Reactor de CANDU

Biography

Youth in India (1869-1888)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is born on October 2nd, 1869 with Porbandar, in the current State of the Gujarat, in India. It is difficult to establish to which religion its family is devoted, because by her membership of the community modh , gathering the caste of the merchants Baniyas besides (the word Gandhi meaning “grocer” in the peninsula of Kathiyavar), his family is Jaïn, but by the practice of the father, it is Hindou E of the branch vishnouite, the Vallabhacarya tradition, adoring Krishna. Born Hindu ground Jaïn and advised by a Gurû Jaïn, Gandhi will never make the difference between the two. It is certainly one of the major influences of its peaceful, nonviolent design and vegetarian of the existence.

It shows much attachment and respect towards his parents. His/her father, Kaba Gandhi, are member of the court of the the Rajasthan, then Prime Minister for the princely state of Rajkot. Gandhi describes it like a man who, in spite of a limited education, is able to solve the problems thanks to his experiment. His/her mother, Poutlibai, are the fourth and last woman of her father, who gives him four children and whose Gandhi is youngest. It especially keeps it to remember it a woman of a great piety, observing in a strict way its religious wishes, in particular the fast, and the rites vichnouites.

Gandhi is according to its own terms a poor student at the elementary school of Porbandar, then studious and good pupil though very shy person and sensitive then to the college with Rajkot.

In May 1883, at the 13 years age, Gandhi is married by his/her parents with Kasturba Makhanji (also spelled “Kasturbai” or known as “Ba”), which has the same age. They will have four wire: Harilal Gandhi, born in 1888; Manilal Gandhi, born in 1892; Ramdas Gandhi, born in 1897 and Devdas Gandhi, born in 1900. Following this marriage, its studies are delayed one year but being good pupil, one authorizes it to jump a class what appears finally very hard for its schooling.

His/her father, patient for a long time and that he venerates, die whereas Gandhi is 16 years old. There will remain marked by the fact that he could not witness his last moments because he spent the night with his wife. Gandhi will think all its life that it is because of what he regarded as a lack of filial devotion that the baby that they had shortly after survived only a few days.

Gandhi forges during this part of its life of the very important aspects of its ethics and its personality such as honesty, the tolerance, the respect of its elder, the Végétarisme and especially the rejection of the lie and the research of the truth.

It passes the examination of entry to the university of Samaldas located at Bhavanaga in Gujarat in 1887 but is completely exceeded by a level which seems too difficult to him.

Studies in England and return in India (1888-1893)

On the council of an old family friend, it decides to leave to make studies of right in England, an opportunity which fills it of enthusiasm. He promises with his mother in the presence of Becharji Svâmi, a monk jaïn and other to advise of the family, to follow the Hindu precepts and “not to touch neither with the wine, neither with the woman, nor with the meat”. Its caste opposes her departure, considering that the life in this country can lead only to one loss of the faith. Gandhi, proposing the wish made at his/her mother and supported by her family, decides to leave despite everything and is condemned to be except caste by the chief of his community.

Gandhi between thus with the University College of London on September 4th, 1888 at the 18 years age to become lawyer. He tries to a certain extent to adapt to the English habits, while getting dressed like a gentleman and by taking courses of dance, but he refuses to eat meat among his hosts. He attends the restaurants London vegetarians thereafter. Instead of sticking simply to the promise made with his mother, it is beyond being interested in dietetics and more particularly in the Végétarisme. It joined the Vegetarian Society and becomes member of the executive committee during a time. Gandhi declared later that gave him a first experiment of the organization of an institution.

Some of the vegetarians who he meeting are members of the theosophic Société which had been founded in 1875 to reinforce universal and devoted fraternity being studied Buddhist of the literatures S and ic Brahman.

Thanks to them, Gandhi discovers the Bhagavad-Gîtâ , which marks it deeply, in particular through the idea that the desire is source of agitation of the spirit and suffering. It consequently develops an interest for the religion, which is not limited to the Hindouisme but extends also to the other religions like the Bouddhisme, the Islam and the Christianisme, of which it retains inter alia the incentive to react by non-violence; “if somebody strikes you the right cheek, still present to him the other”.

It takes again the boat for India on June 12th, 1891, two days after having been easily allowed with the Barreau of England and Wales. It has on the other hand much more evil to exert its trade: its studies remained theoretical; it is not informed any of the Indian right yet and tests difficulties of being expressed in public. It initially tries to settle with Bombay but must give up at the end of six months, for lack of sufficient money re-entries.

Gandhi then turns over to Râjkot to work near his/her brother, lawyer him too. It writes requests and memories there while benefitting from the customers of its brother. However, it is nauseated by the climate of fight for the capacity which reigns around him, by the obligation to have to attract the good favors of the hierarchy, and in particular of the British officers. It thus jumps on the occasion when an Indian company proposes to him a one year old contract to more in South Africa. He sees the occasion there at the same time to leave India, to travel and acquire experiment, and thus embarks for Africa in April 1893.

Movements of civil law in South Africa (1893-1915)

At this point of its life, Gandhi is a soft, timid and politically indifferent individual. It had read its first newspaper at 18 years and was prone to the trac when it was to speak with the court. South Africa the spectacular exchange of manner when it must face the discrimination which is made towards the Blacks and the Indians in this country. Various anecdotes, reported initially by Gandhi under “experiments of truth”, deserve to be told to include/understand the interior evolution of Gandhi at this period of its life.

One day at the court, in the town of Durban, the magistrate asks him to remove his Turban. Gandhi refuses and is expelled out of the court. In another incident, it is made throw out of a train with Pietermaritzburg, after having refused to pass from the first-class coach to that of third whereas it has a valid ticket of first class. Later, travelling in diligence, it is beaten by a driver because it refuses to travel on the footboard to make place with a European passenger. It has many of other difficulties at the time of this voyage, like seeing its admission rejected into many hotels because of its skin color.

