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2013-04-30T02:45:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Greatest things done by Mahatma

2013-04-30T02:23:00.002-07:00

Top 10 Greatest things done by Mahatma Gandhi

There is absolutely no second thought when anyone says that Mahatma Gandhi was the among best person who ever existed. With the amount of good work that he did for the people and the society earned him the title of Bapu. Still when he is not around, there are lots and lots of respect provided to him by the people situated in every corner of the world. Among the numerous number of work which he had done for the betterment of the society we have here listed the top ten such greatest things which makes him even more great. Here follows the list next.

10. Started Salt March

In the year 1930, Mahatma Gandhi started the Salt March from the place called as Ahmedabad. His march continued for 388 kilometers to the place called as Dandi which is in Gujarat. He started this salt march against the Britishers who were imposing the salt law on the people who were involved in the salt business in Gujarat. This not only destroyed their business but was also an extra unnecessary burden on them. On 12 March he started this march to show the Britishers that they will not act according to their will. This march continued till 6 April and many people from around the country joined this march.

9. Wrote His Autobiography

All through his life Gandhiji led his life with example and then later on he wrote his own autobiography which was named as “The Story of My Experiments with Truth”. This autobiography covered every little aspect of Gandhi’s life, his struggles in South Africa and then in India. It also covered his childhood struggle which made him such a noble person. This autobiography is like an inspiration for the millions of people who have read it. They learnt the fact that there might be hundreds of problem in your life but we should not get frightened from them and should make them our source of motivation.

8. Set Example for People to Follow his Footsteps

There is no second thought the today there are millions of people around the globe as well as many organisation which are working on the teachings of this noble man. He gave society the new idea so as to how things can be done without any kind of unnecessary violence and all through his life he did so many good things that it gives inspiration to the people so as to how they should live their life too. He taught that we should think our self as superior to any other people and should live with humanity and love for everyone. Many international leaders such as Martin Luther King and other followed his footsteps so as to work for the betterment of the society.

7. Fought for the People Who Were Considered as Untouchables

One of the major thing for which Mahatma Gandhi fought all through his life was the fact that he considered every single person as the same and according to him there is absolutely no reason why anyone should be discriminated on the basis of this. And so while he was in South Africa or in India he fought against it. He treated every single person with same attitude and that is something which is incredible. His teaching on this which says not to discriminate people on the basis of race, religion, and sex is something which should be followed for the betterment of the society.

6. Started Non Cooperation Movement

Right in the year 1920, when Mahatma Gandhi left the Indian National Congress and was fighting for India’s freedom struggle with some of his trusted people and his newly launched Swaraj Party, he started the Non Cooperation movement in which the people were involved in a large scale. They just started not to cooperate in every little thing which was done under the guidance of the British authorities and forced them to think about their future stay in the country. He called off his non-cooperation movement when Chauri Chaura incident took place as it was against its principles.

5. Started Civil Disobedience Movement

In the year 1930, Mahatma Gandhi started a new movement with the aim to throw the Britishers out of the country and save the people from the clutches of the ruthless Britishers. This movement is said to be the one of the milestone which ever happened in India’s freedom struggle. This civil disobedience movement was started to slap the Britishers face by not following the laws which were made according to their constitutions and according to Mahatma Gandhi this was also done by following the foot step of non-violence. This is one such incident which shook the Britishers from its core.

4. Gave INC New Agenda and Principles

Just after Gandhiji returned from South Africa where he was fighting for civil rights, he joined the Indian National Congress along with the support of different leaders which were there in Indian National Congress. It was in the year 1915 that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi took over the reign as the party president of the INC and then in his tenure while being the Congress president, he gave the party and its follower’s new principles and ideas to work upon. Although his ideas were rejected by many fellow leaders and that became the reason why he left INC and formed a new party named as Swaraj Party.

3. Follower of Non Violence

Mahatma Gandhi was the true follower of the non-violence and he believed that there was absolutely no need of violence in getting the things done as per the need. He believed that the same things can be done even you follow the non-violence approach. Although the path of the non-violence is something in which there will be more struggle and efforts but then it is far more beneficial as it does not involve any loss of human life, which is the most important thing. He believed there is no such thing which can’t be obtained while following the foot step on the roads of non-violence.

