Gandhi and the Journey of Independence

Intorduction

In History, we have always learned about heroes, leaders, and people who made accomplishments that in a way have changed the world. We live for what others have done. Any courageous step taken by an individual in order to achieve a goal, a belief, and seek for a right, comes only from a person with leadership, huge spirit, and greatness. We have always looked back at leaders in our history that have made life easier for us. For that, I would like to write about an extraordinary personality that has achieved a big, difficult step for the good of Indians. Mohandas Gandhi is considered for many people the man of the century. This poor man has done what powerful political rulers couldn’t do. The Mahatma had fought and joined many Indians against the British Rule. Not giving up for years, he succeeded in gaining independence. This Essay will talk about Gandhi’s journey of leadership and Independence. It will first briefly talk about his youth and education, and then it will discuss the beginning of his experiences and lessons in life, where he got his ideas from. It will also include the main causes that led him into his revolution of faith and truth, and the steps that led him into his nonviolence resistance and civil disobedience.

Background

The father of Independent India was Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948). A political and spiritual leader, who was called the Mahatma or the Great Soul, was born in Porbandar, a small town on the western coast of India, at the time the British were ruling India. He was born into a political, middleclass Hindu family. Both his grandfather and father have been Prime Ministers of a small Indian state. He was just a normal kid like others, nevertheless he was very shy. A family of politics had made in him this passion and strength; this great soul that created the great leader. “He had inspired two generations of India, patriots, shaken an empire and sparked off a revolution which was to change the face of Africa and Asia. To millions of his own people, he was the Mahatma- the great soul- whose sacred glimpse was a reward in itself.” (Nanda, n.d.)

Education

After being educated in India, Mohandas was determined to become an English Gentleman, so at the age of nineteen he went to London to study law at the Inner Temple. During this period Mohandas learned many new things other than studying law. “There he met English socialists and Fabians such as George Bernard Shaw, whose ideas contributed greatly to the shaping of his personality and politics.” (Bbc.com, 2006) He got new clothes made, flaunted a double watch chain of gold, and took some lessons in French, Latin and in elocution. He realized that if he could not become a gentleman by virtue of his character, the ambition was not worth admiring. As part of studying law, Mohandas was first introduced to the Bible, and was interested in Christianity as well as Hindus religious texts. This is how the glow of his ideas started, in which he was introduced into the power of truth and holding the truth, that he called the Satyagraha, as well as the Hindu idea of nonviolence. His thoughts were all about respecting all religions and understand what each one teaches best.

His life in South Africa

After three years of studying and discovering, Gandhi returned back to India to practice law, but unfortunately he founded difficult to live. And after an unsuccessful year of practicing law, in 1893, Gandhi accepted an offer from an Indian businessman in South Africa to work for his company as a law advisor. So he traveled to South Africa to practice law, and he discovered and tasted the color discrimination and how Indians are treated unfairly, where he first was thrown out of a train, for refusing to move from the first class to the third class, though he was an Indian. The racial disgrace that he as all Indians and blacks were facing turned the shy and insecure lawyer into a brave political protester.

Ideas of influence

After twenty years in South Africa, watching the Indians living there treated unfairly without political rights, Gandhi himself came to an awareness of the rage and violence force of the European racism, where he decided to step in and do something about it. He started thinking and planning based on his thoughts and ideas that he mostly had learned from several thinkers, and this is where he planned his first Satyagraha. “Influenced by a variety of writers and thinkers, including Tolstoy, Thoreau and Jesus Christ, Gandhi developed the Satyagraha ('devotion to truth'), a new non-violent way to redress wrongs.” (BBC.co, 2006)

Success of Satyagraha

He was interested in religions and ethics early in his childhood,