The Life Of Gandhi History Essay

Gandhi was birthed into a family with a strong adoration of the Hindu faith. Being so strongly involved with their religion meant they were not allowed to excessively eat meat or drink wine due to their belief that alcohol is harmful to one’s body, mind, and harmful to a family. To Gandhi his religion and beliefs were the most important factor of his life, he even took on the vow to not eat meat, drink wine, and other forbidden things throughout his life. Even when he was small his brothers offered him meat but he refused to try it, through simple actions as this it showed that even though Gandhi was small he was responsible, respectful and loyal to his religion.

At age seven Gandhi began to attend school in Rajkot where his father acquired a Profession where he served as an adviser or prime minister to the local ruler, after moving from Porbandar schools where he had received his primary education up to his seventh year.

“From the beginning day that Gandhi attended Rajkot his honesty was challenge by everyone, everyday, in some instances he was even (Mohandas Gandhi). Such as the instance where his professor dictated a small number of English words for the class to spell perfect. Gandhi was known for his lack of spelling skills and having this reputation he miss-spelled majority of the words assigned to the class. W hen his professor noticed that he attempted to make Gandhi correct his words by copying from his neighbor. But Gandhi being the saint he was refused to copy off anyone’s work other than his own. It was around this time period when Gandhi was given his nick name by his parents “Mahatma” which meant great soul, a name he was destine to fulfill. Gandhi was only an ordinary boy both in the Primary School and in the High School. No special qualities were seen in him. At school he never took part in any games. He would not even freely mix with his companions. The fear that somebody would make fun of him always filled his mind constantly.

In May 1883, at the age of thirteen, Mohandas got married to 14-year old Kasturbai Makhanji. “They were wedded by their Hindu Faith where it was accustomed to arranged childhood marriages.” (Imperial Interest). In an interview, Gandhi was questioned about his marriage and about the day of their marriage, and he simply said, “As we didn’t know much about marriage, for us it meant only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives. “Also as customs required, the adolescent ride was to spend a majority of her time at her parents’ house and away from her husband.

In i885, when Gandhi was 15, the couple birthed their first child, but tragically only survived only a few days. But Mohandas and Kasturbah ad four more children, all sons: Harilal, born in 1888; Manilal born in 1892; Ramdas born in 1897; and Devdas born in 1900. While still attending his high school in Rajkot, Gandhi remained an average student academically. He passed them articulation exam f or Samalda College at Bhavnagar, Gujara with some difficulty.

While there, he was unhappy, mostly because he is family wanted him to become a barrister and he knew that he would have an opportunity to choose an occupation of his own, due to his great honor for his family.

On 4 September 1888, less than a month shy of his 19th birthday, Gandhi traveled to London, England to study law at University College London and to train as a barrister in honor of his family. “While there, his time in London was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother in the presence of the Jain monk Becharji, upon leaving India, to observe the Hindu precepts of abstinence from meat, alcohol, and promiscuity” (MahatmaG andhi).

Although Gandhi experimented with adopting” English” customs such as taking dancing lessons, rather than force feeding himself food that he could not stomach, he chose to starve rather than eat the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady. And starve he did until he discovered one of London’s few vegetarian restaurants. I t was here where he met a vegetarian society of theological practitioners, and became a member of the society where his philosophies grew to more broad aspects It was here where not only did Gandhi meet a soup of food faddist but earnest men and women to whom he owed his introduction to the bible and the Bhagavad-Gita, the most popular expression of Hinduism in the form of a philosophical poem. Though being influenced by the English culture in body and mind, Mahatma was still the simple practitioner of ahimsa; he swore to speak the truth and advocated that others do the same. Which he did, in his groups of philosophy gossiping. Gandhi was sure to spread the word of ahimsa to spread the greatness of peace. Gandhi lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha, Gandhi kept his culture with him no matter where he chose to venture.

In July 1891Mahatmare turned to India where painful surprises were in store.

Unknowing, Gandhi had discovered that in his absence his mother had passed away, and that the barrister degree he had worked so hard for does not a guarantee of a lucrative career. The ability to achieve a profession in law had become early impossible due to the over crowding of the field, and Gandhi was too diffident to elbow his way into the mess.

In 1893 Gandhi made a trip down to South Africa, while there Gandhi faced more and more discrimination directed towards Indians from the moment he attempted to arrive. Gandhi had been thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to move from the first class to a third class coach while holding a valid first class ticket. Traveling farther and farther on by stagecoach he was beaten by a driver for refusing to travel on the foot board to make room for a European passenger. Just one of the many other hardships he had faced on the journey. Gandhi was under constant discrimination from being thrown off of the trains to being barred from several hotels.