2. Started Civil Rights Movement in South Africa

When Mahatma Gandhi went to the South Africa to practice law, he was very much disappointed by the attitude that people had for the people belonging to certain section of the society. He felt that the discrimination that was made was absolutely not right and this should be avoided so that South Africa can progress in every field. There were large sections of people in the South Africa who not only supported him in his noble cause but also came forward to work for it. Finally it was his effort and hard work in this field which made thing good in South Africa.

1. Led India’s Freedom Struggle

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the prime people who led the India’s freedom struggle. We can say that it was his idea to lead the freedom struggle of the country with the aim of non-violence. With his determined approach, this made the Britishers think about their stay in India. Whenever we will talk about the freedom struggle which took place in India and how India managed to get back from the clutches of the Britishers, Mahatma Gandhi is the first person who will be remembered then. His efforts in this field proved to be one such thing which motivated millions of people across the country to fight for their freedom.

Top 10 Facts about Shaheed Bhagat Singh

2013-04-30T01:07:00.001-07:00

Top 10 Facts about Shaheed Bhagat Singh

Who is a leader? He is that fool who dares to go beyond the obvious, he is that person who turns left when everyone is going right, he is that person who raise the voice when all the others are deeply lost in slumber, he is that person who does not stand behind the line but stands somewhere where no one has ever stood before. That fool becomes the leader when other people join him. A person alone cannot do anything, a person alone is powerless, individually he is helpless unless others join him and he is the most powerful when he has numbers.

Shaheed bhaghat Singh is one of those people who had the courage of going beyond the obvious, who did something no one ever did before, that young man at the age of 23 choose death. The sky still remembers the smile, the joy and the composure on the faces of those three friends, few moments before being hanged to death they were frolicking & frisking as were they were going for an adventure. When death was few moments away, they were not scared; they were content as if they were lined up for the distribution of the gold medal they have earned. Few seconds before begin hanged to death, they were not thinking about saving their lives or dying but they were arguing with each other about who shall be hanged first.

Bhagat Singh was born on 28 September 1907 in Faisalabad, India to a Sikh family, to a family who was already involved in the fight for independence. He along with his two friends; sukhdevand raj guru was handed to death on 23 march 1931. They were imprisoned for the charge of the killing of a police man, when they went to jail and saw the situations of the prisoners and just couldn’t endure it. He knew he is going to die, but he was not sad, he was happy; he wanted to die because he knew that his death would bring the change he couldn’t bring in his life and his death did bring a very massive refinement. His death created a very big chaos not only in India but globally. Shaheed bhagat Singh’s life was a very short lived one but during this brief period he did such big things that today after so many years he is recognized as the symbol of martyrdom, but bhagat Singh was a human, he was a son, a boy, a human, a friend, he had life like all of us, he also had likes and dislikes which we do not know about, so the top ten thing you do not know about bhagat Singh are:

10. He studied at the national college Lahore:

Like all the children he was born into a loving and caring family, he did become a leader later but in the beginning he was a normal child who received normal education. Bhaghat Singh’s family enrolled him at the Dayanand Anglo Vedic High school and after completing his schooling he got admitted at the national college Lahore.

9. He was fluent in 5 languages:

Bhagat was a highly intelligent person; he had a very sharp brain. At an early age he learned multiple languages and became fluent in them. He learns English, Arabic, Polish, French and Swedish.

8. His childhood dream was the independence of India:

Bhagat Singh like all the other children of his age did not dream about getting a good life for him, he dreamed of something else, he wanted to bring peace and independence in India; he wanted to create a better life not for himself but for other people. And in the end he did that, he gave up his life for the sake of his country.

7. He ran from his house:

Bhagat Singh at an early age made his mind about what he wanted from life, at a quite early age he entered the spiritual world, now for him this material world was nothing, the lust couldn’t lure him. His parents wanted to get him married and he didn’t want to get married. He didn’t want a bride, he wanted martyrdom therefore he ran from his house leaving behind a letter which explained his family his motives.

