essay on gandhi and modern india

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi – Contributions and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

500+ words essay on mahatma gandhi.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi – Mahatma Gandhi was a great patriotic Indian, if not the greatest. He was a man of an unbelievably great personality. He certainly does not need anyone like me praising him. Furthermore, his efforts for Indian independence are unparalleled. Most noteworthy, there would have been a significant delay in independence without him. Consequently, the British because of his pressure left India in 1947. In this essay on Mahatma Gandhi, we will see his contribution and legacy.

Contributions of Mahatma Gandhi

First of all, Mahatma Gandhi was a notable public figure. His role in social and political reform was instrumental. Above all, he rid the society of these social evils. Hence, many oppressed people felt great relief because of his efforts. Gandhi became a famous international figure because of these efforts. Furthermore, he became the topic of discussion in many international media outlets.

Mahatma Gandhi made significant contributions to environmental sustainability. Most noteworthy, he said that each person should consume according to his needs. The main question that he raised was “How much should a person consume?”. Gandhi certainly put forward this question.

Furthermore, this model of sustainability by Gandhi holds huge relevance in current India. This is because currently, India has a very high population . There has been the promotion of renewable energy and small-scale irrigation systems. This was due to Gandhiji’s campaigns against excessive industrial development.

Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence is probably his most important contribution. This philosophy of non-violence is known as Ahimsa. Most noteworthy, Gandhiji’s aim was to seek independence without violence. He decided to quit the Non-cooperation movement after the Chauri-Chaura incident . This was due to the violence at the Chauri Chaura incident. Consequently, many became upset at this decision. However, Gandhi was relentless in his philosophy of Ahimsa.

Secularism is yet another contribution of Gandhi. His belief was that no religion should have a monopoly on the truth. Mahatma Gandhi certainly encouraged friendship between different religions.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi has influenced many international leaders around the world. His struggle certainly became an inspiration for leaders. Such leaders are Martin Luther King Jr., James Beve, and James Lawson. Furthermore, Gandhi influenced Nelson Mandela for his freedom struggle. Also, Lanza del Vasto came to India to live with Gandhi.

The awards given to Mahatma Gandhi are too many to discuss. Probably only a few nations remain which have not awarded Mahatma Gandhi.

In conclusion, Mahatma Gandhi was one of the greatest political icons ever. Most noteworthy, Indians revere by describing him as the “father of the nation”. His name will certainly remain immortal for all generations.

Essay Topics on Famous Leaders

• Mahatma Gandhi
• APJ Abdul Kalam
• Jawaharlal Nehru
• Swami Vivekananda
• Mother Teresa
• Rabindranath Tagore
• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
• Subhash Chandra Bose
• Abraham Lincoln
• Martin Luther King

FAQs on Mahatma Gandhi

Q.1 Why Mahatma Gandhi decided to stop Non-cooperation movement?

A.1 Mahatma Gandhi decided to stop the Non-cooperation movement. This was due to the infamous Chauri-Chaura incident. There was significant violence at this incident. Furthermore, Gandhiji was strictly against any kind of violence.

Q.2 Name any two leaders influenced by Mahatma Gandhi?

A.2 Two leaders influenced by Mahatma Gandhi are Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela.

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Two Indias: Gandhi and Modern India by Prof Johan Galtung

Gandhian Perspectives on Conflict and Peace – Hindu University, FL USA

Gandhi was born 2 October 1869, was killed 30 January 1948 by a Pune brahmin, Godse. I was a 17 years old boy in Norway who cried when hearing the news.  Something unheard of had happened.

But I did not know why I cried, and wanted to know more.  Who was Gandhi? So I became a Gandhi scholar as assistant and co-author to the late Arne Næss in his seminal work of extracting from Gandhi’s works and words his Gandhi’s Political Ethics as a norm-system. Note [i]

Mahatma Gandhi

The image of the India I love is the image of Gandhi.  I know perfectly well that there are other Indias.  And Ashis Nandy sensitized me to why the court proceedings against Godse were kept secret: because his arguments were that Gandhi stood in the way of the modern India the government wanted, with industrialization, booming cities, growth, trade, a strong army; the whole package.

Very different from Gandhi’s self-sufficient sarvodaya villages, linked by “oceanic circles”, focused on spiritual rather than material growth.  Very similar to the Buddhist image of the small sangha community. And in line with Gandhi’s idea that he may actually have been a Buddhist; without any vertical ranking of occupations.

Gandhi’s link to Buddhism and rejection of caste may have been on top of Godse’s motivation, adding to modernity.  Nehru’s India was also a modern India, with a socialist LSE-Harold Laski, Soviet touch. Nehru and Gandhi shared anti-colonialism but differed in their images of independent India.  Modernity, and even more so, Soviet top-down socialism, were very remote from Gandhi’s bottom-up world.

Gandhi was instrumentalized by Congress to get rid of Britons preaching against caste. India became independent, after a disastrous partition mainly caused by Lord Mountbatten; free to enter modernity, and to keep caste. The Congress Party got the cake and ate it too.  So, I see two Indias, Gandhi and modernity, knowing there are more.

Two Indian civilizations, with much clash and little dialogue. And some dwarfs rejecting India’s greatest son.  Some time ago there were books on and by Gandhi at New Delhi airport; today we find books on business administration. A non-dialogue of two civilizations within one country.  This essay opens for that missing dialogue, for the millions touched by the genius of the Gandhi that modern India expelled, like traditional India did to another genius coming out of roughly the same land, the Buddha.  The image of India abroad is still shaped by both.

Gandhi, a vaisya prime minister’s son, a lawyer trained in England, struggling with the drives of sex and food, finding his brahmacharya .  Indian themes with as much or more claim on India as the present growth machine serving the upper castes and classes at the expense of growing inequality and the suffering of the 1/3 of the world’s starving, living in one country, India.  An India linked to a falling global empire, USA; and a regional declining empire, Israel.

An India with direct violence by acts of commission; structural violence producing more suffering than direct violence upheld by acts of omission; and cultural violence legitimizing either or both. And Indo-European class structure, with brahmin specialists on cultural violence, kshatriyas on direct violence, and vaisyas on structural violence; unleashing all three on common people and women.

That tradition of direct violence + steep pyramids of structural violence + legitimacy from a divine mandate also predict well the four most belligerent countries over the last 1,000 years: USA, Israel, UK and Turkey.  Watch for the dangers of guilt by cooperation and association with those four.

Gandhi will survive this perverted Indian modernity.  Gandhi’s four S’s, satyagraha-swaraj-swadeshi-sarvodaya , are better approaches to the three UN goals sustainable peace, development and environment.

Satyagraha : holding on to Satya, a Truth-Love-God trinity, his unity-of-human beings.  As factual truth, as togetherness-compassion-love, and as embodying the divine.  The word ahimsa , nonviolence, reflects this badly. More than 100 years ago Gandhi coined satyagraha drawing on vasudaiva kuttumbakam-the world is my family . Very Indian.

But not practiced by 700,000 Hindu soldiers in Kashmir ruling over the Muslims, and in even more misery and inequality by driving  tribals and casteless off the land and killing Naxalites with drones.

Swaraj :   self-rule, swa , the Self of identity, with Raj, rule.  Gandhi praised openness refusing to be blown off his feet. Be rooted, deepen the rootedness, develop your self, your spirit, be in command of your identity; concepts beyond an independence ceremony with flags lowered and raised.  Gandhi even did not attend; he fought the Lord Mountbatten-twisted partition with its devastating consequences.

Swadeshi : meeting needs for food, shelter, clothing, self-made .  No to English textiles-Yes to khadi .  Gandhi even collected money for Bombay textile merchants; the textiles, not they, were the problem.

Sarvodaya : the uplift of the poor, inspired by Gandhi’s dictum, there is enough for everybody’s need, but not for everybody’s greed.

Gandhi was for need, modernity for greed; Gandhi for local self-reliance, modernity for unlimited trade; Gandhi for building on own identity, modernity for americanization as neo-nirvana; Gandhi for nonviolent conflict resolution, modernity for police, military, war.

India’s modernity suffers a crash landing, with revolts from Orissa to Kerala. Even worse: massive suicide by desperate, indebted farmers being driven off the land, even selling their daughters.

Both Delhi and the Naxalites would be better off with Gandhi’s Four S’s than with New Delhi state terrorism-torturism and Naxalite terrorism.  A blessing to have Gandhi on the reserve shelf; but it is needed in reality, not on any shelf, and backed by political power.

APPENDIX:  The Gandhi Conflict Norms

• GOALS AND CONFLICT

N 11     Act in conflicts!

N 111    Act now!

N 112    Act here!

N 113    Act for your own group!

N 114    Act out of identity!

N 115    Act out of conviction!

N 12     Define the conflict well!

N 121    State your own goal clearly!

N 122    Try to understand your opponent’s goal!

N 123    Emphasize common and compatible goals!

N 124    State the conflict relevant facts objectively!

N 13     Have a positive approach to conflict!

N 131    Give the conflict a positive emphasis!

N 132    See conflict as opportunity to meet the opponent!

N 133    See conflict as opportunity to transform society!

N 134    See conflict as opportunity to transform yourself!

• CONFLICT STRUGGLE

N 21     Act non-violently in conflicts!

N 211    Do not hurt or harm with deeds!

N 212    Do not hurt or harm with words!

N 213    Do not hurt or harm with thoughts!

N 214    Do not harm the opponent’s property!

N 215    Prefer violence to cowardice!

N 216    Do good even to the evil‑doer!

N 22     Act in a goal‑consistent manner!

N 221    Always include a constructive element!

N 222    Use goal‑revealing forms of struggle!

N 223    Act openly, not secretly!

N 224    Aim the struggle at the correct point!

N 23     Do not cooperate with evil!

N 231    Non‑cooperation with evil structure!

N 232    Non‑cooperation with evil status!

N 233    Non‑cooperation with evil action!

N 234    Non‑cooperation with those who cooperate with evil!

N 24     Be willing to sacrifice!

N 241    Do not escape from punishment!

N 242    Be willing to die if necessary!

N 25     Do not polarize!

N 251    Distinguish between antagonism and antagonist!

N 252    Distinguish between person and status!

N 253    Maintain contact!

N 254    Empathy with your opponent’s position!

N 255    Be flexible in defining parties and positions!

N 26     Do not escalate!

N 261    Remain as loyal as possible!

N 262    Do not provoke or let yourself be provoked!

N 263    Do no humiliate or let yourself be humiliated!

N 264    Do no expand the goals for the conflict!

N 265    Use the mildest possible forms of conflict behavior!

• CONFLICT RESOLUTION

N 31     Solve conflict!

N 311    Do not continue conflict struggle forever!

N 312    Always seek negotiation with the opponent!

N 313    Seek positive social transformations!

N 314    Seek human transformation!

‑ of yourself

‑ of the opponent

N 32     Insist on the essentials, not on non‑essentials!

N 321    Do not trade with essentials!

N 322    Be willing to compromise on non‑essentials!

N 33     See yourself as fallible!

N 331    Remember that you may be wrong!

N 332    Admit your mistakes openly!

N 333    Consistency over time not very important!

N 34     Be generous in your view of the opponent!

N 341    Do not exploit the opponent’s weaknesses!

N 342    Do not judge the opponent harder than yourself!

N 343    Trust your opponent!

N 35     Conversion, not coercion!

N 351    Always seek solutions that are accepted!

‑ by yourself

‑ by the opponent!

N 352    Never coerce your opponent!

N 353    Convert your opponent into a believer in the cause!

[i] .  For my own version of that system please see the Appendix, taken from my The Way is the Goal , Ahmdavad: Navajivan, 1995 (also reprinted on the back of the cover-pages of A Theory of Conflict, TRANSCEND University Press, 2010 ).

credits:  TMS: Two Indias: Gandhi and Modern India  

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Who was Mahatma Gandhi and what impact did he have on India?

Mahatma Ghandi is revered by many people all over the world as a symbol of unity and peace. Image:  REUTERS/Lunae Parracho (BRAZIL - Tags: SOCIETY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) - GM1E92B0PS401

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He’s one of the most instantly recognizable figures of the 20th century – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known to many as Mahatma Gandhi or Great Soul.

The 2nd of October marks the anniversary of Gandhi’s birth and the start of a life of struggle in the fight for Indian independence from British colonial rule.

It’s an occasion being marked all over the world, particularly in India.

But who was Mahatma Gandhi and how did he end up championing Indian independence? Here’s a brief timeline of his life.

Mahatma Gandhi - Legal leanings

He was born in 1869 in the princely state of Porbandar, in modern-day Gujarat , where his father served as a government official. At the age of just 18, Gandhi sailed for London to study law, where he eventually passed the bar exam and qualified as a barrister.

But any hopes he may have had of a glorious legal career soon began to crumble. After losing his first case back home in India, he left India again, this time for South Africa. It was there he became so nervous advocating on behalf of a client in court that he couldn’t speak properly. He ended up reimbursing his client and fleeing the courthouse.

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But it was another incident in South Africa that set Mahatma Gandhi on a new path. While travelling first class on a train, he was ejected from his carriage after a white passenger complained . The experience would help to solidify some of the ideas he had already started to form around equality for all people.

A tax on your roots

Indian immigrants in South Africa were subject to punitive laws and restrictions on freedoms. There was even a tax levied on them simply because they were Indian immigrants. Mahatma Gandhi set about tackling segregation and founded the Indian Congress in the Natal region of South Africa. This was also the point at which he began dressing in the traditional white Indian dhoti, which became his trademark attire.

His first target was the £3 ($3.69) tax on people of Indian origin. Preaching a strategy of satyagraha , or nonviolent protest, Gandhi organized a strike and led a march of more than 2,000 people to call for the tax to be scrapped. He was arrested and sent to prison for nine months. But his actions brought about the end of the tax and catapulted him to international attention.

Back in India, in 1915, Mahatma Gandhi founded an ashram , or spiritual monastery, open to all castes of people. He wore just a simple loincloth and shawl, and dedicated himself to prayer and fasting.

In 1919, when the British implemented laws that allowed for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone suspected of sedition, Gandhi rose up calling for a wave of nonviolent disobedience. Tragedy followed.

A massacre and a wave of boycotts

In the city of Amritsar, British Indian Army soldiers were ordered to open fire on a crowd of 20,000 or so protestors that had begun to grow unruly. Around 400 people were killed, with more than 1,000 injured . From that point on, Mahatma Gandhi’s goal was clear – Indian independence. He soon became a leading figure in the home-rule movement.

The movement called for mass boycotts of British goods and institutions. Gandhi implored civil servants to stop working for the British, for students to quit government schools, for soldiers to abandon their posts and for the citizenry to withhold their taxes and avoid buying British goods.

In 1922, he was arrested by the British authorities and pleaded guilty to three counts of sedition, which resulted in a six-year prison sentence, although that was commuted after just two years.

Britain’s strong grip on India was also evident in the Salt Act, which made it illegal for Indians to collect, produce or sell salt. Official sales of salt were also subject to tax. It was legislation that hit the poorest hardest. And so, in 1930, Mahatma Gandhi took on the Salt Act. The most well-known part of his campaign was the 390 kilometre Salt March to the shores of the Arabian Sea, where he collected salt in symbolic and open defiance of the government monopoly.

He wrote to the British viceroy, Lord Irwin, saying: “My ambition is no less than to convert the British people through non-violence and thus make them see the wrong they have done to India.”

The Salt Act protests gathered momentum and around 60,000 were imprisoned, including Gandhi.

Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1930.

Real change

The following year, Mahatma Gandhi was invited to London on behalf of the Indian National Congress. He met King George V, and visited mill workers in Lancashire, gaining publicity and sympathy for his cause in the UK. But there was little in the way of progress and relations with Britain remained strained.

