Mahatma Gandhi and His Myths (Gandhi, Civil Disobedience, Nonviolence, Non- Violence, Satyagraha)Reproduced in full from the book published by Shepard Publications, Los Angeles, 2. This is the text of the 1. Annual Gandhi Lecture for the International Association of Gandhian Studies, delivered at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville on October 2. There are many myths about Gandhi. I’d like to point out a few of them and hopefully get rid of them for you. First, a quick one: Gandhi was not a scrawny little man. Yes, his legs were scrawny—and bowed—but he had a barrel chest, and a deep, booming voice to match it. In pictures, you just don’t notice his chest, because he usually had a cloth draped around it. That was an easy one. Let’s try another. One of the most common and most dangerous myths about Gandhi is that he was a saint. The name—or rather, the title—Mahatma itself means “Great Soul.” That’s somewhere between a saint and a Messiah. Gandhi tried to avoid the title, but the people of India ignored his protests. Now I see that even the Library of Congress has begun to classify him under “Gandhi, Mahatma,” so I guess he’s lost that battle. I’ve heard it argued that Gandhi indeed was a saint, since he was a master of meditation. Well, I must tell you that in all my readings of and about Gandhi, I’ve never come across anything to say that Gandhi was a master of meditation, or that he meditated at all—aside from observing a minute of silence at the beginning of his prayer meetings, a practice he said he borrowed from the Quakers. Gandhi objected when people called him “a saint trying to be a politician.” He said he was instead “a politician trying to be a saint.” Personally, I go along with Gandhi’s judgment on this. Not that Gandhi’s spiritual efforts and achievements shouldn’t be honored. They’ve certainly inspired me. But if we label Gandhi a perfected being, we lose our chance to view his life and career critically and to learn from his mistakes. Besides, if people see Gandhi as a saint, they’ll think he’s “too good for the world,” and they won’t take his example seriously as a model for concrete social change. I’m constantly annoyed at finding books on Gandhi in bookstore sections marked “Religious,” or even “Occult.” If his books are stashed away like that, how will the hard- boiled political scientists ever run across him?* * *Another myth about Gandhi is the idea that India’s political leaders, beginning with Nehru, are the inheritors of his tradition and have carried it on. I wish they had. But really, India’s leaders have rejected much more of Gandhi than they’ve adopted. They abandoned nonviolent action as soon as they attained power. India now sports the world’s fourth largest armed force, and the leaders haven’t seemed at all reluctant to use it to settle conflicts, either inside or outside the country. No thought is given to possible Gandhi- style alternatives. Maybe even worse, India’s leaders have done their best to imitate Western countries by building an economy based on large- scale industry and large- scale agriculture. Gandhi fought this kind of development. He warned that it would economically ruin India’s villages, where 8. India’s people lived and still live. And Gandhi has proved correct. Yes, India is now overall a much richer country—but it has more desperately poor people than ever. As many as half of its people can’t afford enough food to sustain health. A short biography describes 's life, times, and work. Also explains the historical and literary context that influenced Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi, Self: Mahatma Gandhi Talks. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) was born on October 2, 1869, into a Hindu Modh family in Porbanadar. The Salt March, which took place from March to April 1930 in India, was an act of civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) to protest British rule in India. In the middle of this epic film there is a quiet, small scene that helps explain why “Gandhi” is such a remarkable experience. Mahatma Gandhi, at the height of. A memorial marks the spot in Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti), New Delhi, where Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated at 5:17 p.m. Mahatma Gandhi Biography. Mahatma Gandhi was a prominent Indian political leader who campaigned for Indian independence. He employed non-violent principles and. India prides itself now on growing enough grain so it doesn’t need to import any—but the surplus rots in storage while people starve who can’t afford to buy it! Gandhi promoted a different kind of development. He stressed efforts based right in the villages, building on the villagers’ own strengths and resources. Not many people here realize it, but Gandhi may be this century’s greatest advocate of decentralism—basing economic and political power at the local level. You may remember in the movie Gandhi seeing Gandhi spin cotton yarn on a compact spinning wheel. Gandhi and his colleagues were the ones who developed this wheel and introduced it into the villages. Gandhi, My Father is a 2007 Indian biographical drama film by Feroz Abbas Khan (not to be confused with actor Feroz Khan). It was produced by Bollywood actor Anil. INDIA - DEFYING THE CROWN. By March 1930 the people of India are growing more restless under the yoke of British rule. Indian nationalists turn to Gandhi to lead a. On Biography.com, learn about Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, whose non-violent acts of civil disobedience helped free India from British rule and inspired future. ![]() ![]() ![]() Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is known as Mahatma meaning . He campaigned for Indian independence from British rule. It’s the first case of what’s now called “appropriate technology” or “intermediate technology.” Of course, E. Schumacher, the