What type of person was gandhi

After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March and tried him for sedition; he was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. In , after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London.

In , Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II , Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort.

Instead, British forces imprisoned the entire Congress leadership, bringing Anglo-Indian relations to a new low point. Later that year, Britain granted India its independence but split the country into two dominions: India and Pakistan. Gandhi strongly opposed Partition, but he agreed to it in hopes that after independence Hindus and Muslims could achieve peace internally. Amid the massive riots that followed Partition, Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots in Calcutta ceased.

In January , Gandhi carried out yet another fast, this time to bring about peace in the city of Delhi. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. During the march, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from his religious retreat near Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea Although faced with the challenge of uniting a vast population diverse in culture, language and religion, he The Taj Mahal is an enormous mausoleum complex commissioned in by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the remains of his beloved wife.

Constructed over a year period on the southern bank of the Yamuna River in Agra, India, the famed complex is one of the most Today, with about million followers, Hinduism is the third-largest religion behind Christianity and Islam. Mass protests were organised, miners went on strike, and masses of Indians travelled, illegally, from Natal to the Transvaal in opposition to the Black Act. Many of the protesters were beaten and arrested.

He was followed by other Satyagrahis. This was the first of Gandhi's many jail sentences. It took seven years of protest, before the Black Act was repealed in June Gandhi had proved that nonviolent protest could be immensely successful.

The Indians made a bonfire of their registration certificates and decided to defy the ban on immigration to the Transvaal. Jails began to be filled. Gandhi was arrested a second time in September and sentenced to two months' imprisonment, this time hard labour. The struggle continued. In February he was arrested a third time and sentenced to three months' hard labour.

He made such good use of his time in jail with study and prayer that he was able to declare that "the real road to ultimate happiness lies in going to jail and undergoing sufferings and privations there in the interest of one's own country and religion".

Before the prison term was over General Jan Smuts sent him an emissary proposed that if the Indians voluntarily registered themselves he promised to repeal the Act. Gandhi and the leader of the Chinese population in South Africa, Leung Quin, agreed to the compromise. He always believed in trusting the opponent, but other Indians were not so trusting.

One burly Indian, a Pathan, even charged Gandhi with having betrayed them and threatened to kill him if he registered. On the day Gandhi went out to register he was waylaid and attacked by this and other Pathans and severely injured. When he recovered consciousness and was told that his assailants had been arrested he insisted on them being released.

Gandhi registered, but his disappointment was great when Smuts went back on his word and refused to repeal the Black Act along with denying any promises were made. The Indians made a bonfire of their registration certificates and decided to defy the ban. In June , he left for London after having defended his position as leader of the Transvaal merchant community.

He was fighting for his political survival and withdrew to Tolstoy, a farm he had purchased in to support the families of jailed passive resisters. Gandhi only came under the public eye again in as a result of a visit to South Africa by Indian statesman Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

He was accused of preventing opponents of his policies to speak with the visitor and finally, on 26 April Gandhi and his rivals in the NIC went their separate ways. In , a provisional settlement of the Asiatic question in the Transvaal brought about a suspension of the Satyagraha campaign. But Gandhi had his fears which were soon borne out. The Union Government went back on its promise, and to this fire was added a very powerful fuel when a judgment of the Supreme Court ruled that only Christian marriages were legal in South Africa, turning at one stroke all Indian marriages in South Africa invalid and all Indian wives into concubines.

This provoked Indian women, including, Kasturbai, to join the struggle. It was illegal for the Indians to cross the border from the Transvaal into Natal, and vice versa, without a permit. Indian women from the Tolstoy Ashram, which Gandhi set up in the Transvaal, crossed the border without permits and proceeded to Newcastle to persuade the Indian miners there to strike. They succeeded and were arrested. The strike spread and thousands of miners and other Indians prepared, under Gandhi's leadership, to march to the Transvaal border in a concerted act of non-violent defiance.

Gandhi was followed by two parties led by Thambi Naidoo and Albert Christopher. This marked one of the greatest episodes in South African history. He was arrested the following day at Palmford. Gandhi made strict rules for the conduct of the Satyagrahis who were to submit patiently and without retaliation to insult, flogging or arrest.

While leading a march on 6 November , which included women, 57 children and men, Gandhi was arrested. He was released on bail, rejoined the march and was re-arrested. The Indian Relief Bill was finally scrapped.