At the height of World War II, Mahatma Gandhi stepped up his Quit India campaign, urging the British to get out of the country altogether, while arguing that the war was none of India’s concern. Once again, he was arrested and jailed - this time along with fellow leaders of the Indian National Congress and his wife.

A change of government in Britain after the end of the war saw more willingness to discuss independence for India. But the negotiations that followed led to the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. On August 15, 1947, India gained its independence, Pakistan was born and millions of people were displaced and relocated, leading to waves of violence and killings.

The following year, on 30 January, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was shot three times and killed by a Hindu extremist. Gandhi's dedication to nonviolent, anti-colonial protest has made him an inspirational figure for millions of people to this day.

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Mahatma Gandhi

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 6, 2019 | Original: July 30, 2010

Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or “the great-souled one.” He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s, and in the years following World War I became the leading figure in India’s struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Known for his ascetic lifestyle–he often dressed only in a loincloth and shawl–and devout Hindu faith, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation, and undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India’s poorest classes, among other injustices. After Partition in 1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. His father was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar; his deeply religious mother was a devoted practitioner of Vaishnavism (worship of the Hindu god Vishnu), influenced by Jainism, an ascetic religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence. At the age of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in London at the Inner Temple, one of the city’s four law colleges. Upon returning to India in mid-1891, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.

Did you know? In the famous Salt March of April-May 1930, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.

Gandhi was appalled by the discrimination he experienced as an Indian immigrant in South Africa. When a European magistrate in Durban asked him to take off his turban, he refused and left the courtroom. On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten up by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give up his seat for a European passenger. That train journey served as a turning point for Gandhi, and he soon began developing and teaching the concept of satyagraha (“truth and firmness”), or passive resistance, as a way of non-cooperation with authorities.

The Birth of Passive Resistance

In 1906, after the Transvaal government passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian population, Gandhi led a campaign of civil disobedience that would last for the next eight years. During its final phase in 1913, hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from the British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax for Indians.

In July 1914, Gandhi left South Africa to return to India. He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. In 1919, Gandhi launched an organized campaign of passive resistance in response to Parliament’s passage of the Rowlatt Acts, which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to suppress subversive activities. He backed off after violence broke out–including the massacre by British-led soldiers of some 400 Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar–but only temporarily, and by 1920 he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence.

Leader of a Movement

As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain. Gandhi’s eloquence and embrace of an ascetic lifestyle based on prayer, fasting and meditation earned him the reverence of his followers, who called him Mahatma (Sanskrit for “the great-souled one”). Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress Party), Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.

After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March 1922 and tried him for sedition; he was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1924 after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. He refrained from active participation in politics for the next several years, but in 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government’s tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian’s poorest citizens.

A Divided Movement

In 1931, after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London. Meanwhile, some of his party colleagues–particularly Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a leading voice for India’s Muslim minority–grew frustrated with Gandhi’s methods, and what they saw as a lack of concrete gains. Arrested upon his return by a newly aggressive colonial government, Gandhi began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India’s so-called “untouchables” (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or “children of God.” The fasting caused an uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government.

In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II , Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort. Instead, British forces imprisoned the entire Congress leadership, bringing Anglo-Indian relations to a new low point.

Partition and Death of Gandhi

After the Labor Party took power in Britain in 1947, negotiations over Indian home rule began between the British, the Congress Party and the Muslim League (now led by Jinnah). Later that year, Britain granted India its independence but split the country into two dominions: India and Pakistan. Gandhi strongly opposed Partition, but he agreed to it in hopes that after independence Hindus and Muslims could achieve peace internally. Amid the massive riots that followed Partition, Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots in Calcutta ceased.

In January 1948, Gandhi carried out yet another fast, this time to bring about peace in the city of Delhi. On January 30, 12 days after that fast ended, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma’s efforts to negotiate with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi’s body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.

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• Indian J Med Res
• v.149(Suppl 1); 2019 Jan

LIFE OF M.K. GANDHI: A Message to Youth of Modern India

K.k. ganguly.

Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, India

“Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.” – M.K. Gandhi

Today, the Indian youth is facing a hard time. After seven decades of independence the youth has become more morally, ethically, socially and spiritually adrift. The lack of sense of purpose is waning in comparison to what it was during pre-independence days. They feel alienated and frustrated. There are many reasons (both internal and external) for frustration and purposelessness.

Modernization combined with globalization has changed life in general and the lifestyle of youth in particular in the last few decades leading to change in social institutions and structures as well. Besides substantive demographic change in terms of population, political decadence, rising unemployment, and eroding value system combined with excessive market-oriented economy have made life very complicated for the new generation.

The changes affect the youth the most as the young mind is like a clean slate. If the youth is falling prey to a rapidly changing value system on one hand, they can also be molded by inculcating good thoughts, actions, habits and values on the other. The contemporary social milieu needs to be responsive to these expectations of the young mind so as to make them partner to over-all development and nation building.

In order to make the youth of modern India more actively engaged in nation-building, a force that has lot of zeal and purpose to do something, the present system needs to be all-encompassing to be able to move with the young and old with the right perspective. To achieve harmony among the young and old and seamlessly function as a vibrant society, the youth of our country need to become the engine of change.

In the same context, it is all the more essential that Gandhian values are inculcated among the youth in earnest so as to make them more vivacious and active for nation-building.

It will be prudent to understand the problems faced by ‘gen next’ before any steps can be taken to inculcate good values in youth and make them healthy partners in nation-building.

Mahatma Gandhi and grandson Kahandas (Kanaa, Kanu) watching an exercise of volunteers, 1937.

To address these issues, Gandhian philosophy is best suited for the present day situation and needs to be epitomized among the youth. The Gandhian perspective of a healthy and pious lifestyle may apparently look very mundane but in reality it is very effective and lasting in the long run. The young may instinctively be repulsive to such values but elders, teachers and, above all, parents need to help the youth to imbibe these values.

SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND ITS ILL EFFECT

To lead a life free of addiction, Gandhi suggested means and ways to youth in a very simple but effective manner.

Mostly young people depend on their peer groups and sometimes are led astray. They take to drugs, alcohol and watch adult content to spend their free time and negotiate their hurt feelings. As per WHO's latest report, per capita alcohol consumption has doubled in India from 2.4 litres in 2005 to 5.7 litres in 2016. Many of them are in a fix to distinguish between right and wrong deeds. The preoccupied adult most often cannot guide them at the right time and opportune moment, making it difficult for them to make the right choice and decision. Once the youth is in the vortex of addiction it becomes very difficult to get out of it.

Young people also get affected by the values of opulence and lifestyles of splurge in modern society and they try to adopt short cuts to attain material gains; failure to achieve pushes them into the world of drugs or crime.

Youths also get addicted to excessive digital usage. The technology provides immense help to the majority of our population but over-usage of cyber utilities has grown out of proportion and excess usage at times has proved fatal as well. Over-use of smart phones has not only physically harmed the youth to a large extent, it has also affected the mental ability and psychological status of youth. Some of them are indulging in cyber crimes. As cyber utilities are very handy and able to give desired outcomes without much effort, the young use it more frequently than it should be.

ISSUES WITH PRESENT DAY YOUTH WITH MODERN LIFESTYLE

• Substance abuse as self-deceiving eudemonia among most of the youth
• Early physical maturity causing various psycho-social ramifications
• Intolerance leading to violence in schools and colleges
• Materialism leading to hedonistic lifestyle
• Obesity mainly caused by irregular food habits combined with minimal to no physical exercise
• Education disparity
• Inadequate to no employment opportunities

*Consumed at least 60 grams or more of pure alcohol on at least one occasion in the past 30 days.

Source : WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health, 2018.

As such, it is clear that both types of addictions help the youth to achieve desired ends without caring for means. The present generation feels that means are no longer important, it is the end that matters.

The Gandhian maxim of “means are more important than the end” implies that one needs to focus on the means, not merely the achievement of an end at any cost. To reiterate the practice of honest means for the desired end, we need to reinforce the fact that the use of drug or alcohol destroys the very core of our social institution and does not help to lead a successful life. A short cut to achieve pleasure and material gain and escape from the vagaries of life by use of addictives (both addictive substances or digital gadgets) cannot be good means for achieving good ends. To address the malady, Gandhiji suggested, the youth should take into consideration various dimensions of their conduct such as the social, cultural, and religious and they should also make sure that they are meaningfully engaged with the welfare of society. The youth is very vibrant and energetic, dynamic and capable of achieving, provided that they remain on the right track. Hence it is essential for them to use their energies in a positive manner to attain long-term happiness in their life and also contribute to the overall well-being of society.

EARLY PHYSICAL MATURITY

Attainment of puberty and adolescence brings different types of problems among the young, be it physiological, social or cultural. There are various environmental, biological and other factors promoting early onset of biological maturity. Biological maturity of youth needs to be harnessed for the good of the society. The absence of proper engagement with and guidance for such maturity among the young is worrisome and detrimental on many accounts. To address such changes in youth and active engagement thereof, the Gandhian tenet for them, ‘ satwik lifestyle’, can be of great help, where inward happiness is development, i.e. , it emphasizes the inclusion of basic human values. Right conduct refers to right practices accepted by society on the basis of righteous behavior by practicing obedience, etiquettes, fulfillment of social obligations, cooperation, sympathy, etc.

The youth of today is a victim of intolerance, impatience and of their own misjudged convictions as well. The traits of intolerance and impatience lead most of them on to a path of violence. A fast-moving society with compelling commitments often pushes them to a point of no return, thereby stoking destructive violent actions within themselves. The situation deteriorates further when the expectation bar of lifestyle attainments is raised and they are not able to deliver accordingly.

INTOLERANCE AND VIOLENCE

Gandhiji's belief and conviction regarding pacifying the element of impatience and intolerance of an individual is as true and effective today as it was during his time. Intolerance and violence are the two sides of the same coin. Gandhiji was a strong proponent of non-violence; he preached and practised non-violence against the British colonial power to get freedom for India. The trait of intolerance develops among the youth due to multifactorial disappointment, disenchantment and decadency in our system. The virtue of self-atonement as practised by Gandhiji on many occasions can be emulated by violent youth for solace. The practice of self-atonement needs to be encouraged by the elderly to set an example for today's intolerant youth.

In a recent report, India State Level Disease Burden on Suicides, it has been reported that 63 per cent of suicide deaths have been reported in the 15–39 age group and it constitutes the leading cause of deaths in this age group. However, suicide death rate has decreased significantly from 1990 to 2016 for women in the age group of 10–34 years.

MATERIALISM AND HEDONIST LIFE STYLE

Today's material world is encouraging good and bad among the youth. The brighter side of materialism is that the youth are encouraged to work hard to earn and thereby fulfill their wish list. But the negative side is a craving for material achievement, and it is spiraling up among today's youth with a rapid pace besides a tendency to be a go-getter without caring about the means of achievement. The concept of materialism drives the youth in all spheres, who mostly keeps eye on his western counterpart and their achievement. And in many cases it has become a blind aping of the west.

Endless craving for the accumulation of different items without any check or balance may enrich the individual momentarily. But the irony is that a materialistic tendency also compels the individual to get satiated soon with the possession and look for more and more new items of the material world. This attitude leads to hedonism. A hedonist does not go by any logic, rationale or need-based accrual of items. He is obsessed with procuring more and more and splurging is their way of living. More and more youth are slipping into such a quagmire.

Gandhiji has not only forewarned about the consequences of the phenomenon, he has also given alternatives to take care of such a situation. He pleaded for the voluntary reduction of our wants to a genuine level. He said that we should set a limit to our indulgence. According to Gandhiji, material wants dehumanize the individual, who puts a premium on body comforts to acquire all luxuries of life that money can buy and fails miserably in doing so. This is due to man's insatiable greed for earthly material possessions.

Gandhiji often said that one has to renounce his cravings and desire the contentment from within. It is said to be Samthistha or Sthitiprajana that can only help one to dissociate from materialism or hedonism; according to Gandhiji, to accumulate more than is required would be a sort of theft. The youth need to be endowed with values of Samthistha .

OBESITY AND JUNK FOOD

Everyone knows the old maxim ‘health is wealth’, and even then people in general and the youth at large seem to be indifferent to the saying. The culture of instant and fast food has been all-pervasive both in rural and urban areas. Most of the people want to take polished grains instead of non-polished ones. High fat and sugary diets are the in-thing for the present generation. The young generation wants to follow the path of least effort, i.e. , readymade wheat flour bags, half-baked package food (ready to eat) and so forth. Their minimal consumption of green leafy vegetables causes various digestive problems. The generation growing in such a kind of atmosphere tends to develop various diseases.

Gandhiji has talked at length regarding satwik food, which definitely takes care of obesity and allied maladies among youth. Though sometimes Gandhiji ate goat meat when he was young, he did not relish it at all and left it for good. He was also averse to cow or buffalo milk so he started goat milk with doctor's advice. Frugal eating behaviour was illustrated throughout his writings and discourses. It was not that he could not afford it, but his purposeful self-denial of a non-vegetarian diet, different hard and soft beverages, was to keep him morally clean and upright. Though the youth of today's generation may not be as austere as Gandhiji used to be, they can definitely emulate him on many counts regarding habits. Inculcation of Gandhian food habits can protect them from obesity and related ailments. It can keep them away from the craving of junk food. The elders need to walk the talk and set examples.

Age specific suicide death rates (SDR) and the percentage of total suicide death in each group. Source : Gender differentials and state variations in suicide deaths in India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 1990–2016. The Lancet (2018).

ICMR launched a diabetes registry in 2006 to map the pattern of youth-onset diabetes with relevance to geographical locations. Towards the end of the first phase in 2011, it was found that Type I diabetes was more prevalent than Type II diabetes.

EDUCATIONAL DISPARITY

The young generation of today is a victim of an education that gives a scroll certifying him to be worthy of the market and fending for himself. But the paradox of such a calibration of a student's intellect is questionable in itself. The simple reason for such confusion is a disparity in the process of teaching. Issues like disparity in education and unemployment among the youth are a matter of real concern. A nation of our stature cannot remain a mute spectator of the abysmal status of our academic system. Gandhiji dreamt of an academic system that would make the youth self-reliant and not dependent on their employer. The current education system segregates between public and private schooling. It is universally known that students educated from private schools are mostly comfortably placed (much costlier education) in all spheres of life in comparison to those who have been educated in government schools. In most of the cases, public school education cannot instill self-confidence in their wards. The disparity becomes glaring between the two types of youth while both are contesting for a common goal.

Greyville Cricket Club, Durban. Seated fourth from left: Parsee Rustomjee next to Mahatma Gandhi, 1913.

Healthy competition is always a good option but the present system of education is churning out competitors of uneven academic prowess. The Gandhian principle of education may help resolve this kind of disparity, maybe not fully, but to a large extent. Gandhiji believed education should be value-based and mass-oriented.

He insisted on imparting vocational training to youth so that they can become self-reliant with such training, with education linked with practical experience. Probably the disparity reflects upon our inability to make education truly national in nature and spirit. Gandhiji always advocated for a true, national education. True education develops a balanced intellect and, according to Gandhiji, a balanced intellect presupposes a harmonious growth of body, mind and soul.

An educated youth is the heart and soul of a nation. To make them truly educated, the curriculum needs reorientation at this juncture. The Gandhian spirit of overall development of the youth comprises education that stresses on mental, physical spiritual, social and economic values of life. And today's education is bereft of many of the said values.

