Mahatma Gandhi 150th Birth Anniversary

If ever there was a man who single-handedly steered the course of a nation and its people leading them from a subjugated subservient state in awe of their colonizers to a self-confident population demanding freedom from imperial domination, it was, without doubt, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Born on 2nd October, 1869 in a Modh Bania family, Monia, as his parents affectionately called him, was the favourite of his teachers. His father, Karamchand was politically influential and his mother Putlibai was well informed about all matters of state.

Mahatma Gandhi had his first brush with racial arrogance in his early twenties when he went to meet Sir Charles Ollivant, the Raj’s Political Agent in Kathiawar, who was examining a charge against his brother. When Gandhi reminded Ollivant of his old acquaintance with him, Ollivant advised him sternly to tell his brother to submit a petition in the proper course. Since Gandhi persisted, he was forcibly evicted from Ollivant’s room. Gandhi felt that Ollivant had overreacted but he also realized that he should not have approached Ollivant in the first instance. Here, therefore, he decided that he would never again place himself on a weak footing and that he would focus his anger on the arrogance rather than the person displaying it.

Gandhi’s next encounter with racial discrimination took place in South Africa when he was asked to remove his turban in court by the Magistrate as Indians were expected to remove their headgear in court, more so if they hoped to speak to it. Thereafter came a series of racial insults on his journey from Durban to Pretoria including the Pietermaritzburg Station incident and further during his stay in Transvaal.

The Ollivant incident and the ordeals from Durban to Pretoria engendered violent thoughts in Gandhi’s mind and there was a clash between violence and forgiveness. However, when he read a book given by Tolstoy, he was influenced profoundly by it and learnt not to hate, not to hoard, not to kill and to love one’s enemies. The conflict in his mind thus, resolved itself against violence and Gandhi went on to strongly believe that “Violence is the weapon of the weak; non-violence that of the strong”.

The incidents in South Africa led to the evolution of Satyagraha, a philosophy that was used by Gandhi not just in South Africa but in India as well and also by leaders of other countries Steering their respective freedom/civil rights movements. The idea of Satyagraha challenged the power of truth and the need to search for truth. It suggested that if the cause is true and the struggle against an injustice, then one could force it as not necessary to fight the oppressor. Satyagraha is pure soul-force. Truth is the very substance of the soul. That is why this force is called Satyagraha.

As a young boy, Gandhi had been stirred by a play on the story of Harishchandra who clung to the truth and remained loyal to his ideals and himself suffered greatly. The play haunted the twelve – year old boy who often acted the same several times and wept as he wanted to be like Harishchandra. Owing to this impact, the boy would not be prompted when his teacher tried to urge him to copy a word from a neighbour’s slate during the visit of an educational officer to the school on inspection! Gandhi’s love for truth manifested itself in a remarkable self-awareness and openness both in public and private life. His campaigns of civil disobedience were always declared in advance. His social experiments were discussed in his newspapers and the comments of his critics were given due prominence. In fact, truth was such a sublime force in Gandhi’s life that he said, “Innumerable are the names of God; but if a choice were to be made of one, it would be Sat or Satya, that is Truth. Hence verily Truth is God”.

With openness and self-awareness came a striking ease of forgiving, another defining characteristic of Gandhiji’s persona. He could quickly let bygones be bygones. He had no hatred and no resentment; once a settlement was reached, he could cooperate with enemies as fervently as he fought with them. That is why he believed, “Man finds himself by losing his self-ego”. Such a large and diverse role could never have been united by a leader hindered by ideological rigidity or personal arrogance.

An almost non-existent ego led to a character completely given to selfless service. Gandhi believed, “A life spent in service is the only fruitful life”. From the age of about thirteen to sixteen, he seems to have spent some time each day attending on his increasingly sick father, time which might otherwise have spent on walks, games with school friends, reading and pursuit of other hobbies. That streak of compassion and service developed in boyhood is the reason why later in life, he could dress the wounds of a disowned labourer suffering from leprosy with as much ease and equanimity as he could inspect latrines in a jhuggi-hut Bombay when he offered to help with the city’s sanitation.

Gandhiji believed that cleanliness is extremely important for physical and mental well-being as well as for a healthy environment. He lamented however, that we do not inculcate cleanliness in us because we do not care about public hygiene. He felt that without a clean and healthy surrounding, we would not develop as a nation. In fact, he did not see cleanliness only in terms of physical aspects, he believed in cleanliness of the body, the spirit and the soul, saying, “Where there is both inner and outer cleanliness, it approaches godliness.”