reorganising the party’s constitution around the principle of ‘Swaraj’, or complete political independence from the British. He also instigated a boycott of British goods and institutions, and his encouragement of mass civil disobedience led to his arrest, on 10th March 1922, and trial on sedition charges, for which he served 2 years, of a 6-year prison sentence.

The Indian National Congress began to splinter during his incarceration, and he remained largely out of the public eye following his release from prison in February 1924, returning four years later, in 1928, to campaign for the granting of ‘dominion status’ to India by the British. When the British introduced a tax on salt in 1930, he famously led a 250-mile march to the sea to collect his own salt. It,s known as Dandi March in Indian independence history.Recognizing his political influence nationally, the British authorities were forced to negotiate various settlements with Gandhi over the following years, which resulted in the alleviation of poverty, granted status to the ‘untouchables’, enshrined rights for women, and led inexorably to Gandhi’s goal of ‘Swaraj’: political independence from Britain.

STEP TOWARDS IN-DEPENDENCY- 

During the first years of the Second World War, Gandhi’s mission to achieve independence from Britain reached its zenith: he saw no reason why Indians should fight for British sovereignty, in other parts of the world, when they were subjugated at home, which led to the worst instances of civil uprising under his direction, through his ‘Quit India’ movement. As a result, he was arrested on 9th August 1942, and held for two years at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. In February 1944, 3 months before his release, his wife Kasturbai died in the same prison.

May 1944, the time of his release from prison, saw the second attempt made on his life, this time certainly led by Nathuram Godse, although the attempt was fairly half-hearted. When word reached Godse that Gandhi was staying in a hill station near Pune, recovering from his prison ordeal, he organised a group of like-minded individuals who descended on the area, and mounted a vocal anti-Gandhi protest. When invited to speak to Gandhi, Godse declined, but he attended a prayer meeting later that day, where he rushed towards Gandhi, brandishing a dagger and shouting anti-Gandhi slogans. He was overpowered swiftly by fellow worshipers, and came nowhere near achieving his goal. Godse was not prosecuted at the time.

The British plan to partition what had been British-ruled India, into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, was vehemently opposed by Gandhi, who foresaw the problems that would result from the split. Nevertheless, the Congress Party ignored his concerns, and accepted the partition proposals put forward by the British.

Placed under increasing pressure, by his political contemporaries, to accept Partition as the only way to avoid civil war in India, Gandhi reluctantly concurred with its political necessity, and India celebrated its Independence Day on 15th August 1947. Keenly recognizing the need for political unity, Gandhi spent the next few months working tirelessly for Hindu-Muslim peace, fearing the build-up of animosity between the two fledgling states, showing remarkable prescience, given the turbulence of their relationship over the following half-century.

LOSS OF LIGHT-

On 30th January 1948, whilst Gandhi was on his way to a prayer meeting at Birla House in Delhi, Nathuram Godse managed to get close enough to him in the crowd to be able to shoot him three times in the chest, at point-blank range. Gandhi’s dying words were claimed to be “Hé Rām”(Ram is a name of hindu god ).

The nation's feeling was best expressed by Prime Minister Nehru when with a trembling voice and a heart full of grief he gave the news to the people on the radio :

"The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere and I do not quite know what to tell you and how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we call him, the father of our nation, is no more... The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. The light that has illumined this country for these many years, and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For that light represented the living truth, and the eternal man was with us with his eternal truth reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error, taking this ancient country to freedom..."

Such men cannot die, for they live in their achievements.His work for human welfare makes him immortal.As a great leader of India ,he gives a new life to his country.That is the life of freedom, life of humanism.

The moral influence of his personality and of his gospel and technique of non-violence cannot be weighed in any material scale. Nor is its value limited to any particular country or generation. it is his imperishable gift to humanity.

  Literally he is a real legend of peace.