Gandhiji used to say: “Education should not end with childhood as adult education plays an equally vital role in the development of an individual.” And a regular learning habit not only helps a man to negotiate with the ups and downs of life but also makes him an able navigator in the sea of life.

EMPLOYMENT SCARCITY

One of the most serious concerns is major unemployment among the youth in our country. It does not matter much whether the youth is formally educated or not. The employment market is unable to keep pace with ever growing job-seekers. However, a miniscule number of appropriately trained job-seekers still get jobs. The major factors for such kinds of anomalies are many but one of the key factors is a market-naive education system. The training imparted to the youth in their academic career is mostly archetypical and is not commensurate with the requirements of national or international job markets. The current situation warrants a considerable reorientation exercise in the education system, and also demands entrepreneurs to be hoisted to take care of job requirements both at the national and local level.

Gandhiji always did advocacy for sound vocational training for boys and girls. He felt that a large section of our country lives in villages and that there are various jobs that need skills of village youths (best suited for a village situation). If the youth of rural India develop different sorts of skills, they will not only generate employment for themselves, but they will be able to employ their fellow villagers as well. The irony of the current employment market is a systematic waning of rural-based employment. Hence the introduction of modern skills like digitization (it is good technology – if launched in right earnest, in consonance with local needs) of most of the sectors. Thus a major section of our youth and master of those (rural crafts) skills are in oblivion as they have not been trained with modern technology-based rural jobs.

The next generation needs to be savvy with modern science and technology to keep pace with modern-day development on one hand and on the other they need to acquire those social values for which Gandhiji fought throughout his life. The youth of the nation need to inculcate the values they should have for respect and regard for the elderly and truth, and retain the values of existing social institutions as institutions are the scaffolding of any culture. They should not get into the traps of caste or creed, neither allow anyone to exploit such issues for petty gains.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT & SPONSORSHIP:

Conflicts of interest:.

notes on art in a global context

Gandhi’s Buildings and the Search for a Spiritual Modernity

Riyaz Tayyibji

January 9, 2019

Riyaz Tayyibji considers the little-known architectural collaborations of Mahatma Gandhi, charismatic leader of the Indian freedom movement, in light of discourses of modern architecture. Weaving in discussions of phenomenology, material, and a discipline of privacy, the essay explores aspects of Gandhi’s philosophical and political thinking that propose a notion of the modern with an ethical and spiritual underpinning for 20th century architectural practice.

There are many things that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948), the “Mahatma” or more fondly “Bapu,” is known for, but architecture is not part of the standard mythos. Gandhi, however, did consider building to be an extension of his engagement with different materials, which he began at an early age. His first experiments were with food, and later, he taught himself carpentry and to work with leather. He was particularly interested in materiality, the relationship between material, its processing and production with labor and the human body. He taught himself to spin cotton, an activity that he personally undertook daily, and then promoted societally, which had large economic and political implications during the Indian independence movement. Gandhi sitting at his spinning wheel is an iconic portrait. His engagement with materials and how they are processed was not a casual one. 1 Gandhi referred to all his praxes as “experiments.” The English title of his autobiography,  An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth , gives insight into the depth and breadth of the manner in which he considered these engagements. Though sceptical of the scientific worldview of the Enlightenment for separating the subjective and the objective, he nevertheless borrowed from this paradigm, appropriating the method of the experiment and following it meticulously: setting up hypotheses, undertaking experiments, and searching for verification. Gandhi carried out experiments in his inner world (in his search for truth) and in the outer world (through his engagement with material). For him, the human body is the instrument that mediates between these two worlds, allowing for the inner to be verified by the outer, and vice versa. For this epistemological machine to work, Gandhi knew that a complete transparency between one’s inner and the outer worlds was necessary. M. K. Gandhi,  An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth , trans. Mahadev Desai (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press),  https://gandhiheritageportal.org/mahatma-gandhi-books/the-story-of-my-experiments-with-truth#page/1/mode/2up ).  He mastered leatherwork and carpentry and even made highly technical innovations to the spinning wheel. 2 Gandhi developed a twelve-spindle  charkha (spinning wheel), and a portable “Yerawada”  charkha  that allowed him to spin while traveling. He also made changes to improve the aerodynamics of the wheel.  One should expect, then, an equally careful examination of architectural praxes in his experiments with built forms. 

Though Gandhi is unequivocally among the greatest modern thinkers, his buildings have largely been looked upon as conservative, rural, and vernacular. Ironically, it is their materiality that has perpetuated this reading. 3 The manner in which the discourse on modern architecture itself has been historically constructed foregrounds material technology and its production (industry). Given that more than 80 percent of India was rural and agricultural at the time, Gandhi saw no virtue in premising modern interventions into these contexts on such ideas. He did, however, see value in the ideas of the individual, health and hygiene, education, and dialogue. Gandhi, though critical of the European secular, scientific Enlightenment as a whole, felt no hesitation in borrowing ideas and practices from it that he thought were useful—or in discarding those that he considered destructive. He, in fact, categorically states that nothing he has thought or done is original, and he is completely transparent in crediting antecedents. M. K. Gandhi,  An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth , trans. Mahadev Desai (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press,  https://gandhiheritageportal.org/mahatma-gandhi-books/the-story-of-my-experiments-with-truth#page/1/mode/2up ). A Gandhian modernity encourages a mix and match of ideas, on the assumption that these ideas arise in response to an internal inquiry and conversation with oneself. He then vehemently opposes the notion that any one fixed set of ideas (i.e., ideology) is inherently superior to any other. Gandhi’s buildings then question the hegemony of the idea of material technology in determining modern architecture. Quite simply, Gandhi’s buildings are modern in spite of the materials from which they are made, though the nature of their modernity may not be obvious. Given Gandhi’s criticism of industrial production processes, modern materials such as concrete and steel are, not surprisingly, absent from his architecture. With his economic and political thinking centered on the village and rural agricultural environments, the idea of the modern city was immaterial. 4 For Gandhi, the city is a place of violence. He proposed the “ashram” as a form of settlement pattern. This is not the ashram of antiquity but rather a community of satyagrahis, or searchers of truth, living together and “experimenting” toward a nonviolent existence. This form of ashram consists of a residential area, a communal kitchen and dining hall, an open-to-sky prayer space, along with an institutional area housing schools and other training sites. Areas are demarcated for agriculture, animal husbandry, dairy, and food processing. A separate area is allotted for international ashramites, volunteers, and visiting guests.  Gandhi’s buildings lie outside the matrix of material technology and urbanity that defines modern Euro-American architecture. And yet they are considerable departures from the traditional structures they appear to resemble. This break is rooted in the ideas that shaped Indian modernity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and that matured through Gandhi’s experimentations. These ideas relate to individuality, hygiene, movement, locality, and, among other things, a reconfiguration of the domestic that constitutes an “opening up.” 5 In this essay, I use the term “opening up” to describe both an internal, mental, and psychological reconfiguration arising from systematic inquiry, experimentation, and verification, and a material one—referring to the increased porosity of an architectural configuration. Buildings using mud and masonry are load bearing by nature, where the configuration of the walls defines the structure. These are unlike the frame structures built with modern materials, such as reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and steel, which free the walls from the logic of gravity and, therefore, allow for “free” compositioning. Compositioning allows for transparency, whereas configurations of load-bearing walls allow for varying porosity. I have called an increase in porosity an “opening up.” For Gandhi, this external, material opening up can only follow an internal one. A societal opening up would follow the same logic: A society can only move away from dogmatisms and the darkness of a blind following of unverified ritual and habit through a wilful internal transformation within each individual member of that society. For it to happen any other way would involve the false or the violent, both of which Gandhi considered immoral. In this essay, I concentrate on the implications of opening up and the idea of the individual particular to Gandhi’s thinking. Considering the scope of this essay, other ideas, including those surrounding hygiene, domesticity, and movement are referred to in passing, however, they are not discussed in detail.  Given the inherent contradiction in architectural discourse between the categories of “vernacular” and “modern,” particularly in political and economic terms, it becomes important to observe Gandhi’s as an architecture that is simultaneously both. It follows to inquire about the implications of his architecture and the nature of its modernity. 

Gandhi proposed a modernity premised on inward inquiry, or a form of inquiry directed toward the self, rather than the outward-looking trajectory of phenomenal observation that so fueled the Enlightenment project. 6 By ‘modernity’, I mean the conditions and qualities necessary for being modern. Gandhi refuted the possibility that a universal set of conditions could be considered modern. He felt that the European conditions of being modern had limited significance in the Indian cultural context. Others, most notably Ashis Nandy, have attempted to construct the outlines of what a Gandhian modernity could be.  Such a modernity, Gandhi believed, could only come from scrutinizing one’s own experiences, the particularities of one’s own circumstances, and their reality as lived experience with a significant openness between one’s private and public selves. 7 Gandhi seems to have recognized that, in a world where there are no existential boundaries, the only reality that one can consider “firm” is that which is closest to us, i.e., that which is experienced directly. In this world of an atomized, individuated society, the onus to find an ethical and moral framework lies with the individual, and thus one must find this for oneself in the scientific manner of inquiry, i.e., through “experiments.”  In his autobiography, he provides a careful account of his youth, namely of the people and events that were the substance on which his physical, intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual development is based. 8 Gandhi, An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, 11–51.  For Gandhi, this development is driven by the internal conversation one has with oneself. To have this conversation, one must first be able to listen to the “small, still voice” within. 9 For a discussion of Gandhi’s relationship with his “small, still voice,” see Tridip Suhrud, introduction to  An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth : Critical Edition, by M. K. Gandhi, trans. Mahadev Desai (New Delhi: Penguin Random House, 2018), 1–35, esp. 16, 22.  Indeed, it is the ability to hear this voice, to have this conversation, that allows one to emerge as an individual—and thus to be modern. Gandhi understood the purpose of this internal conversation to be the search for integrity and truth, for self-knowledge and self-awareness. Self-recognition, for him, is the basis of self-control. As the cultural historian and Gandhian scholar Tridip Suhrud writes, “His [Gandhi’s] idea of civilization is based on this possibility of rule over the self.” 10 Ibid., 6.  Open dialogue first with oneself and then with the other is the keystone of his praxis of nonviolence, or  ahimsa . For to Gandhi, a disintegrated self is amoral and unethical and leads to ignorance of the self, which in turn paves the way to violence. This is also Gandhi’s most scathing critique of the Western secular-scientific worldview, which he believed led directly to violence through a consciousness that isolates cognition from feelings and ethics, and partitions man from the subjects of inquiry emotionally. 11 Ashis Nandy, “From Outside the Imperium: Gandhi’s Cultural Critique of the West,” in  Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness  (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), 130–31.  This is the state of the technologist, whose individuality is robbed of the possibility of salvation through personal searching. For Gandhi, a modernity without the possibility of transcendence is an amoral modernity. The possibility of transcendence is embedded in the correct enactment of daily practices toward spiritual liberation and not in a longed-for utopia. 12 Gandhi’s daily practices included eating, bathing, reading, writing, spinning, visiting the sick (those stricken with leprosy), and praying. He thought carefully about these activities, and sought the spiritual possibilities within each one. With this understanding, he elevated everyday activities to the level of rituals that would aid him along his path to  moksha , or self-realization. He did not feel the need for any extraneous activity. See Mahadev Desai, “A Morning with Gandhiji,” November 13, 1924, in  Young India, 1924–1926 , by Mahatma Gandhi (Madras: S. Ganesan, 1927), 1025: “There are two aspects of things,—the outward and the inward. It is purely a matter of emphasis with me. The outward has no meaning except in so far as it helps the inward.” Gandhi argued that there are moments, however rare, when one’s communion with oneself is so complete that one feels no need for any outward expression, including art. Tridip Suhrud, “Towards a Gandhian Aesthetics: The Poetics of Surrender and the Art of Brahmacharya,” in  The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art , ed. Arindam Chakrabarti (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 374. It follows that Gandhi considers inner transformation at the individual scale as the engine for political revolution at the societal scale.

Gandhi’s first experience of working with building materials was in South Africa, where he constructed the shed to house the printing press for the  Indian Opinion  at Phoenix settlement. 13 By 1903, a core group of people of varied races and religious dispositions rallied around Gandhi, supporting him in his agitations against racial discrimination in South Africa. This led to the founding of the Natal Indian Congress, which Gandhi would soon lead. In the same year, he started the  Indian Opinion , the journal that became the voice of the Indian community in South Africa. Gandhi had been thinking about communal living for several years up to then. In 1904, with the journal’s financial struggles and his serendipitous reading of John Ruskin’s  Unto This Last , he was inspired to act on his thoughts of communal living and to buy a farm near the station of Phoenix, on the north coastline fourteen miles from Johannesburg. Both the printing press and operating staff were housed on the farm, “where the workers could live a more simple and natural life and the ideas of Ruskin and Tolstoy combined with strict business principles.” Ramachandra Guha,  Gandhi Before India  (New Delhi: Penguin Random House, 2013), 175. Needless to say, the production costs of the journal were reduced considerably. In addition, Gandhi would use the farm to articulate and sharpen his ideas about communal living, and satyagraha. It was at Phoenix settlement in 1906 that Gandhi would take his pledge of  brahmacharya , or voluntary celibacy. The inhabitants of the settlement had built their own houses, and though Gandhi only moved there in 1913, his family lived there and he visited them regularly.  A few years later, Gandhi moved into “The Kraal,” a house designed and built by his lifelong friend, ”soulmate,” and patron, the architect Hermann Kallenbach. 14 See Shimon Lev,  Soulmates: The Story of Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach  (New Delhi: Orient Black Swan, 2012), which discusses the relationship between Gandhi and Kallenbach in detail.  This house had a thatched roof and was based on a configuration of vernacular African building elements. It was unusual for a European to live in such a house at the time. 15 Before living with Kallenbach, Gandhi and his wife had lived with Millie and Henry Polak. It was unusual for mixed-race couples to live together in a city such as London in any case; however, in South Africa, it was downright revolutionary. Moreover, for two men to live together could not have been looked upon as anything but heretical. As the Indian historian Ramachandra Guha writes, “For Gandhi to befriend Polak, Kallenbach, West and company was an act of bravery; for them to befriend Gandhi was an act of defiance.” Guha,  Gandhi Before India , 188.  Gandhi and Kallenbach lived together for five years: first at The Kraal, then in canvas tents at Fairview, and finally at Tolstoy Farm, where once again Gandhi was involved in building. 16 Gandhi was involved in both the conceptualization and the construction of the buildings at Tolstoy Farm. His direct involvement in the construction was reduced after his time in South Africa. The buildings of the ashrams in India were built by important people at each ashram. Gandhi directed them by setting material and budget constraints, and the buildings were constructed under his supervision. His house Bapu Kutir at the Sevagram Ashram at Wardha was built by the British-born activist Mirabehn (Madeleine Slade) originally for herself. However, Gandhi did insist that it cost no more than Rs. 500 to build and that the sky be visible from within.  Given his own experimentation with materials and the pair’s close friendship, Gandhi likely picked up a great deal about construction from the architect. Kallenbach was a partner in a successful Johannesburg practice and designed sophisticated buildings across the town. 17 Hermann Kallenbach (1871–1945) was an architect who studied in both Stuttgart and Munich. He was a master craftsman, having trained and practiced as a carpenter. He arrived in South Africa at the behest of his uncles, who were in the construction industry. Initially, he formed a practice with A. Stanley Reynolds (1911–1971), with whom he built The Kraal. He then set up the firm Kallenbach, Kennedy & Furner, which was enormously influential in the development of Johannesburg up to 1945. He has been described by the South African architectural researcher Kathy Munro as a “property tycoon. See Kathy Munro, “Review of ‘Soulmates—The Story of Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach,’”  Heritage Portal , July 3, 2017,  http://www.theheritageportal.co.za/review/review-soulmates-story-mahatma-gandhi-and-hermann-kallenbach . He generously used his wealth to finance Gandhi’s antiracism activities, which resonated with him, most notably donating more than a thousand acres of land for Tolstoy Farm. After Gandhi’s departure from South Africa, Kallenbach was involved in supporting the Zionist movement. Nonetheless, Gandhi did not find it difficult to convince the tall, sports-loving, hedonistic Lithuanian to give himself over to a life of simplicity. The buildings at Tolstoy Farm consisted of three simple sheds: two about fifty-three feet in length and a third larger one, which, close to seventy-seven feet, housed a school. Each shed had a veranda running along its length, with the interior spaces enclosed by donated corrugated sheets of iron. 18 Tolstoy Farm was established in 1910, when Hermann Kallenbach acquired a farm at Lawley near Johannesburg and donated it to the satyagraha movement, then in its final stage. It was Kallenbach who named the farm after Leo Tolstoy. Gandhi wrote in a letter to Tolstoy, dated August 15, 1910, “No writings have so deeply touched Mr. Kallenbach as yours and, as a spur to further effort in living up to the ideals held before the world by you, he has taken the liberty, after consultation with me, of naming his farm after you.” M. K. Gandhi to Count Leo Tolstoy, 15 August 1910, in  Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , vol. 10, November 1909–March 1911 (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India), 306-7, https://gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/MTA=#page/346/mode/2up . See also Eric Itzkin,  Gandhi’s Johannesburg: Birthplace of Satyagraha , Frank Connock Publication no. 4 (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2000), 78. The farm was 1100 acres. It was covered with 1000 fruit trees and included two wells and a small spring. At its height, the farm supported a community of eighty people: fifty adults as well as thirty children, who studied at its school. The farm, as Gandhi would write in 1914, was of great use in the training of the thousands of passive resisters who participated in the last phase of the struggle. Shriman Narayan, ed.,  Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 3, Satyagraha in South Africa  (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1968), 352. See also https://www.mkgandhi.org/museum/phoenix-settlement-tolstoy-farm.html . At both the Phoenix settlement and Tolstoy Farm, Gandhi had wanted to build with mud and thatch. However, resistance from other community members prevented him from doing so. 19 Though by 1904 Gandhi was a successful lawyer able to donate £3500 to the running of his press and Tolstoy Farm, he himself lived a frugal life and expected those associated with him to do the same. He was hardest on the people closest to him, particularly his family. The Polaks, with whom he stayed, were also subject to his austerity. Millie Polak wanted to make the bare little house they shared a home by giving it a touch of warmth with the use of carpets and curtains. Gandhi was unconvinced of such expenditure, which he felt would be better focused on the cause they were fighting for. Once when she suggested that a painting might do well to hide the ugliness of the yellow washed walls, he suggested she look out of the window at the sunset, which is more beautiful than anything that could be drawn by the hand of man. Guha,  Gandhi Before India , 199–200. See also Itzkin,  Gandhi’s Johannesburg , 69. Though he did give in to Millie Polak on this occasion, such differences about comfort were constant between Gandhi and those working with him at both the Phoenix settlement and Tolstoy Farm. At both places, Gandhi had wanted the residential buildings to be Spartan, made of the most rudimentary and basic materials, which the other community members refused to do. They finally built their homes in a more modern and comfortable manner, using commonly available timber frames.  As Millie Polak recalled, “His bent was naturally towards the ascetic and not towards the aesthetic.” 20 Millie Graham Polak,  Mr. Gandhi: The Man  (Bombay: Vora & Co., 1949), 67.

