Mahatma Gandhi: biography, family, political and social activities

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is known in the world as Mahatma Gandhi. The biography of this man is known to every Indian. He founded a movement that led to India's independence. His life is a feat. He showed by his ministry how just one person can integrate a multi-confessional, caste-stricken warring nation, numbering about a billion people (Buddhist India and Muslim Pakistan were then united).

This was the type of Mahatma Gandhi, whose life story has one pronounced dominant - the implementation of the philosophy of nonviolence adopted by all castes. He obeyed the will of only one tyrant - "quiet voice of conscience."

Childhood, youth

To the caste of the merchants belonged Mahatma Gandhi, who was born 02.10.1869. His biography in his childhood mentions the strict religious order and the vegetarianism of the parents' family. His father held a senior civil service position in the coastal city of Porbandar, Gujarat, and his mother was very religious.

At the age of 13, the young man, according to the Hindu tradition, married a contemporary named Kasturba. Six years later, the first-born was born to the couple, and then three more sons. Subsequently, Mahatma Gandhi refused from the elder, leading an unjust life. The other three became the father's support in his teaching. And the youngest of them, Devdas, married his wife from the highest caste - the Varna of the Brahmins, which is an incredible miracle for India.

Study in Britain

Nineteen-year-old Gandhi went to London, where he received a law degree. Returning to India, he worked as a lawyer for two years in Bombay. Then eleven years, Mohandas Karamchand served as a legal counsel to an Indian trading company in South Africa. On the African continent for the first time engaged in political activities of Mahatma Gandhi. The philosopher's biography and politics testify that it was there that he applied his philosophical views of nonviolence.

The Mahatma's outlook evolved as a result of the rethinking of the Bhagavad Gita, as well as his acceptance of the views of the Irish fighter for the autonomy of Michael DeWitt, the American thinker Henry Thoreau, the Russian classic Lev Tolstoy.

Gandhi in South Africa

At that time, South Africans came from India for earnings. Around that time, the city of Kimberley, standing by the Orange River, was known as the diamond capital of the world. The hard labor at the diamond mines required labor. Unfortunately, the people recruited to mines and mines were treated horribly. It was there that the lawyer Gandhi felt in himself rare opportunities - to resist evil and violence by the power of the good of his soul. He was given a rare gift: to conquer aggression with the word and conviction given to a few people.

Mohandas felt in himself the potential demanded by the modern world for him - to change it for the better, destroying the unjust foundations, mutilating people morally.

Mahatma Gandhi began to translate his views, starting with himself. He once and for all refused European clothing in favor of the national, began to strictly maintain fasting, religious rites. He and his supporters succeeded in changing the discriminatory laws of South Africa.

He was waited in India

In 1905 Mohandas Karamchand returned to India. In absentia, staying in South Africa, he won the glory of the people's public figure in his homeland. The national bourgeoisie of India at that time was perfectly aware that there could be no question of any governance by her country, let alone a development strategy, without the consolidation of all castes of society. She herself could not do this. She needed Mohandas.

Gandhi introduced the whole country to none other than Nobel laureate in literature Rabindranath Tagore, for the first time calling him Mahatma. By the way, the pious politician himself did not accept this title, considering himself unworthy.

The global, revolutionary goals were pursued by the struggle of Mahatma Gandhi. However, the philosopher was not going to go to them by corpses. He returned to a poor, plundered and plundered country.

At that time, 175 foreign corporations worked in India, earning profits three times higher than the national income. Exploitation of the people reached unprecedented scale: insignificant income per capita decreased from 1.5 to 0.75 pence per person per day. Most of the peasants lost their ownership of the land. The population suffered from hunger and epidemics. Only in 1904 more than a million Indians died from the plague.

The teachings of Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand sees the reason for all this and organizes the movement for national independence. The seeds of truth fell on fertile ground, such preaching was long awaited by colonial India. Mahatma Gandhi chose the name Satyagraha, consisting of two nouns: "truth" (sat) and "hardness" (agraha). The politician considered civil disobedience a natural right of every citizen, the philosopher considered him to be one of the basic for any really free person.

The fight against injustice, according to Gandhi, should be based on two principles:

• Civil disobedience;
• Non-violent resistance.

