“It’s easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone” said by the famous leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who belongs from Porbandar, a town in Gujarat in western India. Gandhi’s main principles were dependent on Non-Violence, Truth, Chastity, Fearlessness, non stealing. Further he always chose the path of truth, dignity and courage. Most of the people call him ‘Bapu’ where the word “Bapu” refers to “Father”. Gandhi is also known as “Mahatma” and “Father of the Nation”.
Gandhi came back to India on 9 January 1915 from South Africa, after the first Satyagraha campaign to protest the Transvaal Asiatic ordinance, which was enacted against the local Indians. After arriving in India, Mahatma Gandhi successfully organized Satyagraha Movements in various places- Champaran in Bihar, Kheda district of Gujarat and Ahmedabad of Gujarat. During the movements several disappointment points were raised but still the flame of independence was not extinguished from the hearts.
Gandhi is well educated as well as a courageous leader who never gives up his hope although he always says instead of violence we can melt the heart of our oppressor from love, sympathy and respect. In every single movement which was led by Gandhiji like Khilafat Movement, Non-cooperation Movement, Salt March, Quit India Movement, the single thing he was doing was for “Swaraj” which means independence.
Several freedom fighters were there who demanded Swaraj and many of them lost their lives in this imagination. Gandhi philosophy has always helped a lot in building these imagination more significantly.
Gandhi always criticized discrimination among humans; he always stood against it, he viewed Dalits as the Children of God. The untouchables were among the most neglected sections of Indian society. Gandhi always believed that dalit is a part of hindu religion that’s why he never wanted to give them a separate electorate although he was convinced to give them reservation but he didn’t want to separate dalit from the part of the Hindu religion.
Many people are criticizing Gandhi. One of them is my aunt who always says “Why are people respecting Gandhi? What did he do for generals? He supported the lower castes (so-called) and gave them reservations. What did he do for generals?”.
Mahatma Gandhi wanted an education that could help Indians recover their sense of dignity and self-respect. He wanted “Basic Education”. He mainly aims to make the children skilled and independent and never chose the direction of violence in their part of life and always respected the idea of equality.
Gandhi’s most significant achievement was his life-long struggle for India’s freedom. But the question arises that is it right to say that in which era we are living this is an actual meaning of freedom which Gandhi was talking about?
Divya pargai (11th)
Nanakmatta Public School