Gandhi’s ideas with respect to building materials would find fruition upon his return to India in the construction of his ashrams. The buildings of the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a state in western India, were made from burnt brick, sawn timber, and handmade country tiles, and are referred to, in local terminology, as  pucca , or proper/permanent buildings. 21 Gandhi established his first ashram in Ahmedabad at Kochrab using an existing building and property gifted to him by his close friend, the barrister Jivanlal Desai. However, the need for more space to accommodate all of the agricultural activities of the ashram pushed Gandhi to relocate. This time, he chose a place on the banks of the Sabarmati River, from which the second ashram gets its name (it was originally called the Satyagraha Ashram). Gandhi stayed at the Sabarmati Ashram from 1917 to 1930, when it was one of the main centers of the independence movement. It was from there that he set out on his famous Salt March to Dandi and vowed not to return till India had gained its independence. The terms  pucca  and  kachcha  originally related to food. Cooked food is considered  pucca , while that which is eaten raw—such as a fruit—or a vegetable that hasn’t matured is considered  kachcha . It is common parlance to apply these words beyond the realm of food, however. For example, an asphalt road is considered  pucca  while an unpaved country track would be called  kachcha .  Pucca  implies the application of artificial energy to process material, i.e., the more  pucca  or permanent, the more energy has been used for the material’s stability and durability and hence perceived permanence. It is interesting to note here that in Gandhi’s experiments with his diet, he had moved to a diet of largely  kachcha  food. According to Indian historian Ramachandra Guha, “One of his [Gandhi’s] favorite authors, the anti-vivisectionist doctor Anna Kingsford, claimed that a fruit-based diet was man’s genetic inheritance.” Guha,  Gandhi Before India , 189–90.  However, Gandhi found Hriday Kunj, his own house at the ashram, excessive. He thought it too big and unnecessarily complex. At his second ashram, Sevagram Ashram at Wardha, near Nagpur in central India, the buildings are much simpler and made from materials found within a fifty-mile radius. Consequently, the buildings there have stone plinths, and the walls are made of a local mud called “ garhi mitti ” mixed with water, cow dung, wheat husk, and hay, the latter serving as a binder and insulation. Columns of un-sawn  sagwan wood hold up the roof structure, which is covered with bamboo matting and clay country tiles. These buildings were self-built—unlike the  pucca  buildings at the Sabarmati Ashram—and are, in contrast, considered  kachcha , or raw.

Gandhi’s inclination to move from the  pucca  to the  kachcha  (in both diet and in the construction of buildings), is rooted in the idea of health and what it means to live healthily. Gandhi clearly saw that the uncontrolled use of material and energy (particularly mechanical energy) that had so enthralled the last decade of the nineteenth century as well as the twentieth would lead to imbalances in both the internal and external environments of the human body. One might be tempted to consider this as a return to the primitive—certainly an image of Gandhi (read as the “half-naked fakir” 22 R. R. James, ed.,  Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 , vol. 5, 1928–1935 (New York, Chelsea House, 1974), 4985: “It is [ . . . ] alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.” For a discussion on the politics of his dress, see Nandy, “From Outside the Imperium,” 144–45. ) would not be contradictory—however, the manner in which Gandhi constructed himself, i.e., his body, and the space around it, could not have occurred in any other time. To understand the nature of his modernity, we need to visit the spaces of his youth.

Gandhi was born in the town of Porbandar, where his father occupied the ground floor of a three-story town house. The families of his elder uncles lived on the upper two floors, which enjoyed more natural light and better ventilation. The ground-floor rooms, or  ordo  as they are known locally, were poorly lit from a veranda, or  osri , that overlooked a courtyard and lent the house some sense of openness. As Narayan Desai, Gandhi’s personal secretary, described, “Gandhiji was born in a dark room in that house.” 23 Narayan Desai,  My Life Is My Message, vol. 1, Sadhana , trans. Tridip Suhrud (New Delhi: Orient Black Swan, 2009), 2.  When he was seven, the family moved with his grandfather to the city of Rajkot under unusual circumstances. Here, they occupied a more elaborate house. Porbandar and Rajkot are situated in a region in western India known as Saurashtra. The type of house germane to Saurashtra grew out of an archetypal relationship between the closed  ordo , the semi-open  osri , and the open courtyard. 24 The diagram of this relationship would equate to that of the megaron, a Greek archetype that defines the basic relationship between closed, semi-open, and open space, symbolically read as inner world, outer world, and the transitional domain where the two overlap. Given the climatic conditions of the subcontinent, it is this overlap that is inhabited by teeming life.  In denser, more urban areas such as Porbandar, the configuration of the house would be linear, with the open space constricted to a vertically oriented, shaded courtyard called a  chowk . In the squarer, more spread-out agrarian configuration, the courtyard is larger and accommodates both animals and agricultural activities such as drying and threshing. Here, the courtyard is called a  delo . Gandhi’s father’s house, where he lived until the age of nineteen, is of this  delo  type. Known as “Kaba Gandhi no Delo,” or “Kaba Gandhi’s House,” it still stands today.

The  osri  and the  ordo  are the main components of this type of house, the stature of which is determined by the number of its constituent  ordos : the greater the number, the greater its complexity and functional or formal differentiation of its spaces. Likewise, the  osris  on each  ordo  vary depending on orientation and use. The  osri  is the most active, lived-in space of the house, where collective social activities are held and where family members spend the bulk of their time. The kitchen, or  rasodu , is a partially enclosed area within the  osri  and associated with meals and water. Traditionally, the  ordo  is used for storage, and when inhabited, given over to the aged, the sick, or the pregnant, as well as to married couples for sexual intercourse; on rare occasions, it is also used for bathing and grooming. In short, the  ordo  is a closed space for private activities related to the body, keeping them hidden from social witness.

These communal houses were largely extended-family homes, in which the idea of individual privacy was subordinate to the acts of collective living. It was only when Gandhi left Rajkot and began living in London that he developed a taste for a life attuned to the individual, where a room ( ordo ) is one’s private domain. By 1910, at Tolstoy Farm, Gandhi had a room to himself and maintained a certain distance from the community. However, communal living post-1913 tempered his need for individuality; and by 1918, at Hriday Kunj in Ahmedabad, the  ordos  were not placed along the  osri , closing its long face, but instead perpendicular to it, opening up the courtyard and the veranda through and through. Gandhi configured his study as a partially enclosed area within the veranda. The courtyard “loosens” the sense of an enclosure, while the veranda gains a porosity unseen in its traditional iteration. The configuration of the house as a whole is opened up. Whereas the definition of the traditional house is based on the  ordo  and its sense of enclosure, Gandhi’s abode is defined by the continuity of its open and semi-open spaces, or  osris .

In 1933, in Bapu Kutir, Gandhi’s house in his final ashram at Sevagram, the dissolution of the  ordo  is subtler and more complex. Even the bathroom, now accessible, ceased to be an  ordo —it is well-known that anyone in need of an urgent discussion could walk in while Gandhi was bathing, and that often, in order to save time, he dictated letters of importance to his secretary, who sat across from him by the window, while he was defecating. 25 Gandhi often responded to more than a hundred letters a day. This was in addition to the writing he did for his press.  Just as important is the bathroom’s articulation as a sensuous space, with a library connecting to a massage room and sick bay, that collectively reflect an unprecedented ease with the body. This ease had developed over the previous twenty-five years, from 1906 when Gandhi took a vow of celibacy, that final affirmation on the path to  brahmacharya  (activity in search of Brahma or soul). 26 The vow of  brahmacharya  taken by Gandhi in 1906 has a much wider significance than simply abstinence from sexual intercourse. Gandhi writes, “ Brahmacharya  literally means that mode of life which leads to the realization of God. That realization is impossible without practicing self-restraint. Self-restraint means restraint of all the senses. But ordinarily  brahmacharya  is understood to mean control over the sexual organs and prevention of seminal discharge through complete control over the sexual instinct and the sexual organs.”  The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , vol. 77, December 17, 1942–July 31, 1944 (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1979), 19. He continues, “Only he who has burnt away sexual desire in its entirety may be said to have complete control over his sexual organs.”; “There is something very striking about a full-fledged  Brahmachari . His speech, his thought and his actions all bespeak possession of a vital force.” In several religious traditions in the subcontinent, celibacy has always occupied a venerable position.  With its purificatory control of the body,  brahmacharya  diminishes the need and significance of the closed  ordo  in the scheme of dwelling. 27 Since the  ordo  was traditionally the closed room that hid the activities of the body from social witness, it follows that behavioral control over one’s body, i.e., changing or eradicating the need for certain activities, would change or eradicate the need for the  ordo  itself. By taking a vow of  brahmacharya , Gandhi not only transformed his body to be asexual but also redefined the relationship between man and woman in the house. His ideas about hygiene and ablution allowed the body to be far more relaxed and open.  The form of dwelling for this new body found its fruition at Bapu Kutir at Wardha. The gradual dissolution of the “closed room,” the opening up of the private space of the body as an expression of a new, modern relationship between body and dwelling, is one of the most important and consistent themes across Gandhi’s buildings beginning at Tolstoy Farm. For Gandhi, this opening up had deep spiritual implications. Homologous processes of opening up could be seen in his other praxes—for example, in the manner in which he opened up the insular literary form of the modern autobiography.

In December 1925, Gandhi began writing  An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth  from Sabarmati Ashram. In this serial exercise, spread over 166 installments published weekly in the  Navjivan (Young India) , the  Indian Opinion (Johannesburg), and the American journal  Unity , Gandhi invited readers to respond to current installments while he worked on those to follow. These writings, he said, were driven by the “dweller-within,” rather than by an overall plan to present the reader with a “book.” 28 See Suhrud, introduction, 17.  In his approach, Gandhi opened up the insular writing process of the modern literary autobiographical form to the possibility of dialogue. 29 In some ways, Gandhi’s process of writing his autobiography resembles the contemporary practice of blogging, in that he was using the social-media technology of his day, which was print. Writing weekly, Gandhi received responses that were often critical. He published these responses with the installments that followed. The idea of dialogue is fundamental to much of India’s modernist thinking and forms one of the most important precepts of Gandhi’s ideas outlining an alternative modernity—one that includes a sharp critique of the Eurocentric secular and scientific modernity. So hegemonic was the European voice, so unanimously accepted at the time as derived from a superior fact-based, historical, objective, empirical, and literary culture, that an older more intimate, oral, mythic, and liturgical order was like the proverbial baby being thrown out with the scientific bathwater. It was this assumption of unquestionable superiority that Gandhi most opposed and felt compelled to push back against through ”civilizational dialogue,” a process in which reconciliation of differences depends on the ability to look at difference as a form of criticism, which he believed one should apply toward oneself for ”internal use.” 30 For Gandhi, every civilization is based on a primary set of ideas. He denied that any one set of ideas could claim superiority over any other. He himself borrowed ideas and methods from across cultures to further articulate and sharpen his own. He believed that the differences in ideas offered the potential for dialogue from the personal to the civilizational levels. However, such dialogue could only take place with an inner openness and self-confidence that accepts difference as a form of criticism for internal use. According to Ashish Nandy, when, “Catherine Mayo wrote her savagely anti-Indian and pro-imperialist treatise,  Mother India , Gandhi called the book a ‘drain-inspectors report’ but added that every Indian should read it. While Mayo’s critique of Indian culture was blatantly prejudiced, he seemed to imply, Indian culture should have the self-confidence to put the criticism to internal use.” Frederick Buell.  National Culture and the New Global System  (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1994), 245–46. Gandhi understood that ideas that claim superiority are not ready for this dialogue. His criticism of the Western secular, scientific paradigm should be seen as an initiation of such a civilizational dialogue.  He held that dialogue, by definition, must become a two-way process, as much as it was a two-part process, i.e., first involving an internal conversation that is then followed by an external one. The ease with which Gandhi brings into close proximity the modern and the vernacular (though he himself would not have made this particular distinction) is the first step toward the possibility of dialogue and a subsequent inquiry into the shared ground between two seemingly opposed categories.

