Mahatma Gandhi: The Life, Struggles & Legacy of the Father of the Nation:

In 1893, Gandhi sailed to Durban in connection with a legal case of Dada Abdulla and Co., an Indian firm, doing trade in South Africa where he stayed there till 1914. During his stay in South Africa, Gandhi fought against racial discrimination which denied to the Indian community human rights necessary for leading a civilized life.

Arrival

Gandhi reached India on January 9, 1915 and was given a warm welcome for his partial victory in South Africa. In India, the moderate leader Gokhale was his political Guru. Gandhi spend 1915, and most of 19 16 touring India and visiting places as far as Sindh and Rangoon, Banaras and Madras. He also visited Rabindranath Tagores’ Shantiniketan and the kumbh fair at Hardwar. All this helped Gandhi in the better understanding of his countrymen and the conditions in India. 

Gandhi’s entry into Indian politics occurred in the 19 17- 1918 period when he became involved in three local issues concerning with Champaran indigo farmers, the Ahmedabad textile workers and the Kheda peasants. In these disputes Gandhi deployed his technique of Satyagraha and his victories in all these cases ultimately paved the way for his emergence as an all India leader.

Champaran- Tirhut division of North Bihar had been seething with agrarian discontent for some time. European’planters had established indigo farms and factories in Champaran at the beginning of the 19th century.  The basic issue of the trouble was the system of indirect cultivation whereby peasants leased land from planters, binding themselves to grow indigo each year on specified land in return for an advance at the beginning of the cultivation season. Gandhi went to Motihari, the headquarters of the district of Champaran, he was served with an order to quit Champaran as he was regarded a danger to the public peace. Gandhi decided to disobey the order ‘out of a sense of public responsibility. 

It was the peasantry which gave him the real massive support and he approached them in a most simple and unassuming manner. 

Kheda- Gandhi’s second intervention was for the peasants of Kheda in Gujarat where his method of Satyagraha came under a severe test. In 1917 excessive rain considerably damaged the Kharif crop in Kheda. This coincided with an increase in the price of kerosene, iron, cloth and salt because of which the cost of living for the peasantry went up. In view of the poor harvest, the peasants demanded the remission of land revenue.

Gandhi maintained that the officials had over-valued the crops and the cultivators were entitled to a suspension of revenue as a legal right and not as a concession by grace. After a lot of hesitation he decided to launch a Satyagraha movement on 22 March 1918. He inaugurated the Satyagraha at a meeting in Nadiad, and urged the peasants not to pay their land revenue. A good Rabi crop had weakened the case for remission. Gandhi began to realise that peasantry was on the verge of exhaustion. But this agitation certainly helped Gandhi in broadening his social base in the rural Gujarat.

Ahmedabad- Gandhi organised the third campaign in Ahmedabad where he intervened in a dispute between the mill owners and workers. Gandhi after spending few days, began the Satyagraha movement against the mill Owners. The workers were asked to take a pledge stating that they would not resume work until their demands are met. The movement ended in success.

That Gandhi was different from his erstwhile nationalist colleagues was evident when he launched his Satyagraha movements in remote areas of Champaran (in Bihar), Kheda and Ahmedabad (in Gujarat) instead of presidency towns that had so far remained the hub of the nationalist activities. His political strategies brought about radical changes in the Congress that now expanded its sphere of influences even in the villages. 

These three movements projected Gandhi as an emerging leader with different kinds of mobilising tactics. 

The binding factor of these movements were

1. They were organised around local issues and grievances
2. In mobilising people for the movements, the role of local leaders was most critical.

With his involvement in mass movements in Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad, Gandhi forged a new language of protests for India by both building on older forms of resistance, while at the same time accepting the colonial censure of all forms of violent protest. 

Two complementary processes seemed to have worked-

1. Local issues had obviously a significant role in mobilising masses for protest movements in the localities 
2. The presence of Gandhi at a critical juncture helped sustain these movements that perhaps lost momentum due to the growing frustration of the local organisers. 

