Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu 1910-1997)

• Born: 27 August 1910
• Birthplace: Skopje, Macedonia
• Died: 5 September 1997
• Best Known As: Humanitarian nun of Calcutta, called "The Saint of the Gutters"

Name at birth: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu

Mother Teresa grew famous for humbly ministering to lepers, the homeless and the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. In 1928 Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Lareto, a Catholic order that did charity work in India. She took the name Sister Teresa and for 17 years taught school in the country. In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a new order devoted to helping the sick and poor; the order grew to include branches in more than 100 cities around the world, and Mother Teresa became a worldwide symbol of charity, meeting with Princess Diana and many other public figures. In 1979 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, and in 1985 she was awarded the Medal of Freedom from the United States.

She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 19 October 2003, placing her one step from sainthood in the Catholic faith; after beatification she became known as the Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata... Though her parents were ethnic Albanians, Mother Teresa was born in what is now Macedonia and what was then part of the Ottoman Empire. Some sources give her date of birth as August 26th, not August 27th.

For her work among the poor and dying of India, Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a Roman Catholic nun who founded the only Catholic religious order still growing in membership, was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Yugoslavia, on August 27, 1910. Her parents were Albanian grocers, and at the time of her birth Skopje lay within the Ottoman Empire. She attended public school in Skopje, and first showed religious interests as a member of a school sodality that focused on foreign missions. By the age of 12 she felt she had a calling to help the poor.

This calling took sharper focus through her teenage years, when she was especially inspired by reports of work being done in India by Yugoslav Jesuit missionaries serving in Bengal. When she was 18 Mother Teresa left home to join a community of Irish nuns, the Sisters of Loretto, who had a mission in Calcutta, India. She received training in Dublin, Ireland, and in Darjeeling, India, taking her first religious vows in 1928 and her final religious vows in 1937.

One of Mother Teresa's first assignments was to teach, and eventually to serve as principal, in a girls' high school in Calcutta. Although the school lay close to the teeming slums, the students were mainly wealthy. In 1946 Mother Teresa experienced what she called a second vocation or "call within a call." She felt an inner urging to leave the convent life and work directly with the poor. In 1948 the Vatican gave her permission to leave the Sisters of Loretto and to start a new work under the guidance of the Archbishop of Calcutta.

Founding the Missionaries of Charity

To prepare to work with the poor, Mother Teresa took an intensive medical training with the American Medical Missionary Sisters in Patna, India. Her first venture in Calcutta was to gather unschooled children from the slums and start to teach them. She quickly attracted both financial support and volunteers, and in 1950 her group, now called the Missionaries of Charity, received official status as a religious community within the Archdiocese of Calcutta. Members took the traditional vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but they added a fourth vow - to give free service to the most abjectly poor. In Mother Teresa's own view, the work of her group was very different from that of secular welfare agencies. She saw her nuns ministering to Jesus, whom they encounter as suffering in the poor, especially those who are dying alone or who are abandoned children.

The Missionaries of Charity began their distinctive work of ministering to the dying in 1952, when they took over a temple in Calcutta that previously had been dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali. The sisters working there had, as their main goal, filling with dignity and love the last days of poor people who were dying. The physical conditions of this shelter were not imposing, although they were completely clean; but the emotional atmosphere of love and concern struck most visitors as truly saintly. When the sisters were criticized or disparaged because of the small scale of their work (in the context of India's tens of millions of desperately poor and suffering people), Mother Teresa tended to respond very simply. She considered any governmental help a benefit, but she was content to have her sisters do what they could for specific suffering people, since she regarded each individual as infinitely precious in God's sight.

The Missionaries of Charity received considerable publicity, and Mother Teresa used it rather adroitly to benefit her work. In 1957 they began to work with lepers and slowly expanded their educational work, at one point running nine elementary schools in Calcutta. They also opened a home for orphans and abandoned children. In 1959 they began to expand outside of Calcutta, starting works in other Indian cities. As in Calcutta, their focus was the poorest of the poor: orphans, the dying, and those ostracized by diseases such as leprosy. Before long they had a presence in more than 22 Indian cities, and Mother Teresa had visited such other countries as Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Australia, Tanzania, Venezuela, and Italy to begin foundations. Although in most of these countries the problems of the poor seemed compounded by uncontrolled population growth, the Sisters held strongly negative views on both abortion and contraception. Their overriding conviction was that all lives are precious, and sometimes they seemed to imply that the more human beings there were, the better God's plan was flourishing.

In 1969 Mother Teresa allowed a group called the International Association of Co-Workers of Mother Teresa to affiliate itself with the Missionaries of Charity. This was a sort of "third order, " as Catholics sometimes call basically lay groups that affiliate with religious orders both to help the orders in their work and to participate in their idealistic spirituality. These Co-Workers were drawn to Mother Teresa's work with the very poor, and their constitution specified that they wanted to help serve the poorest of the poor, without regard to caste or creed, in a spirit of prayer and sacrifice.

Dedication to the Very Poor

Mother Teresa's group continued to expand throughout the 1970s, opening works in such new countries as Jordan (Amman), England (London), and the United States (Harlem, New York City). She received both recognition and financial support through such awards as the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize and a grant from the Joseph Kennedy Jr. Foundation. Benefactors regularly would arrive to support works in progress or to stimulate the Sisters to open new ventures. Mother Teresa received increasing attention in the media, especially through a British Broadcasting Corporation special interview that Malcolm Muggeridge conducted with her in London in 1968. In 1971, on the occasion of visiting some of her sisters in London, she went to Belfast, Northern Ireland, to pray with the Irish women for peace and to meet with lan Paisley, a militant Protestant leader. In the same year she opened a home in Bangladesh for women raped by Pakistani soldiers in the conflicts of that time. By 1979 her groups had more than 200 different operations in over 25 countries around the world, with dozens more ventures on the horizon. In 1986 she persuaded President Fidel Castro to allow a mission in Cuba. The hallmark of all of Mother Teresa's works - from shelters for the dying to orphanages and homes for the mentally ill - continued to be service to the very poor.

In 1988 Mother Teresa sent her Missionaries of Charity into Russia and also opened a home for AIDS patients in San Francisco, California. In 1991 she returned home to Albania and opened a home in Tirana, the capital. At this time, there were 168 homes operating in India. Later in 1995, plans materialized to open homes in China.

Despite the appeal of this saintly work, all commentators remarked that Mother Teresa herself was the most important reason for the growth of her order and the fame that came to it. Muggeridge was struck by her pleasant directness and by the otherworldly character of her values. He saw her as having her feet completely on the ground, yet she seemed almost unable to comprehend his suggestion (meant as an interviewer's controversial prod) that trying to save a few of India's abandoned children was almost meaningless, in the face of the hordes whom no one was helping. He realized that Mother Teresa had virtually no understanding of a cynical or godless point of view that could consider any human being less than absolutely valuable.

Another British interviewer, Polly Toynbee, was especially struck by Mother Teresa's lack of rage or indignation. Unlike many "social critics, " she did not find it necessary to attack the economic or political structures of the cultures that were producing the abjectly poor people she was serving. For her the primary rule was a constant love, and when social critics or religious reformers chose to vent anger at the evils of structures underlying poverty and suffering, that was between them and God. Indeed, in later interviews Mother Teresa continued to strike an apolitical pose, refusing to take a stand on anything other than strictly religious matters. One sensed that to her mind politics, economics, and other this-worldly matters were other people's business. The business given by God to her and her group was simply serving the very poor with as much love and skill as they could muster.

In the 1980s and 1990s Mother Teresa's health problems became a concern. She suffered a heart attack while visiting Pope John Paul II in 1983. She had a near fatal heart attack in 1989 and began wearing a pacemaker.

In August 1996 the world prayed for Mother Teresa's recovery. At the age of 86, Mother Teresa was on a respirator in a hospital, suffering from heart failure and malaria. Doctors were not sure she would recover. Within days she was fully conscious, asked to receive communion, and requested that the doctors send her home. When she was sent home a few weeks later in early September, a doctor said she firmly believed, "God will take care of me."

In late November of that same year, Mother Teresa was again hospitalized. She had angioplasty surgery to clear two blocked arteries. She was also given a mild electric shock to correct an irregular heartbeat. She was released after spending almost a month in the hospital.

In March 1997, after an eight week selection process, 63-year-old Sister Nirmala was named as the new leader of the Missionaries of Charity. Although Mother Teresa had been trying to cut back on her duties for some time (because of her health problems), she stayed on in an advisory role to Sister Nirmala.

In April 1997 filming began on the movie "Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor" with actress Geraldine Chaplin playing the title role. The movie aired in the fall of 1997 on "The Family Channel" even though, after viewing the movie, Mother Teresa refused to endorse it. Mother Teresa celebrated her 87th birthday in August, and died shortly thereafter of a heart attack on September 5, 1997. The world grieved her loss and one mourner noted, "It was Mother herself who poor people respected. When they bury her, we will have lost something that cannot be replaced."

In appearance Mother Teresa was both tiny (only about five feet tall) and energetic. Her face was quite wrinkled, but her dark eyes commanded attention, radiating an energy and intelligence that shone without expressing nervousness or impatience. Many of her recruits came from people attracted by her own aura of sanctity, and she seemed little changed by the worldwide attention she received. Conservatives within the Catholic Church sometimes used her as a symbol of traditional religious values that they felt lacking in their churches. By popular consensus she was a saint for the times, and a spate of almost adoring books and articles started to canonize her in the 1980s and well into the 1990s. She herself tried to deflect all attention away from what she did to either the works of her group or to the god who was her inspiration. She continued to combine energetic administrative activities with a demanding life of prayer, and if she accepted opportunities to publicize her work they had little of the cult of personality about them.

In the wake of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Peace she received many other international honors, but she sometimes disconcerted humanitarian groups by expressing her horror at abortion or her own preference for prayer rather than politics. When asked what would happen to her group and work after her death, she told people that God would surely provide a successor - a person humbler and more faithful than she. The Missionaries of Charity, who had brothers as well as sisters by the mid-1980s, are guided by the constitution she wrote for them. They have their vivid memories of the love for the poor that created the phenomenon of Mother Teresa in the first place. So the final part of her story will be the lasting impact her memory has on the next generations of missionaries, as well as in the world as a whole.

Further Reading

A good sampling of Mother Teresa's own ideas was available in her own books, Life in the Spirit (1983); A Simple Path (1995); In My Own Words (1996); and No Greater Love (1997). The books contained reflections, meditations, and prayers that provided a good basis for judging Mother Teresa's spirituality. Of the constantly growing number of biographies and studies, Malcolm Muggeridge's Something Beautiful for God (1984) deserved special mention, because it was one of the first and best publicized treatments. Muggeridge made no effort to conceal his admiration. Other solid, if usually almost overly admiring, treatments included Eileen Egan, Such a Vision of the Street (1985); Desmond Doig, Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work (1976); Kathryn Spink, The Miracle of Love (1982); Edward Le Joly, Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1983); William Jay Jacobs, Mother Teresa: Helping the Poor (1991); Margaret Holland, Mother Teresa (1992); and Mildred Pond, Mother Teresa (1992).

See also Maclean's (March 24, 1997) and People (June 30, 1997). Information on Mother Teresa may also be accessed on the internet by doing a search of her name (August 20, 1997).

