MAHATMA

A MEMOIR
A son of the soil, Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi, Gandhiji, is one of
the leaders who created an everlasting
impression on the sands of time and the
memory of humanity. He took on an
entire empire using ethics and
intelligence, and managed to achieve his
aims through peace and non-violence.

Decades later, Gandhi is not just

regarded as a powerful leader, but now
as a symbol of the virtue that humanity
tries to uphold. He is a symbol of
equality and truth, something that has
grown a veil of obscurity in the modern
world. Most importantly, his impact was
not only felt by the free Indians of
yesterday and today, but also by the
entire world.

This is to honour his memory and

create awareness of the uniqueness of
this character.

MAHATMA OUR
FATHER 2

He stopped at the thresholds of
the huts of the thousands of
dispossessed, dressed like one
of their own. He spoke to them
in their own language. Here was
living truth at last, and not only
quotations from books . For this
reason the Mahatma, the name
given to him by the people of
India, is his real name. Who else
has felt like him that all Indians
are his own flesh and blood?
When love came to the door of
India, that door was opened
wide. At Gandhis call India
blossomed forth to new
greatness, just as once before,
in earlier times, when Buddha
proclaimed the truth of fellow-
feeling and compassion among
all living creatures.

-Rabindranath Tagore
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JEEVAN CHAKR

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5

I shall work for an India in
which the poorest shall feel
that it is their country, in
whose making they have an
effective voice, an India in
which there shall be no high
class and low class of
people, an India in which all
communities, shall live in
perfect harmony. There can
be no room in such India for
the curse of untouchability
or the curse of intoxicating
drinks and drugs. Women
will enjoy the same rights
as men. This is the India of
my dreams.





6

Gandhi read the Gita, the Bible and
the Quran. He was greatly influenced
by the teachings of these three
religious scripts and gained inspiration
from them. Gandhi was religiously
tolerant.

He believed that if mankind could

read the scriptures of the different
faiths from the standpoints of the
followers of those faiths, we would
realise that all were helpful to one
another. Gandhi was born a Hindu, but
his interpretation of Hinduism was his
own and he welcomed contact with
other religions. Even so, the Bhagvad-
Gita was his source of eternal
comfort which he looked to when
times were hard.

He promoted Hindu-Muslim unity in

places of India where animosity was
high and in regions where the
hostilities had been strong for years.
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 Salt March

Since the late 1910s Gandhi had been at
the wheel to try and steer British
colonial domination away from India once
and for all. He led civil disobedience
movements, encouraged Indians to
boycott foreign goods and spent two
years in prison on charges of sedition.
He emphasized on Satyagraha which
aimed to reveal truth and confront
injustice through non-violence.

By the late 1920s many assumed Gandhi

would stage his most ambitious
satyagraha campaign till date.

The salt laws angered Gandhi as salt

was a nutritional necessity. Due to the
lack of formal response by the British,
Gandhi, clad in a homespun shawl and
sandals and holding a wooden walking
stick, set off on foot from his ashram
near Ahmedabad with several dozen
companions, on a 241 mile trek to the
sea town of Dandi. 8

The 60 year old expected to be arrested
or beaten but he did not stop. He paused
at villages along the way to condemn the
British and the salt tax and gathered
support. He illegally wanted to harvest
the material by taking it himself.

This event powerfully summarizes

Gandhis character.

Knowing that he could fail, he did not stop

spreading awareness of the evil of the
British. The strength and integrity of his
character is showcased in this act of pure
patriotism.

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 MAJOR
INFLUENCES

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 GOPAL KRISHNA
GOKHALE(1866-1915)

Religious parents and the environment

at home did influence Gandhi. Gopal
Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915) was a
great leader of India, whose guidance
was very valuable for Gandhi. Gandhi
had tremendous respect for Gokhale.
In his words, Hero means one worthy
of reverence, a god, so to say. In the
political field, Gokhale holds that place
for me. According to Gokhale, Gandhi
had in him, the marvellous spiritual
power to turn ordinary men into
heroes and martyrs. Unfortunately
Gokhale passed away the year Gandhi
returned to India from South Africa.

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 LEO TOLSTOY(1828-1910)

Tolstoy, born in a noble family in Russia,

changed his life and ideas after he
witnessed the bloodshed during the war. He
studied religion and the Bible, wrote books
that brought fame. He gave up his wealth
and accepted voluntary poverty. Tolstoys
book The Kingdom of God is Within You had
made a great impact on Gandhi. After
Gandhi sent a copy of his book Indian Home
Rule to Tolstoy, the latter wrote to Gandhi
that the question of passive resistance
raised in the book was a question of the
greatest importance not only for India but
for the whole of humanity. Their
correspondence was meaningful. Gandhi
found in Tolstoy a teacher who furnished
a reasoned basis for my non-violence.
Gandhi mentions six of Tolstoys books in
the appendix of Indian Home Rule. Both the
visionaries were sensitive to the sufferings
of the people. They lived and worked for a
better society free from oppression and
violence.
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 HENRY DAVID
THOREAU(1817-62)