Following them, the Indians should, in the opinion of the Mahatma, give up any support for the institutions of colonial British infrastructure and greedy colonial corporations, that is, to withstand the "three not" principle:

• Do not buy British goods;
• Do not serve the colonial system in state institutions, police, army;
• Do not receive from British officials of rewards, titles, honors.

1919 - a turning point in the struggle for independence

In 1919, the Indian National Congress, under the influence of Gandhi's ideas, instead of the former liberal-opposition position, moved to the struggle for independence. Why at this particular time? Let us turn to history. It was then that the House of Commons of the British Parliament was compelled, for the first time in history, to consider the case of the punishment of the colonial commander, Brigadier General Dyer, authorizing the shooting of a peaceful protest in the city of Amritsar, which led to the killing of more than a thousand sepoys. It was this act of blatant racial discrimination that marked the beginning of the disintegration of the British colonial system created by iron and blood .

In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi urged his compatriots to a peaceful demonstration under the slogans of gaining independence. Millions of demonstrations on a working day covered the country's largest cities. Unfortunately, there was a collision with the police and, accordingly, the victims. Of course, the policy of Mahatma Gandhi did not provide for this in any way. However, the British arrested him and condemned him for six years as the instigator of the riots. In prison, he developed his teaching, wrote works that educate the people.

The Sage in the Ashram

Mohammed Karamchand did not return to the family at the end of the term of imprisonment. Like a monk-hermit, he founded a shelter for the needy (ashram) in the wastelands of the city of Ahmedabad. A man who feared nothing ... Every day people came to listen to the sage preaching to them.

His views became much broader than those expressed by the Indian National Congress, and Gandhi emerged from it.

Philosophy, based on the religion of Buddhism, was simple and understandable for Indians, it affected hearts. To his words, national elites began to listen. "The world should begin to change from itself," Mahatma Gandhi said. Quotations from his speeches inspired the listeners, inspired them with faith in a new India.

The struggle for the socialization of untouchables

The problem that violated the integrity of Indian society was the existence of castes untouchable, that is, people discriminated against for millennia, beginning with the slave society. By the way, their share in the population of India is about 16%. Untouchable until the XX century, the ways to education, to prestigious professions were closed. They were forbidden to enter public temples. In the tea they were given separate dishes. For their equality, Mahatma Gandhi raised his voice first. Quotations from his speeches people recorded at rallies, the words of them inspired the disenfranchised compatriots, instilled in them faith: "First they do not notice you, then they laugh at you, then they fight with you. But still you win. "

Gandhi refused to visit temples, where the untouchable entrance was banned. The crowd gathered at the doors of these churches, the "father of India", said: "There is no God here." And soon all temples of the country stopped such a humiliating tradition.

Gandhi called the untouchables children of God (Harijans). He tirelessly preached that Hinduism rejects all discrimination. Thanks to his efforts, laws were passed in India that hampered the professional and social oppression of the lower castes.

"Father of the nation" subtly felt the identity of the society of his country. When the radical leader of untouchables, Dr. Ambedkar began to achieve full equality, Mahatma Gandhi made him understand that this should not be done, otherwise a split will arise in the country. When his opponent continued to persist in his delusion, Mahatma expressed his protest with a hunger strike. Gandhi was really ready to die for the truth, "father of the nation" convinced Ambedkar.

The role of Gandhi in the peaceful division of the country into India and Pakistan

Also, his merit was the peaceful separation of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan after the proclamation of their independence from Britain in 1948. When, it would seem, terrible bloodshed was inevitable, Mahatma Gandhi, enjoying great authority in both faiths, for the second time declared a dry hunger strike. And it had an effect.

Mohandas Karamchand also did much to gain Indian civil rights. He reasonedly criticized the practice of early marriages, prematurely depleted them, called for participation in women's public associations, for an active role in society.