These incidents were described by several biographers like a turning of his life and they were used to him then as Catalyseur for its militancy. It is while being witness direct intolerance, Racisme, Préjugés and injustice against the Indians of South Africa that Gandhi starts to think on the statute of its people and its own place in the company. Gandhi reacts by first protests and obtains that the correctly equipped Indians have right to travel in first class.

At the end of its contract, Gandhi prepares to return to India. However, at the time of a festival of good-bye in its honor, he learns that the assembly of the Natal prepared a law to prohibit the right to vote with the Indians. Its hosts ask him to remain to help them because they did not have competences to be opposed to this bill. It makes circulate several petitions against the law addressed to the government of Native and the British government. Although incompetent to prevent the vote of this law, this countryside allows to draw the attention to the difficulties of the Indians in South Africa. Convinced to remain by its partisans, it founds then the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, taking itself the post of secretary. This organization transforms the Indian community into a homogeneous political clout, publishing evidence of the British segregation in South Africa.

Gandhi briefly returns to India in 1896 to bring back his wife and her children food with him to South Africa. On its return in January 1897, it is attacked by a crowd of white South-Africans who try to lynch it.

A first indication of the values which will give form to its future campaigns east its refusal to carry felt sorry for against its attackers, by specifying that it was one as of its principles of not solving personal problems before a court of justice.

At the beginning of the War of Boers, in 1899, Gandhi declares that the Indians must support the effort of war if they want to legitimate their request for citizenship. It organizes a voluntary body of ambulance men of 300 free Indians and 800 Coolie S Indians called the Indian Ambulance Body , one of the rare medical units which helped the black South-Africans. Gandhi itself is carrying stretcher to the Bataille of Spion Kop, and is decorated. Despite everything, at the end of the war, the situation of the Indians does not improve, and even continues to worsen.

In 1904, after having founded the newspaper Indian opinion , the reading of Unto This Last of John Ruskin, the influence deeply and pushes Gandhi to change life radically. It repurchases shortly after the Phoenix establishment, which becomes the Tolstoï farm , where all the writers of the newspaper take part in the agricultural work and receive the same wages without reference of trade, nationality or skin color. It begins the practice of the fast, stops consuming milk, cuts its hair itself and cleans its latrines (work reserved for untouchable in India) and encourages his wife and her friends to be made in the same way.

In 1906, the government of the Transvaal vote a new law asking for the recording of all the Indian population. At the time of a meeting of protest to Johannesburg the September 11th 1906, Gandhi adopts for the first time its methodology of the Satyagraha (attachment with the truth), or nonviolent protest, by inviting his/her Indian companions to defy the new law and to undergo the punishments which would result from it instead of resisting by violence.

This plan is adopted, which led to a seven years fight in which thousands of Indians and Chinese are imprisoned (including Gandhi itself on many occasions), are whipped or even cut down to have struck, have refused to be recorded, flaring their chart of recording or to have resisted in a nonviolent way. It is during this period that Gandhi starts a correspondence with Leon Tolstoï, and they exchange their views on non-violence and the comprehensive policy until death of the Russian writer. Civil disobedience culminates in 1913 with a strike of the minors and the walk of the Indian women.

Although the South-African government represses the Indian demonstrators successfully, the public opinion violently reacts to the methods extremely hard employees against the peaceful Asian demonstrators. Finally the general Jan Christiaan Smuts is forced to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi. The nonChristian marriages become again legal and a tax of three books which represented six months of wages, imposed to the Indians who wanted to become free workers (i.e. coolies), is abolished.

Champaran and Kheda

The first major success of Gandhi comes in 1918 with the Satyagraha S from Champaran and the Kheda, although for the latter, it was implied of par with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, which acts like its right-hand man and directs rebels.

In Champaran, a district of the State of the Bihar, it organizes the civic resistance for tens of thousands of farmers without grounds, for the Serf S and the poor small holders who are forced to cultivate the Indigo and other products of export instead of cultivating food necessary to their subsistence. Oppressed by the militia of the British great landowners for the majority, they receive only thin compensations, leaving them in an extreme poverty. The villages undergo conditions of deplorable Hygiène and the Alcoolisme, discrimination towards the Intouchable S and the Purdah are very widespread. During a terrible famine, the British want further to increase one their taxes, which makes the desperate plight.

With Kheda, with the Gujarat, the problem is identical. Gandhi establishes a Ashram there, gathering a great number of partisans and volunteers of the area. It undertakes to it a study detailed on the villages, giving an account of the atrocities and the terrible living conditions. Gaining the confidence of the villagers, it directs the cleaning of the villages, the construction of schools and hospital and encourages the local leaders to condemn and eliminate the social problems described above.

The peak of the crisis comes when it is stopped by the police force for “disorder with the law and order”, and it is asked to him to leave the province. Hundreds of thousands of people express around the prison, of the police stations and the law courts requiring its release, which justice grants unwillingly.

Gandhi carries out strikes and demonstrations against the great landowners who, under the direction of the British government, sign an agreement giving more compensations and more control on the production to the poor farmers, as well as a cancellation of the tax until the end of the famine. So for Gandhi the material profits of the victory are tiny, the fact that the peasants acquired a political conscience is priceless.

It is as from this time that Gandhi is baptized by the people Bapu (father) and Mahatma (Great heart). In Kheda, Patel represented the farmers and obtained the same victory.

The celebrity of Gandhi extends then in whole India.

Not-co-operation

In 1919 with the Penjab, the Massacre of Amritsar where hundreds of civilians were shot by the British troops causes a traumatism in all the nation and increases public anger and the acts of violence.