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

(born Aug. 27, 1910, Skopje, Maced., Ottoman Empire — died Sept. 5, 1997, Calcutta, India; beatified Oct. 19, 2003) Roman Catholic nun, founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. The daughter of a grocer, she became a nun and went to India as a young woman. After studying nursing, she moved to the slums of Calcutta (Kolkata); in 1948 she founded her order, which served the blind, the aged, the disabled, and the dying. In 1963 the Indian government awarded her the Padmashri ("Lord of the Lotus") for her services to the people of India, and in 1971 Pope Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. In 1979 she received the Nobel Prize for Peace. Although in her later years she suffered from a worsening heart condition, Mother Teresa continued to serve the poor and sick and also spoke out against divorce, contraception, and abortion. Her order included hundreds of centres in more than 90 countries, with some 4,000 nuns and hundreds of thousands of lay workers. She was succeeded by the Indian-born Sister Nirmala. The process to declare her a saint began within two years of her death, and Pope John Paul II issued a special dispensation to expedite the process. She was beatified on Oct. 19, 2003, reaching the ranks of the blessed in the shortest time in the church's history.

For more information on Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, visit Britannica.com.

Columbia Encyclopedia: Teresa, Mother, 1910–97, Roman Catholic missionary in India, winner of the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, b. Skopje (now in Macedonia) as Agnes Goxha Bojaxhiu. Of Albanian parentage, she went to India at 17, becoming a nun and teaching school in Calcutta (now Kolkata). In 1948 she left the convent and founded the Missionaries of Charity, which now operates schools, hospitals, orphanages, and food centers worldwide. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

Bibliography

See her writings in In My Own Words (1996, comp. by J. L. González-Balado) and her letters in Come Be My Light (2007, ed. by B. Kolodiejchuk).

History Dictionary: Mother Teresa (tuh-ree-suh, tuh-ray-zuh)

A Roman Catholic nun, born in Yugoslavia, who received the Nobel Prize for peace in 1979 for her humanitarian work among lepers and other dying poor of Calcutta.

Quotes By: Mother Teresa

Quotes:

　

"The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted."

　

"It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving."

　

"Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God --the rest will be given."

　

"To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it."

　

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."

　

"There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much."

Quotes by Mother Teresa supplied by Quotations Book.

 

Mother Teresa (born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu IPA: [ˈagnɛs gɔnˈʤa bɔˈjaʤiu]) (August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997) was a Roman Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. For over forty years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying in Kolkata (Calcutta), India.

As the Missionaries of Charity grew under Mother Teresa's leadership, they expanded their ministry to other countries. By the 1970s she had become internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary, and book, Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.^[2][3]

Early life

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born on 26 August, 1910, in Skopje, which is now the capital of the Republic of Macedonia.^[4] She was the youngest of the children of a family from Shkodër, Albania, born to Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu. Nikola was involved in politics and devoted to the Albanian Cause. After a political meeting he fell ill and died when Agnes was about eight years old.^[4] After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. According to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life.^[5] She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.^[6]

Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India.^[7] She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains.^[8] She took her first religious vows as a nun on 24 May, 1931. At that time she chose the name Teresa after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries.^[9] She took her solemn vows on 14 May, 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta.^[10][11]

Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta.^[12] A famine in 1943 brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and horror.^[13]

Missionaries of Charity

On September 10, 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while traveling to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith."^[14] She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton chira decorated with a blue border and then venturing out into the slums."^[15] Initially she started a school in Motijhil; soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving.^[16] Her efforts quickly caught the attention of Indian officials, including the Prime Minister, who expressed his appreciation.^[17]

Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. She wrote in her diary:

“
Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. 'You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,' the Tempter kept on saying ... Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come.^[18]
”

Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying in Kolkata (Calcutta).

Teresa received Vatican permission on October 7, 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity.^[19] Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta; today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, and charity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.^[20]

In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the City of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday).^[21] Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites.^[22] "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels — loved and wanted."^[22] Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace).^[23] The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food.

As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.^[24]

The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages, and leper houses all over India. Mother Teresa then expanded the order throughout the globe. Its first house outside India opened in Venezuela in 1965 with five sisters.^[25] Others followed in Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968; during the 1970s the order opened houses and foundations in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States.^[26]

Her philosophy and implementation have faced some criticism. While noting how little evidence Mother Teresa's critics were able to find against her, David Scott wrote that Mother Teresa limited herself to keeping people alive rather than tackling poverty itself.^[27] She has also been criticized for her view on suffering: According to an article in the Alberta Report, she felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus.^[28] The quality of care offered to terminally ill patients in the Homes for the Dying has been criticised in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, which reported poor living conditions, such as using cold baths for all patients, reusing hypodermic needles, and taking an anti-materialist approach that precluded the use of systematic diagnosis.^[29]

International charity

In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas.^[30] Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients.^[31]

When the walls of Eastern Europe collapsed, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work."

Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia.^[32][33][34] In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania.

By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries.^[35] Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York; by 1984 the order operated 19 establishments throughout the country.^[36]

The spending of the charity money received has been criticized by some. Christopher Hitchens and the Stern have said that money that was donated with the intention of it being spent on the keeping of the poor was spent on other projects instead. ^[37]

Deteriorating health and death

Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity. But the nuns of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order.

In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. On March 13, 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and died on September 5,1997, nine days after her 87th birthday.

The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalized with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil.^[38]

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.

Global recognition and awards

Reception in India and Asia

Mother Teresa was granted a state funeral by the Indian Government in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India.^[39] In tribute, Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that she was "a rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity."^[40] Mother Teresa had first been officially recognised in the region long before her death. In 1962, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government. That same year she received the Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, given for work in South or East Asia. The citation said that "the Board of Trustees recognizes her merciful cognizance of the abject poor of a foreign land, in whose service she has led a new congregation".^[41] She continued to receive major Indian rewards in successive decades including, in 1972, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding and, in 1980, India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.^[42]

Indian views on Mother Teresa were not uniformly favourable. Her critic Aroup Chatterjee, who was born and bred in Calcutta but lived in London, reports that "she was not a significant entity in Calcutta in her lifetime". Chatterjee blames Mother Teresa for promoting a negative image of his home city.^[43] Her presence and profile grated in parts of the Indian political world, as she often opposed the Hindu Right. The Bharatiya Janata Party clashed with her over the Christian Dalits, but praised her in death, sending a representative to her funeral. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, on the other hand, opposed the Government's decision to grant her a state funeral. Its secretary Giriraj Kishore said that "her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental" and accused her of favouring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying. But Parvathi Menon, writing the front page tribute for the Indian fortnightly Frontline, dismissed these charges as "patently false" and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta". Although praising her "selfless caring", energy and bravery, Menon was critical of Mother Teresa's public campaigning against abortion and that she claimed to be non-political when doing so.^[42] More recently, the Indian daily The Telegraph referred to her as "the Saint of the Gutters", also mentioning calls for "Rome to investigate whether she did anything to alleviate the condition of the poor or just took care of the sick and dying and needed them to further a sentimentally-moral cause".^[44]

Reception in the rest of the world

By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God, which was filmed by Malcolm Muggeridge and his 1971 book of the same title. Muggeridge was undergoing a spiritual journey of his own at the time.^[45] During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions, particularly the Home for the Dying, was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew. After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well lit. Muggeridge claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself.^[46] Others in the crew thought it was due to a new type of ultra-sensitive Kodak film.^[47] Muggeridge later converted to Catholicism.

President Ronald Reagan presents Mother Teresa with the Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony, 1985

Around this time, the Catholic world began to honor Mother Teresa publicly. In 1971, Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, commending her for her work with the poor, display of Christian charity and efforts for peace.^[48] She later received the Pacem in Terris Award (1976).^[49] Since her death, Mother Teresa has progressed rapidly along the steps towards sainthood, currently having reached the stage of having been beatified.

Mother Teresa was honored by both governments and civilian organizations. The United Kingdom and the United States each repeatedly granted awards, culminating in the Order of Merit in 1983, and honorary citizenship of the United States received on November 16, 1996. Mother Teresa's Albanian homeland granted her the Golden Honor of the Nation in 1994.^[42] Her acceptance of this and another honour granted by the Haitian government proved controversial. Mother Teresa attracted criticism, particularly from the left, for implicitly giving support to the Duvaliers, to corrupt businessmen such as Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell and even to mainstream politicians on the right wing of Western politics, such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. In Keating's case she wrote to the judge of his trial asking for clemency to be shown.^{[29] [42]}

Universities in both the West and in India granted her honorary degrees.^[42] Other civilian awards include the Balzan Prize for promoting humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples (1978),^[50] and the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975).^[51]

Mother Teresa received great attention from the media, such as Time Magazine.

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India,^[52] stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme in her Nobel Lecture, she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society - that poverty is so hurtable [sic] and so much, and I find that very difficult." More specifically, she singled out abortion as 'the greatest destroyer of peace in the world'. ^[53]

Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, for example, said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world."^[40] During her lifetime and after her death, Mother Teresa was consistently found by Gallup to be the single most widely admired person in the US, and in 1999 was ranked as the "most admired person of the 20th century" by a poll in the US. She out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.

Towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa attracted some negative attention in the Western media. The author Christopher Hitchens has been one of her most active critics in both the United Kingdom and the United States. He was commissioned to co-write and narrate the documentary Hell's Angel about her for Channel 4 after Aroup Chatterjee encouraged the making of such a program, although Chatterjee was unhappy with the "sensationalist approach" of the final product.^[43] Hitchens expanded his criticism in a 1995 book, The Missionary Position.^[54]

Chatterjee writes that while she was alive Mother Teresa and her official biographers refused to collaborate with his own investigations and that she failed to defend herself against critical coverage in the Western press. He gives as examples a report in The Guardian in Britain whose "stringent (and quite detailed) attack on conditions in her orphanages ... [include] charges of gross neglect and physical and emotional abuse", and another documentary Mother Teresa: Time for Change? broadcast in several European countries.^[43] Both Chatterjee and Hitchens have themselves been subject to criticism for their stance.

The German magazine Stern published a hostile article on the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. The medical press has also published criticism of her, arising from very different outlooks and priorities on patients' needs.^[29] Other critics include Tariq Ali, a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review, and the Irish-born investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre.^[54]

Spiritual life

Analyzing her deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart."^[55]

In his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI mentioned Teresa of Calcutta three times and he also used her life to clarify one of his main points of the encyclical. "In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service."^[56] Mother Teresa specified that "It is only by mental prayer and spiritual reading that we can cultivate the gift of prayer."^[57]

Although there was no direct connection between Mother Teresa's order and the Franciscan orders, she was known as a great admirer of St. Francis of Assisi.^[58] Accordingly, her influence and life show influences of Franciscan spirituality. The Sisters of Charity recite the peace prayer of St. Francis every morning during thanksgiving after Communion and many of the vows and emphasis of her ministry are similar.^[58] St. Francis emphasized poverty, chastity, obedience and submission to Christ. He also devoted much of his own life to service of the poor, especially lepers in the area where he lived.

Mother Teresa wrote numerous letters to her confessors and superiors over a 66-year period. She had asked that her letters be destroyed, concerned that "people will think more of me -- less of Jesus."^[59] However, despite this request, the correspondences have been compiled in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday).^[60][45] In one publicly released letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote, "Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

Many news outlets have referred to Mother Teresa's writings as an indication of a "crisis of faith." ^[61] However, others have drawn comparisons to the 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross, who coined the term the "dark night" of the soul to describe a particular stage in the growth of some spiritual masters.^[45] The Vatican has indicated that the letters would not affect her path to sainthood. ^[62] In fact, the book is edited by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator, the official responsible for gathering the evidence for her sanctification.^[45]

Influence in the world

The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests,^[63] and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers^[64] to combine the beauty of the vocation of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood. Today, over one million workers worldwide volunteer for the Missionaries of Charity.^{[citation needed]}

Miracle and beatification

Following Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the second step towards possible canonization. This process requires the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa. In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture. Monica Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor. Some of Besra's medical staff and, initially, Besra's husband insist that conventional medical treatment eradicated the tumor.^[65] Unless dispensed by the Pope, a second miracle is required for her to proceed to canonization.