author of Small is Beautiful, later introduced the terms themselves. Schumacher was strongly influenced by Gandhi, calling him “the most important economic teacher today.”Gandhi set up a number of organizations to help carry out village development. He sent many workers to live in and among the villages. Since his death, thousands have carried on this work. Now, though, the workers often combine development with campaigns against local injustice. Probably the closest thing in the United States to what they are doing is what we call “community organizing.”The people carrying on this work in India are among the true successors of Gandhi. Other modern- day Gandhians are in programs like the Chipko—“Hug the Trees”—Movement, which blocks irresponsible logging in the Himalayas; or Shanti Sena, the “Peace Army,” which intervenes nonviolently in urban riots. My book Gandhi Today describes a number of the Gandhians’ programs. By the way, here’s a quick bust of another myth concerning Gandhi and India’s leaders: Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv, the current prime minister, are no relation to the Mahatma. ![]() Indira Gandhi was the daughter of Nehru. The name “Gandhi” is common in India, and came to her by marriage. The name means “grocer.”* * *I suspect, though, that most of the myths and misconceptions surrounding Gandhi have to do with nonviolence. For instance, it’s surprising how many people still have the idea that nonviolent action is passive. It’s important for us to be clear about this: There is nothing passive about Gandhian nonviolent action. I’m afraid Gandhi himself helped create this confusion by referring to his method at first as “passive resistance,” because it was in some ways like techniques bearing that label. But he soon changed his mind and rejected the term. Gandhi’s nonviolent action was not an evasive strategy nor a defensive one. Gandhi was always on the offensive. He believed in confronting his opponents aggressively, in such a way that they could not avoid dealing with him. But wasn’t Gandhi’s nonviolent action designed to avoid violence? Gandhi steadfastly avoided violence toward his opponents. He did not avoid violence toward himself or his followers. Gandhi said that the nonviolent activist, like any soldier, had to be ready to die for the cause. And in fact, during India’s struggle for independence, hundreds of Indians were killed by the British. The difference was that the nonviolent activist, while willing to die, was never willing to kill. Gandhi pointed out three possible responses to oppression and injustice. One he described as the coward’s way: to accept the wrong or run away from it. The second option was to stand and fight by force of arms. Gandhi said this was better than acceptance or running away. But the third way, he said, was best of all and required the most courage: to stand and fight solely by nonviolent means.* * *Another of the biggest myths about nonviolent action is the idea that Gandhi invented it. Gandhi is often called “the father of nonviolence.” Well, he did raise nonviolent action to a level never before achieved. Still, it wasn’t at all his invention. Gene Sharp of Harvard University, in his book Gandhi as a Political Strategist, shows that Gandhi and his Indian colleagues in South Africa were well aware of other nonviolent struggles before they adopted such methods themselves. That was in 1. 90. In the couple of years before that, they’d been impressed by mass nonviolent actions in India, China, Russia, and among blacks in South Africa itself. In another of his books, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp cites over 2. And he assures us that many more will be found if historians take the trouble to look. Curiously, some of the best earlier examples come from right here in the United States, in the years leading up to the American Revolution. To oppose British rule, the colonists used many tactics amazingly like Gandhi’s—and according to Sharp, they used these techniques with more skill and sophistication than anyone else before the time of Gandhi. For instance, to resist the British Stamp Act, the colonists widely refused to pay for the official stamp required to appear on publications and legal documents—a case of civil disobedience and tax refusal, both used later by Gandhi. Boycotts of British imports were organized to protest the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the so- called Intolerable Acts. The campaign against the latter was organized by the First Continental Congress, which was really a nonviolent action organization. Almost two centuries later, a boycott of British imports played a pivotal role in Gandhi’s own struggle against colonial rule. The colonists used another strategy later adopted by Gandhi—setting up parallel institutions to take over functions of government—and had far greater success with it than Gandhi ever did. In fact, according to Sharp, colonial organizations had largely taken over control from the British in most of the colonies before a shot was fired.* * *Why aren’t we more aware of such cases—including those in our own history? I think it’s because of something we could call “filtering.”Probably most of you who’ve worked with cameras know about the kind of filter I mean. The filter fits over the camera lens and blocks out portions of the light—usually certain colors—and lets the remainder pass through to the lens. In effect, the filter selects the portion of light that the camera will “see.”Each of us too sees the world through our own “filter”—a filter made up of our assumptions, our motivations, and the categories we use to sort out and organize our experience. This filter determines how we see the world. When we come across something that doesn’t match our assumptions, motivations, and categories, our filter blocks it out.
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