Gandhi criticizes at the same time the actions of the United Kingdom and the violent reprisals of the Indians. He writes a resolution where he presents his condolences to the British civilian victims and condemns the riots. It is accepted in spite of a beginning of opposition of the party, after Gandhi exposes its position at the time of a moving speech where he proposes his principle that any violence is malefic and cannot be justified.

It is after these massacres that Gandhi concentrates on independence, which becomes the Swaraj , i.e. a complete independence, as well individual, spiritual that policy while becoming the leading executive for the Parti the Congress in December 1921. Under its direction, the congress is reorganized with a new constitution, mentioning the goal of the Swaraj . Adhesion with the party is opened with all those which are ready to pay a symbolic system participation. A hierarchy of committee is established to improve the discipline, transforming a élitiste party into an organization of mass, dimension and national representativeness.

Gandhi extends its principle of non-violence to the Swadeshi movement and its policy of Boycott to the foreign goods, especially the English products. Dependant on this policy, he asks that the khadi (clothing makes house) be carried by all the Indians instead of the British textiles. Rich person or the poor, men or women, must spin each day in order to help the movement of independence.

This strategy inculcates discipline and attachment, in order to eliminate the least justified or most ambitious. It also makes it possible to include the women with the movement, at one time when this kind of activity was not regarded as “sizeable” for the women. Gandhi calls moreover with the Boycott legal institutions and school, with the resignation of the governmental stations and the rejection of the Titers and British honors.

The “not co-operation” profits from a great success, increasing the enthusiasm and the participation of all the layers of the Indian company. At the time when the movement reaches its apogee, it stops abruptly following violent one confrontations in the town of Chauri Chaura, in the Uttar Pradesh, in February 1922. Fearing that the movement does not turn to violence, and convinced that would ruin all its work, Gandhi stops the civil disobedience campaign.

Gandhi is stopped on March 10th, 1922, is considered for subversion and is condemned to 6 years of prison. It makes only 2 years and is released in February 1924 after an operation of the Appendicite. Without the unifying personality of Gandhi, the party starts to divide while it is in prison. Two factions appear, one carried out by Chitta Ranjan Das and Motilal Nehru supports the participation of the party in the legislative bodies, the other carried out by Chakravarti Râjagopâlâchâri and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is opposed to it.

Moreover the co-operation between Hindus and Moslems, which had been strong during the non-violence campaign starts with étioler. Gandhi tries well to attenuate these differences through various means, including a three weeks fast in autumn 1924, but with a limited success.

Swaraj and the walk of salt ( satyagraha )

The Second world war and the resolution Quit India

Release and the partition of India (1945-1947)

Assassination (1948)

The January 30th 1948, in way towards a meeting of prayer, Gandhi is cut down close to Birla House, with New Delhi, by Nathuram Godse, a radical Hindu who has bonds with the group extremist Hindu Mahasabha. Godse held Gandhi responsible for the weakening of India by paying its debt in Pakistan. Jawaharlal Nehru is addressed in these terms to the nation to the radio:

Friends and comrades, the light left our lives, the darkness is everywhere, and I cannot too what say to you and how you to tell it. Our loved leader, Bapu as we called it, the father of the nation, is not any more. Am I can be wrong to say that; nevertheless, we will not see it any more as we saw all these years, we will not be able any more to ask him council or for consolation, and it is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for million and million in this pays.

According to its will, the majority of its ashes were dispersed in several large rivers of the world such as the the Nile, the the Volga and the the Thames. Two million Indians witnessed its funeral.

Godse and its accomplice Narayan Apte are considered and condemned to death, then carried out on November 15th, 1949.

The thought of Gandhi

Faith

Gandhi had been born hindouist and practiced the Hindouisme all its life, which inspired the majority of its principles. As common hindouist, he believed in the equality of all the religions and refused to convert with another faith.

It was an avid theologist and he lute much on all the great religions. He says on his religion:

The Hindouisme such as I know it satisfied completion my heart, fills my whole being… When the doubt attacks me, when the discouragement looks at me opposite, when I do not see any more any glimmer of hope at the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita , and I find worms to comfort me; and I start to smile immediately in the middle of one crushing sorrow. My life was filled of tragedies and if they did not leave an indelible effect on me, I owe it with the lesson of the Bhagavad Gita .

Gandhi wrote a comment on the Bhagavad Gita in Gujarati.

Gandhi believed that the heart of all the religions was the truth and the love (compassion, not ethical violence and of reciprocity). He criticized hypocrisy, the bad practices and the dogmas of all the religions and was an untiring social reformer. Its comments on the various religions were:

Thus, if I could not accept Christianity like perfect or largest of the religions, I could not consider the hindouism either as tel. the defects of the hindouism are quite visible for me. If the intouchability could be part of the hindouism, it would be a rotted part or an outgrowth. I could not include/understand the “raison d'être” of a multitude of sects or castes. Which would be the direction to say that the Vedas are crowned Textes inspired by God? If they were inspired by God, why not the Bible or the Coran also? My Christian friends were as undertaking to convert me as my Moslem friends. Abdullah Sheth continuously encouraged me to study the Islam, and obviously had always something to say concerning its beauté.

As soon as we lose the moral base, we cease being a monk. There are no things such as a religion erasing morality. The man thus, cannot be lying, cruel or dépravé and protest that it has God of sound côté.

The words of Mahomet are a treasure of wisdom, not only for the Moslems but for humanity entière.

Later in its life, when it was asked to him whether he were hindouist, he answered:

Yes I am it. I am also a Christian, a Moslem, a Buddhist and a juif.

