Gandhi

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Gandhis Influence in India and the World
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Mohandas Gandhi

• Mohandas Gandhi was born in the seaside town of
  Porbandar.
• Gandhi learned basic ideas of nonviolence from
  Hinduism, and Jainism.

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Mohandas Gandhi (cont.)

• As Gandhi grew older, his family suggested he
  study law in London.
• In the fall of 1888, Gandhi left for London.
• His wife Kasturbai and son, Harilal, stayed with
  his parents.

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Mohandas Gandhi (cont.)

• In London, Gandhi first read the Bhagavad-Gita,
  the wisdom of Hinduism.
• From this he took its ideal of the active but
  selfless human being.
• Gandhi obtained his law degree in 1891, then
  returned to India.
• Accepted an offer to work in South Africa.

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Mohandas Gandhi (cont.)

• Gandhi first employed civil disobedience while an
  expatriate lawyer in South Africa, during the
  resident Indian communitys struggle for civil
  rights.
• After his return to India in 1915, he organized
  protests by peasants, farmers, and urban laborers
  concerning excessive land-tax and discrimination.
  
• After assuming leadership of the Indian National
  Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns
  to ease poverty, expand womens rights, build
  religious and ethnic amity, end untouchability,
  and increase economic self-reliance.
• Above all, he aimed to achieve Swaraj or the
  independence of India from foreign domination.

Untouchables
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Mohandas Gandhi (cont.)

• Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved
  in public service should lead a simple life. He
  first displayed this principle when he gave up
  wearing western-style clothing, which he
  associated with wealth and success.
• When he returned to India he renounced the
  western lifestyle he led in South Africa, where
  he had enjoyed a successful legal practice.

7
Mohandas Gandhi (cont.)

• Gandhi famously led his followers in the
  Non-cooperation movement that protested the
  British-imposed salt tax with the 240 mile Dandi
  Salt March in 1930. (sounds like a civil rights
  march?)
• He launched the
  Quit India Movement in
  1942, demanding immediate
  independence for India.
• Gandhi spent a number of years
  in jail in both South Africa and
  India.

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Mohandas Gandhi

• Gandhi dressed to be accepted by the poorest
  person in India, advocating the use of homespun
  cloth (khadi).
• He and his followers adopted the practice of
  weaving their own clothes from thread they
  themselves spun on a charkha, and encouraged
  others to do so.
• While Indian workers were often idle due to
  unemployment, they had often bought their
  clothing from industrial manufacturers owned by
  British interests.
• The Swadeshi movement held that if Indians made
  their own clothes, it would deal an economic blow
  to the British establishment in India.
• Gandhian simplicity was a sign and expression of
  swadeshi principles. Consequently, the charkha
  was later
  incorporated into the flag of the Indian National
  Congress. He subsequently
  wore a dhoti for the rest
  of his life to express the simplicity of his life.

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Mohandas Gandhi (cont.)

• Gandhi spent one day of each week in silence. He
  believed that abstaining from speaking brought
  him inner peace and made him a better listener.
• This influence was drawn from the Hindu
  principles of mauna and shanti. On such days he
  communicated with others by writing on paper.
• For three and a half years, from the age of 37,
  Gandhi refused to read newspapers, claiming that
  the tumultuous state of world affairs caused him
  more confusion than his own inner unrest.

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Gandhi and Nonviolence

• Throughout this time in Gandhis life he was
  imprisoned repeatedly by the British. Despite
  this, Gandhi insisted that his followers
  continued to remain nonviolent.
• For Gandhi, nonviolence was a fundamental part of
  his teachings.
• Gandhi believed that nonviolence gave a great
  moral power to its followers, as well as possibly
  sway the thoughts and actions of those who were
  viewed as cruel, thoughtless, and violent.

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Gandhi and Nonviolence

• Gandhi named this power satyagraha (reality
  force or holding onto truth).
• Gandhi made use of every nonviolent technique
  imaginable.
• These techniques included marches, hunger
  strikes, and demonstrations.

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Turning Point

• Seashore communities throughout India began to do
  the same.
• Many, including Gandhi, were arrested.
• This march became the turning point of the Indian
  independence movement.

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Title

• The British government was weakened.
• British forces finally agreed to leave India in
  1947.
• Gandhi recognized for his influence in this.

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Stop here
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Mahatma Gandhi

• Gandhi believed so much in loving tolerance that
  he hoped it could keep a newly independent India
  free of religious battles(Molloy, 112).
• Unfortunately, fear and tension are quite common
  between religious faiths.
• Muslim leaders feared oppression from the Hindu
  majority.
• Worked to create the new separate Muslim state of
  Pakistan.
• As a result of this, some Hindu militants wished
  for revenge.

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Gandhis End

• In a fit of rage, one of the Hindu militants shot
  and killed Gandhi in 1948.

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Gandhis Example

• Even after death, Gandhis example spread across
  the globe.
• Gandhi's ideology influenced Martin Luther King
  Jr.
• Used in protests against racial segregation in
  the U.S.

18
Gandhi

• Gandhi (1982) is a biographical film about
  Mohandas ("Mahatma") Gandhi.
• This is considered to be the most acclaimed
  tribute to Mahatma Gandhis life.
• Fairly accurate in terms of Gandhis life and the
  Indian struggle for independence.
• In AFIs 100 Years100 Heroes and Villains
  Gandhi is ranked at 21 for Heroes.