Christopher Hitchens, a British-born American author, journalist and literary critic, was the only witness called by the Vatican to give evidence against Mother Teresa's beatification and canonization process, as the Vatican had abolished the traditional "devil's advocate" role that filled a similar purpose.^[66] Hitchens has written that Mother Teresa's own words on poverty proved that "her intention was not to help people", and he alleged that she lied to donors about the use of their contributions. “It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty,” says Hitchens. “She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, ‘I'm not a social worker. I don't do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church.’"^[67] In the process of examining Teresa's suitability for beatification and canonization, the Roman Curia (the Vatican) pored over a great deal of documentation of published and unpublished criticisms against her life and work. Vatican officials say Hitchens' allegations have been investigated by the agency charged with such matters, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and they found no obstacle to Mother Teresa's beatification. Due to the attacks she has received, some Catholic writers have called her a sign of contradiction.^[68]

Commemoration

Memorial plaque dedicated to Mother Teresa at a building in Václavské náměstí in Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Main article: Commemorations of Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa inspired a variety of commemorations. She has been memorialized through museums, been named patroness of various churches, and had various structures and roads named after her.

10th anniversary of her death

On September 5, 2007, Mother Teresa's feast day, Calcutta's Archbishop Lucas Sirkar said Mass for thousands of devotees to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa (attended by nuns and volunteers at Mother House, the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity).^[69]

Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 1869-1948)

Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 1869-1948)

• Born: 2 October 1869
• Birthplace: Porbandar, India
• Died: 30 January 1948 (assassination)
• Best Known As: Non-violent leader of Indian independence

Revered in India as the "Father of the Nation," Mohandas K. Gandhi is also a worldwide icon of non-violent political resistance. Gandhi was born in India and studied law in England, then spent 20 years defending the rights of immigrants in South Africa. He returned to India in 1914, eventually becoming the leader of the Indian National Congress. At the time, India was part of the British Empire, and Gandhi urged non-violence and civil disobedience as a means to independence. His public acts of defiance landed him in jail many times as the struggle continued through World War II. In 1947 he participated in the postwar negotiations with Britain that led to Indian independence. He was shot to death by a Hindu fanatic the next year. An advocate of simple living, Gandhi ate a vegetarian diet and made his own clothes; the spinning wheel became a symbol of his uncluttered lifestyle. His autobiography, The Story of My Experiments With Truth, was published in 1927. His birthday, October 2nd, is a national holiday in India.

Gandhi is often called Mahatma -- the Hindu term for "great soul"... His middle name was Karamchand... Gandhi wed Kasturba Makhanji in 1883, in an arranged marriage; he was 13 at the time. They had five children and remained married for nearly 61 years, until her death in 1944... Among his many famous quotes is the saying, "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind"... Gandhi was played by Ben Kingsley in the 1982 film Gandhi. The film won eight Academy Awards, including best film and best actor for Kingsley.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

(b. Porbandar, 2 Oct. 1869; d. Delhi 30 Jan. 1948) Indian; leader of Indian National Congress, religious leader Son of a Prime Minister of a princely state, Gandhi was educated in Gujarat and England, where he qualified as a barrister. On return to India he was unable to secure employment in the legal profession and then left for South Africa in 1883. In South Africa Gandhi was employed by a firm of Muslim lawyers in Pretoria and became involved in number of struggles against the authorities. During these agitations Gandhi perfected the technique of non-violent protest that he was to use later in India.
Gandhi returned to India in 1915. Immediately he joined in the task of building the Indian National Congress (Congress) as a mass movement. His simple style of a white loin-cloth, white shawl, and sandals appealed to rural masses who soon gave him the title "Mahatma" (great saint).
Gandhi's political philosophy revolved around three key concepts: satyagraha (non-violence), sawaraj (home rule), and sarvodaya (welfare of all). Whereas satyagraha was essentially a tactic of achieving political ends by non-violent means, sawaraj and sarvodaya sought to encourage — through social work, spinning of cotton, rural uplift, and social welfare — ideas of individual and collective improvement and regeneration. Such regeneration, Gandhi insisted, was necessary if India was to rediscover her enduring historical and religious self and throw off British rule.
In 1919 Gandhi persuaded the Congress to launch a Non-Cooperation Movement (1919 – 22) that soon attracted the support of the Muslim community. This movement snowballed into a country-wide agitation which took a violent turn with the Chauri Chaura incident (1922). Following this incident he suspended the movement and was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He was released in February 1924.
During the next five years Gandhi devoted himself to the "constructive programme" — social work aimed at uplift of the poor and building Muslim-Hindu unity. Following the Simon Commission (1927 – 30) and the Nehru Report (1928), he launched the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930 – 3) which began with the famous Dandi Marcha and the Salt satyagraha. This movement was suspended for a while as Gandhi participated in the Round Table Conference (1931) in London. During his visit to London he stayed with the poor in the East End. But as the conference failed to produce an outcome satisfactory to Congress, the agitation was resumed upon return to India. The failure of the Round Table Conference led to the announcement of the Communal Award (1932) by the British government which gave communal representation, including untouchable Hindus, in provincial legislatures. This award led Gandhi to undertake a fast that led to the Poona Pact (1932) by which untouchable leaders renounced separate representation for remaining within the Hindu fold.
Gandhi severed formal links with the Congress in 1934 but remained its guiding light. He moved to his ashram in Wardha and concentrated on the "constructive programme" until 1940 when he briefly resumed leadership of the Congress at a time when India had been declared to be at war. This declaration, made in 1939, was opposed by the Congress, which offered to support the war effort provided it was given a firm guarantee of independence. The rejection of such promise by the colonial government led the Congress to launch a Quit India Movement (1942). This national movement was ruthlessly suppressed and Gandhi was kept in detention at the Aga Khan Palace until 1944.
Between 1944 and 1945 Gandhi engaged in prolonged dialogue with M. A. Jinnha, leader of the Muslim League, for a political settlement that could accommodate both the Congress and the League. These discussions proved fruitless and, as the end of British rule loomed, Gandhi became increasingly sidelined in the discussions about the post-independence shape of India.
Gandhi's last major act as a national political leader was to fast for peace amidst growing sectarian conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Twice he fasted in Calcutta (1946 and 1947) to protest against the religious killing that was taking place. After partition in August 1947, Gandhi returned to Delhi to help restore harmony among Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi's activities had aroused much hostility among Hindu extremists. On 30 January 1948, Nathuram Godse, who was the editor of Hindu Mahasabah extremist weekly, shot Gandhi at point blank range while he was on his way to the evening prayer meeting. He died instantly.
Gandhi is revered in India as "the father of the nation". Since his death he has become the source of inspiration for non-violent political movements such as the civil rights movement in the USA and Northern Ireland. Gandhi's insistence that means were more important than the ends distinguished him from other great political leaders of the twentieth century, like Lenin and Mao, with whom he is often compared.
Critics of Gandhi have argued that his tactics unnecessarily delayed the departure of the British, precipitated the partition of India, and led to the Hinduization of Congress because of his over-emphasis on religion. His defence of caste especially annoyed the untouchable (outcastes) who were denied political independence due to astute political manœuvres. Few of Gandhi's ideas were put into practice by independent India.

Biography: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) was an Indian revolutionary religious leader who used his religious power for political and social reform. Although he held no governmental office, he was the prime mover in the struggle for independence of the world's second-largest nation.

Mohandas Gandhi was born on Oct. 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a seacoast town in the Kathiawar Peninsula north of Bombay. His wealthy family was of a Modh Bania subcaste of the Vaisya, or merchant, caste. He was the fourth child of Karamchand Gandhi, prime minister to the raja of three small city-states. Gandhi described his mother as a deeply religious woman who attended temple service daily. Mohandas was a small, quiet boy who disliked sports and was only an average student. At the age of 13 he was married without foreknowledge of the event to a girl of his own age, Kasturbai. The childhood ambition of Mohandas was to study medicine, but as this was considered defiling to his caste, his father prevailed on him to study law instead.

Gandhi went to England to study in September 1888. Before leaving India, he promised his mother he would abstain from eating meat, and he became a more zealous vegetarian abroad than he had been at home. In England he studied law but never became completely adjusted to the English way of life. He was called to the bar on June 10, 1891, and sailed for Bombay. He attempted unsuccessfully to practice law in Rajkot and Bombay, then for a brief period served as lawyer for the prince of Porbandar.

South Africa: The Beginning

In 1893 Gandhi accepted an offer from a firm of Moslems to represent them legally in Pretoria, capital of Transvaal in the Union of South Africa. While traveling in a first-class train compartment in Natal, Gandhi was asked by a white man to leave. He got off the train and spent the night in a train station meditating. He decided then to work to eradicate race prejudice. This cause kept him in South Africa not a year as he had anticipated but until 1914. Shortly after the train incident he called his first meeting of Indians in Pretoria and attacked racial discrimination by whites. This launched his campaign for improved legal status for Indians in South Africa, who at that time suffered the same discrimination as blacks.

In 1896 Gandhi returned to India to take his wife and sons to Africa. While in India he informed his countrymen of the plight of Indians in Africa. News of his speeches filtered back to Africa, and when Gandhi reached South Africa, an angry mob stoned and attempted to lynch him.

Spiritual Development

Gandhi began to do menial chores for unpaid boarders of the exterior castes and to encourage his wife to do the same. He decided to buy a farm in Natal and return to a simpler way of life. He began to fast. In 1906 he became celibate after having fathered four sons, and he extolled Brahmacharya (vow of celibacy) as a means of birth control and spiritual purity. He also began to live a life of voluntary poverty.

During this period Gandhi developed the concept of Satyagraha, or soul force. Gandhi wrote: "Satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience, but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of truth." Truth was throughout his life Gandhi's chief concern, as reflected in the subtitle of his Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Truth for Gandhi was not an abstract absolute but a principle which had to be discovered experimentally in each situation. Gandhi also developed a basic concern for the means used to achieve a goal, for he felt the means necessarily shaped the ends.

In 1907 Gandhi urged all Indians in South Africa to defy a law requiring registration and fingerprinting of all Indians. For this activity Gandhi was imprisoned for 2 months but released when he agreed to voluntary registration. During Gandhi's second stay in jail he read Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience," which left a deep impression on him. He was influenced also by his correspondence with Leo Tolstoy in 1909-1910 and by John Ruskin's Unto This Last.

Gandhi decided to create a cooperative commonwealth for civil resisters. He called it the Tolstoy Farm. By this time Gandhi had abandoned Western dress for Indian garb. Two of his final legal achievements in Africa were a law declaring Indian marriages (rather than only Christian) valid, and abolition of a tax on former indentured Indian labor. Gandhi regarded his work in South Africa as completed.

By the time Gandhi returned to India, in January 1915, he had become known as "Mahatmaji," or Mahatma. Some believe this title, often translated as "great soul," was given him by the poet Rabindranath Tagore. Others believe the prominent Indian activist Nautamlal Bhagvanji Mehta first gave him this honorific title. Gandhi knew how to reach the masses and insisted on their resistance and spiritual regeneration. He spoke of a new, free Indian individual. He told Indians that India's shackles were self-made. In 1914 Gandhi raised an ambulance corps of Indian students to help the British army, as he had done during the Boer War.