In spite of their deep mutual respect, Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore were implied in debates prolonged on several occasions. These debates illustrated the philosophical differences between the two more famous Indians in this time. Gandhi was devoted to improve the living conditions of untouchable, calling them Harijans, the people of Krishna. January 15th, 1934, an earthquake touched the Bihar and caused many victims and damage. Gandhi maintained that was due to the sin made by the higher Hindu castes not to let the untouchable ones reach their temples. Tagore was opposed diametrically to the point of view of Gandhi, supporting that an earthquake could be only created by natural forces, not by reasons morals, also feeling reluctant which can be the practice of the intouchability.

Truth

Gandhi dedicated all its life to discovered Vérité or Satya . It tried to reach it while learning from its own errors and as a practitioner of the experiments on itself. It is in particular the topic of its book Autobiographie or my experiments of truth .

Gandhi established that the most important battle to be gained was to overcome its own demons, fear and insecurities. It summarized its beliefs when it says “God initially is truth”. It changed then this declaration into “the truth is God”. Thus satya (the truth) in the philosophy of Gandhi is “God”.

Simplicity

Gandhi believed sincerely that a person implied in the social service was to carry out a simple life which would bring it to the brahmacharya. Its practice of the Ascétisme takes as a starting point the thought by the philosopher and American poet Henry David Thoreau. This Simplicité started with the renouncement of the Western lifestyle which it carried out in South Africa. It invited that “to be reduced oneself to zero”; “to simply live so that all can simply live” such was its values, its lifestyle, which wanted to say to give up any superfluous expenditure, to carry out a simple life and to wash its own clothing. On an occasion it returned the gifts offered by the natives for his assistance to the community.

Gandhi spent one day of each week in silence. He believed that to abstain from speaking the interior Paix to him brought. This came from the Hindu principles of the mauna (Sanskrit: मौन - silence) and shanti (peace). These days it communicated with the others while writing on a paper.

During 3 years and half, at age the 37 years, Gandhi refused to read the newspapers, protesting that the tumultuous news of the world caused him more confusion than its own interior disorder.

Returning to India after its stay to South Africa, it gave up the wearing of Western clothing, which it associated with the richness and success. It got dressed to be accepted by lowest in India, and it promoted the use of clothing woven at the house ( khadi ). Gandhi and its partisans thus manufactured clothing which they wore; they encouraged the others to make in the same way with an aim of giving again a certain economic autonomy in rural India, autonomy rolled by the domination of British industry who held the industrial spinning mills then. The wheel was incorporated soon in the flag of the party of the Indian congress.

Gandhi carried the Dhoti (male equivalent of the sari) all the remainder of its life, not only as a sign of simplicity but also because this dress, thread of its hands, constituted for him a guarantee not to guarantee the exploitation of British or Indian workmen in industrial spinning mills.

Vegetarianism

The idea of the Végétarisme is strongly anchored in the Hindu traditions and jaîns, and in its native soil of the Gujarat the majority of the Hindus and his family were vegetarians. Before leaving to study for London, Gandhi had promised with his/her mother that he would not eat meat. It held its promise and its vegetarianism (lacto-vegetarianism in its case) became an integral part of its philosophy of nonviolence. He wrote the book the moral base of vegetarianism and several articles on the subject, some were published by the London Vegetarian Society of which Gandhi formed part, and where he was made many friends, such president Dr. Josiah Oldfield. Having read and having admired works of Henry Stephens Salt, the Mohandas young person met it and corresponded a long time with the militant vegetarian.

Gandhi spent much time to promote the vegetarianism during and after its stay with London. In addition to the ethical dimension of the vegetarianism he considered economic dimension, since the meat was (and is always) more expensive than cereals, vegetables and the fruits, and thus helped the Indians who had low-incomes.

It foot-note in its autobiography which the vegetarianism was the beginning of its deep engagement towards the Brahmacharya; without a total control on its food needs it could not have made a success of the brahmacharya.

Brahmacharya

The Brahmacharya (spiritual and practical purity) is largely associated with the Célibat and the Asceticism. The brahmacharya, which corresponds to the one the four periods of the human life such as the hindouism theorizes it, is to be brought closer to the shape of discipline of the body of which aiming, spiritual or religious, is the detachment of the directions (which would block the release ( Moksha ) of the heart). Gandhi conceived the brahmacharya like a means of approaching God and as stone of foundation of its personal realization. For Gandhi, brahmacharya meant “control of the directions in thought, words and actions”.

In its autobiography, he tells his fight against his sexual needs and the accesses for jealousy towards his wife Kasturba. There felt like a personal obligation to remain abstemious so, on the one hand, being able to learn how to like rather than to seek the pleasure, and on the other hand, to confine the body - and more largely the world of the matter - with the service of the aspirations and the will of the spirit. This fight, according to what it exposes in its autobiography, was without slackening, since at the end of its life, become widowed, it regularly divided the layer of his preferred niece, Manu, this in order to test the solidity of its last wish (this made scandal besides at the time). In addition, Gandhi did not have of cease all its life to extend and look further into the scopes of application of its search for control of the directions. In addition to the control of the sexual desire, he also sought to be detached from the gustatory pleasure: forming “wishes regularly”, Gandhi gradually removed such condiment, such food, or reduced always more the number of food which it could ingurgiter.

Non-violence

The concept of Non-violence ( Ahimsa ) and non-violent Résistance has a long story in the Indian religious thought and had many occurrences in contexts hindouists, Buddhists, jainists and Judeo-Christians. The concept of non-violence itself is a translation, forged by Gandhi, of the word Sanskrit ahimsa ( has : privative and himsa : harmful effect, violence), present in the religious traditions of India. Gandhi explains this philosophy and this lifestyle in its autobiography.