As much as Gandhi was critical of the European Enlightenment, he was equally critical of India’s bigoted, caste-ridden, and striated society, in which archaic social norms prevent individuation and consequently eliminate the possibility of an inner dialogue. For him, the possibility of a modern India was premised on the eradication of untouchability and other practices, such as  sati . He believed these closed, dark spaces perpetuated by superstition needed to be opened up. Having dismissed the trajectory of the Enlightenment, in which the external light of science and rationality eradicates obscurity, Gandhi centered this idea of ”opening up” on the continuation of a spiritual tradition drawn from his reading of the  Bhagavad Gita , and further inflected by the Bible. Such amalgamations were implicit to his formative education, specifically via his mother Putlibai, who belonged to an eclectic religious tradition known as ”Pranami Sampradaya,” which “seeks to combine the finest elements of Hinduism and Islam.”


Like many spiritual traditions of the Indian subcontinent, the Vaishnava tradition, with which Gandhi experimented, looks at the relationship between the body and mind as the site for self-realization. It is widely accepted that the free play of the senses is a distraction, and does not allow one to heed one’s inner voice. Gandhi first experimented with his diet and its relationship to the palate while still a student in Rajkot and then in London. He noted with great care how the changes in his diet affected his body, his behavior, and particularly the workings of his mind. Gandhi was fastidious about personal hygiene, and in caring for his body, and he allowed this to play a key role in his writings on social reform. The upliftment of the manual scavenging caste, composed of those who made a living by cleaning up the excrement of the higher castes, the most abject position in Indian society, was one of his most strident agendas, as was the healing of those affected with leprosy. He also realized that it was not possible to be completely committed to social service without having complete control over one’s own inner body.

It should be noted that though Gandhi considered the body to be an impediment in the search for the self, he also saw it as an essential instrument in one’s healthy and appropriate engagement with the material world. Gandhi borrowed from Tolstoy the idea of bread labor. He believed that if everyone made with their own hands one essential item necessary for their existence, they would realize in a bodily sense, from their own labor, the right proportion of resource and the energy required toward their living. Gandhi, as mentioned earlier, had taught himself carpentry, to work with leather, and to weave and spin. He explored organic material and production processes through direct involvement in both agriculture and dairy. During his days in London and in South Africa, he transformed his body from the inert construct of a traditional Indian  bania  to one of a modern individual at ease with its labor. Gandhi’s later twin concepts of nonpossession and non-stealing have deep ecological implication, preparing one to give up all possessions including the body. For Gandhi, then, the body is not for individual self-gratification and pleasure, but rather an instrument with which to measure the limits of one’s engagement in the substantial world. The body is a social instrument he considers to be part of the “commons.”

If a new relationship to the body is one sign of the modern in the buildings of Gandhi’s ashrams, which manifests in an opening up, in an increased spatial porosity, then the other is the care taken in the articulation of the place for the individual, who for Gandhi is at the very root of being modern. For Gandhi, the study, a place for contemplation, reading, and writing, is the site of the inner conversation that defines the individual. It bears noting that his “study” is distinct from his  daftar , or office, for which a separate building was built. It was at Hriday Kunj in Ahmedabad that the study emerged as a partitioned space within the  osri  and, like the kitchen in his Rajkot house, was the domain of an individual simultaneously connected to the social realm of the house. It was the archetype of the  rasodu , or kitchen, that Gandhi appropriated for the development of the study. Fifteen years later, at Bapu Kutir, in 1933, the study, scaled down by a bamboo loft, became a far more intimate space. Gandhi now inhabited the very wall that separates the  osri  from the inner space of the house: a carved-out space, delicate in its articulation and tactility. Apart from limiting the cost of its construction to Rs. 500, Gandhi had one other expectation from the building: he wanted to be able to see the sky from any place within it. It is from the study of the  kutir  that this is possible. The study at Wardha is thus a space where one is simultaneously held and released.

A note on spatiality of porosity: porosity must be distinguished from the transparent that is so valorized by European modern architecture. I have argued elsewhere that this porosity arises from an attitude of agrarian frugality rather than of mechanical efficiencies. This opening up distinguishes itself from the Wrightian corner window or the Corbusian  plan libre  (both contemporaneous with the architecture under discussion) as the mechanisms facilitating this openness are not dependent on technological articulations of material and structure, or for that matter, a mechanized production process. This openness is the direct result of the control over oneself, over one’s behavior, and the ability to transform the activities that underpin function with this changed behavior. If one of the credos of modern architecture is that form follows function, Gandhi would extend this inward ad infinitum: form follows function, which follows activity, which follows behavior, which follows resolve, which in turn is a function of discipline, which is a direct result of control over the self, which is necessary for an inquiry of truth, which is based on being able to hear and have a conversation with the “small, still voice” within, which in turn defines the modern individual. If our cumulative behavior aggregates into what we now call “lifestyle,” and we have a choice of lifestyle, then it follows that this choice also determines the material, technological, and formal choices that are ethically open to us. Gandhi’s visionary architecture demonstrated this long before it became an environmentalist credo that the future of the planet may well depend on the manner in which each of us chooses to live. As Gandhi often said, the purity of the means results in the purity of the ends. Form then has ethical and moral underpinnings. The choice of form must necessarily emerge from careful experimentation through a sequence that leads from a relationship to one’s inner self.

Another way to look at this would be to say that Gandhi believed that the specificity and differentiation of architectural form was simply excessive—unnecessary even. He noted that there is a striking similarity between the spatial structure of the Saurashtra house and that of a Hindu temple. The  ordo  corresponds to the closed  garbhagriha , or sanctum, whereas the  osri  corresponds to the  mandapa , a hypostyle hall, or social, sometimes congregational space. In Gandhi’s mind, the categories of house and temple are never very far from each other. As was common practice in the area, his mother, who was a pious woman, visited a neighborhood  haveli , or temple that exists within a large house. Gandhi, always sensitive to the possibilities of universal relationships, realized that the relationship between the  osri  and the  ordo  of the house parallels that between the hypostyle and the sanctum of a temple. The difference then lies not in the form but rather in the manner in which the spaces are ritualized, or the ways in which activities and material cohere in a recurrent manner. By changing the mode of ritualization, one could easily turn a house into a shrine, or for that matter the cell of a prison into the  cella , or inner chamber, of a temple. This is precisely what Gandhi did when he was imprisoned in Yerawada Central Jail in Pune: he recognized the prison cell and the corridor in archetypal terms, and referred to the prison as ”Yerawada”  mandir , or temple. It was the manner in which he inhabited the prison that denied his imprisonment.

Gandhi realized that the power of changing one’s relationship to physical space, and by extension the meaning of buildings, derived from controlling one’s thinking and activity, and not merely by radicalizing the design of a space for its own sake. In this approach, he began with the presumption that the human body is more adaptive and responsive than inanimate matter. He found it contradictory that for inanimate matter to become responsive, adaptive, or flexible, it needed to be shaped using vast amounts of energy. In contrast, human beings could do so naturally, because we are naturally so. He demonstrated that in shaping one’s behavior, one does not need to shape form, the ecological implications of which cannot be overstated. Consequently, his ashrams consist of a distributed and continuous field of  osris , where the dwelling is all verandas, some built and the rest the result of heavily foliaged trees. Immersed in this porous plenum, bodies both individual and societal are shaped into a variety of institutional relationships through disciplined activities and/or practices. This discipline is internal and, in turn, defines the ashram as the place and operation of a collective of co-experimenters, all in search of self-knowledge and truth. This is the Gandhian space for a spiritual modern.

