Eukleides biography of mahatma gandhi

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist, who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā Sanskrit: "great-souled", "venerable", first applied to him in in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.

Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, western India, Gandhi trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in June After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to stay for 21 years. It was in South Africa that Gandhi raised a family, and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In , aged 45, he returned to India. He set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in , Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.

The same year Gandhi adopted the Indian loincloth, or short dhoti and, in the winter, a shawl, both woven with yarn hand-spun on a traditional Indian spinning wheel, or charkha, as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. Thereafter, he lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community, ate simple vegetarian food, and undertook long fasts as a means of self-purification and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the  km  mi Dandi Salt March in , and later in calli

On 18 July, Mahatma Gandhi sailed for England, leaving South Africa for the last time, and finally reached India (Bombay) on 19 December At the time of his return to India, he was a mature man of forty-five who had done his essential thinking on morals and politics in South Africa between and All his important concepts ~ satya, ahimsa, satyagraha, sarvodaya, even swaraj and swadeshi ~ had been formulated in his mind and in his writings before he embarked upon the political activities which brought him into the limelight. He did not see the goal of political action as the immediate capture of office. According to him, the basic condition of political action was the elimination of violence, because violence was a sign of the failure of a legitimate political power. The chief task which he set before himself was the collective organization of the working people in terms of nonviolence, keeping in mind that “A non-violent revolution is not a programme of ‘seizure of power’, but it is a programme of transformation of relationships.” Of course, he also added to this a few ancillary aims like the political independence of India, the removal of untouchability and the like.

For the accomplishment of these objectives, Gandhi tried to work through a suitable organization. His first choice seems to have fallen upon the Servants of India Society in Poona. But eventually he withdrew his application for membership following a sharp division of opinion with the existing members and joined the short-lived organization named All India Home Rule League, founded by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Besant, and became its President. Nearly a year passed by. In the meanwhile, he had succeeded in changing the creed as well as the name of the organization. The Indian National Congress (INC) was then the single most popular party, and aims and methods of operation of the party had also been ‘constitutional’ since its inception in Gandhi soon became the member of the INC, and then to know In

One of the greatest tragedies of modern India is that we have completely misunderstood the true meaning of the word 'swaraj' as used by Gandhi. He stated very clearly that "Real home-rule is self-rule or self-control." In other words, our freedom lies not in merely liberating ourselves from foreign rule but from the rule of the passions. This basic fact has been overlooked by us, with the result that India after independence has been totally different from the India of Gandhi's dreams.

But Gandhi was wise enough and shrewd enough to anticipate this development. "I know that India is not ripe for it", he admitted as early as in his Word of Explanation to Hind Swaraj, and added that while he was working in his individual capacity for swaraj as defined in terms of self-rule, his 'corporate activity' was "devoted to the attainment of Parliamentary Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India".

But times are changing fast. From many different corners of the world, there are indications that the human race is, at long last, getting ready to listen to the true (rather than purely political) meaning of the word swaraj. As Marilyn Ferguson has explained at length in her wonderful book, "The Aquarian Conspiracy", a "leaderless but powerful network" whose "members have broken with certain key elements of Western Thought" is at work to bring about a major but silent revolution of a staggering nature, and with profound consequences for all of mankind. Unfortunately, India has so far lagged behind in this awakening, but this seminar itself may be an indication that a re-appraisal of Gandhi's true message could perhaps be round the corner.

Nothing of what Gandhi has said in 'Hind Swaraj' can really be understood properly-in fact, the whole thesis is liable to be distorted dangerously unless the true meaning of 'Swaraj' is taken into account. This applies to his denunciation of modern gadgets and technology such as the railways, to his warnin

“I have ventured to place before India the ancient law of self-sacrifice. For satyagraha and its off-shoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance are nothing but new names for the law of suffering.
The rishis, who discovered the law of non-violence in the midst of violence, were greater geniuses than Newton. They were themselves greater warriors than Wellington. Having themselves known the use of arms, they realized their uselessness, and taught a weary world that its salvation lay not through violence but through non-violence.
Non-violence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission of the will of the evildoer, but it means putting of one&#;s whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honor, his religion, his soul, and lay the foundation for that empire&#;s fall or its regeneration.”
-Mahatma Gandhi, Young India

Well, we talked about fear last week. Let’s talk about tears. Tonight, while I was talking to someone I love, they said, “You sound like you’re soldiering on with sadness in your heart. We don’t need to talk about that, but I want to recognize it.” And I thought, “Yes. I am.” And I hadn’t really known that I was. I thought I was stressed at the work in front of me. I thought, because I’m often pretty silly, that my stomach was hurting after dinner. But it wasn’t my stomach, not really.
There’s a scene in Firefly that keeps coming back to me. Shepherd Book, a kind of futuristic monk, has fallen in with a crew of noble outlaws. (“I call him religious who understands the suffering of others,” writes Gandhi). Book has tried, in whatever fumbling ways he can, to share his insight and courage; he’s also felt a world more complicated and confusing than the simple, black and white teachings he learned in the abbey. He’s hurt someone. He’s seen someone killed. Book tells another traveler