Which difference that does it make with deaths, with the orphans and with the homeless people, whom the destruction plugs was brought in the name of the totalitarianism or to the crowned name of freedom and the democracy? There are many causes for which I am ready to die but no cause for which I am ready with tuer.

By applying these principles, Gandhi did not hesitate to take them along to the extremes of its logic. In 1940, when the invasion of British Isles by the Nazi Germany seemed imminent, Gandhi delivered the following opinion to the English people.

I would like that you deposit the weapons that you have as being useless to save you, you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries that you call your possessions… If these gentlemen choose to occupy your hearths, you will leave them to them. If they do not let to you leave, you will let yourselves massacre, men, women and children, but you will refuse to lend allégeance. to them

Nevertheless, Gandhi realized that this level of nonviolence required a faith and an incredible courage that little world had. He thus advised that it was not necessary that all remain non-violent, especially if it not violence were used to hide cowardice:

I believe that if there is only the choice between violence and cowardice, I advise the violence.

I repeated with each meeting the warning that unless they feel that with non-violence they had a force infinitely higher than that which they had front, they were not to apply to it not violence and to take again the armes.

Gandhi thought that violence was ineffective and could only initiate one continuous chain of revenge. He said Loi of Retaliation: Eye for eye returns the whole world aveugle.

Gandhi also attached non-violence to the Féminisme. He explains it at the time of a speech during the walk of salt: “To call the women the weaker sex is a lie. It is an injustice of the men made to the women. If non-violence is the law of our beings, the future is with the women. ”

Gandhi drew part of its inspiration in the writings of Leon Tolstoï, which, in the Années 1880 had lived a major conversion into a personal form of Christian Anarchisme, which had led it to conceive a detached of materialism and nonviolent Christianity. Gandhi had translated the Letter with a Hindu of Tolstoï, written in 1908 in answer to the violence of the Indian nationalists, and both corresponded until the death of Tolstoï in 1910. Some think that without Tolstoï, Gandhi would perhaps never have been also given to take an action also nonviolent which made its glory. Tolstoï itself attended itself much besides certain currents orientalists and regularly corresponded with Buddhist , Hindu and Baha' ists.

Satyagraha

The Satyagraha (“the force born of the truth and the love or not violence”) is the result of this truth against unjust laws or systems through a nonviolent fight. Gandhi considers even the satyagraha higher than the civil Désobéissance or with the non-violent Résistance because the term implies to serve a cause right and became of this fact the weapon of the forts and either the weapon of weak.

For him this fight should not generate any suffering with the adversary, if there is suffering is to the defender of the truth to undergo it: The research of the truth should not admit that no violence is inflicted with an adversary, but which it must leave the error by patience and sympathy. Because what appears as the truth with the one can seem error with the other. And patience means car-suffering. Thus the doctrines are claim of the truth, not by inflicting sufferings with its adversary, but with soi-même.

Critical of the Western development

Gandhi could admire technological advances and the economic good being that gave modern Western civilization, but also pointed its gaps and the new risks and needs that it brought to the individual. In its book Hind Swaraj gold Indian home rule (transl. france Their Civilization and our delivery ) where it makes the Critique development and concept even of civilization as idealized by Great Britain and the Westerners, Gandhi shows that each progress carried out on the one hand corresponds to an aggravation of the living conditions of the other, that Western civilization left side morality and the religion, that it created new needs related to the money and impossible to satisfy, that it increases the inequalities and dedicates to slavery most of humanity. For him this type of civilization is without exit.

This civilization is such as one has just to be patient and it autodétruira.

The Mechanization and the Mondialisation of the exchanges are for him a disaster for India (the spinning mill S of Manchester had made disappear the Indian craft industry). It takes as example of the felt projections in an overall positive way like the train, the doctors or the lawyers, who can be according to him quite as harmful. The train because it can transport the diseases as quickly as the passengers and can involve the speculation and the famines. Lawyers because they prefer to find a solution legal with a moral solution with a conflict, claim without reason none with wages higher than the common workers, and reinforce the British power in India. Doctors because by granting care they encourage the negligence and the lack of individual prevention, break religious taboos and make enormous profits with drugs out of price.

For Gandhi Indian civilization does not have anything to envy Western with its race economic development. The access to the richness for all is for him impossible and the individual must even control his needs to him, as had included/understood it the former wise Indians: The spirit is a bird without rest; more it obtains and more it wishes and is never satisfied. The more we satisfy our Passion S and the more they become unslung. Our ancestors had included/understood that and placed a limit at our indulgences. They had noticed that happiness was especially a condition mentale. It thought that the urban development could not allow the autonomous and non-violent life of the Indian people: only the consolidation of the economic and political autonomy of the villages could, in its eyes, to contribute to the construction of a non-violent company. For him, in spite of obvious defects that it was to correct, Indian civilization tended to raise morality, whereas Western civilization propagated immorality.

Project of a non-violent company without State

Although Gandhi primarily devoted, in the facts, with the fight for Independence then the unit of India, it never separated, in its thought, the actions of fight of the constructive actions to prepare the durable organization of a non-violent company. He even thought that the constructive actions constituted an essential precondition to the fight for independence. Its fear, indeed was that, once arrived at Independence, India is not a country which continues to dominate and oppress its people. As he wrote it:

If, ultimately, the only awaited change touches only with the color of the military uniform, we really do not need to make all these stories. In any case, in this case, one does not take account of the people. It will be exploited as much, if not more, that in the actual position of the choses.

Petri of the writings of Tolstoï, Gandhi quickly integrated into his analysis a radical criticism of the State. The nature of the State, according to him, is primarily violent and oppressive; the existence of a State is incompatible with the non-violent principles of life:

The State represents violence in an intensified and organized form. The individual has a heart, but the State which is a machine without heart cannot be withdrawn from violence since it is with it that he owes his existence.

