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REMEMBERING GANDHI ON HIS BIRTHDAY
“Be the Change you wish to see”
Such an apt quote that is distinctively applicable in any generational evolutionary trajectory. Gandhiji was one of the 20th century’s best-known political and spiritual personalities. Born in a small town, he was aware of the hardships people were going through at the time.
He developed his beliefs about human unity. He became the voice of the voiceless and crafted the Independence path of the nation.
He was a person who made significant contributions to the nation’s rise from the shackles of British tyranny. He’s none other than Mahatma Gandhi.
Who was Mahatma Gandhi?
Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) was born on 2nd October 1869 in the princely state of Porbandar, in modern-day Gujarat. He pursued Law as his profession and went to London at 18.
After completing his graduation, he returned to India and made non-violent protests and movements for the growth and development of the country.
Gandhi is considered one of the most important leaders of the nation. His father was a government official.
Mahatma Gandhi and Law
Gandhi was a lawyer for almost 25 years before he became a disciple of nonviolent revolution.
While leading the Indian independence movement, Gandhi worked as a journalist and edited Young India, Navajivan and the Harijan.
In South Africa, Gandhi led a civil disobedience movement to combat racist laws on various occasions.
“Gandhi eventually lost faith in the traditional legal system – courts, judges, lawyers, litigation – but he never lost faith in the law,”.
Gandhiji in South Africa
Gandhiji on Indian Judiciary
Contribution of Mahatma Gandhi in Indian freedom struggle
Many of us are aware of the movements of Mahatma Gandhi. Let’s take a look at it
The non-cooperation movement began on the foreboding day of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. Swaraj, or self-governance, was Gandhi’s stated objective and has since evolved into the guiding principle of the Indian freedom struggle.
Conclusion on his contributions to Freedom Struggle
Gandhi vehemently objected, claiming that since India is not a free nation, Indians cannot participate in a war in support of democracy.
The colonizers were driven out of this nation within a half-decade after this argument revealed their duplicitous nature. This was Mahatma Gandhi freedom struggle.
Interesting facts about Mahatma Gandhi
Civil Disobedience Movement
Civil disobedience, also called passive resistance, is the refusal to obey the demands or commands of a government or occupying power, without resorting to violence or active measures of opposition.
The modern concept of civil disobedience was most clearly formulated by Mahatma Gandhi. Drawing from Eastern and Western thought, Gandhi developed the philosophy of satyagraha, which emphasizes nonviolent resistance to evil. He first used this as a tool in the Transvaal of South Africa.
Civil disobedience is a symbolic or ritualistic violation of the law rather than a rejection of the system as a whole.
How Critics see it
A variety of criticisms have been directed against the philosophy and practice of civil disobedience.
The radical critique of the philosophy of civil disobedience condemns its acceptance of the existing political structure; conservative schools of thought, on the other hand, see the logical extension of civil disobedience as anarchy and the right of individuals to break any law they choose, at any time.
Activists themselves are divided in interpreting civil disobedience either as a total philosophy of social change or as merely a tactic to be employed when the movement lacks other means.
On a pragmatic level, the efficacy of civil disobedience hinges on the adherence of the opposition to a certain morality to which an appeal can ultimately be made.
Gandhi’s portrait on Banknotes
Being the “father of the nation,” Mahatma Gandhi was featured on the currency notes as he was the leader of the entire nation’s struggle.
Though people now talk about bringing in a change in this, it would be difficult to find a leader who has made such a remarkable contribution in the birth of an independent nation like India.
Conclusion
He and his ideologies became inspiration throughout the world, barring none.
Drawing in part on Gandhi’s example, the American civil rights movement, which came to prominence during the 1950s, sought to end racial segregation in the southern United States by adopting the tactics and philosophy of civil disobedience through such protests as the Greensboro (North Carolina) sit-in (1960) and the Freedom Rides (1961).
Martin Luther King, Jr., a leader of the movement from the mid-1950s to his assassination in 1968, was an articulate defender of its strategy of nonviolent protest.
Later the tactics of civil disobedience were employed by many protest groups within a variety of movements, including the women’s movement, the anti-nuclear and environmental movements, and the anti-globalization and economic equality movements.