Thoreau was an influential American

philosopher and writer. According to Gandhi,
Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher,
poet, and withal a most practical man, that
is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to
practise in himself. He was one of the
greatest and most moral men America has
produced. Though Gandhi acknowledged
that the term of civil disobedience was first
used by Thoreau, he had read Thoreau after,
rather than before, his own struggle of
passive resistance or satyagraha in South
Africa. He found confirmation of his ideas in
Thoreaus ideas. Reading On the Duty of Civil
Disobedience influenced him. Some extracts
from Thoreaus essay were paraphrased and
published in Indian Opinion in 1907. His Life
Without Principle is also mentioned in the
appendix of Indian Home Rule. Gandhi was
impressed by Thoreaus unpretentious
orientations, his preparedness to face the
State (if needed) and his struggle to reform
society of personal and social evils.
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 RAJCHANDRA RAJVIBHAI
MEHTA(1867-1901)

Rajchandra (also known as Raichandbhai) was
a Jain philosopher and a scholar. Referred to
by Gandhi as The Poet, Gandhi first was
acquainted with Rajchandra in 1891 after his
return from England. Rajchandras memory
feats, piety, wisdom, independent
judgement, simplicity and respect for all
religions, to name a few, really inspired
Gandhis lifestyle and ideologies. Gandhi
admired Rajchandras devotion to achieve
moksha the transcendent state attained
from being released from the cycle of
rebirth. Gandhi wanted to lead the life of a
karmyogi as Rajchandra did. When Gandhi
had a doubt, question or inquiry on spiritual/
religious matters, he consulted Rajchandra,
who always answered him. His dialogues with
him helped Gandhi to clarify his ideas on
celibacy (Brahmacharya) , fasting and the
importance of diet, religious equanimity
(dharma) simplicity and compassion.
Rajchandra helped Gandhi to resolve the
doubts about Hinduism as a religion. He gave
Gandhi peace of mind in his time of spiritual
turmoil. 16
 JOHN RUSKIN(1819-1900)


Ruskin was great writer, teacher and
religious thinker. He wrote impressively
on art, architecture, social justice and
ethical issues. He renounced his ancestral
property and advocated compassion
instead of exploitation. During a train
journey in S.Africa, from Johannesburg
to Durban, Gandhi read a book Unto This
Last written by Ruskin. It was given to
him by a friend. He claims that this book
brought about an instantaneous, practical
transformation in my life. According to
Gandhi, the main teachings of the book
were- the good of an individual is
contained in the good of all; a lawyers
work has the same value as a barbers;
and a life of labour, i.e., the life of a tiller
of the soil and the handicraftsman, is
worth living. Gandhis concept of
Sarvodaya (welfare of all) was inspired by
Ruskins ideas. Ruskins writings created a
lasting impact on Gandhi which helped him
formulate his political philosophy.
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 Legacy


Truth is the end and nonviolence
is the means. Nonviolence and
truth are so intertwined that it
is practically impossible to
disentangle and separate them.
They are like two sides of a coin
or rather a smooth unstamped
metallic disc.

Gandhi focused on Satyagraha - a
method of conversion, rooted in
nonviolence and love. It aims at
changing the attitude and
thinking and behaviour of the
opponent rather than the
external behaviour of the
opponent. It relies on the power
of persuasion and reason,
dialogue and consensus building,
and love and understanding of the
opponent.
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Movements for civil rights in US and
liberation in South Africa give
credence to Mahatmas ideas and work.
Martin Luther King summoned the
traditions of resistance and like Gandhi
maintained that nonviolence can be
practiced only by the brave. Nelson
Mandela has demonstrated the
efficacy of nonviolent method in the
anti-apartheid movement in South
Africa. Lech Walesa of Poland,
Benigno Aquino Jr. in Philippines, A.
T. Ariyaratne in Srilanka, Danilo Dolci
in Sicily and Lanza del Vasto in France
have respected the ways shown by
Gandhian ideas and practice.

Writers and thinkers like Aleksandr

Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov
have propagated through their words
and deeds that nonviolence is a more
powerful way of establishing peace in
the world than violence can ever be.
War resisting groups across the world
use nonviolent methods and evoke the
methods of Gandhi.
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The principles of nonviolence and
peace are undoubtedly difficult to
practice, but not impossible. They are
not mere high ideals, they have
practical dimension too.

A comparison of 323 nonviolent and

violent resistance campaigns from
1900 to 2006 shows that nonviolent
resistance methods are likely to be
more successful than violent methods
and have achieved success 53 per
cent of the time, compared with 26
percent for the violent resistance
campaigns.

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According to him life cannot be
divided in spheres like social, political,
economic, moral and religious. If one
part of the society suffers, all parts
suffer. This was part of Sarvodaya.

According to him, Swadeshi is that

spirit in us which restricts us to the
use and service of our immediate
surroundings to the exclusion of the
more remote.

To a friends suggestion to write a

treatise on the science of ahimsa, he
had responded, To write a treatise on
the science of ahimsa is beyond my
powers. I am not built for academic
writings. Action is my domain. All my
action is actuated by the spirit of
service.

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The youth of today can learn a great
deal from Mahatma Gandhi. If
absorbed and understood completely
by the young minds of the new
generations, his traits can undoubtedly
create a future which we fight for
with arms today. To question the
societal norms of present day and to
speak up about injustice around us in
the smallest form are essential lessons
from Gandhis life.

To build our sensitivity regarding acts

of inequality, violence and suffering
worldwide forms the crux of Gandhian
philosophy. The ideologies and the
spirit of Gandhi will never perish,
unlike his physical form. The legacy he
has left behind, not only serves to
provide a basis for an understanding of
humanity, but also as an eternal source
of inspiration for the world to be a
better place. It is now our duty to
cherish, understand and implement it.
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For the Mani Bhavan Sanghralaya, made by Varun Kapadia. 17 years old