This is why it developed the idea to work out, in parallel of the actions of fight and civil disobedience to obtain Independence, a “ constructive program . ” It is through the research of the autonomy of each village, apart from (and against) any centralized organization that really democratic and non-violent India could perdurer after Independence.

True independence will not come from the seizure of power du by some, but of the capacity that all will have to be opposed to the abuses of authority. In other words, one will have to arrive at independence by inculcating in the masses the conviction that they have the possibility of controlling the exercise of the authority and to hold it in respect.

The level selected to exert such a control is the village, which would exert a form of sovereignty within a federal framework.

Independence must start at the base. Thus each village will be a république.

Gandhi, which was aware of the difficulty in arriving to such an organization of the company, brought closer this objective to an anarchistic company:

It would be a state of enlightened anarchy. In such a country, each one would be its own Master. He would move itself in order to never not obstruct his neighbor. Consequently, the ideal State is that where there is no political power because same of the disappearance of Etat.

Because of its criticism of the authority, forms of oppression and exploitation; because of its criticism of the State; by the very fact that Gandhi itself connected frequently and explicitly its political philosophy to the Anarchisme, some wondered whether Gandhi could not be qualified of anarchist. With the question of knowing if it were realistic to want to arrive to a formed non-violent democratic society of federate villages - situation that Gandhi qualified anarchy - it rétorquait, in 1940:

It company is realizable insofar as non-violence is realizable. The stage nearest to pure anarchy would be a democracy based on the non-violence.

This important aspect of the thought of Gandhi, with that of the critic of the mode of Western development, was left in waste land since the question of the partition of India occupied in practice the last years of the life of Gandhi. However, these two dimensions, complementary, did not remain pure theory.

The constructive program that Gandhi had called its wishes was deepened by Vinobâ, one of its closer disciples. From a point of view resolutely critical and opposed to the mode of Western development, Vinobâ undertook to solve the land question while seeking, by the opening of new faces of non-violent fight, to cause the autonomy of the villages, bases of a non-violent Indian company.

Synthesis

For Gandhi, the truth, non-violence and the fight for their success were an indissociable whole and to betray an aspect of this unit was to betray its entire ideal. It is an error to believe that there is no relationship between the end and the means, and this error involved men considered as believers to commit terrible crimes. It is as if you say that by planting bad grasses one can collect roses. By carrying out a life simple and close to the Indian tradition, it applied to him even the ideal of life which was for him most beneficial with humanity, very far away from the Western criteria of development. Hindu deeply believing, it respected as much the other religions which were for him different ways towards the love and the truth. Even if the course which led to this truth was long and fills of obstacles, for Gandhi, justice was to always triumph: When I despair, I remember that through all the history, the ways of the truth and the love always triumphed. There were tyrants and murderers, and sometimes they seemed invincible, but at the end, they always fell. Always think of that. As it noted it itself not without humor, to maintain this ideal was even for his/her friends “the work of insane”.

Heritage

Homages

In the world

The birthday of Gandhi, already national festival in India, became international Journée of non-violence by a vote unanimously of the General meeting of the United Nations on June 15th, 2007.

Time Magazine named Gandhi the Personnalité of the year in 1930 and Gandhi was 2nd behind Albert Einstein like Personnalité of the century in 1999. The magazine indicated the Dalai Lama, Lech Wałęsa, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Aung San Suu Kyi, Benigno Aquino, Jr., Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela like children of Gandhi and heirs spiritual to nonviolence.

The January 30th of each year, birthday of died of Mahatma Gandhi, one practices the School Journée of Non-violence and Peace (DENIP) , founded in Spain in 1964.

Gandhi was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and 1948 with the Nobel Prize of peace, but without never obtaining it. The committee will regret publicly that the price was never granted to him. The president of the committee will say, during the handing-over of the price to the Dalaï LAMA in 1989, that the price is given partly to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi. No speculation emanated from the committee as for not given of the price to Gandhi.

In 1937, Ole Colbjørnsen, deputy of the Norwegian Parliament, propose the name of Gandhi to the candidature. The motivation for this nomination is written by the members of the Norwegian branch of the “Friends of India”. An inspector of the committee, professor Jacob WORM-Müller, gives an negative opinion: He has freedom fighter and has dictator, year idealist and has nationalist. He is frequently has Christ, goal then, suddenly, year ordinary politician. (free translation: He is a combatant of freedom and a dictator, an idealist and a nationalist. He is often a Christ, then, suddenly, an ordinary politician ). In addition, several members of the international pacifist movement were of its criticisms, reproaching him for example for having pretends to be unaware of that its movement of non-violence was to necessarily lead to violent actions and terrorism, as for example during the episode where the crowd of Chauri Chaura killed several British police officers and put fire at the police station. One reproached him also his lack of universality when it defended only the Indian natives of South Africa. The Nobel committee took into account these criticisms and does not allot the price to him this year. Two following years, Ole Colbjørnsen repropose Gandhi, without more success.

It has also a bust in its memory in the town of Quebec, with the Canada.

In India

Gandhi is celebrated like Père of the Nation and its birthday on October 2nd there is commemorated like the Gandhi Jayanti and is a bank holiday.
The Indian Government grants each year the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Prize to personalities or citizens who were distinguished. Nelson Mandela, was one of famous not Indien to receive it.
Since 1996, the government prints on all banknotes the portrait of Gandhi, which is considered paradoxical by some, taking into account the negative opinions of Gandhi on the accumulation of the richnesses and the capacity of the money.