Disobedience and Return to Old Values

The repressive Rowlatt Acts of 1919 caused Gandhi to call a general hartal, or strike, throughout the country, but he called it off when violence occurred against Englishmen. Following the Amritsar Massacre of some 400 Indians, Gandhi responded with noncooperation with British courts, stores, and schools. The government followed with the announcement of the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms.

Another issue for Gandhi was man versus machine. This was the principle behind the Khadi movement, behind Gandhi's urging that Indians spin their own clothing rather than buy British goods. Spinning would create employment during the many annual idle months for millions of Indian peasants. He cherished the ideal of economic independence for the village. He identified industrialization with materialism and felt it was a dehumanizing menace to man's growth. The individual, not economic productivity, was the central concern. Gandhi never lost his faith in the inherent goodness of human nature.

In 1921 the Congress party, a coalition of various nationalist groups, again voted for a nonviolent disobedience campaign. Gandhi had come "reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically." But freedom for India was not simply a political matter, for "the instant India is purified India becomes free, and not a moment earlier." In 1922 Gandhi was tried and sentenced to 6 years in prison, but he was released 2 years later for an emergency appendectomy. This was the last time the British government tried Gandhi.

Fasting and the Protest March

Another technique Gandhi used increasingly was the fast. He firmly believed that Hindu-Moslem unity was natural and undertook a 21-day fast to bring the two communities together. He also fasted in a strike of mill workers in Ahmedabad.

Gandhi also developed the protest march. A British law taxed all salt used by Indians, a severe hardship on the peasant. In 1930 Gandhi began a famous 24-day "salt march" to the sea. Several thousand marchers walked 241 miles to the coast, where Gandhi picked up a handful of salt in defiance of the government. This signaled a nationwide movement in which peasants produced salt illegally and Congress volunteers sold contraband salt in the cities. Nationalists gained faith that they could shrug off foreign rule. The march also made the British more aware that they were subjugating India.

Gandhi was not opposed to compromise. In 1931 he negotiated with the viceroy, Lord Irwin, a pact whereby civil disobedience was to be canceled, prisoners released, salt manufacture permitted on the coast, and Congress would attend the Second Round Table Conference in London. Gandhi attended as the only Congress representative, but Churchill refused to see him, referring to Gandhi as a "half-naked fakir."

Another cause Gandhi espoused was improving the status of "untouchables," members of the exterior castes. Gandhi called them Harijans, or children of God. On Sept. 20, 1932, Gandhi began a fast to the death for the Harijans, opposing a British plan for a separate electorate for them. In this action Gandhi confronted Harijan leader Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, who favored separate electorates as a political guarantee of improved status. As a result of Gandhi's fast, some temples were opened to exterior castes for the first time in history. Following the marriage of one of Gandhi's sons to a woman of another caste, Gandhi came to approve only intercaste marriages.

Gandhi devoted the years 1934 through 1939 to promotion of spinning, basic education, and Hindi as the national language. During these years Gandhi worked closely with Jawaharlal Nehru in the Congress Working Committee, but there were also differences between the two. Nehru and others came to view the Mahatma's ideas on economics as anachronistic. Nevertheless, Gandhi designated Nehru his successor, saying, "I know this, that when I am gone he will speak my language."

England's entry into World War II brought India in without consultation. Because Britain had made no political concessions satisfactory to nationalist leaders, Gandhi in August 1942 proposed noncooperation, and Congress passed the "Quit India" resolution. Gandhi, Nehru, and other Congress leaders were imprisoned, touching off violence throughout India. When the British attempted to place the blame on Gandhi, he fasted 3 weeks in jail. He contracted malaria in prison and was released on May 6, 1944. He had spent a total of nearly 6 years in jail.

When Gandhi emerged from prison, he sought to avert creation of a separate Moslem state of Pakistan which Muhammad Ali Jinnah was demanding. A British Cabinet mission to India in March 1946 advised against partition and proposed instead a united India with a federal parliament. In August, Viceroy Wavell authorized Nehru to form a Cabinet. Gandhi suggested that Jinnah be offered the post of prime minister or defense minister. Jinnah refused and instead declared August 16 "Direct Action Day." On that day and several days following, communal killings left 5,000 dead and 15,000 wounded in Calcutta alone. Violence spread through the country.

Aggrieved, Gandhi went to Bengal, saying, "I am not going to leave Bengal until the last embers of trouble are stamped out," but while he was in Calcutta 4,500 more were killed in Bihar. Gandhi, now 77, warned that he would fast to death unless Biharis reformed. He went to Noakhali, a heavily Moslem city in Bengal, where he said "Do or die" would be put to the test. Either Hindus and Moslems would learn to live together or he would die in the attempt. The situation there calmed, but rioting continued elsewhere.

Drive for Independence

In March 1947 the last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, arrived in India charged with taking Britain out of India by June 1948. The Congress party by this time had agreed to partition, since the only alternative appeared to be continuation of British rule.

Gandhi, despairing because his nation was not responding to his plea for peace and brotherhood, refused to participate in the independence celebrations on Aug. 15, 1947. On Sept. 1, 1947, after an angry Hindu mob broke into the home where he was staying in Calcutta, Gandhi began to fast, "to end only if and when sanity returns to Calcutta." Both Hindu and Moslem leaders promised that there would be no more killings, and Gandhi ended his fast.

On Jan. 13, 1948, Gandhi began his last fast in Delhi, praying for Indian unity. On January 30, as he was attending prayers, he was shot and killed by Nathuram Godse, a 35-year old editor of a Hindu Mahasabha extremist weekly in Poona.

Further Reading

Gandhi's Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (2 vols., 1927-1929) covers the period to 1921. Of the numerous biographies, D. G. Tendulkar, Mahatma (8 vols., 1951-1954; rev. ed. 1960-1963), is most voluminous and utilizes Gandhi's own writings. Other treatments include Romain Rolland, Mahatma Gandhi (trans. 1924); C. F. Andrews, ed., Mahatma Gandhi: His Own Story and Mahatma Gandhi at Work (both 1931); Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1950) and Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (1954); G. D. Birla, In the Shadow of the Mahatma: A Personal Memoir (1953); Rajendra Prasad, At the Feet of Mahatma Gandhi (1955); Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase (2 vols., 1956-1958); and Martin Lewis, ed., Gandhi: Maker of Modern India (1965). Among the more provocative recent studies are Joan V. Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (1958; rev. ed. 1965); Indira Rothermund, The Philosophy of Restraint: Mahatma Gandhi's Strategy and Indian Politics (1963); Erik H. Erikson, Gandhi's Truth: On the Origin of Militant Nonviolence (1969); and Penderel Moon, Gandhi and Modern India (1969).

Political Dictionary: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

(1869-1948) Arguably the most influential figure of modern Indian politics, Gandhi became the symbol of Indian nationalism and was given the status of the Father of the Nation after India achieved independence in 1947. Gandhi's most significant contribution to Indian politics was perhaps his belief in the strength of ordinary people. Gandhi was able to mobilize the Indian people primarily because the demands his politics made upon the individual were not extraordinary. His insistence on non-violence (ahimsa) which underpinned his campaigns of civil disobedience (satyagrah) allowed people to participate in national politics in many different ways—none of which necessarily required a break with people's daily lives. Gandhi was able to create a national mood, which cut across castes, classes, religions, and regional loyalties by rejecting the boundaries that these created as irrelevant to the moral Truth that he made central to his discourse. This at times led him to limit the more radical aspects of nationalist aspirations of some within the Congress and outside it. Another distinguishing feature of Gandhi's philosophy, one that was less influential, was his opposition to Western modernization as a model for India's development. He looked much more to India's villages and self-sufficient rural communities for inspiration in the economic sphere. Gandhi died on 30 January 1948, shot by a Hindu nationalist militant.

— Shirin Rai

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

(born Oct. 2, 1869, Porbandar, India — died Jan. 30, 1948, Delhi) Preeminent leader of Indian nationalism and prophet of nonviolence in the 20th century. Gandhi grew up in a home steeped in religion, and he took for granted religious tolerance and the doctrine of ahimsa (noninjury to all living beings). He studied law in England but seemed too diffident to become a successful lawyer. He took a job with an Indian firm in South Africa. There he became an effective advocate for Indian rights. In 1906 he first put into action satyagraha, his technique of nonviolent resistance. His success in South Africa gave him an international reputation, and in 1915 he returned to India and within a few years became the leader of a nationwide struggle for Indian home rule. By 1920 Gandhi commanded influence hitherto unattained by any political leader in India. He refashioned the Indian National Congress into an effective political instrument of Indian nationalism and undertook major campaigns of nonviolent resistance in 1920 – 22, 1930 – 34 (including his momentous march to the sea to collect salt to protest a government monopoly), and 1940 – 42. In the 1930s he also campaigned to end discrimination against India's untouchable class — whom he renamed Harijans (literally "children of God") — and concentrated on educating rural India and promoting cottage industry. India achieved dominion status in 1947, but the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan was a great disappointment to Gandhi, who had long worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. In September 1947 he ended rioting in Calcutta (Kolkata) by fasting. Known as the Mahatma ("Great-Souled"), Gandhi had won the affection and loyalty of millions. In January 1948 he was shot and killed by a young Hindu fanatic.

For more information on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, visit Britannica.com.

British History: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-1948), the ‘Mahatma’ or Great Soul. Born in an Indian princely state, he read for the bar in London. In 1893 he took up practice in Natal but rapidly turned to politics. He unified opposition among the disparate Indian community to the passing of racially discriminatory laws and pioneered the techniques of satyagraha (non-violent resistance). From the 1920s to early 1940s he led a series of passive resistance campaigns in pursuit of Swaraj (self-rule), which redefined the character of Indian nationalism. He sought tolerance between Hindus and Muslims and the eradication of caste untouchability. He refused to celebrate independence in 1947 and rejected the Pakistan partition. In January 1948 he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic for his pro-Muslim sympathies.

Philosophy Dictionary: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-1948) Inspirational Indian political and spiritual leader. Originally trained as a lawyer, Gandhi left India for South Africa in 1893. His philosophy of non-violence, celibacy, and absence of personal possessions, was informed by wide reading, including such opponents of modernity as Ruskin, Thoreau, and Tolstoy. In 1907 he organized his first satyagraha (holding to the truth), a campaign of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance. Returning to India in 1915 he led many such campaigns, both in protest against particular injustices and in order to secure Indian independence from the British Empire. His programme included the revival of cottage industries, especially the production of handwoven cloth; and the abolition of untouchability. He was shot by a Hindu fanatic, while holding a prayer and reconciliation meeting with the aim of stopping the violence between Hindus and Muslims that followed upon Indian independence. The title Mahatma commonly given to him means ‘great souled’.

Columbia Encyclopedia: Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (mōhän'dəs kŭ'rəmchŭnd' gän'dē) , 1869–1948, Indian political and spiritual leader, b. Porbandar.

In South Africa

Educated in India and in London, he was admitted to the English bar in 1889 and practiced law unsuccessfully in India for two years. In 1893 he went to South Africa, where he was later joined by his wife and children. There he became a successful lawyer and leader of the Indian community and involved himself in the fight to end discrimination against the country's Indian minority. In South Africa he read widely, drawing inspiration from such sources as the Bhagavad-Gita, John Ruskin, Leo Tolstoy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau, and his personal philosophy underwent significant changes. He abandoned (c.1905) Western ways and thereafter lived abstemiously (including celibacy); this became symbolized in his eschewal of material possessions and his dress of loincloth and shawl. While in South Africa he organized (1907) his first satyagraha [holding to the truth], a campaign of civil disobedience expressed in nonviolent resistance to what he regarded as unjust laws. So successful were his activities that he secured (1914) an agreement from the South African government that promised the alleviation of anti-Indian discrimination.

