Write an essay on 'The Mahatma'
Answers
Bapu, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was born in 1869 on 2nd of October at Porbander in Gujarat, India. Mahatma Gandhi was a great Indian who led India with independence movement against British rule. He completed his schooling in India and went to England for further study of law. He returned to India as a lawyer and started practicing law. He started helping people of India who were humiliated and insulted by the British rule.
He started non-violence independence movement to fight against the injustice of Britishers. He got insulted many times but he continued his non-violent struggle for the Independence of India. After his return to India he joined Indian National Congress as a member. He was the great leader of the India independence movement who struggled a lot for the freedom of India. As a member of the Indian National Congress he started independence movements like Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience and later Quit India Movement which became successful a day and help India in getting freedom.
As a great freedom fighter, he got arrested and sent to jail many times but he continued fighting against British rule for the justice of Indians. He was a great believer in non-violence and unity of people of all religions which he followed all through his struggle for independence. After his lots of struggles with many Indians, finally he became successful in making India an independent country on 15th of August in 1947. Later he was assassinated in 1948 on 30th of January by the Nathuram Godse, a Hindu activist.
The stakes for which Gandhi really played were much bigger. In between two World Wars he strove to show that there were higher things than military force. By the force of love and truth and non-violence, he over powered the greatest military power on earth.
Among the Hindu Community, there was a group of people who were known as 'untouchables'. They were looked down on and not even allowed to draw water from the same well. These untouchable communities lived on the fringes of society and did menial work, such as scavenge.
Though he was a devout and high-caste Hindu, Gandhi described this practice as 'A blot of sin' upon the Hindu religion. His whole life was a ceaseless crusade against it. He founded several communal living centres in which the 'untouchables' were admitted as regular inmates who shared and lived equally with everyone. Gandhi used to call them 'Harijans'. When on a trip to South India, he was taken to some ancient temples, he refused to enter them because their doors had been closed to 'untouchables' over the ages. 'There can be no God here,' Gandhi sharply told the priests around him.
Another matter of deep concern for Gandhi was the animosity between Hindus and Muslims. He believed in the universal brotherhood of man. At his daily prayer meetings, passages from the scriptures of every major religion in the world were recited. Gandhi tried to make their common message of love and peace stand out.
When the British talked of partitioning India along Hindu-Muslim lines, Gandhi was deeply upset. 'You will have to divide my body before you divide India,' he said.
In this, he was not to have his way. The eve of Independence was sorrowful for this man who had-almost single-handedly-made it possible.
For along with Independence, came partition. India into India and Pakistan. Savage Hindu-Muslim riots broke out as each group tried to flee from the religion where it was minority. In the northwest, about four million people were killed.
But in the border regions of the northeast, there was a strange calm. Gandhi had arrived, with two woman satyagrahis, he set out on a walking tour. He held himself out as a simple sacrifice which would have to be made if any killings took place. From village to village Gandhi walked, calling upon the leaders of the Hindu and Muslim communities to embrace each other. And he succeeded!
When Gandhi returned to Delhi, the capital of the newly-born India, he was deeply distressed by the riots that had taken place there. He lived either in an untouchables colony or a tiny, sparse guest room provided by a friend. Gandhi announced that he would go on a 'fast unto death' until the riots stopped. He came close to death's door but the riots ceased.
A few days later, while Gandhi was on his way to daily prayer meeting, a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse - who had been enraged with Gandhi's sympathy for the Muslims - shot him dead.
Gandhi was seventy eight years old. His next plan was to march over a thousand miles to West Pakistan on a pilgrimage of love and peace. But this, alas, was not to be.
