The Mahatma and his Principle

As is the 117^th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi at sway, counting on to the success of his principles of ‘Satyagraha’ and ‘ahimsa’ becomes the necessity of the time. How the lean and frail figure, through his ideology of non-violence, the very first of its kind, could expunge the greatest of forces at that time, ‘The British Empire’ from the Indian soil, is the question of the 1.26 billion Indian population, exercising their rights, freedom and duties in this very democratic country of ours.

Gandhi: A Teenager

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2^nd October, 1869 at Porbandar, otherwise known as Sudamapuri, and spent his childhood there. Gandhi recollects the days of his schooling as such,

“I recollect having been put to school. It was with some difficulty that I got through the tables. The fact that I recollect nothing more of those days than having learnt, in company with other boys, to call our teacher all kinds of names, would strongly suggest that my intellect must have been sluggish and my memory raw.”

Young Gandhi was an introvert, often at times running from the school as bell rang, worrying of the lame jokes other boys would mock on him. He would dearth only to the books of his, and would possibly try avoiding any type of social interaction. At the ‘preposterously early’ age of thirteen, Gandhi was married to Kasturbai. Having failed a number of times in school, his elder brother decided of sending him to London for his further studies. The financial burden quirked the family, and finally Kasturbai has to sell her jewellery to buy the ticket, the rest promised to be sustained by his brother. At London, Gandhi faced the acuity of the British culture and mannerism. Homesickness made him tear down on a number of occasions and kept sleep out of the question. He tried accustoming to the English way-of-living, but the relief was short-termed. It only made him more self-conscious of what others would think, and moreover, was he being funded by his brother, the expensive deal brought him into chasm. The studies too seemed to haunt his inner-conscience, as he was not able to connect what he was studying to what he knew.

 The day he passed the examination, he was called up to the bar, enrolled to the High Court. The other day, he fled for his homeland with the worrisome thought of his ill mother. He was informed of his mother’s death by his brother when he reached the Indian shore. He contemptuously tried overcoming the sad demise of his mother, and tried for an earning as Rajkot, but was disappointed as a ‘Briefless Barrister’. Then came the phase of his life, which he describes as an act of grace, and unfolded as the turning point of his life. Through his brother, a Muslim firm offered to help Gandhi with a year’s contract at its South Africa’s office. At South Africa, Gandhi found himself, hitherto, lacking the confidence and expression that was needed to address a case.

His experience at London began to pay-off. He started practicing book-keeping and found his deepest of concentration to the case, which his intellect provincially cultured to. He devised the cases to the glitters of the truth, and the secret of success was at his galore. He started earning $30,000 an year and also galloped the respect of his fellow Indians and black Africans. Satisfaction still appeared at bleak, and he was deeply stressed with the prevailing discrimination among the Africans. Finally it awakened with Gandhi that, to know was to feel, to feel was to act, and to act was to live. He immediately disposed his extravagant lifestyle and vigilantly started exercising for the rights of the Africans. His selfless and adamant nursing service and his armed Indian troop for the Boer War were the newest of his revelations. He, viciously, hired a second Indian ambulance troop for the Zulu natives against the Natal government, but was astonished with the strikes on the Zulu villages and the distress of the same. It then appeared to him, the rampages and ravages of war, he henceforth, committed himself to hinge to the wisdom of NON-VIOLENCE.

Not until thirteen years later, when Gandhi was thirty-seven, when he frenzied non-violence as a mass suppression and resistance. The Transvaal government had proposed of fresh legislation against the black natives, and if the ‘Black Act’ came into being, it would have been an end to Indian communities in South Africa. He, instead of battling the government with the violent of resurgence, decided for a higher challenge in the course of action: to refuse to obey such degrading legislation and accept the consequence without violent retaliation, without yielding a inch in their demand for equal and fair treatment. With this, Gandhi triumphantly won, “the moral equivalent of war”. Within a short span of time, the developments that were to follow were tentative with the demands – General Jan Smuts of the Transvaal government, melted to the Gandhi’s appeal and vigour for justice, and the laws against the black, were slowly repealed one-by-one.

