Gandhi:A Visionary
...irst encountered the British authority. “ I discovered that as a man and as an Indian I had no rights. More correctly, I discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an Indian.” (Fischer, The Essential Gandhi, p.174) He began to realize that the British control over India had made India helpless, politically and economically. It was here, in South Africa, that the foundation of Gandhi’s philosophy was developed. He organized his first satagraha (holding to the truth), a campaign of civil disobedience expressed in nonviolent resistance to what he regarded as unjust laws. This led to an agreement from the South African government tat promised the alleviation of anti-Indian discrimination. One of the ways that Gandhi developed his philosophy was by changing his personal life. In South Africa he learned to be self-sufficient. Gandhi learned how to do and make things himself and in turn, taught his family. He had started out in South Africa well dressed and not lacking for much. It was not long-lived however. He soon realized that he could save money by doing his own laundry. The first attempt was disastrous, but after mastering the skill, he taught it to his wife and therefore eliminated the washman. When Gandhi encountered a white male barber in Pretoria who refused to cut his hair because he was Indian, he went out to the store and bought a pair of clippers and cut it himself. That too was disastrous but he soon accomplished that feat as well. He was also his family’s nurse. After studying medical books, he delivered and helped care for his third and fourth infant sons. After spending a total of 21 years in South Africa, Gandhi returned to India. In the 1920s he began a program of hand spinning and weaving. He encouraged Indians to throw off foreign clothing and wear only that which they made at home. This aided economic freedom by making India self-sufficient in cloth. It promoted social freedom as well through promoting the dignity of labor. It advanced political freedom by challenging the British textile industry and by preparing Indians for self government. “Gandhi was not anti-West or anti-industry; his Indian eye simply saw the economic problems if India and Asia more clearly than the blind Europeanized votaries of machines for machine’s sake” (Fischer, Gandhi, His Life and Message to the World, p.85) Gandhi believed that by industrializing India it enslaved Indians instead of liberating them. One of Gandhi’s largest acts of civil disobedience was his march to the sea in protest of the salt laws that the British were imposing on the Indians. The British government made it a punishable offense to posses salt not obtained from government sources. Gandhi called upon the people to resist the salt tax by making salt themselves. He believed that it was the right of the people to have the freedom of enjoying the fruits of their labor without the government oppressing this freedom by imposing taxes on their necessities of life. Along with seventy eight followers, Gandhi set out on a two hundred and forty mile march towards the sea. By the time they had reached the sea, what started out as seventy eight people turned into thousands. At the end of the march Gandhi was imprisoned by the British authorities. Gandhi spent a total of 7 years in prison in his fight for India‘s independence from Great Britain. He believed that going to jail was honorable because he was standing up for what he believed in and that itself was honorable. “. . .Imprisonments. . .are courted because we consider it to be free under a government we hold to be wholly bad. . .A Government that is evil has no room for good men and women except in its prisons.” (Fischer, The Essential Gandhi, p.176) Gandhi believed that the seeking of self-purification in prison was the primary goal and the second goal was the embarrassment of the government. He did not, however, want any person who went to jail to feel humiliated, but rather to embrace the and willingly accept the consequences of an unjust government. Gandhi wanted to see the self sufficiency of India begin at the village level. He traveled all over India visiting these small villages. He worked to improve the conditions of the Untouchables which he called haijans or ‘Children of god’. Gandhi went on a hunger strike while in prison for the right of the Untouchables to rejoin the Indian community. The country went on a quest to save Gandhi from starving to death by appealing to the Hindus to let the Untouchables into their schools and temples. What I want, and what I am living for, and what I should delight in dying for, is the eradiction of untouchability root and branch. . . I believe that if untouchability is really rooted out, it will not only purge Hinduism of a terrible blot but its repercussions will be world-wide. My fight against untouchablility is a fight against the impure in humanity. (Chadha, 326-327) The series of fasts that Gandhi undertook on behalf of the haijans brought about reforms in the Hindu community, but was only temporary and just the beginning of a long struggle ...