Mahatma Gandhi
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Reader's Digest
This skinny, bald Hindu, half-naked and wrapped only in a loincloth, walked 385 kilometers in twenty-four days to reach Villagers in Dandi, north of Bombay, were called upon to hold peaceful demonstrations against the British rulers.
He informed the Governor-General of India in advance that he would deliberately break the law by picking up a pinch of dry salt on the beach. Indians were not allowed to make salt, it was the exclusive property of the British government. He leaned over and picked up a small lump of salt that had crystallized into a stone and held it high.
But not a single policeman arrived. Gandhi concluded that more stimulation was needed, so he announced a shocking and reckless action: he and his followers raided the government salt factory in Darasana in the name of the people. At this time he was arrested, but 2,500 followers marched all the way to the salt factory. Four hundred police officers were waiting and beating the demonstrators with sticks. United Press reporter Miller reported: "No one raised their hands to ward off the sticks. When the demonstrators were beaten, they just groaned or held their breath and continued to march until they fell to the ground." This horrific incident lasted for two hours.
This day is May 21, 1930. Miller's chilling report spread across the globe. The massacre at the Salt Factory Demonstration became a turning point in Indian history.
This extraordinary figure, known as the Mahatma, left colonial officials at a loss as to what to do. They called him a fanatic, a hypocrite, a mystic. The Indian kings and Maharajas sitting in their palaces considered him a ridiculous instigator. Indian politicians striving for autonomy view him as a demagogic charlatan. British MPs in London found this unbelievable and called him a "diaper-riding (referring to his loincloth) troublemaker."
He traveled across India's crowded cities and poor, squalid villages, advocating the use of a revolutionary weapon: peaceful disobedience. In his early years, he read in the New Testament: "...do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him also the other cheek..." Years later he still remembered: "These words are deeply rooted in my heart. . ”
He went to the most difficult areas in India, taking a goat with him and feeding on its milk. He is vegetarian. He addressed mass meetings. Sometimes he didn't say a word, sitting cross-legged on the high podium - and the crowd was silent and fascinated.
He has no office, no soldiers, and no formal power, but he can paralyze India, because at his word, the masses will stop work, destroying the functions of offices, factories, and railways across the country. . Thousands of his followers welcomed the arrest. After he himself was imprisoned in South Africa for 249 days, he spent another 2,100 days in jail in India. He said: "Prisons are for thieves. To me, prisons are sanctuaries."
His trick is to go on a hunger strike. Had this "rebellious dervish", as Churchill said, starved to death, there is no telling what would have happened to all of India. The colonial governor of Delhi and the brains of the British Parliament couldn't help but worry when they thought about this.
What can you do to such a person?
Gandhi was born in Pbandha, India in 1969. His family belongs to the middle class ("Gandhi" means grocer). Because the Gandhi family was deeply influenced by the pacifist sect that strictly opposed violence, they hated killing, even insects and ants.
When he was a child, Gandhi followed the two sages in Indian mythology as his role models. One represents integrity and the other symbolizes sacrifice. When he was thirteen, he married a girl of the same age. Later, his family sent him to London to study law. He studied in London for three years, passed the law examination and returned to India. Soon a company asked him to go to South Africa to handle a lawsuit. At this time, something extremely humiliating happened to him in South Africa, which changed his life.
The company bought him a first-class ticket to Predolia, the administrative capital of the federal government of South Africa. When the train arrived at the first stop, Pietermaritzburg, a white European walked towards the compartment. As soon as the white man saw the colored man, even though he was dressed in the British style, he angrily summoned the conductor and asked him why he was asked to sleep with a "stinking coolie". Gandhi refused to go to the baggage compartment and was ejected from the train.
Gandhi said that this was "an insult I have never suffered in my life. My active non-violent actions began from this day."
Soon Gandhi began to explain the idea of ??non-violence. He warned Indians in South Africa to eliminate the ancient hatred that divided Hindus and Muslims. He taught the ignorant people two commandments: first, to be clean, and second, to be absolutely honest. At the same time, Gandhi began to denounce the various discriminatory laws and regulations of the South African government, such as restricting Indian travel, banning strikes, and only recognizing Christian marriages as legal. It was not until 50,000 Indians joined this truth-power movement that the South African government finally enacted a historic reform bill. In 1915, twenty-two years after coming to South Africa, Gandhi left his job as a lawyer and returned to India.
India at that time was not a country at all, but countless princely kingdoms and scholar-states, with a variety of religions and superstitions, complex sects, rituals and caste hierarchies. They periodically When fanaticism breaks out, they kill each other. Even today, India has 312 languages, 15 of which are official, and about 1,400 dialects. The most shocking thing is those untouchables called "untouchables", numbering about 50 million, who are regarded by society like lepers. They can only work as menial slaves and are not allowed to live in the village or drink from public wells, nor to join the privileged class. When they approach a temple, they must shout "Unclean! Unclean!" to tell others to stay away.