At one time there were about fifty thousand indentured labourers on strike and several thousand other Indians in jail. The Government tried repression and even shooting, and many lives were lost.

Here violent confrontation ruled and several strikers were killed and injured in clashes with the police and more protesters joined. By the end of November produce markets in Durban and Pietermaritzburg had come to a standstill, sugar mills were closed and hotels, restaurants and homes were left without domestic workers. Reports in India relating the arrest of Gandhi and police brutality caused uproar and the British government was forced to form an agreement with the strikers.

The law was scrapped. Gandhi was released and, in January , a provisional agreement was arrived at between him and General Smuts and the main Indian demands were conceded. Before sailing, he sent a pair of sandals he had made in jail to General Smuts as a gift. I have worn these sandals for many a summer since then, even though I may feel that I am not worthy to stand in the shoes of so great a man.

Having spent twenty years in South Africa helping fight discrimination, Gandhi decided it was time to head back to India in July On his way home, Gandhi was scheduled to make a short stop in England. However, when World War I broke out during his journey, Gandhi decided to stay in England and form another ambulance corps of Indians to help the British. When the British air caused Gandhi to take ill, he sailed to India in January Gandhi's struggles and triumphs in South Africa had been reported in the worldwide press.

By the time he reached home, in India, he was a national hero. Although he was eager to begin reforms in India, a friend advised him to wait a year and spend the time travelling around India to acquaint himself with the people and their tribulations.

Yet Gandhi soon found his fame getting in the way of accurately seeing the conditions that the poorer people lived in day to day. In an attempt to travel more anonymously, Gandhi began wearing a loincloth dhoti and sandals the average dress of the masses during this journey.

If it was cold out, he would add a shawl. This became his wardrobe for the rest of his life. Also during this year of observation, Gandhi founded another communal settlement, this time in Ahmadabad and called the Sabarmati Ashram.

Gandhi lived on the Ashram for the next sixteen years, along with his family and several members who had once been part of the Phoenix Settlement. It was during his first year back in India that Gandhi was given the honorary title of Mahatma "Great Soul". Many credit Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, for both awarding Gandhi of this name and of publicising it.

The title represented the feelings of the millions of Indian peasants who viewed Gandhi as a holy man. However, Gandhi never liked the title because it seemed to mean he was special while he viewed himself as ordinary.

From then on, Gandhi was known as Mahatma Gandhi. It is commonly believed that Rabindranath Tagore first bestowed the name. However, this is incorrect. On 30 January , Gandhi hurriedly went up the few steps of the prayer ground in a large park in Delhi. He had been detained by a conference with the Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and was late by a few minutes.

He loved punctuality and was worried that he had kept the congregation waiting. Every one returned the greeting. Many came forward wanting to touch his feet.

They were not allowed to do so, as Gandhi was already late. But a young Hindu from Poona, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, forced his way forward and while seeming to do obeisance fired three point-blank shots from a small automatic pistol aimed at the heart. Gandhi fell, his lips uttering the name of God He Ram. Before medical aid could arrive the heart had ceased to beat.

Because he was assassinated, we now ignore the frailties and the follies of the Mahatma. What is unremarked in many of the renderings on Gandhi is that his understanding of individual growth ignored the traditional Hindu version that sought balance between the four stages of life — brahmacharya , grihastya , vanaprastha , and sannyasa , and the four concerns of Hindus — dharma, artha, kama and moksha. Gandhi's transition from the medieval to the modern without the understanding of the ancient led to his incomplete view of Indian history, culture and mores.

Gandhi defined satya truth and ahimsa non-violence as positivistic and absolutist respectively. In his autobiography, factual and ethical truth is equated with ultimate truth. But in the practice of ahimsa, a mystical force of non-violence is presumed to be experienced as ultimate truth that can bring about a change of heart in the opponent. In other words, his practice of truth or transparent right conduct acquires the mystical power of saving oneself and others.

This is the medieval Vaishnava practice where surrender through right conduct "saves" the devotee. But as a political doctrine this approach did not always deliver the change of heart in the opponent.

Thus, we observe Gandhi's disappointing engagement not only with Muslims, Christians, the British and the communists, but also with many Hindus too. Lelyveld's book, with a very small dose of titillating material about the Great Soul, therefore elicits howls of protests from those who have ensconced him among the pantheon of Hindu mythic figures.