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What words come to mind when you think of Mahatma Gandhi? Hero? Martyr? Apostle of Peace?
You can call him whatever you like, but you can't call him irrelevant. Fifty-three years after Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's assassination, this internationally acclaimed leader, philosopher, statesman, thinker and human-rights champion remains one of the most influential leaders of the last hundred years, despite never having held any public office. Having devoted his entire life to developing and testing the theories of non-violence, India's "Father of a Nation" battled and transformed legalized practices of racial discrimination in South Africa and helped to catapult India, his homeland, from the oppressive throes of British rule.
Born into a family of merchants in Porbandar, India, in 1869, the Mahatma (which means "great soul") got married at the age of 13. At 19 he broke with caste tradition and traveled to England to study law. It was there that he began to develop his philosophy of life. Traveling to South Africa in 1893 for a legal case, he wound up staying for almost 21 years, working to free the Indian minority from discrimination by the English. Leading countless social and political campaigns there, he was beaten and imprisoned numerous times for his leadership, but through it all never gave up on his faith. Upon returning to his native India, he continued to resist injustice and introduced 'satyagraha' (civil resistance and disobedience performed without violence or anger in word or deed, for example in the satyagraha against British rule, resistors neither saluted nor insulted the British flag; Satyagraha also calls for rigorous adherence to the truth.) Satyagraha was waged against British rule, which ultimately led to the withdrawal by the British, and the surrendering of all power to a new Indian government.
Gandhi's successful campaign to eject a major colonial power from his country without resorting to violence is a monument to what human beings can achieve peacefully. Organizing massive strikes and marches, and refusing to obey discriminatory laws while not resisting arrest or even providing a defense against attacks by police and soldiers, Gandhi's non-violent methods of confrontation pointed a way to fight powerful foes without moral compromise.
Gandhi's social teachings, inspired, in part, by the New Testament, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy and John Ruskin, were praised by such important figures as Albert Einstein as being the answer to the social ills of war, class- and race-based discrimination. A devoted Hindu and pacifist, Gandhi operated by fundamental principles like love, honor and respect. He believed that all life was a part of one ultimate spiritual reality, with the supreme goal being self-realization. He believed that fighting injustice required one to love fellow human beings, and because of this, righting the wrongs of others could only be accomplished through satyagraha.
It was through his philosophies and campaigns of civil disobedience that Gandhi laid the blueprint for peaceful protests everywhere. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who is perhaps Gandhi's most famous convert, used Gandhi's methods during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, broadly applying them in the fight against the oppression of blacks in America.
One of the most compelling aspects of Gandhi's life was that he constantly experimented with his beliefs on himself first. Believing there was no job that should be "untouchable" by any group of people, Gandhi refused to let others wait on him. He often waited on his friends and enemies instead. In his lifetime he worked as a lawyer and newspaper editor, and was even a soldier for the English army. An avowed vegetarian who sometimes fasted to express his discontent with a political position, Gandhi stopped using salt in his food when the British forbade Indians from making it, and began sewing his own clothes when he felt the British were paying the cotton-exporting Indians unfair wages.
Assassinated at the age of 79, Gandhi's death was viewed as an international tragedy. A man who lived by example, Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace and non-violence, whose philosophy still finds relevance in a modern world, continues to inspire us to reach for the highest levels of human dignity.
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