Gandhiji or Mahatma Gandhi, Father of Nation

He was christened Mohandas. He signed his name as M.K. Gandhi, but in full it was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. (He was the third son of the state's divan (Prime Minister) Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai). He preferred being called 'Gandhiji'. For India, officially, he is the Father of Nation, and is fondly called 'Bapu' ('father', in Gujarati). Tagore the poet called him reverentially 'Mahatma' (to mean 'Great Soul' in Sanskrit and almost all other languages in India), and the honorific title stuck and for the whole world he became Mahatma Gandhi, the spiritual leader who helped to win the freedom back to India from the hands of the British colonialists through a non-violent struggle of resistance, the modern apostle of non-violence, amity and peace, and a role model for morality in public life. And when he was felled in a Free India by the bullets of a Hindu fanatic who felt Gandhi was a supporter of the Muslims, Einstein, the great scientist and humanist, paid his tributes thus: "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the Earth in flesh and blood." From The British George Bernard Shaw who rejected the award of a Nobel Prize to the French Romain Rolland who accepted it had held Gandhi in high esteem. Gandhi's martyrdom was the pinnacle of the several sacrifices he offered for the principles he held sacred. It was on January 30, 1948 that he fell. His country had become independent months before, in August 1947, but the country was partitioned into Pakistan and India. The irony was that the Hindus and the Muslims would not live in peace, and they continued their rioting. When Indian National Leaders were celebrating the dawn of freedom in Delhi, Gandhi, the architect of freedom, was in Bengal, trying to quell the rioting. And finally, he had to begin his fast against the rioting and for the ending of the riots. The riots stopped, and the fast ended, but Gandhi was assassinated before long, by those who thought he was siding with the Muslims!

Mohandas Gandhi was born on October 2, 1969, in Porbandar, Gujarat, India. He became one of the most respected political and spiritual leaders in a world of Lenins, Stalins, Hitlers, Mussolinis, Maos, Ho Chiminhs and Churchills and of two World Wars, and the inauguration of the nuclear weapons. Gandhi's name shone in the 20th century as the pole star. The Bhagavad Gita was his favorite book of principles. But it is interesting to note that he came to know of the Gita only when he was a student in London, and that too from two English brothers. Whatever it is, he learned every word there in the great work, and became the follower of the principle of Dharma it conveyed to him. He decided to live the life of action without expecting any reward, as the Gita instructed. 

At the age of 13, he married Kasturba, 12, and they had four sons, Harilal, Manilal, Ramdas and Devdas.

He studied law in London. It is interesting to note how Gandhi found himself in London during those days in the 19th century. Gandhi had left Bombay for London, after getting his mother's blessings – his father was no more. He had sworn to live a celibate life in England, never to touch drink and never to eat meat, and to be a true Hindu. The Mahatma of the future, who was snubbed as "a half-naked fakir" by Winston Churchill later, because he  chose to  wear just a loin cloth just like any ordinary man in India, appeared in London for the first time as a student, in a white flannel suit, and in style! Clothes, dancing, playing the violin, parting of the hair, the cut of his suits – these were aspects of English life which gripped his early imagination. He was meticulously punctilious about these.

On returning to India as a barrister, he received a contract in South Africa to be a lawyer where he chose to work for the civil rights of the expatriate Indians there. He was once beaten up and thrown out of a train for having occupied the seats not allowed for colored people. Braving such humiliations himself, and challenging them in his own ways, he lived in South Africa for 21 years, immersed in direct social action against the discriminatory British laws there. He started a journal, Indian Opinion, for propagating his ideas and to stand for the rights of the Indian migrants. But his struggle was along the line of Satyagraha, a unique form of passive civil resistance, based on non-violence, truth and courage. His campaigns in South Africa were famous successes. He was influenced by the writings of the American thinker, poet and philosopher, Paul Thoreau in shaping up his satyagraha, a modified form of passive civil resistance. Wrote Gandhi on this: "Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practice in himself. ... He went to gaol for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable."

He returned to India in 1915, and entered Indian political horizon by organizing peasants, farmers and laborers to protest against the excessive taxations, a program he extended to the Indian National Congress in 1921, after taking up the leadership of the party. Soon he chalked out campaigns for the weaker sections of the society like the poor, the women and for religious and ethnic amity, against untouchability, and for economic self reliance. He led nationwide campaigns for achieving the goal of independence from foreign rule. And he went to London to attend a round table conference and spoke with the King in his Indian attire of Dhoti, and it was this provoked Churchill to call him 'half-naked fakir'. He was arrested several times for leading the struggle for independence, and he spent seven years in prison for his political activities. But Gandhi used the principles of Satyagraha to lead his people to independence from Britain, and he resorted to fasting several times, whenever he felt that he principles were being violated by his own people, and he won his cause each time. This he achieved with his unflinching faith in his principles, during the course of which he had to make many of his friends turn away, like Subhash Chandra Bose who took the path of battle against the British. Even his staunchest followers like Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Rajagopalachari, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Jayaprakash Narain who were all the next generation leaders of the new India, had found on many occasions many of Gandhi's views uncompromising and so not practicable.

Gandhiji's most inspired campaign was against the very heavy salt tax imposed by the British rulers. He undertook a long march of 400 kilometers from his abode in Ahmedabad to Dandi on the coast of Gujarat, followed by tens of thousands and they symbolically made their salt from the sea water. Thousands were arrested for the breach of law and imprisoned. Some difference of opinion cropped up between Gandhi and his followers. But the British came to realize the fact that the people of India would not give them the consent to continue for long.

The World War II and its end in 1945, the defeat of Winston Churchill by the left-wing Labour Party in the same year, the appointment of a cabinet mission to decide on the future of India and its independence, the Muslim League and its leader Jinnah moving away from the Congress, the cabinet mission's report taking things nowhere, the Labour Government becoming restive with India becoming too hot a potato for them to swallow any more, people getting angry and impatient by the day… political situation and events were dramatic and breathtakingly fast…

Mountbatten, a highly skilful negotiator and diplomat was dispatched to India as its last viceroy. He tried his best to bring about truce and peace between the suspicious Muslim League led by Jinnah, and the Congress led by Nehru, to no avail. After protracted deliberations the Congress of Nehru agreed to the partition of India as the price for independence. And India became independent, by cutting off the western Punjab and eastern Bengal to form the new Pakistan. Gandhi lay almost heartbroken. It was in the middle of August 1947. But the partition of the country created more problems and tragedy than the leaders were able to solve. Muslims and the Hindus on either side engaged in a terrific riot and arson, looting and bloodshed. It went on for months. Gandhi travelled from Delhi to Punjab to Calcutta and back to Delhi in his attempts at bringing about peace between the warring Muslims and Hindus. In Calcutta his fast proved productive and later in Delhi too. But on 30th of January, 1948, as the apostle of peace and love was walking up to his prayer meeting, a fanatic Hindu fulfilled his mission, by punching bullets into the frail Gandhi's chest. The light has gone out of our lives, mourned Nehru at that hour of helplessness.