In New Delhi, the Birla Bhavan (or “Birla House”), where Gandhi was assassinated became opened with the public since 1973 and is known like the Gandhi Smriti' (“To remember Gandhi”). It preserves the part where Mahatma Gandhi lived the last four months of its life and a column of stone symbolizing its martyr marks the exact place where it was cut down.

Partisans and influence

Gandhi influenced important leaders and political movements.

The first was of course Nehru itself which said: “It was clear that this small man compensated for his poor physics by a heart of steel or rock which refused to bend in front of the rough force. In spite of its impressive face not very, its loincloth, its nudity, there is had in him something of royal which forced to return obedience to him…”

In the United States, Martin Luther King referred especially to Gandhi in its fight for the Mouvement of the American civic rights, and the inspiration that it brought to him for its own theories on nonviolence. The militant anti Apartheid and former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, also says to be inspired him by Gandhi like had been to it Steve Biko. Other personalities like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan in Pakistan and Aung San Suu Kyi with the Myanmar were declared heirs to the methods of Gandhi.

Several people and organizations dedicated their life to spread his ideas. Madeleine Slade, girl of a British admiral, decided all to leave to live in India with Gandhi. Romain Roland was the first to make known the life of Gandhi with its book Mahatma Gandhi . Lanza del Vasto went to India in 1936 with an aim of living with Gandhi. On its return in Europe, it decided to propagate the philosophy of Gandhi. In 1948, that which Gandhi had called Shantidas (Servant of Peace) based, from a resolutely Christian point of view, the Communautés of the Arch on the model of the ashrams gandhiens. Jose Bove, was one of the disciples of Lanza del Vasto.

In India, a disciple of Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, undertook to look further into and extend the process of nonviolent emancipation of the Indian people: he devoted himself, not without a certain success in certain areas, to solve the land question, then got busy to promote the autonomy of the villages.

The magazine for the racial equality American The Crisis compared even Gandhi with Jesus in 1922. In Europe also of the voices rose to assert this double heritage, in particular that of Dr. Albert Schweitzer:

“When one asks me which modern thinkers influenced my life and my philosophy, I answer invariably, these two names: the German great author Goethe and the humble Hindu saint Mohandas Gandhi. (...) In the same way, Gandhi, which was the Christian Hindu of the century, recognized that it had had the idea of Ahimsa and non-violence of the commands of Jesus (...) On their premises two, the ethics of interior perfection is controlled by the principle of the love”.

Gandhi had very many admirors, in addition to those which preached non-violence, one can quote the photographer Margaret Bourke-White, the general George Marshall. The British musician, John Lennon, also referred to Gandhi when he spoke about nonviolence. In 2007, the former American vice-president and ecologist Al Gore, revealed the influence that Gandhi had had on him. The physicist Albert Einstein said in connection with Gandhi:

“the generations to come will have sorrow to believe that such a man existed in flesh and bone on this ground”.

Criticisms

The Dalits and in particular Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, criticized the position of Gandhi as being “paternalist”, in particular by calling them harijan , children of God. Ambedkar reproached Gandhi for not attacking the root of the problem, which was according to him the system of the castes as a whole. If it is undeniable that Gandhi adopted an ambiguous position on this complex question, it on several occasions undertook fasts for the defense of Untouchable, and also held on this question of the clear positions: thus, in a letter addressed to CH. Andrews (Dec. 29, 1921), it declared in particular: “I could not any more regard me as Hindou if the intouchability remained included in the hindouism”.

Winston Churchill, although having taken part at the same time as Gandhi on the side of the British Empire in the Battle of Spion Kop, had declared in 1931 qu ' it considered “alarming to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious lawyer, who is made pass for a Fakir of a well-known kind in the East, climbing with half-naked the steps of the palate of the viceroy whereas it is still train organizing and leading a campaign of civil Désobéissance, to speak about equal footing with the representative of the emperor-king”.

The author discussed Koenraad Elst summarizes in a book some still today critical according to him formulated against Gandhi by a considerable part of the Indian opinion. In substance:

Gandhi used nonviolent agitation only against people with whom it shared certain moral principles, i.e. the liberal Hindus and British. Towards the Moslems, it proceeded by nonviolent action but by concessions and resignations, without never negotiating an equitable counterpart. It thus misled waitings of its Hindu besides voters and managed only to make the Moslems more arrogant. Incompetent to learn the lesson from the feed-back effects of political reality, it persevered in these concessions whereas they did not cause obviously a bringing together between Hindus and Moslems.
Of the factors, interns and external, others that the non-violent action of Gandhi contributed to the release of India. Among the external factors, it is necessary to mention the pressures anticoloniales exerted by the United States and the Soviet Union on Great Britain.

Writings

Gandhi was a prolific author. During decades, he was the principal writer several newspapers, weekly magazines or monthly magazines, of which Harijan in Gujarati, Hindi and English; Indian Opinion , an English weekly magazine, when it was in South Africa, and Young India , an English weekly magazine, and Navajivan , a monthly magazine in gujarati, after its return in India. Navajivan was also published later in Hindi. He also daily wrote many letters with personalities and newspapers to defend his cause.

Gandhi also wrote several books, of which its autobiography, an autobiography or my experiments with the truth , Satyagraha in South Africa in connection with the countryside for the rights of the Indians in this country, Hind Swaraj gold Indian Home Rule , a political lampoon, and a paraphrase in gujarati of the book of John Ruskin Unto This Last . This last test can be regarded as its economic program. He also wrote many articles on the vegetarianism, the food modes and the social health, religion, reforms, etc Gandhi usually wrote in gujarati, but he revised itself the translation of his books in Hindi and English.

Complete works of Gandhi were published by the Indian government under the name The Collected Works off Mahatma Gandhi in the years 1960. Its writings make approximately 50.000 pages published in a total of 100 volumes. In 2000, an altered edition of its complete works started a sharp controversy, the partisans of Gandhi showing the government of modifications for political reasons.