Return to India

He returned (1915) to India with a stature equal to that of the nationalist leaders Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Gandhi actively supported the British in World War I in the hope of hastening India's freedom, but he also led agrarian and labor reform demonstrations that embarrassed the British. The Amritsar massacre of 1919 stirred Indian nationalist consciousness, and Gandhi organized several satyagraha campaigns. He discontinued them when, against his wishes, violent disorder ensued.

His program included a free, united India; the revival of cottage industries, especially of spinning and the production of handwoven cloth (khaddar); and the abolition of untouchability (see caste). These ideas were widely and vigorously espoused, although they also met considerable opposition from some Indians. The title Mahatma [great soul] reflected personal prestige so high that he could unify the diverse elements of the organization of the nationalist movement, the Indian National Congress, which he dominated from the early 1920s.

In 1930, in protest against the government's salt tax, he led the famous 200-mi (320-km) march to extract salt from the sea. For this he was imprisoned but was released in 1931 to attend the London Round Table Conference on India as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. When the Congress refused to embrace his program in its entirety, Gandhi withdrew (1934), but his influence was such that Jawaharlal Nehru, his protégé, was named leader of the organization.

Indian Independence

In 1942, after rejection of his offer to cooperate with Great Britain in World War II if the British would grant immediate independence to India, Gandhi called for satyagraha and launched the Quit India movement. He was then interned until 1944. Gandhi was a major figure in the postwar conferences with the viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, and Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah that led to India's independence and the carving out of a separate Muslim state (Pakistan), although Gandhi vigorously opposed the partition.

When violence broke out between Hindus and Muslims, Gandhi resorted to fasts and tours of disturbed areas to check it. On Jan. 30, 1948, while holding a prayer and pacification meeting at New Delhi, he was fatally shot by a Hindu fanatic who was angered by Gandhi's solicitude for the Muslims. After his death his methods of nonviolent civil disobedience were adopted by protagonists of civil rights in the United States and by many protest movements throughout the world.

Bibliography

See his autobiography (tr. 1927, repr. 1966); his collected works (50 vol., 1958–72); selected writings, ed. by R. Duncan (1972); R. N. Iyer, ed., The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (3 vol., 1986–87) and The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (1991) ; biographies by D. G. Tendulkar (8 vol., 1951–54), B. R. Nanda (1958, repr. 1989), L. Fisher (1959), G. Ashe (1969), and S. Wolpert (2001); studies by J. V. Bondurant (rev. ed. 1965), E. Erikson (1969), J. M. Brown (1972), and A. von Tunzelmann (2007).

History Dictionary: Gandhi, Mahatma (muh-haht-muh gahn-dee)

A political figure of the twentieth century in India; the leader of India's drive for independence from Britain. Gandhi used methods of passive resistance and nonviolent disobedience, such as boycotts and hunger strikes, to influence British rulers. He was assassinated in 1948, just after India secured its independence. The title mahatma means “great soul.”

Quotes By: Mahatma Gandhi

Quotes:
"The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within."

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS."

"Must I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up."

"Faith must be enforced by reason. When faith becomes blind it dies."

"Non-violence is the article of faith."

"Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into."

Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi supplied by Quotations Book.

Wikipedia: Mahatma Gandhi

"Gandhi" redirects here. For other uses, see Gandhi (disambiguation).

Mohandas Gandhi

October 2 1869(1869--) – January 30 1948 (aged 78)

India's "Father of the Nation"

Alternate name:
Mahatma Gandhi

Date of birth:
October 2 1869(1869--)

Place of birth:
Porbandar, Gujarat, British India

Date of death:
January 30 1948 (aged 78)

Place of death:
New Delhi, India

Movement:
Indian independence movement

Major organizations:
Indian National Congress

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Gujarati: મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી, IAST: mohandās karamcand gāndhī, IPA: /moɦənd̪as kərəmtʃənd̪ gand̪ʱi/ (October 2 1869 – January 30, 1948) was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of Satyagraha—the resistance of tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known in India and across the world as Mahatma Gandhi (IPA: /mə'hɑt.mə 'gɑn.di/^[1]) (Sanskrit: महात्मा mahātmā – "Great Soul") and as Bapu (Gujarati: બાપુ bāpu – "Father"). In India, he is officially accorded the honour of Father of the Nation and October 2nd, his birthday, is commemorated each year as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday. On 15 June 2007, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution declaring October 2 to be the "International Day of Non-Violence."^[2][3]

As a British-educated lawyer, Gandhi first employed his ideas of peaceful civil disobedience in the Indian community's struggle for civil rights in South Africa. Upon his return to India, he organized poor farmers and labourers to protest against oppressive taxation and widespread discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for the alleviation of poverty, for the liberation of women, for brotherhood amongst differing religions and ethnicities, for an end to untouchability and caste discrimination, and for the economic self-sufficiency of the nation, but above all for Swaraj—the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led Indians in the disobedience of the salt tax on the 400 kilometre (248 miles) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and in an open call for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years on numerous occasions in both South Africa and India.

Gandhi practised and advocated non-violence and truth, even in the most extreme situations. A student of Hindu philosophy, he lived simply, organizing an ashram that was self-sufficient in its needs. Making his own clothes—the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl woven with a charkha—he lived on a simple vegetarian diet. He used rigorous fasts, for long periods, for both self-purification and protest.

Early life

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi^[4] was born into the Hindu Modh family in Porbandar, in 1869. He was the son of Karamchand Gandhi, the diwan (Prime Minister) of Porbandar, and Putlibai, Karamchand's fourth wife, a Hindu of the Pranami Vaishnava order. Karamchand's first two wives, who each bore him a daughter, died from unknown reasons (rumored to be in childbirth). Living with a devout mother and surrounded by the Jain influences of Gujarat, Gandhi learned from an early age the tenets of non-injury to living beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance between members of various creeds and sects. He was born into the vaishya, or business, caste.

Gandhi and his wife Kasturba (1902)

In May 1883, at the age of 13, Gandhi was married through his parents' arrangements to Kasturba Makhanji (also spelled "Kasturbai" or known as "Ba"). They had four sons: Harilal Gandhi, born in 1888; Manilal Gandhi, born in 1892; Ramdas Gandhi, born in 1897; and Devdas Gandhi, born in 1900. Gandhi was a mediocre student in his youth at Porbandar and later Rajkot. He barely passed the matriculation exam for Samaldas College at Bhavanagar, Gujarat. He was also unhappy at the college, because his family wanted him to become a barrister.

At the age of 18 on September 4 1888, Gandhi went to University College London to train as a barrister. His time in London, the Imperial capital, was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother in the presence of the Jain monk Becharji, upon leaving India, to observe the Hindu precepts of abstinence from meat, alcohol, and promiscuity. Although Gandhi experimented with adopting "English" customs—taking dancing lessons for example—he could not stomach his landlady's mutton and cabbage. She pointed him towards one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. Rather than simply go along with his mother's wishes, he read about, and intellectually embraced vegetarianism. He joined the Vegetarian Society, was elected to its executive committee, and founded a local chapter. He later credited this with giving him valuable experience in organizing institutions. Some of the vegetarians he met were members of the Theosophical Society, which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of Buddhist and Hindu Brahmanistic literature. They encouraged Gandhi to read the Bhagavad Gita. Not having shown a particular interest in religion before, he read works of and about Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and other religions. He returned to India after being called to the bar of England and Wales by Inner Temple, but had limited success establishing a law practice in Bombay. Later, after applying and being turned down for a part-time job as a high school teacher, he ended up returning to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but was forced to close down that business as well when he ran afoul of a British officer. In his autobiography, he describes this incident as a kind of unsuccessful lobbying attempt on behalf of his older brother. It was in this climate that (in 1893) he accepted a year-long contract from an Indian firm to a post in Natal, South Africa.

When back in London in 1895, he happened to meet Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain, the Radical-turned-ultra-Tory, whose son Neville became Prime Minister in the 1930s and helped suppress Gandhi. Chamberlain Snr. agreed that the treatment of Indians was barbaric but appeared unwilling to push through any legislation about this however.

Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914)

Main article: Gandhi's work in South Africa

Gandhi in South Africa (1895)

South Africa changed Gandhi dramatically, as he faced the discrimination commonly directed at blacks and Indians. One day in court at Durban, the magistrate asked him to remove his turban. Gandhi refused and stormed out of the courtroom. He was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg, after refusing to move from the first class to a third class coach while holding a valid first class ticket. Traveling further on by stagecoach, he was beaten by a driver for refusing to travel on the foot board to make room for a European passenger. He suffered other hardships on the journey as well, including being barred from many hotels. These incidents have been acknowledged by several biographers as a turning point in his life, explaining his later social activism. It was through witnessing firsthand the racism, prejudice and injustice against Indians in South Africa that Gandhi started to question his people's status, and his own place in society.

Gandhi extended his original period of stay in South Africa to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote. Though unable to halt the bill's passage, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He founded the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, and through this organization, he molded the Indian community of South Africa into a homogeneous political force. In January 1897, when Gandhi returned from a brief trip to India, a white mob attacked and tried to lynch him.[1] In an early indication of the personal values that would shape his later campaigns, he refused to press charges against any member of the mob, stating it was one of his principles not to seek redress for a personal wrong in a court of law.

At the onset of the South African War, Gandhi argued that Indians must support the war effort in order to legitimize their claims to full citizenship, organizing a volunteer ambulance corps of 300 free Indians and 800 indentured labourers called the Indian Ambulance Corps, one of the few medical units to serve wounded black South Africans. In 1906, the Transvaal government promulgated a new Act compelling registration of the colony's Indian population. At a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg on September 11th that year, Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or non-violent protest, for the first time, calling on his fellow Indians to defy the new law and suffer the punishments for doing so, rather than resist through violent means. This plan was adopted, leading to a seven-year struggle in which thousands of Indians were jailed (including Gandhi), flogged, or even shot, for striking, refusing to register, burning their registration cards, or engaging in other forms of non-violent resistance. While the government was successful in repressing the Indian protesters, the public outcry stemming from the harsh methods employed by the South African government in the face of peaceful Indian protesters finally forced South African General Jan Christiaan Smuts to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi. Gandhi's ideas took shape and the concept of Satyagraha matured during this struggle.

Struggle for Indian Independence (1916–1945)

See also: Indian Independence Movement

He spoke at the conventions of the Indian National Congress, but was primarily introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a respected leader of the Congress Party at the time.

Champaran and Kheda

Main article: Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha

Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the Kheda and Champaran satyagrahas.

Gandhi's first major achievements came in 1918 with the Champaran agitation and Kheda Satyagraha, although in the latter it was indigo and other cash crops instead of the food crops necessary for their survival. Suppressed by the militias of the landlords (mostly British), they were given measly compensation, leaving them mired in extreme poverty. The villages were kept extremely dirty and unhygienic; and alcoholism, untouchability and purdah were rampant. Now in the throes of a devastating famine, the British levied an oppressive tax which they insisted on increasing. The situation was desperate. In Kheda in Gujarat, the problem was the same. Gandhi established an ashram there, organizing scores of his veteran supporters and fresh volunteers from the region. He organized a detailed study and survey of the villages, accounting for the atrocities and terrible episodes of suffering, including the general state of degenerate living. Building on the confidence of villagers, he began leading the clean-up of villages, building of schools and hospitals and encouraging the village leadership to undo and condemn many social evils, as accounted above.

