Who is Mahatma Gandhi?
The last 200 years have been marked as the most impressive period of rapid human development in recorded history. Especially, the last decade witnessed the revolutionary impacts of several individuals like Tim Cook & Richard Branson. The tales of the very great pioneers resound through time, from the Americas’ plantations to the mountain ranges of India. One of the most notable of these figures to whom we owe much of what we practice today is the man called ‘Babu’ by his people, meaning father, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi. So, who is Mahatma Gandhi?
Birth
Like most sages, he was born into a humble family on the 2nd of October 1864 in the coastal region of Porbandar. Despite prevailing limitations, he completed law school in London and was called to bar in 1891 at 22. Challenges in the region that constituted the then British colony of India soon led him to India, searching for greener pastures.
Achievements and influences
Still on the question, “who is Mahatma Gandhi?” History often teaches us that the greatest of men are those who are capable of creating opportunities and gaining wisdom from their unpalatable experiences. Mahatma nurtured a substantial amount of his views and teachings during his days in South Africa, where he experienced racial discrimination against the non-Caucasian people. Instead of discouraging him, this caused a cascade of events that led to the development of his ‘nonviolence civil disobedience’ that secured the victory of the Indian community in South Africa. Gandhi was able to lay down monuments, not with clay and bronze but with his insightful and far-reaching ideas that went on to shake the corners of the earth. A movement started in India soon traveled around the ranges of the planet like wild bush fire.
One of his most notable roles was his unflinching activism that led to a series of events that ensured India’s independence in August 1947. He also played cardinal roles during the First world war. Subsequently, his activism for his people’s rights, the peasants, and against the caste system prevalent in India will put him in a position of influence that only a few wield during their lifetimes.
His teachings and methods were greatly influenced by his religion Hindu, his mother, and some Western writers like Leo Tolstoy. Also, his methods will come to form the basis of Martin Luther King Jr’s movement, which will earn him a Nobel peace prize.
Death
Like every beautiful flower that blooms, like every new day that comes, nothing lasts forever. On the 30th of January 1948, he was assassinated by Nathuram Godse with a gun. This, however, did not bring an end to the sage. Despite being dead in the flesh, he lives on through the legacies he left behind.