Works

: Source used for the drafting of the article

Autobiography or my experiments of truth (1929), University Presses of France, 2003. , available on wikisource in English .
The Collected Works off Mahatma Gandhi. New Delhi: Division publications, Ministry off Information and Broadcasting, Govt. off India, 1994.
the Guide of health , transl. and foreword Henri Delmas, Figuière Editions, without date (1932?).
Hind Swarajya gold Indian home rule , Navijan publishing house, AHEMDABAD-380014, 1909, '' Ouvrage in English '' line.
the Young person India (1919-1922) , translated from English by Helene Binder. Introduction of Romain Roland. Stock, 1924, rééd. 1948.
Letters with the ashram , Albin Michel, 1948.
Their Civilization and our delivery , Denoël, coll Thought gandhienne, 1957.
Meditations , Editions of the Rock, 2002.
nonviolent Resistance , Buchet Chastel, 1994.
'' Satyagraha in South Africa '', 1928.
All the men is brothers , Gallimard, 1990.
Gandhi. The way of nonviolence , Gallimard, 2006. Extracted from All the men are brothers .
Life of Mr. K Gandhi, written by itself , edition prepared by Charlie Andrews, transl. of Georgette Camille. Préf. of R. Rolland, Rieder, 1931, rééd. 1934.
Mr. - K. Gandhi with work. Continuation of its life written by itself , edition prepared by Charlie Andrews, transl. A. Bernard, Rieder, 1934.
Zionism and Antisemitism. The Gandhi Reader: In Sourcebook off His Life and Writings. Homer Jack (ED.) Grove Near, New York: 1956.

Gandhi in the popular culture

Films

the life of Gandhi was the subject of a film adaptation by the British realizer Richard Attenborough in 1982, rewarded by eight Oscars and three Golden Globe Award S.
In Lage Raho Munna Bhai, comedy Indian of 2006 its phantom helps a young Indian who adopts his philosophy in the modern life.
the conflict relation that Harilal, his/her oldest son, have with Gandhi, is depicted in the film Gandhi, my father in 2007.

Novels

the Large Indian Novel of Shashi Tharoor, a work which mixes the Mahâbhârata and history of India since the beginning of the century, as well as a description mild nutter and critical of Gandhi under the name of Ganga Datta.

Anecdotes

a reference to Gandhi is made in the novel dystopic 1984 of George Orwell (1948). It mentions in the Book of Goldstein that “to turn over to the agricultural past as certain thinkers dreamed it of the beginning of the XXème century was not a possible solution”. According to the Book , progress and the richness divided by all meant the end of hierarchical company.
In the series of the Civilization Gandhi is leading Indian civilization.

Appendices

Indira and Rajiv Gandhi

The name of Gandhi which one finds with the head of India in the following decades is due randomly: the first Prime Minister after independence, Nehru, had a girl Indira who married a Gandhi , without family ties with Mahatma. It succeeded her father at the same station. Later, the son of Indira, Rajiv, succeeded to him then, following his assassination, was replaced with the head of the party of the Congress by his wife Sonia.

Biographies and sources

Several biographers have undertook the task to describe the life of Gandhi. Among them, the two most complete works: D.G. Tendulkar with its Mahatma. Life off Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 8 volumes, and Pyarelal and Sushila Nayar with their Mahatma Gandhi in 10 volumes.

: Source used for the drafting of the article

In French

Bovy, Marie-Pierre (under dir it. of). Gandhi: The heritage , SILOE, 2001.
Fisher, Louis. life of Mahatma Gandhi , Belfond, 1983.
Frèches, Jose. Gandhi. I am a soldier of peace , XO Éditions, 2007.
Jordis, Christine. Gandhi , Gallimard, Folio Biographies, 2006,372 pages.
Lassier, Suzanne. Gandhi and non-violence , Threshold, 1975.
Muller, Jean-Marie. Gandhi the insurrectionist , Albin Michel, 1997.
Payne, Robert. Gandhi: Political biography , Threshold, 1972.
Roland, Romain. Gandhi , 1924.

In English

Bhana, Surendra and Goolam Vahed. The Making off has Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893-1914. New Delhi: Manohar, 2005.
Chadha, Yogesh. Gandhi: In Life.
Chernus, Ira. American Nonviolence: The History off year Idea , chapter 7.
Easwaran, Eknath. Gandhi The Man.
Hunt, James D. Gandhi in London , New Delhi, Promilla & Co., 1978.
Mann, Bernhard. " The Pedagogical and Political Concepts off Mahatma Gandhi and Paulo Freire". In: Claußen, B. (ED.) International Studies in Political Socialization and Education , data base 8, Hamburg, 1996.
Rühe, Peter. Gandhi: With Photograph biography. , 2002.
Sharp, Gene. Gandhi ace has Political Strategist, with Essays one Ethics and Politics , Boston, Extending Horizon Books, 1979.
Sofri, Gianni. Gandhi and India : In Century in X-ray , 1995.

Studies on Gandhi

Catherine Clément, Gandhi, athlete of freedom , Discovered Gallimard, Gallimard, 1989.
Alexandre Kaplan, Gandhi and Tolstoï (sources of a spiritual filiation) , Printing works L. Stoquert, 1949.
Milan T. Markovitch, Tolstoï and Gandhi , old Bookstore H. Champion, 1928.
Jean-Marie Muller, “was Gandhi anarchistic? ”, Alternative not forces , n° 117, Hiver 2000/2001, pp. 48-53.
Marc Semenoff, Tolstoï and Gandhi , coll Thought gandhienne, Denoël, 1958.

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