But his main impact came when he was arrested by police on the charge of creating unrest and was ordered to leave the province. Hundreds of thousands of people protested and rallied outside the jail, police stations and courts demanding his release, which the court reluctantly granted. Gandhi led organized protests and strikes against the landlords, who with the guidance of the British government, signed an agreement granting the poor farmers of the region more compensation and control over farming, and cancellation of revenue hikes and its collection until the famine ended. It was during this agitation, that Gandhi was addressed by the people as Bapu (Father) and Mahatma (Great Soul). In Kheda, Sardar Patel represented the farmers in negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection and released all the prisoners. As a result, Gandhi's fame spread all over the nation.

Non-cooperation

Main article: Non-cooperation movement

Non-cooperation and peaceful resistance were Gandhi's "weapons" in the fight against injustice. In Punjab, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of civilians by British troops caused deep trauma to the nation, leading to increased public anger and acts of violence. Gandhi criticized both the actions of the British Raj and the retaliatory violence of Indians. He authored the resolution offering condolences to British civilian victims and condemning the riots, which after initial opposition in the party, was accepted following Gandhi's emotional speech advocating his principle that all violence was evil and could not be justified.^[5] But it was after the massacre and subsequent violence that Gandhi's mind focused upon obtaining complete self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, maturing soon into Swaraj or complete individual, spiritual, political independence.

Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhi's home in Gujarat

In December 1921, Gandhi was invested with executive authority on behalf of the Indian National Congress. Under his leadership, the Congress was reorganized with a new constitution, with the goal of Swaraj. Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee. A hierarchy of committees was set up to improve discipline, transforming the party from an elite organization to one of mass national appeal. Gandhi expanded his non-violence platform to include the swadeshi policy – the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. Linked to this was his advocacy that khadi (homespun cloth) be worn by all Indians instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi exhorted Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning khadi in support of the independence movement.^[6] This was a strategy to inculcate discipline and dedication to weed out the unwilling and ambitious, and to include women in the movement at a time when many thought that such activities were not respectable activities for women. In addition to boycotting British products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions and law courts, to resign from government employment, and to forsake British titles and honours.

"Non-cooperation" enjoyed wide-spread appeal and success, increasing excitement and participation from all strata of Indian society. Yet, just as the movement reached its apex, it ended abruptly as a result of a violent clash in the town of Chauri Chaura, Uttar Pradesh, in February 1922. Fearing that the movement was about to take a turn towards violence, and convinced that this would be the undoing of all his work, Gandhi called off the campaign of mass civil disobedience.^[7] Gandhi was arrested on March 10, 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years imprisonment. Beginning on March 18, 1922, he only served about two years of the sentence, being released in February 1924 after an operation for appendicitis.

Without Gandhi's uniting personality, the Indian National Congress began to splinter during his years in prison, splitting into two factions, one led by Chitta Ranjan Das and Motilal Nehru favouring party participation in the legislatures, and the other led by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, opposing this move. Furthermore, cooperation among Hindus and Muslims, which had been strong at the height of the non-violence campaign, was breaking down. Gandhi attempted to bridge these differences through many means, including a three-week fast in the autumn of 1924, but with limited success.^[8]

Swaraj and the Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)

Main article: Salt Satyagraha

Gandhi at Dandi, April 5, 1930, at the end of the Salt March.

Gandhi stayed out of the limelight for most of the 1920s, preferring to resolve the wedge between the Swaraj Party and the Indian National Congress, and expanding initiatives against untouchability, alcoholism, ignorance and poverty. He returned to the fore in 1928. The year before, the British government had appointed a new constitutional reform commission under Sir John Simon, with not a single Indian in its ranks. The result was a boycott of the commission by Indian political parties. Gandhi pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominion status or face a new campaign of non-violence with complete independence for the country as its goal. Gandhi had not only moderated the views of younger men like Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru, who sought a demand for immediate independence, but also modified his own call to a one year wait, instead of two.^[9] The British did not respond. On December 31 1929, the flag of India was unfurled in Lahore. January 26 1930 was celebrated by the Indian National Congress, meeting in Lahore, as India's Independence Day. This day was commemorated by almost every other Indian organization. Making good on his word, he launched a new satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930, highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from March 12 to April 6, marching 400 kilometres (248 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself. Thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British rule; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.

At 10 Downing St., 1931

The government, represented by Lord Edward Irwin, decided to negotiate with Gandhi. The Gandhi–Irwin Pact was signed in March 1931. The British Government agreed to set all political prisoners free in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. Furthermore, Gandhi was invited to attend the Round Table Conference in London as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The conference was a disappointment to Gandhi and the nationalists, as it focused on the Indian princes and Indian minorities rather than the transfer of power. Furthermore, Lord Irwin's successor, Lord Willingdon, embarked on a new campaign of repression against the nationalists. Gandhi was again arrested, and the government attempted to destroy his influence by completely isolating him from his followers. This tactic was not successful. In 1932, through the campaigning of the Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar, the government granted untouchables separate electorates under the new constitution. In protest, Gandhi embarked on a six-day fast in September 1932, successfully forcing the government to adopt a more equitable arrangement via negotiations mediated by the Dalit cricketer turned political leader Palwankar Baloo. This was the start of a new campaign by Gandhi to improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he named Harijans, the children of God. On May 8 1933 Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification to help the Harijan movement.^[10]

In the summer of 1934, three unsuccessful attempts were made on his life.

When the Congress Party chose to contest elections and accept power under the Federation scheme, Gandhi decided to resign from party membership. He did not disagree with the party's move, but felt that if he resigned, his popularity with Indians would cease to stifle the party's membership, that actually varied from communists, socialists, trade unionists, students, religious conservatives, to those with pro-business convictions. Gandhi also did not want to prove a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj.^[11]

Gandhi returned to the head in 1936, with the Nehru presidency and the Lucknow session of the Congress. Although Gandhi desired a total focus on the task of winning independence and not speculation about India's future, he did not restrain the Congress from adopting socialism as its goal. Gandhi had a clash with Subhas Bose, who had been elected to the presidency in 1938. Gandhi's main points of contention with Bose were his lack of commitment to democracy, and lack of faith in non-violence. Bose won his second term despite Gandhi's criticism, but left the Congress when the All-India leaders resigned en masse in protest against his abandonment of the principles introduced by Gandhi.^[12]

World War II and Quit India

Main article: Quit India Movement

Mahadev Desai (left) reading out a letter to Gandhi from the viceroy at Birla House, Mumbai, April 7, 1939

World War II broke out in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Initially, Gandhi had favored offering "non-violent moral support" to the British effort, but other Congressional leaders were offended by the unilateral inclusion of India into the war, without consultation of the people's representatives. All Congressmen elected to resign from office en masse.^[13] After lengthy deliberations, Gandhi declared that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom, while that freedom was denied to India itself. As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, drafting a resolution calling for the British to Quit India. This was Gandhi's and the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from Indian shores.^[14]

Jawaharlal Nehru sitting next to Gandhi at the AICC General Session, 1942

Gandhi was criticized by some Congress party members and other Indian political groups, both pro-British and anti-British. Some felt that opposing Britain in its life or death struggle was immoral, and others felt that Gandhi wasn't doing enough. Quit India became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle, with mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale.^[15] Thousands of freedom fighters were killed or injured by police gunfire, and hundreds of thousands were arrested. Gandhi and his supporters made it clear they would not support the war effort unless India were granted immediate independence. He even clarified that this time the movement would not be stopped if individual acts of violence were committed, saying that the "ordered anarchy" around him was "worse than real anarchy." He called on all Congressmen and Indians to maintain discipline via ahimsa, and Karo Ya Maro ("Do or Die") in the cause of ultimate freedom.

Gandhi's handwriting, on a note preserved at Sabarmati Ashram

Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were arrested in Bombay by the British on August 9, 1942. Gandhi was held for two years in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. It was here that Gandhi suffered two terrible blows in his personal life. His 42-year old secretary Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack 6 days later and his wife Kasturba died after 18 months imprisonment in February 1944; six weeks later Gandhi suffered a severe malaria attack. He was released before the end of the war on May 6 1944 because of his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. Although the Quit India movement had moderate success in its objective, the ruthless suppression of the movement brought order to India by the end of 1943. At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership.

Freedom and partition of India

Mahatma Gandhi's engraving on an Indian currency note of INR 10 Rupees

Mahatma Gandhi's engraving on an Indian currency note of INR 1,000 Rupees

Main article: Partition of India

Gandhi advised the Congress to reject the proposals the British Cabinet Mission offered in 1946, as he was deeply suspicious of the grouping proposed for Muslim-majority states—Gandhi viewed this as a precursor to partition. However, this became one of the few times the Congress broke from Gandhi's advice (though not his leadership), as Nehru and Patel knew that if the Congress did not approve the plan, the control of government would pass to the Muslim League. Between 1946 and 1948 , over 5,000 people were killed in violence. Gandhi was vehemently opposed to any plan that partitioned India into two separate countries. An overwhelming majority of Muslims living in India, side by side with Hindus and Sikhs, were in favour of Partition. Additionally Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, commanded widespread support in West Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and East Bengal. The partition plan was approved by the Congress leadership as the only way to prevent a wide-scale Hindu–Muslim civil war. Congress leaders knew that Gandhi would viscerally oppose partition, and it was impossible for the Congress to go ahead without his agreement, for Gandhi's support in the party and throughout India was strong. Gandhi's closest colleagues had accepted partition as the best way out, and Sardar Patel endeavoured to convince Gandhi that it was the only way to avoid civil war. A devastated Gandhi gave his assent.

He conducted extensive dialogue with Muslim and Hindu community leaders, working to cool passions in northern India, as well as in Bengal. Despite the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, he was troubled when the Government decided to deny Pakistan the Rs. 55 crores due as per agreements made by the Partition Council. Leaders like Sardar Patel feared that Pakistan would use the money to bankroll the war against India. Gandhi was also devastated when demands resurged for all Muslims to be deported to Pakistan, and when Muslim and Hindu leaders expressed frustration and an inability to come to terms with one another.^[16] He launched his last fast-unto-death in Delhi, asking that all communal violence be ended once and for all, and that the payment of Rs. 55 crores be made to Pakistan. Gandhi feared that instability and insecurity in Pakistan would increase their anger against India, and violence would spread across the borders. He further feared that Hindus and Muslims would renew their enmity and precipitate into an open civil war. After emotional debates with his life-long colleagues, Gandhi refused to budge, and the Government rescinded its policy and made the payment to Pakistan. Hindu, Muslim and Sikh community leaders, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Mahasabha assured him that they would renounce violence and call for peace. Gandhi thus broke his fast by sipping orange juice.^[17]

Assassination

See also: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

Raj Ghat: Gandhi's Memorial in Delhi.

Image:100 0444509.jpg

Raj Ghat: Gandhi's ashes at Aga Khan Palace (Pune, India).

A press photo published in The Manchester Guardian, February 18, 1948, showing Mahatma Gandhi's ashes being carried through the streets of Allahabad.