• 1 Gandhi referred to all his praxes as “experiments.” The English title of his autobiography,  An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth , gives insight into the depth and breadth of the manner in which he considered these engagements. Though sceptical of the scientific worldview of the Enlightenment for separating the subjective and the objective, he nevertheless borrowed from this paradigm, appropriating the method of the experiment and following it meticulously: setting up hypotheses, undertaking experiments, and searching for verification. Gandhi carried out experiments in his inner world (in his search for truth) and in the outer world (through his engagement with material). For him, the human body is the instrument that mediates between these two worlds, allowing for the inner to be verified by the outer, and vice versa. For this epistemological machine to work, Gandhi knew that a complete transparency between one’s inner and the outer worlds was necessary. M. K. Gandhi,  An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth , trans. Mahadev Desai (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press),  https://gandhiheritageportal.org/mahatma-gandhi-books/the-story-of-my-experiments-with-truth#page/1/mode/2up ).
• 2 Gandhi developed a twelve-spindle  charkha (spinning wheel), and a portable “Yerawada”  charkha  that allowed him to spin while traveling. He also made changes to improve the aerodynamics of the wheel.
• 3 The manner in which the discourse on modern architecture itself has been historically constructed foregrounds material technology and its production (industry). Given that more than 80 percent of India was rural and agricultural at the time, Gandhi saw no virtue in premising modern interventions into these contexts on such ideas. He did, however, see value in the ideas of the individual, health and hygiene, education, and dialogue. Gandhi, though critical of the European secular, scientific Enlightenment as a whole, felt no hesitation in borrowing ideas and practices from it that he thought were useful—or in discarding those that he considered destructive. He, in fact, categorically states that nothing he has thought or done is original, and he is completely transparent in crediting antecedents. M. K. Gandhi,  An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth , trans. Mahadev Desai (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press,  https://gandhiheritageportal.org/mahatma-gandhi-books/the-story-of-my-experiments-with-truth#page/1/mode/2up ). A Gandhian modernity encourages a mix and match of ideas, on the assumption that these ideas arise in response to an internal inquiry and conversation with oneself. He then vehemently opposes the notion that any one fixed set of ideas (i.e., ideology) is inherently superior to any other. Gandhi’s buildings then question the hegemony of the idea of material technology in determining modern architecture. Quite simply, Gandhi’s buildings are modern in spite of the materials from which they are made, though the nature of their modernity may not be obvious.
• 4 For Gandhi, the city is a place of violence. He proposed the “ashram” as a form of settlement pattern. This is not the ashram of antiquity but rather a community of satyagrahis, or searchers of truth, living together and “experimenting” toward a nonviolent existence. This form of ashram consists of a residential area, a communal kitchen and dining hall, an open-to-sky prayer space, along with an institutional area housing schools and other training sites. Areas are demarcated for agriculture, animal husbandry, dairy, and food processing. A separate area is allotted for international ashramites, volunteers, and visiting guests.
• 5 In this essay, I use the term “opening up” to describe both an internal, mental, and psychological reconfiguration arising from systematic inquiry, experimentation, and verification, and a material one—referring to the increased porosity of an architectural configuration. Buildings using mud and masonry are load bearing by nature, where the configuration of the walls defines the structure. These are unlike the frame structures built with modern materials, such as reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and steel, which free the walls from the logic of gravity and, therefore, allow for “free” compositioning. Compositioning allows for transparency, whereas configurations of load-bearing walls allow for varying porosity. I have called an increase in porosity an “opening up.” For Gandhi, this external, material opening up can only follow an internal one. A societal opening up would follow the same logic: A society can only move away from dogmatisms and the darkness of a blind following of unverified ritual and habit through a wilful internal transformation within each individual member of that society. For it to happen any other way would involve the false or the violent, both of which Gandhi considered immoral. In this essay, I concentrate on the implications of opening up and the idea of the individual particular to Gandhi’s thinking. Considering the scope of this essay, other ideas, including those surrounding hygiene, domesticity, and movement are referred to in passing, however, they are not discussed in detail.
• 6 By ‘modernity’, I mean the conditions and qualities necessary for being modern. Gandhi refuted the possibility that a universal set of conditions could be considered modern. He felt that the European conditions of being modern had limited significance in the Indian cultural context. Others, most notably Ashis Nandy, have attempted to construct the outlines of what a Gandhian modernity could be.
• 7 Gandhi seems to have recognized that, in a world where there are no existential boundaries, the only reality that one can consider “firm” is that which is closest to us, i.e., that which is experienced directly. In this world of an atomized, individuated society, the onus to find an ethical and moral framework lies with the individual, and thus one must find this for oneself in the scientific manner of inquiry, i.e., through “experiments.”
• 8 Gandhi, An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, 11–51.
• 9 For a discussion of Gandhi’s relationship with his “small, still voice,” see Tridip Suhrud, introduction to  An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth : Critical Edition, by M. K. Gandhi, trans. Mahadev Desai (New Delhi: Penguin Random House, 2018), 1–35, esp. 16, 22.
• 10 Ibid., 6.
• 11 Ashis Nandy, “From Outside the Imperium: Gandhi’s Cultural Critique of the West,” in  Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness  (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), 130–31.
• 12 Gandhi’s daily practices included eating, bathing, reading, writing, spinning, visiting the sick (those stricken with leprosy), and praying. He thought carefully about these activities, and sought the spiritual possibilities within each one. With this understanding, he elevated everyday activities to the level of rituals that would aid him along his path to  moksha , or self-realization. He did not feel the need for any extraneous activity. See Mahadev Desai, “A Morning with Gandhiji,” November 13, 1924, in  Young India, 1924–1926 , by Mahatma Gandhi (Madras: S. Ganesan, 1927), 1025: “There are two aspects of things,—the outward and the inward. It is purely a matter of emphasis with me. The outward has no meaning except in so far as it helps the inward.” Gandhi argued that there are moments, however rare, when one’s communion with oneself is so complete that one feels no need for any outward expression, including art. Tridip Suhrud, “Towards a Gandhian Aesthetics: The Poetics of Surrender and the Art of Brahmacharya,” in  The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art , ed. Arindam Chakrabarti (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 374. It follows that Gandhi considers inner transformation at the individual scale as the engine for political revolution at the societal scale.
• 13 By 1903, a core group of people of varied races and religious dispositions rallied around Gandhi, supporting him in his agitations against racial discrimination in South Africa. This led to the founding of the Natal Indian Congress, which Gandhi would soon lead. In the same year, he started the  Indian Opinion , the journal that became the voice of the Indian community in South Africa. Gandhi had been thinking about communal living for several years up to then. In 1904, with the journal’s financial struggles and his serendipitous reading of John Ruskin’s  Unto This Last , he was inspired to act on his thoughts of communal living and to buy a farm near the station of Phoenix, on the north coastline fourteen miles from Johannesburg. Both the printing press and operating staff were housed on the farm, “where the workers could live a more simple and natural life and the ideas of Ruskin and Tolstoy combined with strict business principles.” Ramachandra Guha,  Gandhi Before India  (New Delhi: Penguin Random House, 2013), 175. Needless to say, the production costs of the journal were reduced considerably. In addition, Gandhi would use the farm to articulate and sharpen his ideas about communal living, and satyagraha. It was at Phoenix settlement in 1906 that Gandhi would take his pledge of  brahmacharya , or voluntary celibacy. The inhabitants of the settlement had built their own houses, and though Gandhi only moved there in 1913, his family lived there and he visited them regularly.
• 14 See Shimon Lev,  Soulmates: The Story of Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach  (New Delhi: Orient Black Swan, 2012), which discusses the relationship between Gandhi and Kallenbach in detail.
• 15 Before living with Kallenbach, Gandhi and his wife had lived with Millie and Henry Polak. It was unusual for mixed-race couples to live together in a city such as London in any case; however, in South Africa, it was downright revolutionary. Moreover, for two men to live together could not have been looked upon as anything but heretical. As the Indian historian Ramachandra Guha writes, “For Gandhi to befriend Polak, Kallenbach, West and company was an act of bravery; for them to befriend Gandhi was an act of defiance.” Guha,  Gandhi Before India , 188.
• 16 Gandhi was involved in both the conceptualization and the construction of the buildings at Tolstoy Farm. His direct involvement in the construction was reduced after his time in South Africa. The buildings of the ashrams in India were built by important people at each ashram. Gandhi directed them by setting material and budget constraints, and the buildings were constructed under his supervision. His house Bapu Kutir at the Sevagram Ashram at Wardha was built by the British-born activist Mirabehn (Madeleine Slade) originally for herself. However, Gandhi did insist that it cost no more than Rs. 500 to build and that the sky be visible from within.
• 17 Hermann Kallenbach (1871–1945) was an architect who studied in both Stuttgart and Munich. He was a master craftsman, having trained and practiced as a carpenter. He arrived in South Africa at the behest of his uncles, who were in the construction industry. Initially, he formed a practice with A. Stanley Reynolds (1911–1971), with whom he built The Kraal. He then set up the firm Kallenbach, Kennedy & Furner, which was enormously influential in the development of Johannesburg up to 1945. He has been described by the South African architectural researcher Kathy Munro as a “property tycoon. See Kathy Munro, “Review of ‘Soulmates—The Story of Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach,’”  Heritage Portal , July 3, 2017,  http://www.theheritageportal.co.za/review/review-soulmates-story-mahatma-gandhi-and-hermann-kallenbach . He generously used his wealth to finance Gandhi’s antiracism activities, which resonated with him, most notably donating more than a thousand acres of land for Tolstoy Farm. After Gandhi’s departure from South Africa, Kallenbach was involved in supporting the Zionist movement.
• 18 Tolstoy Farm was established in 1910, when Hermann Kallenbach acquired a farm at Lawley near Johannesburg and donated it to the satyagraha movement, then in its final stage. It was Kallenbach who named the farm after Leo Tolstoy. Gandhi wrote in a letter to Tolstoy, dated August 15, 1910, “No writings have so deeply touched Mr. Kallenbach as yours and, as a spur to further effort in living up to the ideals held before the world by you, he has taken the liberty, after consultation with me, of naming his farm after you.” M. K. Gandhi to Count Leo Tolstoy, 15 August 1910, in  Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , vol. 10, November 1909–March 1911 (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India), 306-7, https://gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/MTA=#page/346/mode/2up . See also Eric Itzkin,  Gandhi’s Johannesburg: Birthplace of Satyagraha , Frank Connock Publication no. 4 (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2000), 78. The farm was 1100 acres. It was covered with 1000 fruit trees and included two wells and a small spring. At its height, the farm supported a community of eighty people: fifty adults as well as thirty children, who studied at its school. The farm, as Gandhi would write in 1914, was of great use in the training of the thousands of passive resisters who participated in the last phase of the struggle. Shriman Narayan, ed.,  Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 3, Satyagraha in South Africa  (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1968), 352. See also https://www.mkgandhi.org/museum/phoenix-settlement-tolstoy-farm.html .
• 19 Though by 1904 Gandhi was a successful lawyer able to donate £3500 to the running of his press and Tolstoy Farm, he himself lived a frugal life and expected those associated with him to do the same. He was hardest on the people closest to him, particularly his family. The Polaks, with whom he stayed, were also subject to his austerity. Millie Polak wanted to make the bare little house they shared a home by giving it a touch of warmth with the use of carpets and curtains. Gandhi was unconvinced of such expenditure, which he felt would be better focused on the cause they were fighting for. Once when she suggested that a painting might do well to hide the ugliness of the yellow washed walls, he suggested she look out of the window at the sunset, which is more beautiful than anything that could be drawn by the hand of man. Guha,  Gandhi Before India , 199–200. See also Itzkin,  Gandhi’s Johannesburg , 69. Though he did give in to Millie Polak on this occasion, such differences about comfort were constant between Gandhi and those working with him at both the Phoenix settlement and Tolstoy Farm. At both places, Gandhi had wanted the residential buildings to be Spartan, made of the most rudimentary and basic materials, which the other community members refused to do. They finally built their homes in a more modern and comfortable manner, using commonly available timber frames.
• 20 Millie Graham Polak,  Mr. Gandhi: The Man  (Bombay: Vora & Co., 1949), 67.
• 21 Gandhi established his first ashram in Ahmedabad at Kochrab using an existing building and property gifted to him by his close friend, the barrister Jivanlal Desai. However, the need for more space to accommodate all of the agricultural activities of the ashram pushed Gandhi to relocate. This time, he chose a place on the banks of the Sabarmati River, from which the second ashram gets its name (it was originally called the Satyagraha Ashram). Gandhi stayed at the Sabarmati Ashram from 1917 to 1930, when it was one of the main centers of the independence movement. It was from there that he set out on his famous Salt March to Dandi and vowed not to return till India had gained its independence. The terms  pucca  and  kachcha  originally related to food. Cooked food is considered  pucca , while that which is eaten raw—such as a fruit—or a vegetable that hasn’t matured is considered  kachcha . It is common parlance to apply these words beyond the realm of food, however. For example, an asphalt road is considered  pucca  while an unpaved country track would be called  kachcha .  Pucca  implies the application of artificial energy to process material, i.e., the more  pucca  or permanent, the more energy has been used for the material’s stability and durability and hence perceived permanence. It is interesting to note here that in Gandhi’s experiments with his diet, he had moved to a diet of largely  kachcha  food. According to Indian historian Ramachandra Guha, “One of his [Gandhi’s] favorite authors, the anti-vivisectionist doctor Anna Kingsford, claimed that a fruit-based diet was man’s genetic inheritance.” Guha,  Gandhi Before India , 189–90.
• 22 R. R. James, ed.,  Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 , vol. 5, 1928–1935 (New York, Chelsea House, 1974), 4985: “It is [ . . . ] alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.” For a discussion on the politics of his dress, see Nandy, “From Outside the Imperium,” 144–45.
• 23 Narayan Desai,  My Life Is My Message, vol. 1, Sadhana , trans. Tridip Suhrud (New Delhi: Orient Black Swan, 2009), 2.
• 24 The diagram of this relationship would equate to that of the megaron, a Greek archetype that defines the basic relationship between closed, semi-open, and open space, symbolically read as inner world, outer world, and the transitional domain where the two overlap. Given the climatic conditions of the subcontinent, it is this overlap that is inhabited by teeming life.
• 25 Gandhi often responded to more than a hundred letters a day. This was in addition to the writing he did for his press.
• 26 The vow of  brahmacharya  taken by Gandhi in 1906 has a much wider significance than simply abstinence from sexual intercourse. Gandhi writes, “ Brahmacharya  literally means that mode of life which leads to the realization of God. That realization is impossible without practicing self-restraint. Self-restraint means restraint of all the senses. But ordinarily  brahmacharya  is understood to mean control over the sexual organs and prevention of seminal discharge through complete control over the sexual instinct and the sexual organs.”  The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi , vol. 77, December 17, 1942–July 31, 1944 (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1979), 19. He continues, “Only he who has burnt away sexual desire in its entirety may be said to have complete control over his sexual organs.”; “There is something very striking about a full-fledged  Brahmachari . His speech, his thought and his actions all bespeak possession of a vital force.” In several religious traditions in the subcontinent, celibacy has always occupied a venerable position.
• 27 Since the  ordo  was traditionally the closed room that hid the activities of the body from social witness, it follows that behavioral control over one’s body, i.e., changing or eradicating the need for certain activities, would change or eradicate the need for the  ordo  itself. By taking a vow of  brahmacharya , Gandhi not only transformed his body to be asexual but also redefined the relationship between man and woman in the house. His ideas about hygiene and ablution allowed the body to be far more relaxed and open.
• 28 See Suhrud, introduction, 17.
• 29 In some ways, Gandhi’s process of writing his autobiography resembles the contemporary practice of blogging, in that he was using the social-media technology of his day, which was print. Writing weekly, Gandhi received responses that were often critical. He published these responses with the installments that followed.
• 30 For Gandhi, every civilization is based on a primary set of ideas. He denied that any one set of ideas could claim superiority over any other. He himself borrowed ideas and methods from across cultures to further articulate and sharpen his own. He believed that the differences in ideas offered the potential for dialogue from the personal to the civilizational levels. However, such dialogue could only take place with an inner openness and self-confidence that accepts difference as a form of criticism for internal use. According to Ashish Nandy, when, “Catherine Mayo wrote her savagely anti-Indian and pro-imperialist treatise,  Mother India , Gandhi called the book a ‘drain-inspectors report’ but added that every Indian should read it. While Mayo’s critique of Indian culture was blatantly prejudiced, he seemed to imply, Indian culture should have the self-confidence to put the criticism to internal use.” Frederick Buell.  National Culture and the New Global System  (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1994), 245–46. Gandhi understood that ideas that claim superiority are not ready for this dialogue. His criticism of the Western secular, scientific paradigm should be seen as an initiation of such a civilizational dialogue.

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Conclusion: Gandhi and the Critique of Western Civilization

• Published: February 2011
• Cite Icon Cite
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Hind Swaraj

Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule) is widely considered the most concise and forceful statement of Gandhi's political theory. It contains an explanation of British domination in India, an analysis of the meaning of swaraj (self-rule), a discussion of political strategy, and, perhaps most notoriously, a critique of Western civilization. Not content to merely condemn the excesses of British colonialism, Gandhi criticizes the colonial state's proudest achievements: technology, parliamentary government, the railway system, public education, modern medicine, and the judicial system. 1 Close Like Jamal al-Din al-Afghani twenty years earlier and Jalal Al-e Ahmad fifty years later, Gandhi castigates Western civilization for its materialism, individualism, and immorality. He calls Western civilization a disease and suggests that the cure is to be found in the traditional Indian practice of self-mastery.

Gandhi composed the book in just ten days while traveling by ship from England to South Africa. It seems somehow fitting that the book was written on a ship, because of its cosmopolitan character. At first it might seem strange to characterize Hind Swaraj as cosmopolitan, given its status as a foundational text of the Indian nationalist movement and, of course, its seemingly Manichaean distinction between Western and Indian civilizations. Gandhi's essay, however, points to another cosmopolitanism, one that emerges in opposition to the illusory universalism of Western civilization. Gandhi points out that “civilization” is a normative concept that is invoked to distinguish good from bad and superior from inferior. According to Gandhi, the West recognizes material comfort as the primary marker of civilization but this value system, far from being universal, is the product of a particular time and place. It emerged historically with the growth of commerce and industrialization. True civilization for Gandhi is good conduct, which involves duty, self-control, and morality. 2 Close

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• School Education /

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi – 200, 400, 600 Words

• Updated on  
• Aug 5, 2023

Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat, Mahatma Gandhi was a proponent of non-violence and truth, earning him the title of a truth messenger. Coming from a well-to-do family, he was known by his full name, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Although he was a reserved and diligent student, he ventured to England for legal studies and later became a barrister upon his return to India, practising law in the Bombay High Court.  

However, Gandhi’s true calling lay beyond the legal profession. During his time in South Africa , he allied with the locals and initiated the non-violent Satyagraha movement , aimed at challenging the oppression imposed by Europeans . Eventually, he returned to India and took a leading role in the struggle for India’s independence from British rule. 

Deeply moved by the suffering of his fellow Indians, he launched the Non-Cooperation Movement and the Quit India Movement, advocating non-violent resistance against the British.  

We have provided some essays on Mahatma Gandhi below that will be useful for speech delivery, essay writing, or speech-providing competitions. After reading these essays on Babu, you will get knowledge about his life and beliefs, his teachings, the role he played in the independence movement and why he is regarded as the most revered leader in the world.

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Mahatma Gandhi (200 Words)
• 2.1 Birth and Childhood 
• 2.2 Marriage and Education
• 2.3 Civil Rights Movement in Africa
• 3.1.1 Champaran and Kheda Agitations
• 3.1.2 Non-cooperation Movement
• 3.1.3 Salt Satyagraha or Salt March
• 3.1.4 Quit India Movement
• 3.2.1 Champion Against Racial Discrimination in South Africa
• 3.2.2 The Icon of India’s Freedom Struggle
• 3.2.3 Eradicating Social Evils
• 3.3 Demise 

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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi (200 Words)

Mahatma Gandhi, who was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, struggled and gave up things he valued to free India from British oppression. All throughout his life, he was guided by nonviolent beliefs. 

One of the greatest political figures in history, Mahatma Gandhi is revered and held in the highest regard in India as the “father of the nation.” His legacy will live on forever, inspiring future generations with his words and example.

Bapu struggled greatly and gave up a lot of his personal possessions in his quest to free India from British tyranny, but he never wavered from his nonviolent beliefs. 

His legal career took him to South Africa, where he fought against racial injustice. He married Kasturba at the age of thirteen and continued his schooling in London.  

Gandhi used nonviolence in a number of movements during India’s war for independence, including the Champaran and Kheda agitations, the Non-cooperation Movement, the Salt March, and the Quit India Movement . His influence was felt all around the world, motivating figures like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr .  

Gandhi made contributions to secularism, environmental sustainability, and social transformation. His legacy is firmly based on his nonviolence (Ahimsa) ideology. On January 30, 1948, he was murdered, yet his influence lives on, earning him the title of renowned “Father of the Nation and Bapu” in India’s history.

Also Read: Essay on Peer Pressure

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi (400 Words)

Mahatma Gandhi stands as one of the greatest political icons in history, with Indians holding him in the highest esteem and revering him as the “father of the nation.” His name and teachings will undoubtedly remain immortal, continuing to inspire generations to come.

Throughout his efforts, Mahatma Gandhi endured great hardship and made significant personal sacrifices in his mission to liberate India from British rule, all while steadfastly adhering to non-violent principles. 

Let’s dive deeper into his life: 

Birth and Childhood 

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, which is now part of the state of Gujarat, India. 

His father, Karamchand Gandhi, held the position of Chief Minister (diwan) in Porbandar during that period. Gandhi’s mother, Putlibai, was a deeply devout and charitable woman. 

As a young boy, Gandhi embodied his mother’s qualities, inheriting her strong values, ethical principles, and spirit of self-sacrifice.

Marriage and Education

At the tender age of 13, Mohandas entered into marriage with Kasturba Makanji. In 1888, they welcomed a baby boy before he set sail for London to pursue further studies. In 1893, he ventured to South Africa to continue his law practice, where he encountered severe racial discrimination imposed by the British. 

A significant incident that profoundly impacted the young Gandhi was when he was forcibly evicted from a first-class train compartment solely due to his race and skin color.

Civil Rights Movement in Africa

Having endured discrimination and humiliation due to his race and color, Gandhi made a resolute pledge to combat and confront racial discrimination against immigrants in South Africa. In 1894, he established the Natal Indian Congress and embarked on a relentless crusade against racial prejudice. Gandhi passionately advocated for the civil rights of immigrants in South Africa, devoting approximately two decades to this endeavor.

Mahatma Gandhi’s influence has reached far and wide, touching the lives of numerous international leaders across the globe. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. , James Bevel, and James Lawson found inspiration in his struggle and adopted his principles. Nelson Mandela, in his quest for freedom, was also deeply influenced by Gandhi’s teachings, while Lanza del Vasto even chose to reside in India to be close to him.  

The impact of Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy is evident in the recognition he received from the United Nations. They have honored him by designating 2nd October as the “International Day of Nonviolence.” Additionally, many countries observe 30th January as the School Day of Nonviolence and Peace to commemorate his ideals.  

Throughout his life, Mahatma Gandhi received numerous awards and accolades, making his contribution widely acknowledged. Almost every nation has bestowed honors upon him, with only a few exceptions. 

Also Read: Essay on Education System

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi (600 Words)

Mahatma Gandhi, who was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat, advocated for truth and non-violence, giving him the moniker “truth messenger.” He was referred to by his full name, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and he came from a wealthy family.

Let’s dive deep into the life of Mahatma Gandhi in this essay. 