Miscellaneous from the life of the Mahatma

Follow the laws of virtue, and not talk about them called Mahatma Gandhi. Interesting facts from his life can be a wonder to people far from Indian culture:

• The name Gandhi in Indian means "shopkeeper". The father and grandfather of an outstanding politician were prime ministers of Indian principalities. He himself always called himself Mohandas and never Mahatma.
• In his youth, Gandhi did not go barefoot. On the contrary, he was like a dandy. Staying in London, the young man took private lessons of dancing and etiquette. He was also the secretary of the London Society of Vegetarians.
• Gandhi personally engaged in collecting untouchables money. Many sacrificed gold jewelry to him, but the Mahatma always remained unmerciful, dressed in rags. In the country he traveled in the most unpretentious wagons, that is, belonging to the third class. Once he was asked: "Why in the third?" The philosopher answered this: "Because the fourth car does not exist!"
• People ignorant believe that Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi are the father and daughter. However, such an opinion is far from the truth. They are not even related. The politicians of the Indira family took the name "Gandhi" as if it were a political banner, like a generic pseudonym, indicating the continuity of the goals that the Mahatma was trying to achieve.

• Gandhi was arrested so often that he often gave his home address the address of the Yeravda prison. In 1931, he came straight from there in the pants and jacket of the hadi to an audience with the Queen of Britain.

Literary Activity

Although the life of the sage was a continuous series of reflections, insights and sermons, it was hardly the writer of the "soul of India" - Mahatma Gandhi. His books in their majority are orderly speeches and letters. The man of idea and action, Mohandas Karamchand, was not taken for a pen for entertainment.

Perhaps the only book, not a collection, is his fundamental work "My Faith", in which the philosopher laid out a harmonious interpretation of his understanding of Buddhism. He was able to show in it how the principles of faith can be introduced into the economy, social sphere, politics. His doctrine of spiritual life inspired the masses of the people morally oppressed by the colonialists, could instill in them faith in the future of independent India. "My faith" can help any person of proper spirituality to grasp the basics of nonviolent, but active struggle with Evil.

Another important work of Mohandas Karamchand was not created as a single book. In fact, it is a collection of letters written by him during a 6-year prison sentence. After all, Mahatma Gandhi used to write about the evil of the day. Books for politics were not an end in themselves. He always worked out the anger of the day, sensitively hearing the need for preaching articles by society.

One day the Mahatma was given the request of a person from the untouchable caste - to clarify the provisions of the Bhagavad Gita to him. The peasant complained that he did not understand its provisions. The philosopher, realizing the globality of this problem for the self-realization of the nation, wrote a series of letters, each of which represented the author's interpretation of one of the chapters of the great book. Subsequently, the letters were published under the general title - "True Kurukshetra". It is useful to all who want to understand the essence of Buddhism.

Other well-known books of Mahatma: "Revolution without violence", "The Way to God", "About prayer" are collections of his performances in different years.

Conclusion

Was the saint Mahatma Gandhi really? Biography of his life in recent years mentions that he expected a violent death, not at all afraid of her. In particular, to his granddaughter, he said that she called him Mahatma only in case he was killed and he died without groaning, with a prayer on his lips. This was not a pose, the philosopher knew what he was talking about. He managed to rise above the castes of his fatherland, to integrate his society with the socium of the country, previously deliberately disunited by the colonizers who ruled on the principle of "divide and rule."

His main service to the people of India is that the Mahatma, who came to his homeland during the pre-revolutionary situation in 1905, initiating changes, did not allow the country to slide into the abyss of class struggle, like the tsarism of Russia that niggled. His teaching and political struggle not only involved proletarians and peasants in political activities, Mahatma Gandhi introduced the idea of social responsibility into the minds of the national elite.

However, in India there were revolutionary movements of the castes of the untouchables, wishing, like Bulgakov's Sharikov, "to take everything and divide everything." They hated Gandhi for the fact that his teaching, accepted by the whole nation, did not give them a chance to shake the situation in the country. The philosopher was able to oppose the spirituality of society to the temptation to establish a dictatorship. Therefore, it can be for certain argued that losers, wishing to add blood to politics, "hated the father of the nation". During his lifetime, their intentions "to prick out a glazier to bourgeois" could not even be heard by the people, not what they perceived.

Gandhi was killed on January 30, 1948 by a revolutionary fanatic around his house when a crowd of admirers rushed to him. The philosopher always communicated with people in an open friendly conversation, without resorting to security services. He died at 78, as Mahatma was supposed to do: without groaning, with prayer, having forgiven his killer, becoming the banner of the Indian nation.