On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was shot and killed while having his nightly public walk on the grounds of the Birla Bhavan (Birla House) in New Delhi. The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu radical with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha, who held Gandhi responsible for weakening India by insisting upon a payment to Pakistan.^[18] Godse and his co-conspirator Narayan Apte were later tried and convicted; they were executed on 15 November, 1949. Gandhi's memorial (or Samādhi) at Rāj Ghāt, New Delhi, bears the epigraph "Hē Ram", (Devanagari: हे ! राम or, He Rām), which may be translated as "Oh God". These are widely believed to be Gandhi's last words after he was shot, though the veracity of this statement has been disputed.^[19] Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the nation through radio:

“
Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that; nevertheless, we will not see him again, as we have seen him for these many years, we will not run to him for advice or seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for millions and millions in this country.^[20]
”

According to his wish, the majority of Gandhi's ashes were immersed in some of the world's major rivers, such as The Nile, Volga, Thames, etc. A small portion was sent to Paramahansa Yogananda from Dr. V.M. Nawle, (a publisher and journalist from Pune (formerly Poona), India) encased in a brass & silver coffer. The ashes were then enshrined at the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine within a thousand-year-old stone sarcophagus from China. Paramahansa Yogananda had met Gandhi at the latter's Wardha Ashram in 1936 and Gandhi had requested and received Kriya Yoga diksha from him.

Gandhi's principles

See also: Gandhism

Truth

Gandhi dedicated his life to the wider purpose of discovering truth, or Satya. He tried to achieve this by learning from his own mistakes and conducting experiments on himself. He called his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth.

Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities. Gandhi summarized his beliefs first when he said "God is Truth". He would later change this statement to "Truth is God". Thus, Satya (Truth) in Gandhi's philosophy is "God".

Nonviolence

The concept of nonviolence (ahimsa) and nonresistance has a long history in Indian religious thought and has had many revivals in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Jewish and Christian contexts. Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth. He was quoted as saying:

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always."

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."

In applying these principles, Gandhi did not balk from taking them to their most logical extremes. In 1940, when invasion of the British Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British people (Non-Violence in Peace and War):^[21]

"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them."

However, Gandhi was aware that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he realized not everyone possessed. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it were used as a cover for cowardice:

"Gandhi guarded against attracting to his satyagraha movement those who feared to take up arms or felt themselves incapable of resistance. 'I do believe,' he wrote, 'that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.'"^[22]

"At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before. It must never be said of the Khudai Khidmatgars that once so brave, they had become or been made cowards under Badshah Khan's influence. Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in defying death and being ever ready to bare their breasts to the bullets."^[23]

Vegetarianism

As a young child, Gandhi experimented with meat-eating. This was due partially to his inherent curiosity as well as his rather persuasive peer and friend Sheikh Mehtab. The idea of vegetarianism is deeply ingrained in Hindu and Jain traditions in India, and, in his native land of Gujarat, most Hindus were vegetarian and so are all Jains. The Gandhi family was no exception. Before leaving for his studies in London, Gandhi made a promise to his mother, Putlibai and his uncle, Becharji Swami that he would abstain from eating meat, taking alcohol, and engaging in promiscuity. He held fast to his promise and gained more than a diet: he gained a basis for his life-long philosophies. As Gandhi grew into adulthood, he became a strict vegetarian. He wrote the book The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism and several articles on the subject, some of which were published in the London Vegetarian Society's publication, The Vegetarian [3]. Gandhi, himself, became inspired by many great minds during this period and befriended the chairman of the London Vegetarian Society, Dr. Josiah Oldfield.

Having also read and admired the work of Henry Stephens Salt, the young Mohandas met and often corresponded with the vegetarian campaigner. Gandhi spent much time advocating vegetarianism during and after his time in London. To Gandhi, a vegetarian diet would not only satisfy the requirements of the body, it would also serve an economic purpose as meat was, and still is, generally more expensive than grains, vegetables, and fruits. Also, many Indians of the time struggled with low income, thus vegetarianism was seen not only as a spiritual practice but also a practical one. He abstained from eating for long periods, using fasting as a form of political protest. He refused to eat until his death or his demands were met. It was noted in his autobiography that vegetarianism was the beginning of his deep commitment to Brahmacharya; without total control of the palate, his success in Bramacharya would likely falter.

Brahmacharya

When Gandhi was 16 his father became very ill. Being very devoted to his parents, he attended to his father at all times during his illness. However, one night, Gandhi's uncle came to relieve Gandhi for a while. He retired to his bedroom where carnal desires overcame him and he made love to his wife. Shortly afterward a servant came to report that Gandhi's father had just died. Gandhi felt tremendous guilt and never could forgive himself. He came to refer to this event as "double shame." The incident had significant influence in Gandhi becoming celibate at the age of 36, while still married.^[24]

This decision was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Brahmacharya—spiritual and practical purity—largely associated with celibacy and asceticism. Gandhi saw brahmacharya as a means of becoming close with God and as a primary foundation for self realization. In his autobiography he tells of his battle against lustful urges and fits of jealousy with his childhood bride, Kasturba. He felt it his personal obligation to remain celibate so that he could learn to love, rather than lust. For Gandhi, brahmacharya meant "control of the senses in thought, word and deed."^[25]

Simplicity

Statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Union Square Park, New York City

Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved in social service should lead a simple life which he thought could lead to Brahmacharya. His simplicity began by renouncing the western lifestyle he was leading in South Africa. He called it "reducing himself to zero," which entailed giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes.^[26] On one occasion he returned the gifts bestowed to him from the natals for his diligent service to the community.^[27]

Gandhi spent one day of each week in silence. He believed that abstaining from speaking brought him inner peace. This influence was drawn from the Hindu principles of mauna (Sanskrit:मौनं – silence) and shanti (Sanskrit:शांति – peace). On such days he communicated with others by writing on paper. For three and a half years, from the age of 37, Gandhi refused to read newspapers, claiming that the tumultuous state of world affairs caused him more confusion than his own inner unrest.

After reading John Ruskin's Unto This Last, he decided to change his lifestyle and create a commune called Phoenix Settlement.

Upon returning to India from South Africa, where he had enjoyed a successful legal practice, he gave up wearing Western-style clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. He dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India, advocating the use of homespun cloth (khadi). Gandhi and his followers adopted the practice of weaving their own clothes from thread they themselves spun, and encouraged others to do so. While Indian workers were often idle due to unemployment, they had often bought their clothing from industrial manufacturers owned by British interests. It was Gandhi's view that if Indians made their own clothes, it would deal an economic blow to the British establishment in India. Consequently, the spinning wheel was later incorporated into the flag of the Indian National Congress. He subsequently wore a dhoti for the rest of his life to express the simplicity of his life.

Faith

Gandhi was born a Hindu and practised Hinduism all his life, deriving most of his principles from Hinduism. As a common Hindu, he believed all religions to be equal, and rejected all efforts to convert him to a different faith. He was an avid theologian and read extensively about all major religions. He had the following to say about Hinduism:

"Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being ... When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita."

Gandhi Smriti (Mahatma Gandhi's house, New Delhi)

Gandhi wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita in Gujarati. The Gujarati manuscript was translated into English by Mahadev Desai, who provided an additional introduction and commentary. It was published with a Foreword by Gandhi in 1946.^[28][29]

Gandhi believed that at the core of every religion was truth and love (compassion, nonviolence and the Golden Rule). He also questioned hypocrisy, malpractices and dogma in all religions and was a tireless social reformer. Some of his comments on various religions are:

"Thus if I could not accept Christianity either as a perfect, or the greatest religion, neither was I then convinced of Hinduism being such. Hindu defects were pressingly visible to me. If untouchability could be a part of Hinduism, it could but be a rotten part or an excrescence. I could not understand the raison d'etre of a multitude of sects and castes. What was the meaning of saying that the Vedas were the inspired Word of God? If they were inspired, why not also the Bible and the Koran? As Christian friends were endeavouring to convert me, so were Muslim friends. Abdullah Sheth had kept on inducing me to study Islam, and of course he had always something to say regarding its beauty." (source: his autobiography)

"As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side."

"The sayings of Muhammad are a treasure of wisdom, not only for Muslims but for all of mankind."

Later in his life when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied:

"Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew."

In spite of their deep reverence to each other, Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore engaged in protracted debates more than once. These debates exemplify the philosophical differences between the two most famous Indians at the time. On January 15 1934, an earthquake hit Bihar and caused extensive damage and loss of life. Gandhi maintained this was because of the sin committed by upper caste Hindus by not letting untouchables in their temples (Gandhi was committed to the cause of improving the fate of untouchables, referring to them as Harijans, people of Krishna). Tagore vehemently opposed Gandhi's stance, maintaining that an earthquake can only be caused by natural forces, not moral reasons, however repugnant the practice of untouchability may be.

Writings

Gandhi was a prolific writer. For decades he edited several newspapers including Harijan in Gujarati, Hindi and English; Indian Opinion while in South Africa and, Young India, in English, and Navajivan, a Gujarati monthly, on his return to India. Later Navajivan was also published in Hindi.^[30] In addition, he wrote letters almost every day to individuals and newspapers.

Gandhi also wrote a few books including his autobiography, An Autobiography or My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa about his struggle there, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, a political pamphlet, and a paraphrase in Gujarati of John Ruskin's Unto This Last.^[31] This last essay can be considered his program on economics. He also wrote extensively on vegetarianism, diet and health, religion, social reforms, etc. Gandhi usually wrote in Gujarati, though he also revised the Hindi and English translations of his books.

Gandhi's complete works were published by the Indian government under the name The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi in the 1960s. The writings comprise about 50,000 pages published in about a hundred volumes. In 2000, a revised edition of the complete works sparked a controversy, as Gandhian followers accused the government of incorporating changes for political purpose.^[32]

Books on Gandhi

Several biographers have undertaken the task of describing Gandhi's life. Among them, two works stand out: D. G. Tendulkar with his Mahatma. Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 8 volumes, and Pyarelal and Sushila Nayar with their Mahatma Gandhi in 10 volumes.

Followers and influence

Gandhi influenced important leaders and political movements. One of the leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States, Martin Luther King, drew from the writings of Gandhi in the development of his own theories about non-violence.^[33] Anti-apartheid activist and former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was inspired by Gandhi.^[34] Others include, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan^[35] Steve Biko, and Aung San Suu Kyi.^[36]

Gandhi's life and teachings inspired many who specifically referred to Gandhi as their mentor or who dedicated their lives to spreading Gandhi's ideas. In Europe, Romain Rolland was the first to discuss Gandhi in his 1924 book Mahatma Gandhi, and Brazilian anarchist and feminist Maria Lacerda de Moura wrote about Gandhi in her work on pacifism. Lanza del Vasto went to India in 1936 in the aim to live with Gandhi. He later returned to Europe to spread Gandhi's philosophy and founded the Community of the Ark in 1948 (modeled after Gandhi's ashrams). Madeleine Slade (known as "Mirabehn") was the daughter of a British admiral who spent much of her adult life in India as a devotee of Gandhi.

In addition, the British musician, John Lennon, referred to Gandhi when discussing his views on non-violence.^[37] At the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2007, former U.S. Vice-President and environmentalist, Al Gore, spoke of Gandhi's influence on him.^[38]

Legacy

Statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Tavistock Square Gardens, London.

Gandhi's birthday, October 2, is a national holiday in India, Gandhi Jayanti. On 15 June 2007, it was announced that the "United Nations General Assembly" has "unanimously adopted" a resolution which has declared October 2 to be "the International Day of Non-Violence."^[39]

The word Mahatma, while often mistaken for Gandhi's given name in the West, is taken from the Sanskrit words maha meaning Great and atma meaning Soul.

Most sources, such as Dutta and Robinson's Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology, state that Rabindranath Tagore first accorded the title of Mahatma to Gandhi.^[40] Other sources state that Nautamlal Bhagavanji Mehta accorded him this title on January 21, 1915.^[41] In his autobiography, Gandhi nevertheless explains that he never felt worthy of the honour.^[42] According to the manpatra, the name Mahatma was given in response to Gandhi's admirable sacrifice in manifesting justice and truth.^[43]

Time Magazine named Gandhi the Man of the Year in 1930, the runner-up to Albert Einstein as "Person of the Century" at the end of 1999, and named The Dalai Lama, Lech Wałęsa, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Aung San Suu Kyi, Benigno Aquino, Jr., Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela as Children of Gandhi and his spiritual heirs to non-violence.^[44] The Government of India awards the annual Mahatma Gandhi Peace Prize to distinguished social workers, world leaders and citizens. Nelson Mandela, the leader of South Africa's struggle to eradicate racial discrimination and segregation, is a prominent non-Indian recipient.