Role of Mahatma Gandhi in India’s Freedom Struggle 

The significance of non-violence in India’s freedom struggle gained prominence with the involvement of Mahatma Gandhi. While there were parallel violent movements against British rule, the peaceful nature of non-violence made it a powerful way to demand complete independence. 

Mahatma Gandhi utilized non-violence in every movement against the British government, and some of the most notable non-violent movements were as follows:  

Champaran and Kheda Agitations

In 1917, Mahatma Gandhi organized a non-violent protest against the British-imposed indigo cultivation and fixed pricing, leading to the acceptance of farmers’ demands. Similarly, in 1918, he led peaceful protests against the British administration for tax relief during a famine in the Kheda region, resulting in the suspension of revenue collection.  

Non-cooperation Movement

Sparked by the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and harsh British policies in 1920, this movement promoted the boycott of British products and services. Indians withdrew from British-run institutions and civil services, significantly affecting British administration without resorting to violence.  

Salt Satyagraha or Salt March

In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi led the famous 26-day non-violent march to Dandi, Gujarat, protesting the salt monopoly imposed by the British. Breaking the salt laws and promoting local salt production, the Salt March gained international attention and strengthened the foundation of Independent India.  

Quit India Movement

Launched on August 8, 1942, the Quit India Movement demanded the British to leave India. Despite being in the midst of World War II, the non-violent civil disobedience movement intensified the pressure on the British government and paved the way for India’s eventual independence.  

These non-violent movements, led by Mahatma Gandhi, wielded the power of truth and non-violence as their weapons against British rule. The effectiveness of non-violence garnered international attention and exposed the oppressive policies of the British government to the world.

Accomplishments

Mahatma Gandhi, a man on a mission, not only played a crucial role in India’s fight for independence but also made significant contributions to eradicate various social evils. His accomplishments can be summarized as follows:

Champion Against Racial Discrimination in South Africa

Witnessing the racial discrimination in South Africa deeply affected Mahatma Gandhi, motivating him to take a stand against it. He courageously challenged the law that denied voting rights to non-European individuals and became a prominent civil rights activist fighting for the rights of immigrants in South Africa.

The Icon of India’s Freedom Struggle

As a prominent leader of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi adopted a liberal approach, advocating peaceful and nonviolent protests against British rule. His leadership in movements like the Champaran Satyagraha, Civil Disobedience Movement, Salt March, and Quit India Movement garnered global attention and shook the foundation of British rule in India.

Eradicating Social Evils

Gandhi Ji dedicated himself to rooting out various social evils prevalent in society at that time. He initiated campaigns to ensure equal rights for the untouchables and uplift their status in society. Additionally, he championed women’s empowerment, promoted education, and vehemently opposed child marriage, leaving a lasting impact on Indian society.

Demise 

After India gained independence in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi’s life came to a tragic end when he was assassinated by a Hindu activist named Nathuram Godse on January 30, 1948. 

Throughout his life, he devoted himself to the service of the motherland, leaving a profound impact on the nation. His teachings and actions illuminated our path to true freedom from British rule. 

Also Read: Essay On Subhash Chandra Bose

A. Mahatma Gandhi, also known as Gandhiji or Bapu, emerged as a prominent leader during India’s struggle for independence from British rule. He firmly advocated non-violence, civil disobedience, and passive resistance as effective means to achieve social and political transformation.  

A. Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a town located in present-day Gujarat, India.  

A. His full name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.  

A. Gandhi played a pivotal role in India’s freedom struggle, leading various non-violent movements and campaigns against British rule, including the Non-Cooperation Movement, Salt Satyagraha, and Quit India Movement. 

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Abhishek Kumar Jha

Abhishek Kumar Jha is a professional content writer and marketer, having extensive experience in delivering content in journalism and marketing. He has written news content related to education for prominent media outlets, garnering expansive knowledge of the Indian education landscape throughout his experience. Moreover, he is a skilled content marketer, with experience in writing SEO-friendly blogs. His educational background includes a Postgraduate Diploma in English Journalism from the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Dhenkanal. By receiving an education from a top journalism school and working in the corporate world with complete devotion, he has honed the essential skills needed to excel in content writing.

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• Mahatma Gandhi Essay

Important Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Students in English

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, often called the 'Father of the Nation' , was a leader who fought for India's freedom from British rule. He believed in non-violence. Every year on October 2nd, Mahatma Gandhi's birthday is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti to honor his efforts in freeing India.

English Essay on Mahatma Gandhi

Rabindranath Tagore was the first to call Gandhiji 'Mahatma,' which means 'Great Soul' in Sanskrit. His wise ideas and beliefs led people to respect and call him 'Mahatma Gandhi.' His dedication to the country and efforts to turn his ideas into reality make Indians around the world very proud of him .

According to Mahatma Gandhi’s biography, he was born on October 2, 1869 , in Porbandar, a coastal town in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. He grew up in a Hindu family and ate basic vegetarian meals. His dad, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi, was an important leader in Porbandar State. In South Africa, he was the first to lead a peaceful protest movement, setting him apart from other demonstrators. Mahatma Gandhi also introduced the idea of Satyagraha, a nonviolent approach to opposing unfairness. He devoted 20 years of his life to battling discrimination in South Africa.

His idea of 'Ahimsa,' which means not hurting anyone, was widely admired and followed by many influential people worldwide. He became an indomitable figure who couldn't be defeated in any situation. Mahatma Gandhi initiated the 'Khadi Movement' to encourage the use of fabrics like khadi or jute. This movement was a crucial part of the larger 'Non-co-operation Movement,' which advocated for Indian goods and discouraged foreign ones. Gandhi strongly supported agriculture and encouraged people to engage in farming. He inspired Indians to embrace manual labor and emphasized self-reliance, urging them to provide for their needs and lead simple lives. He began weaving cotton clothes using the Charkha to reduce dependence on foreign goods and promote Swadeshi products among Indians.

During the fight for India's freedom, Gandhiji faced imprisonment several times along with his followers, but his main goal was always the freedom of his motherland. Even when he was in prison, he never chose the path of violence.

Mahatma Gandhi made significant contributions to various social issues. His efforts against 'untouchability' while he was in Yerwada Jail, where he went on a hunger strike against this ancient social evil, greatly helped uplift the oppressed community in modern times. He also emphasized the importance of education, cleanliness, health, and equality in society.

These qualities defined him as a person with a great soul and justified his transformation from Gandhi to Mahatma. He led many freedom movements, including the "Quit India Movement," which was highly successful. His death was a huge loss to the forces of peace and democracy, leaving a significant void in the nation's life.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a prominent Indian nationalist leader, significantly influenced Mahatma Gandhi's political ideology and leadership approach. Gandhi considered him his political teacher.

Mahatma Gandhi played a crucial role in India's fight for freedom from British rule. His life was dedicated to serving his country and its people, and he became an international symbol of Indian leadership. Even today, he continues to inspire and motivate young people worldwide with his values and principles.

Gandhi Ji was known for his strong sense of discipline. He emphasized the importance of self-discipline in achieving significant goals, a principle he applied in promoting his philosophy of Ahimsa (non-violence). Through his own life, he demonstrated that rigorous discipline can lead to the realization of any objective, provided we remain committed and dedicated. These qualities established him as a revered and respected leader whose influence extends far beyond his lifetime. His ideals continue to resonate not only in India but also around the world.

FAQs on Mahatma Gandhi Essay

1. What were the different movements that Gandhi started in order to bring Independence to India?

In order to bring freedom, Gandhi started the Satyagraha movement in 1919, the non-cooperation movement in 1921, and Civil Disobedience movement in 1930 and Quit India movement in 1942.

2. Who killed Mahatma Gandhi?

A young man named Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi when he was going to attend an evening prayer meeting.

3. Why is Gandhi known as the ‘Father of the Nation’?

Mahatma Gandhi is known as the ‘Father of the Nation’ because he laid the true foundation of independent India with his noble ideals and supreme sacrifice.

4. How do we commemorate Mahatma Gandhi’s contribution for our Nation?

His birthday on 2 nd October is celebrated as a National Holiday across the nation in order to commemorate his great contributions and sacrifices for the country’s independence.

5. What are the things we should learn from Mahatma Gandhi? 

There are various things one can learn from Gandhiji. The principles that he followed and preached his entire generation and for generations to come are commendable. He believed in ‘Ahimsa’ and taught people how any war in the world can be won through non-violence. To simply state one can learn the following principles from Gandhiji - 

Nonviolence, 

Respect for elders,

Relevance of Duties in the Contemporary World pp 305–314 Cite as

Gandhian Perspective on Women’s Role in India—With Special Reference to Fundamental Duties

• Ankita Srivastava 3  
• First Online: 01 January 2023

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This chapter focuses upon views of Gandhi in his observation of the social position of women in society. It highlights the general views of Gandhi on modern civilisation which will be followed by his views on women in society. The chapter also explores the relationship with his wife, Kasturba, to understand his views on the role of women in a family. For example he criticised modern civilisation in his book titled ‘Hind Swaraj’ where he defined true swaraj by saying that ‘if we (individuals) become free, India would be free’. It is in the same vein that he opines, ‘it is swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves’. It was Gandhiji’s anticipation and apprehensions of modern civilisation which primarily enhanced his status as a prominent thinker. This chapter will explore his views on modern civilisation in relation to his definition of gender roles within Indian society. The chapter also throws light on his theory of Brahmacharya and the rationale of his outlook towards the same. It is a critical appreciation of Gandhian thought on women’s rights and duties in the context of Article 51-A (e) in the Indian Constitution, i.e. ‘to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood among all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women’. The chapter seeks to answer the question of whether his thinking on women’s rights and duties stands through the test of time.

• Gandhian philosophy
• Women’s status
• Fundamental duties
• Access to justice

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Srivastava, A. (2022). Gandhian Perspective on Women’s Role in India—With Special Reference to Fundamental Duties. In: Mittal, R., Singh, K.K. (eds) Relevance of Duties in the Contemporary World. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1836-0_22

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Critics of Modern Civilization in India Essay

Critics of modern civilization in india, kim’s identity, works cited.

Gandhi presented his critics of modern civilization in Hind Swaraj book, which most people opposed even without reading it. Majority disagreed with the issues that Gandhi discussed, and regarded the book as ridiculous. Jawaharlal was one of the close followers of Gandhi, and he disagreed with the views of Gandhi.

Some people considered Gandhi as a representative of the old ages. The few people, who were interested with the book, did not get a chance to analyze it, as the government banned it as soon as possible (Gandhi 13). During the congress rule, the book was then revived in the market.

In the book, Gandhi concentrated on various issues that were affecting the contemporary society. He wanted to realize the reason behind the increment of violence and terrorism trends. This issue had attracted international attention, as everyone looked for violent revolution in India as it was highly increasing.

According to Gandhi, in his book, he said that the future of India was interconnected with peaceful events. This idea led to his strong opposition against the growing terrorism and violence. His intention was to introduce an alternative to replace violence and chaotic acts. During this period, British had dominated the Indian land, in efforts of spreading their way of life to the Indians (Gandhi 21).

The introduction of formal education with regard to the British system, use of railways, medicine, and the incorporation of the legal system brought much change to the Indian society. Gandhi says that, he decided to examine further, the nature of British colonialism, and he realized the cause of all the problems was the modern civilization. According to his views, he defined modern civilization as more dangerous than colonialism. Adoption of modern civilization was the cause of the problems that Indians faced.

Gandhi tried to compare the modern civilization with the ethical practices of the Indian people, and discovered that the strength of the Indian people depends on their ethical living. Gandhi confessed that, his main theme was preserving the moral characters of the Indians.

The question, of successfully convincing the Indians about the negative effects of modern civilization was extremely challenging him. Even the educated people, who could easily understand the evils of modern civilization, were already brainwashed.

At one point, Gandhi tried to argue and to convince other Indians how the country was degrading, due to accepting the western institutions, and their way of life (Gandhi 35). Gandhi was convinced that the acts of western civilization and the increased cases of violence were inseparable. The only solution according to him was to eradicate the influence of British for the well-being of the Indians.

The use of dialogue in Hind Swaraj helped him to convey the message of evils of civilization. The dialogue was between a reader and the editor. He considered the use of dialogue of two equal partners to air the views of challenges faced by the contemporary society, as the most effective.

His efforts were to put India in its prominent position with other nations. Gandhi made some arguments of the fact that, the strength of India did not rely on the work of its military, but in Indians ethical behaviors (Gandhi 57). Although, he thought politics played a significant role in solving peoples problems, politicians were supposed to serve people, but not to dominate. Gandhi honored the strength and powers of nationalism, due to its capability in solving the Indians problems.

Gandhi made people understand that modern civilization was based on acquiring material wealth, and hence could not give ethical living a chance. Indians could not stick to their ethical practices, as they used to rush regularly to grab wealth. The greed for wealth affected the development of the individual’s personality, ethical practices, and moral values, which are relied on promoting peace and cohesion in the society.

Gandhi claimed that moral values and admirable qualities were not present in the modern western civilization. The quality of lives for Indian people was to be emphasized through embracing ethical and moral moorings. He emphasized on culture more than civilization, as it was considered the cause of all problems that Indians faced. Factory civilization that resulted from modern civilization affected the value of a human being negatively (Gandhi 61)

The introduction of industrialization widened the gap between the wealth people and those below the average. In addition, industrialization resulted to hatred and discrimination among the Indians. Modern civilization led to alienation according to Gandhi. On the other hand, it was also raised that, through class struggle, there would be a high likelihood of violence and hatred among the Indians.

Centralization of power was also believed to result to some evils, as only few who will acquire power and dominate the rest. Through industrialization, the cities were believed to grow and expand, hence destroying the harmonious lives in rural areas. Exploitation and acts of inequalities were high in cities and towns than in rural surroundings.

Nevertheless, Gandhi still knew of positive effects of western civilization such as the introduction of law and constitutionalism. Western civilization also entailed some positive impacts such as civil liberty, and economic development. On the other hand, Gandhi discovered western civilization mainly resulted to competition and becoming rich, and greed for power (Gandhi 69).

This analysis brought the conclusion that; positive impacts of western civilization were small, compared to the problems it brought. The improvement of people’s quality of life was Gandhi’s principal concern, as opposed to the quantity development aimed by the British. The introduction of modern civilization was making machines overtake men; hence, the human labor was acting like slavery.

According to Gandhi western civilization was based on animosity, he declared that even for West modernization was wicked. The views of Gandhi proved that colonialism was one of the many fruits of western civilization. In his book, Gandhi requested the Indians to adopt technology only suitable to their needs (Gandhi 71). He focused his interests mostly about the youths and concentrated much on educational reforms.

Kim is a very intriguing book and most people prefer reading it. The people, who read this book outside India, always developed an urge to visit the place. Kimball O’Hara is the main character in the book, mainly known as Kim. He appears in the first page of the book sitting on enormous cannon in the middle of the city of Lahore. The author of the book portrays Kim fighting other boys, who intended to take his position.

On this very day, Kim starts a journey that shapes his life fully later. The hero of the author was this young boy known as Kim. Kim looked and behaved like any other normal Indian. His father was an English man, who died and left Kim with notes specifying his identity. Kim always carried with him those notes concerning the secret of his identity (Kipling 11).

Kim was a knowing young boy and ever searching for his identity. Kim accompanied Iama, a Buddhists priest, who wanted to be shown his way to wonder house. It was a fantastic opportunity for him to search what his father had indicated in the notes. Kim’s father had indicated that one day; Kim would be befriended by a red bull on a green environment, accompanied by colonel on his horse in a group of nine hundred devils (Kipling 39).

