By Tota Mangar
OCTOBER 2, 2021 commemorates the 152nd birth anniversary of an extraordinarily gifted man, the late Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, more popularly and affectionately known as Mahatma [Gandhi] or “Great Soul”.
This remarkable spiritual and political leader was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, a small seaside town in the Kathiawar peninsula in western India.

EARLY YEARS
The young Gandhi was brought up in a moral and religious environment that decreed the sanctity of all things. He received a somewhat indifferent formal education. For example, he himself acknowledged that while he was a conscientious student, he was very shy and lacked self-confidence.

Not long after completing his primary education, the family moved to Rajkot and while he was at secondary school and at the tender age of 13 he was married to Kasturbai as part of the age-long Indian custom of ‘child marriage’. As was the prevailing tradition at the time, the adolescent bride was to spend much time at her parents’ home while her husband completed high school.

Gandhi’s father died in 1885 after a prolonged illness and family circles subsequently influenced the young Gandhi to pursue studies in law since it obviously held good scope for professional and political success.

IN LONDON 
Gandhi sailed from Bombay to London in September 1888 and there he pursued studies in law and jurisprudence at University College, London. In England he quickly adjusted to the new environment and he came into contact with several prominent social idealists at the time including H.P. Blavatsky and Mrs Annie Besant. While being a law student Gandhi demonstrated a keen interest in the welfare of London’s impoverished dockland communities, especially against the background of the dockers’ strike of 1889 over better pay and improved working conditions. The frail-looking Gandhi became a barrister-at-law in 1891. He returned to India where he did some odd legal jobs for the local prince of his hometown of Porbandar. But the floundering Gandhi was far from satisfied. He abhorred petty intrigue, palace pomp, subservience and snobbery which pervaded local administration at the time.

STINT IN SOUTH AFRICA
It was not surprising, therefore, that Gandhi accepted an offer in 1893 to work in South Africa. By that time several thousands of Indian indentured labourers had been imported into that country to work primarily on the British-owned sugar, tea and coffee plantations. In addition, free Indian immigrants were earning a livelihood as hawkers, tradesmen, artisans and professionals within the country. Gandhi quickly became an advocate of his fellow Indians.

As a representative of the Indian population in South Africa, he fought relentlessly for their basic rights. He was shocked at the level of racial discrimination that was in existence and the very despicable apartheid system in general. He himself experienced physical abuse, eviction and public humiliation as he confronted the South African government with a series of challenges and with the principles of ‘ Satyagraha’ [a concept of holding on to the truth] and civil disobedience. He was even jailed for his South African struggles but this did not daunt his spirit since he was convinced that justice and fairplay would eventually prevail.

Gandhi’s unorthodox campaign against white prejudices in defence of South African Indians and Natives was of grave concern to the government. Their racist leader, General Smuts was forced on the defensive time and time again as Gandhi relentlessly sought to eradicate human sufferings. Writing about his confrontation with Gandhi years later, General Smuts confessed:
“His activities at the time were very trying to me….Gandhi showed a new technique…. his method [Satyagraha] was to break the law and to organise his followers into a mass movement. For him everything went according to plan. For me, the defender of law and order, there was the usual trying situation, the odium of carrying out a law which had not strong support and finally the discomfiture when the law was repealed.”

HOMELAND RETURN AND STRUGGLE
Following his successful stint in South Africa, Gandhi returned to India in January 1915. By this time, his spiritual qualities along with his valiant overseas heroics were beginning to be acclaimed throughout his homeland. He came in contact with the world famous poet, Rabindranauth Tagore who had won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. It was Tagore who later conferred the title ‘Mahatma’ or ‘Great Soul’ on him. Gandhi and Tagore complimented each other as Indian nationalists and internationalists in their own right. Both were concerned at the plight of the suffering millions and both saw the need for ‘Hind Swaraj ‘ or Indian Home Rule. Gandhi also became associated with G.K Gokale, President of the Servants of India Society.

After thorough soul searching, Gandhi was convinced he could make his contribution to society.  He established his ‘Satyagraha Ashram’ and quickly focused his attention at the numerous secret tribunals and imprisonment of prominent Indians by the British during the period of World War I. He entered politics and joined the Indian National Congress and worked hand-in-hand with leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mohammad Jinnah.

In 1919 he campaigned against the curtailment of civil liberties under the British imposed Rowlatt  Acts by organising ‘Hartal’ or the suspension of economic activity such as the closure of shops, factories and banks. It was his view that ‘hartal’ would effectively demonstrate Indian unity and discipline to those in authority.

Following the Amritsar massacre in 1919 during which several lives were lost, Gandhi initiated his policy of non-co-operation and the boycott of British imported goods. It was clear that by the early 1920s Gandhi had emerged as the undisputed leader of the Indian National Congress, the dominant political party at the time. As part of his strategy against the British, he advocated a policy of non-violence and non-co-operation in order to achieve India’s political independence. He wanted a new India not merely a free India. To him true freedom of India meant the emergence of a new free Indian individual, free from the shackles of British rule.