These incidents were the turning point in his life, awakening him to social injustice and influencing his social activism. It was through witnessing first hand the racism, prejudice, and injustice against Indians in South Africa that Gandhi started to question his people’s status within the British Empire, and his own place in society. This is where Gandhi had discovered and laid eating them, Brahmacharya which literal meaning is under the tutelage of Brahma refers to a period of spiritual education in the traditional scheme of life in Hinduism that takes place during the teenage years. This period of time in which the student, became contained within the practice of strict celibacy. Simplicity Gandhi believed that that a person involved in public service should lead a simple life. Faith: Gandhi was born a Hindu and practiced Hinduism all his life; this is where most of his principles came from. As a common Hindu, he believed all religion to

be equal but still rejected all efforts to convert him to a different faith. Gandhi once said “Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being…When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I seen not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left

any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita” (Quotesby Author),

After laying out his principles, Gandhi began to use his nonviolence ways to make changes throughout the world for the better of mankind. In 1894,Gandhi extended his original period of stay in South Africa to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote. Though unable to stop the bill’s passage his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the political inequalities of Indians in South Africa. Through this recognition Gandhi helped achieve the right to vote for the Indian people by establishing the Natal Indian Congress.

In 1915, Gandhi returned home to India from deeds in South Africa. From what seemed

like the near moment of his arrival to India, he began to speak at the conventions of the Indian National Congress. But was primarily paying h is attention to the concerns for Indian issues and politics.

In April of 1918, nearing the end of World War I, Gandhi had been invited by the Viceroy, to a War Conference in Delhi. To show his support for the Empire and help his case for India’s independence, Gandhi agreed to actively recruit Indians for the war effort. In contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the out break of World War I in l9l4, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants

In a June 1918 leaflet was titled “Appeal for Enlistment”, Gandhi wrote “To bring about

Such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them…if we want to learnt he use of arms with the greatest possible dispatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army,” (Quotes by Author). He did however stipulate in a letter to the Viceroy’s private secretary that he “personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe,” (Quotes by Author). Gandhi’s war recruitment campaign brought into question his consistency on his Ahisma ways of life. Family, friends, and strangers around the world had asked the same question as Gandhi’s good friend, Charlie Andrews, who had publicly said, “Personally I have never been able to reconcile this with his own conduct in other respects, and it is one of the points where I have found myself in painful disagreement and wondering why it is that Gandhi seems to be disregarding the Ahisma ways of life” (Quotes b y Author).

In 1918, One of Gandhi’s major achievements had been acquired with the Champaran agitation and Kheda Satyagrahah, he had made the change to use crops for cash not their primary consumption, this was necessary for their survival through the war. Villages all across India had been suppressed by the armies and militias of Britain, keeping citizens from leaving villages for food and water and other necessities for survival, diseases, sickness, alcoholism, and purdah had become rampant. “During all the devastation, Gandhi had organized a detailed study and survey of the villages, accounting for the atrocities and suffering, including the general state of living.” (Kltle, Clavin). Building on the confidence of villagers he began leading the clean-up of villages, building schools and hospitals and encouraging the village leaders to undo and condemn many evils. For his assistance in the bettering of the villages Gandhi was incarcerated for causing unrest. But luckily for Gandhi his hundreds of thousand followers had protested until his release.

In 1939, when World War II had broken out, Gandhi took charge for his country in the refusal to the demand of Indian participation for the British.

Throughout the war Gandhi and India refused participation, no matter the circumstances.

By 1944 the refusal of participation had developed in to the nearing of India’s independence”. In 1947 Gandhi had achieved the Grant of Independence from Britain using his methods of Ahisma, no bloodshed or major sacrifices other than fasting and time put into his forms of protesting.” (Mahatma “Great Sonl”),

On January1 3, 1948, Gandhi had under taken another successful fast in New Delhi to bring peace throughout the nation. Shortly after what was his final achievement, on January 30, 12 days after the termination of that fast, as he was on his way to his evening prayer meeting, he was assassinated by a fanatic Hindu.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had not died in vain, his life had revolved around peaceful ways, and with that as a moral Gandhi had achieved things no man single man could accomplish with any number of guns or militia. Gandhi had bettered the society he had partaken in throughout the course of his life with his methods of Ahisma.