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Mahatma Gandhi

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The most famous artistic depiction of his life is the film Gandhi, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Ben Kingsley (interestingly, himself half-Gujarati) in the title role. Another film that deals with Gandhi's 21 years of life in South Africa is The Making of the Mahatma directed by Shyam Benegal and starring Rajat Kapur.

In the United States, there are statues of Gandhi outside the Ferry Building in San Francisco, in Union Square Park in New York City, and near the Indian Embassy in the Dupont Circle neighbourhood of Washington, DC.

In the United Kingdom, there are several prominent statues of Gandhi, most notably in Tavistock Gardens, London, near to UCL where he studied law.

Throughout his lifetime, Gandhi's activities attracted a wide range of comment and opinion. For example, as a subject of the British Empire, Winston Churchill once referred to Gandhi as "nauseating" and as a "half-naked fakir". Conversely, Albert Einstein said of Gandhi: "Generations to come, it may be, will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."

Mahatma Gandhi

Schindler list

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (October 2, 1869—January 30, 1948; known popularly as Mahatma Gandhi (first called mahatma, Sanskrit for "great soul," by Shri Aurobindo Ghosh), was one of the founding fathers of the modern Indian state and an influential advocate of satyagraha (non-violent protest) as a means of revolution.

He helped bring about India's independence from British rule, inspiring other colonial peoples to work for their own independence and ultimately dismantle the British Empire and replace it with the Commonwealth. Gandhi's principle of satyagraha ('"truth force"), often roughly translated as "way of truth" or "pursuit of truth," has inspired generations of democratic and anti-racist activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. He often stated his values were simple, drawn from traditional Hindu beliefs: truth (satya), and non-violence (ahimsa).

At the age of 19, Gandhi went to University College, in the University of London to train as a lawyer. He returned to India after being admitted to the British bar. He went to Durban, South Africa to practise law in 1893 and began his political career by lobbying against laws discriminating against Indians in South Africa, inspired by an incident in which he was physically thrown off a train in Pietermaritzburg, after refusing to move to the third class coach, while travelling on a first class ticket. Gandhi was arrested on November 6, 1913 while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.

In India he tried very hard to establish a law practice in Mumbai, though he had diminutive success. Two years later an Indian firm sent Gandhi to South Africa. Gandhi was dismayed to see the prevalent denial of civil liberties and political rights to Indian immigrants.

Gandhi drew inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita and the writings of Leo Tolstoy, who in the 1880s had undergone a profound conversion to a personal form of Christian anarchism. Gandhi translated Tolstoy's "Letter to a Hindu" [1] (http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_a_Hindu_-_Leo_Tolstoy) which was written in 1908 in response to aggressive Indian nationalists, and the two corresponded until Tolstoy's death in 1910. The letter by Tolstoy uses Hindu philosophy taken from the Vedas and sayings of the Hindu God Krishna to present his view of that state of growing Indian nationalism.

During World War I, Gandhi returned to India, where he campaigned for Indians to join the British Indian Army.

Gandhi had great influence among the Hindu and Muslim communities of India. It is said that he ended communal riots through his mere presence. Gandhi was vehemently opposed to any plan which partitioned India into two separate countries. Nevertheless, the plan was eventually adopted, creating a secular but Hindu-dominated India and an Islamic Pakistan. On the day of the power transfer, Gandhi did not celebrate independence with the rest of India, but mourned partition alone in Calcutta instead.

He was assassinated in Birla house, New Delhi on January 30, 1948 by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu radical who held him responsible for weakening the new government by insisting on a payment to Pakistan. Godse was later tried, convicted, and executed.

Nobel Peace Prize nominations

Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace Prize, though he was nominated five times for the same between 1937 and 1948. Decades later however, the omission was publicly regretted by the Nobel Committee. When the Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi".

The official Nobel e-museum has an article discussing the issue. [2] (http://www.nobel.se/peace/articles/gandhi/index.html)

 

 

credits : www.wikipedia.org
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