Gandhi toured the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent urging non-co-operation and clamouring for internal self-government and political independence. He also initiated a systematic civil disobedience campaign for which he was charged and imprisoned several times. He adopted fasts as a means of touching men’s hearts and minds.

In 1930 Gandhi was in the forefront of the great salt march in defence of the poverty stricken sections of the Indian community, during which British brutality was highly evident as it sought to suppress resistance and stifle public opinion.

As the years progressed, Gandhi continued his struggle to end British rule. He participated actively in several independence conferences (round table conferences), he asserted the unity of all the people of India under one God, he led the fight to end the caste system and he defended the rights of the ‘Harijans’ or ‘Untouchables’.  In 1942 the British jailed him after he refused to co-operate during World War II. On his release from prison in 1844, he became a major figure in the post-war negotiations that resulted in India’s independence in 1947.

At the same time he was deeply distressed by the religious partition of the country into India and Pakistan and the eventual violence that broke out between Hindus and Muslims. At great inconvenience and personal sacrifice he resorted to fasts and visits to the troubled areas in the valiant efforts to end the religious violence.

DEATH
He was on one such prayer vigil in January 1948 when he was fatally shot by a Hindu fanatic. His death sent shock waves throughout India and the wider world and it was a tremendous blow to humanity. Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in addressing his countrymen over All India Radio had this to say: “Friends and comrades the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere and I do not know how to tell you or how to say it, our beloved leader, Bapu, as we called him, the father of our nation, is no more.”

Close to a million people wept and wailed as the funeral procession advanced to the cremation site where the Mahatma was cremated on January31, 1948.

World leaders, including the British King, the American and French Presidents, the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and other world dignitaries paid glowing tribute to this remarkable man. Even the Security Council of the United Nations interrupted its deliberations to laud Gandhi ‘as a friend of the poorest, the loneliest and the lost’.
  
ANALYSIS
Perhaps at this stage it is appropriate to have a closer and brief analysis of those special qualities which were associated with Gandhi during his lifetime. He took his desire for truth and justice to extremes in his daily life. In his own words he saw ‘Satyagraha’ which is born out of a love of truth and non-violence. Clearly he must have influenced people like the late Martin Luther King, our own Dr Cheddi Jagan and the former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, in this unique philosophy.

One of his most outstanding characteristics was his complete fearlessness. Neither physical violence, verbal attacks, arrests and imprisonment, nor any threat to his personal welfare could deflect him from his chosen path. Once he had plotted a course he stuck assiduously to it with remarkable calm, irrespective of the consequence. He was supremely self-confident and had a tendency for self-sacrifice and simplicity. This was evidenced in the numerous fasts in pursuit of his objectives. He was convinced that it was possible to force an opponent to a change of heart and to invoke compassion by patiently enduring suffering himself.

On one independence visit to England, neither the excessive cold nor pouring rain could make him change his Indian garb. It was his scanty and simple mode of dress which caused War Hero and one-time British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, to refer disapprovingly to him as “that half naked fakir”.

Gandhi intuitively knew what response his actions could evoke and by which simple non-violent means he could create panic to the British authorities in India.

His intuition told him that the creation of an independent Pakistan would not solve the conflict between Hindus and Muslims but would be giving into the evils of separateness and religious fanaticism. Thousands of deaths, the acute migration of people, border problems and hostile neighbourly relations between today’s India and Pakistan are the consequences of the partitioning of pre-independence India. That is why he relentlessly pursued Hindu-Muslim unity and religious toleration. Religion, according to him, should be intellectually satisfying, ethically uplifting and spiritually comforting. The Mahatma rightly believed that good character and noble service are important elements of life. That is why he spoke simply, he dressed simply, he lived simply, he reduced complex issues to bare essentials, he used simple but very effective methods of political pressure and in doing so he touched the hearts of the humblest of people — the suffering millions in India and around the world.

It is little wonder that the great 20th century physicist and philosopher, Albert Einstein wrote, “We are fortunate and grateful that fate has bestowed upon us so luminous a contemporary, a beacon to generations to come.”

Mahatma Gandhi was essentially a man of religion. His religion was broad, non-sectarian and non-dogmatic. Indeed, a purer, a nobler, a braver and a more exalted spirit has never moved on the face of the earth in modern times. He was a man among men, a hero among heroes, and a patriot among patriots. His legacy is courage, honesty, humility and non-violence; his lesson is truth; and his weapon, love. He is rightly revered as Bapuji (Father of the Indian Nation). Above all, he was an inspiration to all third world countries in their quest to break the yoke of colonialism.  The name Gandhi lives on.