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What kind of man was Mahatma Gandhi?
On August 15, 1947, when the Union of India was proclaimed, the Constituent Assembly paid homage to a great man known as “the guide and philosopher of the past 30 years, the beacon of freedom in India”.
At this moment, the great man blames himself for not uniting the Indians by dividing India and Pakistan. He went on a hunger strike in Calcutta for a day and spun on a spinning wheel from morning to night. He is the legendary Indian “Mahatma” Gandhi.
Gandhi came from an ancient middle-class family in India. The Gandhi family, deeply influenced by pacifist sects strictly opposed to violence, hates killing, not even ants. In his childhood, Gandhi was modeled by two sages in Hindu mythology, one representing integrity and the other symbolizing sacrifice.
In India, a society with rigid castes and strict caste boundaries, Gandhi’s superior background gave him the opportunity to go to the United Kingdom to receive higher education and pass the law exam. This education made Gandhi aware of the inequalities that existed in Indian society and the humiliating reality of India as a British colony.
He was determined to change this situation. So, while still abroad, he began to engage in the struggle against racial discrimination. After graduating from university, he returned to India. Soon a company asked him to go to South Africa to handle a lawsuit. He did not expect that something extremely humiliating happened on the way to South Africa, which changed his life.
The company bought him a first-class ticket to Pretoria, the federal administrative capital of South Africa. When the train arrived at the first stop, Petermelitzburg, a white European walked up to the compartment. As soon as the white man saw the colored man, even though his clothes were British, he called the captain angrily and asked why he was told to share the room with the “stinky coolie”. Gandhi refused to go to the luggage compartment and was expelled from the car.
Gandhi said it was an “indignity he had never experienced in his life, and my active non-violent action began on this day.”
Gandhi soon explained the idea of non-violence everywhere. He warned Indians in South Africa to purge the ancient hatred that divides Hindus and Muslims. He taught the ignorant crowd two commandments: one is to be clean, and the other is to be absolutely honest.
At the same time, Gandhi began to denounce the South African government for various discriminatory regulations, such as restricting Indian travel, banning strikes, and recognizing only Christian-style marriages as legal. It was not until 50,000 Indians joined the Force for Truth movement that the South African government finally enacted a historic reform bill.
In 1915, Gandhi returned to India. India at that time was not a country, but consisted of countless princely kingdoms and princely states. A myriad of religions and superstitions, a myriad of sects, rituals, and caste hierarchies, slaughtering each other in their periodic fanatical bouts of fanaticism.
Most astounding are those called “untouchable” pariahs, numbering some 50 million, whom society regards as lepers. They were not allowed to live in the village, or draw water from public wells, or enter the temples of the privileged, and when they approached, they had to shout “Unclean! Unclean!” to be avoided.
Gandhi founded a ashram and calmly announced: Dalits welcome! He called them “children of God.”
His flouting of taboos terrified even his most loyal followers, and his docile wife warned him in horror that “sulking” the ashram in this way would not succeed.
In the years that followed, Gandhi was attacked by orthodox Hindus, and hordes of teenagers lay down and blocked his vehicle. When his car was hit with rocks, he would get out of the car and walk straight into the angry crowd, sometimes so angry that he would shout, “Kill me! Why don’t you dare to kill me?”
His followers called him “Gandhi Master”. He started a campaign calling for Indians to boycott British goods. Later, the enthusiasm provoked by the boycott became uncontrollable, and a group of indignant demonstrators clashed with the police in the village of Chari Chara, slashing and killing 22 police officers. Gandhi, who advocated non-violence, was stunned and ordered the movement to be withdrawn.
Gandhi’s fame spread all over the world. Idealists and converts came in droves to revere him as an incarnation of God.
Jinnah, the leader of the Indian Muslim Confederation, has long called for the partition of India so that Muslims have a separate homeland, Pakistan. Gandhi vehemently opposed partition, asserting bloodshed. Jinnah proclaimed “Direct Action Day” in Bangladesh on August 15, 1946, and as a result Calcutta erupted in unprecedented riots. Hindus and Muslims in the city went mad, attacking, raping, and beheading each other.
Two months later, 77-year-old Gandhi set off for another blood-stained city of Nukkari, where Muslims were riotous. With a secretary and an interpreter, he preached the gospel of love barefoot, trying to quell the terror. He walked like this for 4 months, and the riots still spread like wildfire to other provinces.
On August 15, 1947, India became independent. As Hindus and Sikhs evacuated east from the newly established state of Pakistan, they clashed with Pakistani Muslims from east Punjab west, and millions of people died in the massacre.
Gandhi was devastated and declared that he would go on a hunger strike if he did not stop the bloody attack. Hindu, Sikh and Muslim leaders all came to the Mahatma’s bedside and vowed to stop the slaughter. But in September, violent clashes broke out in Delhi, and Gandhi went on hunger strike again.
Orthodox Hindus were outraged when they heard the Mahatma’s call to love the “abominable” Muslims. Before long, a bomb went off during a twilight prayer session presided over by Gandhi.
In 1948, Gandhi was killed on his way to a prayer meeting. The assassin was not a Muslim, but an ardent Hindu. He hated Gandhi for being close to Islam and having a Christian style, and blamed him for dividing India. Gandhi was shot in the chest and abdomen at close range and shouted, “Ah, God!”
Gandhi was respected by the masses and had lofty ideals, but he was not a saint . He was short-tempered, difficult to get along with, unwilling to cooperate with many people with the same goals, and was often arbitrary. Gandhi’s attitude towards his family was also not kind. His moral standards were so high that his four sons alienated him.
At the age of 37, he vowed to stay away from women, and ordered his two eldest sons to do the same. When the eldest son, Khalilair, wanted to get married, Gandhi disapproved. He later converted to Islam and began to drink alcohol, and eventually died of tuberculosis. Gandhi did not give his son a higher education, nor his wife a primary education. After Gandhi took the oath of not being close to women, his wife had to spend 42 years of loneliness. “She suffered because she was selfish,” Gandhi said.
But Gandhi’s eccentricities did not detract from his humanity or his superhuman courage. He launched three major mass movements: against colonial rule, against racism, and against religious bigotry. The great scientist Albert Einstein said: “It may be difficult for our descendants to believe that such a person has really existed in the world.”