The definition that his father had given was not clear to Kim about what he meant. It did not dawn on Kim that his father referred to his old Irish regiment, its ruling officer, and its followers of nine hundred men. When Kim found this group of people, he became a player in the great game of Indians spying. He got an opportunity to learn crucial skills such as map reading and map making in st. Xavier, as preparation for his role in Indians exciting game.

Kim disclaims the racist modes of characters and shows the future racial harmony. The identity of Kim is used in the book as the bridge between the colonizers and the colonized. The author of the book tries to demonstrate Kim’s identity crisis and his chameleon like characters (Kipling 66).

This is well demonstrated through Kim’s relationships with the natives. The culture aspect of Kim was significantly affected through the interaction of Asian and European practices. Kim’s identity crisis is because of native culture, which he feels being part of it. At a point, Kim considered Mahhub Ali as a traitor, because he betrayed him back to the British. Although Kim felt more superior to other Indians, he demonstrated feelings of closeness to the Indians.

The author describes Kim as a “Friend of the entire world”, which is seen as ironic, as he related with natives in a hatred way. He treated his friends and other natives in a negative attitude, except for the Iama to whom he showed love.

Although Kim insisted of perfect equality, he acted negatively when he removed the Indian boys who had occupied his place. He did this because he was English, and English people were superior. Despite that, Kim was a poor boy; the Indian boy whose father was rich could not manage to take Kim’s position.

Kim’s identity crisis was felt in all aspects of life. For instance, in st. Xavier where he considered himself a sahib, things were exceedingly different. Other children in school discriminated Kim and gave him unwelcoming response (Kipling 27). In this school, Kim learnt how to behave in a more superior manner over other natives by force.

What helped him most throughout the school life was that, he believed he was better compared to other Indians. The blood of white in Kim was seen to prevail, when he decided to join British secret service, and contribute to the fight against Indians. This aspect enforced the author’s belief of genetic differences between races.

When Mahbub Ali asked Kim who is exactly his people, Kim responded just like any other colonizer, and declared that great and beautiful land was his answer. The answer, which Kim gave, was a clear show, of the division between him and the natives. It was clear that it was not possible for Kim to do away with his white culture.

Kim severally showed fear of snakes, some of the incidences that proved that it was impossible for Kim to escape his British blood (Kipling 45). Other incidences, which portrayed Kim’s identity crisis, were how his mind functioned. For instance, when he was relaxed his mind functioned like a Hindi. When situations of confusion arose and needed to think deep, Kim’s mind functioned like an English person.

In several occasions, his mind shifted from the darkness that was burying it, and took refuge in English thinking. Although Kim had lived among natives for many years, the superiority of white blood and culture, could not allow him to believe the illusions of natives. Kim’s identity became questionable, when at times forgot he was a sahib he would later recall that he is a white.

For instance, when Kim was in Jain temple he bent down forgetting st. Xavier, forgetting his superior white blood, and even great game. He was in a status of confusion, and could not determine who he was. He went to the extent of asking, “Who is Kim-Kim-Kim” (Kipling 54).

In the same incidence, Kim is heard confessing to a shamlegh woman how he wrestled with his soul until he was strength less. It was clear that, it was not easy for Kim to handle the conflicting cultures and identities that existed in him. There were no fixed contours to define the identity of Kim, because his skin color was undecided, as he was black like any other native, although not very black.

Kim was Irish by birth the culture that was dominant in him was Asiatic, but he received treatment of an Englishman. His personality entailed conflicting characters. In addition, Kim did not have a well-defined or social identity, because at a point in the book he is heard asking, whether he is a Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist (Kipling 19).

Mahbub Ali who was acting like his biological father could also not define the real identity of Kim. The most confusing point is when Kim could not decide whether he would like to be a sahib with dignity of education or to be a colonized native. He later managed this status of choosing his identity by becoming a colonizer.

Gandhi, Mahatma. Hind Swaraj . New Delhi: Rajpal & Sons, 2010. Print.

Kipling, Rudyard. Kim. New York: Create Space, 2009. Print.

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IvyPanda . 2023. "Critics of Modern Civilization in India." December 22, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/modern-civilization-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Critics of Modern Civilization in India." December 22, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/modern-civilization-essay/.

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IvyPanda . "Critics of Modern Civilization in India." December 22, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/modern-civilization-essay/.

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Essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle

Students are often asked to write an essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle

The birth of a leader.

Mahatma Gandhi was born in India in 1869. He studied law in England before returning to India. He later moved to South Africa, where he first used nonviolent resistance.

Gandhi’s Philosophy

Gandhi believed in ‘Satyagraha’, or truth-force. He thought peaceful protests were the best way to resist unfair laws. This was a new idea in the fight for freedom.

Gandhi and India’s Freedom Struggle

Gandhi returned to India in 1915. He led the Indian National Congress, guiding India towards independence. He organized nonviolent protests against British rule.

Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s nonviolent methods inspired many, and India gained independence in 1947. His ideas continue to influence people worldwide.

250 Words Essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle

Introduction.

Mahatma Gandhi, fondly referred to as the ‘Father of the Nation,’ played an instrumental role in India’s struggle for independence. He employed non-violent civil disobedience methods, setting a unique paradigm for freedom struggles worldwide.

Non-Violent Approach

Gandhi’s primary weapon in the struggle was non-violence or ‘Ahimsa.’ His philosophy was grounded in the belief that moral superiority could not be achieved through violent means. This approach resonated with the masses and enabled widespread participation, thereby intensifying the struggle against the British Raj.

Mass Mobilization

Gandhi’s leadership was marked by his ability to mobilize the masses. His simple lifestyle and empathetic nature helped him connect with the common people. He initiated campaigns like the Non-Cooperation Movement, Civil Disobedience Movement, and Quit India Movement, which saw mass participation unprecedented in the history of the Indian freedom struggle.

Championing Swaraj

Gandhi’s concept of ‘Swaraj’ or self-rule was not just political independence but also economic and social self-reliance. He advocated for the boycott of British goods and promoted indigenous industries, enhancing India’s economic independence and providing a blueprint for post-colonial economic development.

Mahatma Gandhi’s role in India’s freedom struggle was transformative. His non-violent approach, ability to mobilize the masses, and vision for Swaraj were instrumental in shaping the course of India’s freedom struggle. His philosophies have left an indelible mark on India’s ethos and continue to inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the globe.

500 Words Essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, famously known as Mahatma Gandhi, played a pivotal role in the Indian freedom struggle against British rule. His unique approach of ‘Satyagraha’ (insistence on truth) and ‘Ahimsa’ (non-violence) left an indelible mark on the world and significantly contributed to India’s independence.

Advent of Satyagraha

Gandhi’s principle of Satyagraha was a revolutionary method in the fight for freedom. It was a non-violent resistance against the oppressor, where the oppressed demonstrated their moral superiority. The first significant application of Satyagraha was in South Africa, where Gandhi led the Indian community against racial discrimination. This laid the foundation for his future endeavors in India.

Non-Cooperation Movement

Returning to India in 1915, Gandhi transformed the Indian National Congress from an elitist party into a mass movement. The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-1922) was the first large-scale initiative against British rule under his leadership. Gandhi called for a complete boycott of British goods and services, which included schools, courts, and government services. The movement stirred the nation, uniting Indians across regions, religions, and classes. Despite its abrupt end due to the Chauri Chaura incident, the movement marked the beginning of a nationwide struggle for freedom.

Civil Disobedience Movement

The Civil Disobedience Movement, initiated with the Dandi March in 1930, was another milestone in India’s struggle for freedom. Gandhi and his followers marched about 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi, where they made salt, defying the British salt laws. This act was a symbolic defiance of the British monopoly and a peaceful protest against their oppressive regime.

Quit India Movement

In 1942, Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, demanding an end to British rule in India. His call for ‘Do or Die’ resonated with the masses, leading to widespread protests across the country. The movement was a significant blow to the British, shaking the foundations of their rule in India.

Gandhi’s Philosophy and Its Impact

Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and truth was not merely a strategy for the freedom struggle, but a way of life. His principles of simplicity, self-reliance, and communal harmony continue to inspire millions around the world. His innovative methods of civil resistance have influenced numerous freedom struggles globally, including the civil rights movement in the U.S. led by Martin Luther King Jr.

Mahatma Gandhi’s role in the Indian freedom struggle was monumental. His non-violent resistance against British rule united the diverse Indian population and instilled in them a sense of national pride. His principles and methods, though criticized by some, proved to be effective in achieving India’s independence. Gandhi’s legacy continues to influence and inspire movements for civil rights and social change worldwide, making him a global icon for peace and justice.

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Essay On Mahatma Gandhi In 1000+ Words

Essay On Mahatma Gandhi

Hello, My Dear Friends, Jai Hind , In this Essay on Mahatma Gandhi we will read about his journey from Mohandas to Mahatma Gandhi in detail. So…

Let’s Start…

Gandhi Ji was born in Porbandar (Gujarat), on 2 Oct 1869. He was the son of Putli Bai and Karamchand Gandhi.

The father of Mahatma Gandhi became the Deewaans of the state. he gets services mainly from Porbandar and Rajkot. at this time, Gandhi Ji got married to Kasturba.

In 1888, Gandhi Ji goes to London and follows the Anglicised approach.

In 1889, Eventually, Gandhi Ji studies towards religion. it is also known as the enlightenment phase of Mahatma Gandhi’s life.

In 1891, he completes his education and comes back to India and practiced in the High court. he does a lot of struggle but finally, they don’t get any case, so he shifts from Bombay to Rajkot.

The first time, In 1893 Gandhiji was gone to South Africa. he was called by Gujarati businessman Dada Abdullah to settle some issues as a lawyer.

In South Africa, Gandhi landed in a place called Durban. Durban is a port of Africa.

On 7th June 1893, during traveling from the train the incident of racism Gandhiji takes place in South Africa.

In 1894, the Natal Indian Congress was the first body that was established by Gandhi Ji. And he was the first Indian Person who enrolled at the African supreme court.

In 1896, he come back to Rajkot and published “The Green Pamphlet” which shows the conditions of the Indian Community in South Africa.

In 1897, Gandhi Ji sails back to South Africa and participate in the Boer war (between French and British).

In 1899, he has established the ambulance corps and he was also awarded by medal by the British.

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In 1901 Gandhiji sails back to India. In Dec of this year, he attends the congress Calcutta session and raises Indian issues in South Africa.

In 1902, he come in contact with Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Gokhale was also known as the political guru of Mahatma Gandhi.

during this time he was called back to South Africa, due to the anti-Asiatic act(It is a form of ID Card which is required to carry by the Indian community).

In 1903, he established a transversal British India association in South Africa and started to publish a newspaper called Indian opinion.

In 1904, Mahatma Gandhi read john Ruskin’s book called Unto this last.

And he established phoenix Indian Settlement and also published an article called a guide to health.

In 1905, when the participation of Bengal took place then mahatma Gandhi criticized Lord Curzon as a part of Indian opinion(Newspaper). And said Curzon was wrong, the Bengali people had the right to the determination whether they want to divide or not.

In 1906, this phase is known as the transformation phase of Mahatma Gandhi. since now he is disinterested in worldly possessions and adopts the Brahmacharya vow and decides that He will protest the British by passive resistance oath.

During 1907-1908, he writes a series of 8 articles in Gujarati on “ethical religion”. at this time ‘Satyagrah’ was used instead of ‘Passive resistance’.

In 1909, Gandhiji sails to England, in this time Gandhiji writes to ‘Tolstoy’ on passive resistance and Tolstoy personally replied to Mahatma Gandhi on the basis of this reply Gandhiji established ‘Tolstoy Farm’. It says that it was the

ashram system was established by Gandhi when they came back to India.

The period of (1911-14) is very much important because Gandhi Ji started so many ‘Satyagraha.

In 1912, Gopal Krishna Gokhale visits south Africa with mahatma Gandhi and at this time. Gandhi Ji gives up the western dress.

During 1913-14, two main Satyagrah is started by Mahatma Gandhi.

one of them is against the supreme court judgment in South Africa. the supreme court of South Africa says that any marriage which is not according to the Christian rituals is nullifying.

and the second one is that Gandhiji starts satyagraha against poll taX (3 pounds) indentured laborers and also protest against inter-state migration.

In Jan 1915 Gandhi reaches Indian and this day is called India Pravasi Bhartiya divas.it is celebrated every two years.

In May 1915, Gandhi Ji makes Asharam on Ahmedabad, and later it was shifted to Sabarmati (1917).

During (1915-16) Gandhi visits the whole of India called ‘Bharat Darshan’.

In april 1917, he started Champaran satyagrah.

In 1918, Gandhiji started Champaran Satyagraha(mill worker) and Kheda Satyagraha (peasant).

On 6 April 1919, he started Rowlett satyagraha, the Rowlett Satyagrah is also known as ‘Himalayan Blunder.

The massacre of Jallianwala bagh happened on 13 April 1919.

In 1920, he started the khilafat movement. during this period, Gandhiji established Gujarat Vidyapeeth.

In 1921, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was dead at the time of the Non-cooperation movement. Gandhiji formed a fund called Tilak Swaraj Fund.

During the Non-Cooperation movement, Gandhiji visits Madurai (Tamilnadu) and discards their full clothes.

In 1922, the Chauri-Chaura incident take place in Gorakhpur(UP), Gandhiji was arrested and sent to jail(Yerwada) Pune, for six years.

In 1924, Gandhiji was released from jail due to ill health. during this period Gandhiji was the president of the congress at the Belgaum session (1924).

In 1925, Gandhiji started published its 2nd newspaper called ‘Young India’ in which he talked about 7 sins. at this time he also established the All India Spinners Association.

In 1928, he encouraged Anti Simon Protest.

In 1929, during the Lahore session of congress gives slogans of Purna swaraj.

On 12th March 1930, Gandhiji started salt satyagraha and on 6th April 1930, he has broken the salt law.

In March 1931, the meeting held between Gandhiji and viceroy Irwin in Delhi called the Gandhi-Irwin pact. it is also known as the Delhi pact.

In Sep-Nov 1931, Gandhiji attend second round table conference

In Jan 1932, the civil disobedience movement (2.0) start due to communal awards. for its Gandhiji fasting in jail. later on, the pact between Gandhiji and Bhimrao Ambedkar was called Poona Pact.

In 1936, Gandhiji settle the Sevagram ashram in central India (Wardha).

In 1939, Gandhiji fasts in Rajkot against their own princely state.

In 1940-42, Gandhiji criticized Cripps’s mission said that it is a post-dated cheque.

On 8th-9th Aug 1942, he started Quit India Movement.

The leader of the Indian National Army (INA) Subashchandra Bose addressed Mahatma Gandhi as a ‘Bapu’ on the radio.

And the title of ‘Mahatma’ was given by Rabindranath Tagore to Gandhiji.

In Aug 1942, Gandhiji writes ‘around me is utter darkness.

During this period the riots in the whole of India become increases mainly in Bengal.

In Sep 1947, Gandhiji against fasting in Calcutta, and the riots become stopped because of his appeal. it is also known as the ‘Calcutta Miracle’.

On 12th Jan 1948, Fasting leads to the establishment of the Central Peace Committee called peace pledge.

On 20 January(10 days before his death) a person named Madan Lal throws a Bomb on Gandhiji During prayer at Birlahouse.

On 30th June 1948, in the morning Gandhiji said that Congress renamed Congress Seva Sangh. But, Unfortunately at evening prayer, he was assassinated on way…. by Nathuram Godse.

Later on, the thought of Nathuram Godse was published as a book called ‘May it Please Your Honour’.

At last, Nathuram Godse was hanged at Ambala jail.

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