Besides these local movements, Gandhi led three major pan- Indian movements. The 1919-21 Non-Cooperation Movement was the first one that gained significantly with the merger of the Khilafat agitation of the Muslims against the dismantling of the Khalifa in Turkey.

Although these movements were organised in different phases of India’s nationalist struggle, two features that recurred in all these instances of mass mobilisation were as follows-

1. Gandhi remained the undisputed leader who appeared to have swayed masses with his charisma and ‘magical power’.
2. Despite their pan-Indian characteristics, these movements were independently organised by the participants drawing on local grievances both against the rural vested interests and the government for supporting them.

Gandhi’s social and political thought is multidimensional. If its kernel is derived from India’s civilizational resources, its actual evolution was shaped by his experiences in South Africa and India. His political ideology was a radical departure from the past in the sense that it was neither constitutional loyalism of the Moderates nor extremism of the revolutionary terrorists. In his articulation of Indian nationalism, he sought to incorporate the emerging constituencies of nationalist politics that remained peripheral in the bygone era. Gandhi brought about an era of mass politics. So, an analysis of the role of the Mahatma in India’s freedom struggle clearly indicates the changing nature of the movement in response to the zealous participation of various sections of India’s multicultural society. It was possible because Gandhi was perhaps the only effective nationalist leader who ‘truly attempted to transcend the class conflicts by devising a method which, for the first time, brought about the national aggregation of an all-India character. His social and political ideas were the outcome of his serious engagement with issues reflective of India’s peculiar socio-economic circumstances. Gandhi simultaneously launched movements not only against the British rule but also against the atrocious social structures, customs, norms and values, justified in the name of India’s age-old traditions. Hence, Gandhian thought is neither purely political nor absolutely social, but a complex mix of the two, which accords conceptual peculiarities to what the Mahatma stood for. When the other leaders failed, Gandhi was the one who became the mutual leader between the two groups. He did not alienate either groups and skilfully brought the ideas of the two together. He was not straitjacketed by either moderate or extremist ideologies, and could successfully weave both into his action plans according to the situation. That is why he was able to transcend the moderate-extremist divide, and become a leader acceptable to both factions with a unified goal. What Annie Besant could not achieve in Home rule movement, Gandhi achieved during Non-Cooperation movement.

It is crucial for our understanding of Gandhi’s social and political ideas to realise the significance of the basic precepts of Gandhianism

1. Satyagraha- Satya means Truth whereas Aagraha means insistence. The literal meaning of this word is insistence on truth. Initially Gandhi referred to this method of fighting injustice as passive resistance. As he refined the technique over the years he realized that it required true Satyagrahis to be totally fearless and non-violently militant, and therefore he changed the definition to Truth Force. In the West, Satyagraha is known as militant nonviolence. The goal of Satyagraha is to resolve the conflict with an opponent without inflicting physical or emotional injury to him, and with willingness to suffer physical or emotional injury to oneself. 
2. Ahimsa or non-violence- For Gandhi, ahimsa meant ‘both passive and active love, refraining from causing harm and destruction to living beings as well as positively promoting their well-being. This suggests that by ahimsa, Gandhi did not mean merely ‘non-injury’ to others that was a mere negative or passive connotation; instead, ahimsa had also a positive or active meaning of love and charity. On the one hand, in its narrow sense, it simply meant avoidance of acts harming others; while in its positive sense, it denoted promoting their well-being, based on ‘infinite love’.
3. Swaraj- He adopted the moderates’ goal of Swaraj but was vague about its definition as he knew that any strict definition would alienate one or the other group and therefore each group would interpret it in their own ways. For peasants he projected Swaraj as country of no rent, no landlord. For working class it was less work more pay. For youth it was no inferior place in own country. For political leaders it was democracy. For women it was equal status in society