The centennial commemorative statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the center of downtown Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

In 1996, the Government of India introduced the Mahatma Gandhi series of currency notes in rupees 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 denomination. Today, all the currency notes in circulation in India contain a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1969, the United Kingdom issued a series of stamps commemorating the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi.

In the United Kingdom, there are several prominent statues of Gandhi, most notably in Tavistock Square, London near University College London where he studied law. January 30 is commemorated in the United Kingdom as the "National Gandhi Remembrance Day." In the United States, there are statues of Gandhi outside the Union Square Park in New York City, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta, and on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D. C., near the Indian Embassy. The city of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa—where Gandhi was ejected from a first-class train in 1893—now hosts a commemorative statue. There are wax statues of Gandhi at the Madame Tussaud's wax museums in London, New York, and other cities around the world.

The Martyr's Column at the Gandhi Smriti in New Delhi, marks the spot where he was assassinated.

Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace Prize, though he was nominated five times between 1937 and 1948, including the first-ever nomination by the American Friends Service Committee.^[45] Decades later, the Nobel Committee publicly declared its regret for the omission, and admitted to deeply divided nationalistic opinion denying the award. Mahatma Gandhi was to receive the Prize in 1948, but his assassination prevented the award. The war breaking out between the newly created states of India and Pakistan could have been an additional complicating factor that year.^[46] The Prize was not awarded in 1948, the year of Gandhi's death, on the grounds that "there was no suitable living candidate" that year, and when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi."^[47]

In New Delhi, the Birla Bhavan (or Birla House), where Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948, was acquired by the Government of India in 1971 and opened to the public in 1973 as the Gandhi Smriti or Gandhi Remembrance. It preserves the room where Mahatma Gandhi lived the last four months of his life and the grounds where he was shot while holding his nightly public walk.

A Martyr's Column now marks the place where Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated.

On January 30 every year, on the anniversary of the death of Mahatma Gandhi, in schools of many countries is observed the School Day of Non-violence and Peace (DENIP), founded in Spain in 1964. In countries with a Southern Hemisphere school calendar, it can be observed on March 30 or thereabouts.

Gandhi in film, literature, plays, and popular culture

Main article: List of artistic depictions of Mahatma Gandhi

Cinematic depictions of and references to Mahatma Gandhi

1963: Nine Hours to Rama (J. S. Casshyap) · 1982: Gandhi (Ben Kingsley) · 1993: Sardar (Annu Kapoor) · 1996: The Making of the Mahatma (Rajit Kapur) · 1998: Jinnah (Sam Dastor) · 2000: Hey Ram (Naseeruddin Shah) · 2000: Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar (Mohan Gokhale) · 2001: Veer Savarkar (Surendra Rajan) · 2004: Swades · 2005: Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (himself) · 2005: Mangal Pandey: The Rising (himself) · 2005: Water (Mohan Jhangiani) · 2006: Lage Raho Munna Bhai (Dilip Prabhavalkar) · 2007: Shankar Dada Zindabad (Dilip Prabhavalkar) · 2007: Gandhi, My Father (Darshan Jariwala)

Criticism and controversies

Gandhi's rigid ahimsa implies pacifism, and is thus a source of criticism from across the political spectrum.

Concept of partition

As a rule, Gandhi was opposed to the concept of partition as it contradicted his vision of religious unity.^[48] Of the partition of India to create Pakistan, he wrote in Harijan on 06 October, 1946:

[The demand for Pakistan] as put forth by the Moslem League is un-Islamic and I have not hesitated to call it sinful. Islam stands for unity and the brotherhood of mankind, not for disrupting the oneness of the human family. Therefore, those who want to divide India into possibly warring groups are enemies alike of India and Islam. They may cut me into pieces but they cannot make me subscribe to something which I consider to be wrong [...] we must not cease to aspire, in spite of [the] wild talk, to befriend all Moslems and hold them fast as prisoners of our love.^[49]

However, as Homer Jack notes of Gandhi's long correspondence with Jinnah on the topic of Pakistan: "Although Gandhi was personally opposed to the partition of India, he proposed an agreement [...] which provided that the Congress and the Moslem League would cooperate to attain independence under a provisional government, after which the question of partition would be decided by a plebiscite in the districts having a Moslem majority."^[50]

These dual positions on the topic of the partition of India opened Gandhi up to criticism from both Hindus and Muslims. Muhammad Ali Jinnah and contemporary Pakistanis condemned Gandhi for undermining Muslim political rights. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and his allies condemned Gandhi, accusing him of politically appeasing Muslims while turning a blind eye to their atrocities against Hindus, and for allowing the creation of Pakistan (despite having publicly declared that "before partitioning India, my body will have to be cut into two pieces"^[51]). This continues to be politically contentious: some,like Pakistani-American historian Ayesha Jalal argue that Gandhi and the Congress' unwillingness to share power with the Muslim League hastened partition; others, like Hindu nationalist policician Pravin Togadia have also criticized Gandhi's leadership and actions on this topic, but indicating that excessive weakeness on his part led to the division of India.

Gandhi also expressed his dislike for the idea of partition during the late 1930s in response to the topic of the partition of Palestine. He stated in Harijan on 26 November, 1938:

Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question. My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity [...] But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct.^[52][53]

Gandhi was criticized for this and responded in his follow-up articles, "Questions on the Jews" ^[54], "Reply to Jewish Friends,"^[55] and "Jews and Palestine."^[56]

Rejection of violent resistance

Gandhi also came under some political fire for his criticism of those who attempted to achieve independence through more violent means. His refusal to protest against the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Udham Singh and Rajguru were sources of condemnation among some parties.^[57][58]

Of this criticism, Gandhi stated, "There was a time when people listened to me because I showed them how to give fight to the British without arms when they had no arms [...] but today I am told that my non-violence can be of no avail against the [Hindu–Moslem riots] and, therefore, people should arm themselves for self-defense."^[59]

Gandhi commented upon the 1930s persecution of the Jews in Germany within the context of Satyagraha. In the November 1938 article on the Nazi persecution of the Jews quoted above, he offered non-violence as a solution:

The German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province. But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both?"^[60], ^[61]

In the same article, Gandhi continued by stating that:

If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest Gentile German might, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in the end the rest were bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy [...] the calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the God-fearing, death has no terror.^[62]

Also, in Harijan, December 17, 1938, Gandhi asserted that Jews "so far as I know, have never practised non-violence as an article of faith or even as a deliberate policy," and alleged that Jews sought to "punish Germany for her persecution and to deliver them from oppression." ^[63], ^[64]

Gandhi was criticized by a number of people for these and related remarks. He responded by stating that, "friends have sent me two newspaper cuttings criticizing my appeal to the Jews. The two critics suggest that in presenting non-violence to the Jews as a remedy against the wrong done to them, I have suggested nothing new....what I have pleaded for is renunciation of violence of the heart and consequent active exercise of the force generated by the great renunciation. ^[65] Gandhi would later withdraw some of the statements that he made in an article published in Harijan on May 27, 1939. ^{[66] [67]} A friend of Gandhi's Martin Buber, wrote a critical open letter to Gandhi on February 24, 1939. Buber asserted that the comparison between British treatment of Indian subjects and Nazi treatment of Jews was inapposite. ^[68]

Early South African articles

Some of Gandhi's early South African articles are controversial. As reprinted in "The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi," (Vol. 8, p.120), Gandhi wrote in the "Indian Opinion" in 1908 of his time in a South African prison: "Many of the native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves." Also as reprinted in "The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi," (Vol. 2, p.74), Gandhi gave a speech on September 26, 1896 in which he referred to the "raw kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness". The term "Kaffir" is considered a derogatory term today (it is worth noting, however, that during Gandhi's time, the term "Kaffir" had a different connotation than its present-day usage). Remarks such as these have led some to accuse Gandhi of racism.^[69]

Two professors of history who specialize in South Africa, Surendra Bhana and Goolam Vahed, examined this controversy in their text, The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914. (New Delhi: Manohar, 2005).^[70] They focus in Chapter 1, "Gandhi, Africans and Indians in Colonial Natal" on the relationship between the African and Indian communities under "White rule" and policies which enforced segregation (and, they argue, inevitable conflict between these communities). Of this relationship they state that, "the young Gandhi was influenced by segregationist notions prevalent in the 1890s."^[71] At the same time, they state, "Gandhi's experiences in jail seemed to make him more sensitive to their plight [...] the later Gandhi mellowed; he seemed much less categorical in his expression of prejudice against Africans, and much more open to seeing points of common cause. His negative views in the Johannesburg jail were reserved for hardened African prisoners rather than Africans generally."^[72]

Former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela is a follower of Gandhi,^[73] despite efforts in 2003 on the part of Gandhi's critics to prevent the unveiling of a statue of Gandhi in Johannesburg.^[69] Bhana and Vahed commented on the events surrounding the unveiling in the conclusion to The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914. In the section "Gandhi's Legacy to South Africa," they note that "Gandhi inspired succeeding generations of South African activists seeking to end White rule. This legacy connects him to Nelson Mandela [...] in a sense Mandela completed what Gandhi started."^[74] They continue by referring to the controversies which arose during the unveiling of the statue of Gandhi.^[75] In response to these two perspectives of Gandhi, Bhana and Vahed argue: "Those who seek to appropriate Gandhi for political ends in post-apartheid South Africa do not help their cause much by ignoring certain facts about him; and those who simply call him a racist are equally guilty of distortion."^[76]

Recently, Nelson Mandela took part in the 29 January – 30 January 2007 conference in New Delhi which marked the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's introduction of satyagraha in South Africa.^[77] In addition, Mandela appeared to the audience via video clip at the South African premiere of Gandhi, My Father in July 2007. Of this clip, the film's producer Anil Kapoor said, "Nelson Mandela sent a special message for the film's opening. Mandela not only spoke about Gandhi, he spoke about me. What was heart-warming and humbling was that he thanked me for making this film, whereas I should thank him and South Africa for letting me shoot 'Gandhi My Father' in their country and allowing me to hold the world premiere there. Mandela identified deeply with the film."^[78] The current South African president, Thabo Mbeki, attended^[79][80] along with the rest of the South African Cabinet.^[81]

Other criticisms

Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar condemned Gandhi's use of the term Harijans to refer to the Dalit community. This term meant "Children of God";^[82] it was interpreted by some as saying that Dalits were socially immature, and that privileged caste Indians played a paternalistic role. Ambedkar and his allies also felt Gandhi was undermining Dalit political rights. Gandhi, although born into the Vaishya caste, insisted that he was able to speak on behalf of Dalits, despite the availability of Dalit activists such as Ambedkar.

Honors

In December 1999 Gandhi was among 18 included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.

Nobel Peace Prize

Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel peace prize five times, in 1937, 1938, 1939,1947 and finally in 1948, few days before his assassination. However he was not awarded the Nobel Prize because he was “neither a real politician nor a humanitarian relief worker" [4]. The Executive Director for the Nobel Foundation Michael Sohlam has gone on record to state that not awarding him the Peace Prize was "a big regret" of the Nobel Foundation. ^[83]

Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 1869-1948)