This is the kind of India that Gandhi returned to - billionaire kings and maharajas were at the top, while thousands of obedient people under his power died of cholera, typhoid, hepatitis and Dysentery. Gandhi said: "All India is my family."
Gandhi founded an ashram and calmly announced: Untouchables are welcome! He called them "children of God."
His flouting of taboos frightened even his most loyal devotees, and his docile wife, horrified, warned him that "defiling" the ashram in this way would not succeed.
In the years that followed, Gandhi was attacked by orthodox Hindus, with groups of teenagers lying on the ground to block his vehicle. When his car was attacked with stones, he would get out of the car and walk straight into the angry crowd. Sometimes he would get too angry and shout loudly: "Kill me! Why don't you dare to kill me?"
His ashram has grown to more than two hundred people, including atheists, racists, radicals and those who advocate violence. A surprised visitor asked Gandhi how he could accommodate this group of people. Gandhi replied: "This is a lunatic asylum, and I am the craziest one. But whoever can't see that these people are good people should try it." eyes."
When the funds for this ideal ashram ran out, Gandhi said: "Let's go live in the untouchables!" And so he went.
Those who followed him respectfully called him "Gandhi." He launched a campaign to ask Indians to boycott British goods. The passion stirred up by the boycott became uncontrollable. A group of indignant demonstrators marched in Chari... They clashed with the police in Chala village and killed 22 policemen. Gandhi, who advocated non-violence, was stunned and ordered the movement to be cancelled.
Gandhi's fame spread throughout the world. Idealists and converts flocked to him to worship him as the incarnation of God.
Fourth Jinnah was the leader of the Muslim League and had long been demanding the partition of India so that the Muslims would have a separate motherland, namely Pakistan. Gandhi vehemently opposed Partition, asserting that there would be bloodshed. Jinnah declared "Direct Action Day" in Bengal on August 15, 1946. As a result, unprecedented riots broke out in Calcutta. Hindus and Muslims in the city went crazy, attacking, raping, and beheading each other.
Two months later, the seventy-seven-year-old Gandhi set out for Nukali, another blood-stained city, where the Muslims were rioting like crazy. With a secretary and translator, he preached the gospel of love barefoot in an attempt to quell the horrific commotion. He walked like this for four months. Although he achieved success in the Nukari area, the riots spread like wildfire to other provinces.
On August 15, 1947, India became independent. As Hindus and Sikhs retreated eastward from the newly established state of Pakistan, they clashed with Pakistani Muslims heading westward from East Punjab. Millions of people died in the massacre. Gandhi was devastated and announced that if the bloody attacks did not stop, he would go on a hunger strike "to the end." Hindu, Sikh and Muslim leaders came to the Mahatma's bedside and vowed to stop the massacre, but violence broke out in Delhi in September, and Gandhi went on hunger strike again.
Orthodox Hindus were outraged when they heard the Mahatma calling on them to love those "abominable" Muslims. A bomb exploded during a dusk prayer meeting hosted by Gandhi. When a prayer meeting was held in the future, the police wanted to search the participants. Gandhi refused and told the police officer not to worry about his safety. He said: "If I must die, let me die in the prayer meeting."
Sure enough, in 1948, he was killed on his way to a prayer meeting - the assassin was not a Muslim, but a Hindu - a fanatic who hated Gandhi's pro-Islam and "Christian" style, and blamed him for causing the partition of India. Gandhi He was shot in the chest and abdomen at close range and shouted: "Oh, God!"
The Mahatma's ashes were carefully divided into portions and sent to various provinces, and to every sacred river in India. Sprinkling in a little bit, his outstanding disciple and designated successor Nehru expressed the voice of countless people: "The light in our lives has been extinguished, and there is darkness everywhere."
Although the Five Gandhis were deeply affected by He is respected by the masses and has lofty ideals, but he is not a saint. He has a short temper, is difficult to get along with others, and is unwilling to cooperate with many people who have the same goals. He often acts alone.
Gandhi's attitude towards his family was also unkind. His moral standards were so strict that he alienated all four sons. When he was thirty-seven years old, he swore not to have sex with women, and ordered his two eldest sons to do the same for the rest of their lives. When the eldest son Khalila wanted to get married, Gandhi disapproved of it. Khalila converted to Islam, indulged in alcohol, and finally died of tuberculosis.
Gandhi did not allow his son to receive advanced education, nor did he allow his wife to receive elementary education. After Gandhi took the oath not to be sexually involved with women, his wife had no choice but to live a lonely life for forty-two years. Gandhi said: "There was an element of selfishness in her suffering."
However, 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 intolerance. Einstein said: "I'm afraid it will be difficult for our descendants to believe that there really was such a person in the world."