Following were the methods used by Gandhi during the National Struggle

• Formal statements: public speeches by Gandhi and other INC leaders, letters of opposition and mass petitions.
• Communications with a wider audience, Slogans and symbols, newspaper and journal articles from Gandhi’s own journals, masterful use of the international press, leaflets and pamphlets, lectures by INC activists on trains to a “captive audience.”
• Group Representations- delegations to persuade officials, picketing of liquor stores.
• Symbolic public acts- displays of flags (independent India), prayer and worship.
• Drama and Music- singing, dancing, and drums at public gatherings and among the crowds greeting the marchers as they arrived in village after village
• Processions- the Salt March itself, which for Gandhi was also explicitly a religious as well as political procession.
• Honouring the Dead- political mourning of the thousands of unarmed demonstrators killed or wounded by British soldiers at Amritsar in 1919.
• Social Non-cooperation- social boycotts of persons not engaging in non-cooperation with the British government.
• Economic Non-cooperation- national boycott of British cloth and shops selling it, as well as liquor stores; rent withholding.

Limited strikes, hartals, and economic shutdowns

• Political Non-cooperation- withholding of allegiance and refusal of public office by Indians.
• Non-cooperation with government- resignations of government employment and positions, withdrawal from government educational institutions
• Alternatives to obedience-popular non obedience, refusal to disperse, civil disobedience of British laws, especially the salt tax.
• School boycotts
• Nonviolent Intervention
• Physical intervention- nonviolent invasions, especially of the Dharasana Salt Works, nonviolent occupation of the seashore to make salt.
• Social intervention- new social patterns, overloading of facilities (especially jails), alternative markets (salt, cloth) and institutions, such as ashrams and communities that cut across caste, class, and religious-communal lines.
• Economic interventions- alternative economic institutions such as salt manufacturing and the khadi (homespun) cloth industries.
• Political intervention- civil disobedience of “neutral” laws, dual sovereignty, making the Indian National Congress a de facto ruling entity in an attempt to side line the colonial government.

Gandhi’s vision of post independent India

1. Political freedom – Non violence
2. Cultural freedom – Hindu Muslim unity
3. Economic freedom – Swadeshi 
4. Social Justice – Abolition of untouchability

Fasts undertaken by Gandhi

1. 1913 (July) 7 days fast at Phoenix, South Africa. His first penitential (week long) fast.
2. 1914 (April) 14 days fast at Phoenix, South Africa. His second penitential fast.
3. 1918 (March) 3 days fast at Ahmedabad. In support of striking mill workers in Ahmedabad.
4. 1919 (April) Fast unto death, turned out to be a 3 day fast, at Ahmedabad. Against the attempted derailment of a train (violence) at Nadiad during Rowlatt Satyagraha. Fast ended with the withdrawal of Rowlatt Satyagraha. 
5. 1921 (November) 4 days fast at Ahmedabad. Against the potential protest activities of Anarchist on the arrival of the Prince of Wales.
6. 1922 (February) 5 days fast at Bardoli. For penance for the violence done in Chauri Chaura (which also prompted him to end the Non-Cooperation Movement).
7. 1924 (September-October) 21 days fast at Delhi. His first fast for Hindu-Muslim unity, after Kohat riots in NWFP and other riots across India.
8. 1925 (November) 7 days fast. His third Penitential Fast.
9. 1932 (September) Fast unto death, turned out to be a 6 day fast, at Yerwada Central Jail, Poona. Against the Communal Award declared at 2^nd Round Table Conference.
10. 1932 (December) 1 day fast. Second anti-untouchability fast.
11. 1933 (May) 21 days fast. Third anti-untouchability fast for the improvement of the conditions of Harijans.
12. 1933 (August) 7 days fast. Fourth anti-untouchability fast to obtain privileges in prison to continue his fight for Harijans.
13. 1934 (August) 7 days fast. Fourth anti-violence fast. Condemning the actions of a young Congressi.
14. 1939 (March) 3 days fast at Rajkot
15. 1943 (February) 21 days fast at Delhi in protest of his detention without charges.
16. 1947 (September) 4 days fast during the Communal riots. Second fast observed by him for Hindu-Muslim unity.
17. 1948 (January) 6 days fast for Hindu-Muslim unity fast for restoration of communal peace in Delhi.
    
    
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