Gandhi’s way of love

Bhagavad Gita became the devising and guiding principle of his prophecy and helped him teach and shape his ‘law of love’. Though being acquainted with the Bhagavad Gita from the days of his childhood, he did not dare foster the virtue of the sacred until he was in England, where he and his friends tried to transverse an English version of the text. The perpetual appeal of the book transformed his life, and The Gita became a sacrosanct of his philosophical and political demeanour.

“The Gita has been a mother to me ever since I became first acquainted with it in 1889…One who rests his head on her peace-giving lap never experiences disappointment but enjoys bliss in perfection. The spiritual mother gives her devotee fresh knowledge, hope and power every moment of his life.”

Kasturba was the other bliss to his practice of the ‘way of love’, and was she, who through her endurance, sacrifice and devotion nurtured in him the seeds of satyagraha. Kasturba’s tolerance to Gandhi’s domination of his English ways stipulated anguish and often led to altercations between the two. Withstanding his contempt, she followed and consented with him, for the love and respect she cultivated for him.

When Gandhi returned to India, he was vividly accepted as the leader of the 200 million people to fight back the tyranny of the British. One of the earliest steps Gandhi took to revive the self-respect and the integrity of the country was the liberation of the lower castes. Kasturba, for the same, had to clean the toilet herself, which she wholeheartedly agreed, for the betterment of the minorities. He overnight changed the status of the lower castes, by giving them the title Harijans, ‘The children of God’.

Gandhi’s Satyagraha and ahimsa

The word Satyagraha, which Gandhi introduced as the new means to fight injustice is a Sanskrit word which means ‘the holding of the truth’. Gandhi argued, it is only with truth that fear, injustice, violence and discrimination wither away. Satyagraha is the abiding force of the enlightened, the one who understands that he and his provocateur are one. He never resorts to violence and engulfs the attacker with resentment of his own behaviour and guilt.

Ahimsa means non-violence. Satyagraha and Ahimsa became the coveted words of Gandhi which he often described as the ‘two sides of the same coin’. Gandhi himself, explains the principle of Satyagraha as such,

“A satyagrahi bids goodbye to fear. He is therefore never afraid of trusting the opponent. The appeal is never to his fear; it is, must be, always to his heart. The satyagrahi’s object is to convert, not to coerce, the wrongdoer.”

It was in 1930, that he laid forth his path of Satyagraha through the Civil Disobedience movement at Dandhi. Gandhi, along with seventy-eight of his trusted followers, brisked a 220-km long walk to the coastal village of Dandi to break the salt law. The comrade grew from seventy-eight to thousands as they moved along the 28 days journey. Wherever Gandhi stopped, he conveyed the people of the strength of non-violence and ahimsa, and its repercussions when practiced by each and every individual.

Gandhi: The Man

“My life is an indivisible whole, all my activities run into one another; and they all have their rise in the insatiable love of mankind.”

Gandhi’s spiritual essence, fulfilled by the Bhagavad Gita, guided him to greatness and mastery. His regular practice of meditation and yoga at the time of dawn helped him poise and cater to the truth. He, during his lifetime, created a number of communities. He called them Sevagrams, “the village of service”. Men, women, children of all ages could come at these Sevagrams and learn the ideals of love and non-violence.

Gandhi had by the end of his life, mastered the ‘law of love’, and as were the challenges of the end brimming, so was his acuity. During the time of independence, there was a complete unrest between the Hindus and Muslims in the country. Hatred towards Gandhi had swelled, because he was the one who urged for brotherhood. So great was the man, that during the time of his death, when he was shot by a miscreant, his departing words were Rama, Rama, Rama which meant I forgive you. I love you. I bless you.

The spiritual and divine excellence that the Mahatma has gathered, indicate the greatness of the lean and fragile figure who completely changed the politics of India as well as the world. Behind the political greatness of the legend, lies igniting his conscience, the spiritual greatness, bound with selfless service devoid of all the earthy pleasures.

“You must watch my life, how I live, eat, sit, talk, behave in general. The sum total of all those in me is my religion.”