6. He coined inquilab zindabad:

Yes the most famous slogan at the time of independence, the slogan which was the foundation of the Indian independent movement, the slogan which till today is widely used was coined by bhagat Singh. He after throwing the bomb in the central assembly ran from there, and he was chanting he slogan of inquilab zindabad.

5. He was a writer:

Bhagat Singh was a great write, he wrote for several news papers after he got released from the jail. But when he was imprisoned for the second time, he went on a protest, he knew he was going to die, he was to be hanged. So he started writing a dairy, in that dairy he poured out his heart. He also wrote an article named as “why am I atheist?” which gave a comprehension of why he lost believe in God. His work was later published after his execution.

4. He was an actor:

Most of the people do not know that bhagat Singh is an ancestor of the bollywood star aamir khan, aamir khan’s family has been in acting for a long time but have you ever though from where did his acting talent came. It came from bhagat Singh, bhagat was a brilliant actor and he appeared in various plays in his college as Rana Pratap, Samrat Chandragupta, and Bharata durdesha.

3. He didn’t agree with Gandhi:

Although Mahatma Gandhi and bhagat Singh both wanted the independence of India but their ways where different and their ideologies were poles apart. Gandhi strongly opposed bhagat’s act of violence and bhagat on the other hand did not agree with Gandhi’s peaceful way. Bhagat said that a man like Gandhi who himself has never indulges in the middles class people can never understand the pain of poor people.

2. He was an atheist:Bhagat Singh was born to a Sikh family and was raised as a Sikh, since his childhood he was taught to pray regularly and he knew all the versus by heart which he used to recite the entire day. It was after reading the work of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky that his religious belief started to limp; his belief in God vanished after he understood the reality of this world. When in jail, he left praying and started to address himself as an atheist.

1. He was non-violent:

Bhagat singh was not a violent man, it was the circumstances which had compelled him to act in such a way, the last thing he wanted was violence but he had no choice. He never meant harm to any human, the bombs which he along with his friends threw at the central Assembly were not severe, and they material they used were a very low grade explosive. The murder of Saunderwas too a case of mistaken identity.

Gandhi’s life and his work in brief

2013-04-30T00:35:00.000-07:00

Gandhi’s life and his work in brief

Birth and Parents

Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar. Mohandas or Mohan was youngest of the three sons of Putlibai and Karamchand Gandhi. The latter had been Prime Minister successively in three Kathiawar States. He was straight and true as steel, known for his steadfastness and loyalty. The little house were Gandhi was born is today the "Kirti Mandir".

Early Influences

Putlibai was a traditional Indian woman, devoted to her home and family, deeply religious and austere. These qualities left a deep impression on young Gandhi. Another powerful influence of Gandhi’s early life was seeing King Harishchandra, in the play, suffer for, but finally triumph in, his adherence to Truth. The boy Gandhi aspired to do no less.

Schooling

At school, first the primary at Porbandar, and later the Albert High School, Rajkot, Gandhi showed no particular brilliance, played no games, avoided company. He read little beyond text books, but respected his teacher, though, even at his biding, he would not copy from his neighbour’s answers.

Kasturba and Laxmidas

Marriage with Kasturba, at the age of thirteen, was almost play. But Gandhi began as a jealous and possessive husband; he wanted to make his illiterate wife an ideal one. The other person he was much attached to was his eldest brother Laxmidas. When their father was no more, it was Laxmidas who helped to educate him and sent him to England for legal studies.

In London

Putlibai let Gandhi go abroad only after he vowed to lead a chaste and simple life. For a while Gandhi was tempted to ape English dress and manners. But soon he returned to simplicity. A vegetarian by tradition he soon became one by conviction, joining and working actively for the London Vegetarian Society. He was called to the Bar in June 1891.

The challenge in South Africa

In 1893, Gandhi went to South Africa to handle a case. But though his legal work was soon over, he remained there for 21 years, fighting for Indian rights and defending indentured labour in low courts against discrimination. In this he was assisted by European staff and associates like Polak and Kallenbach.

Ashram Settlement

In founding and running his Ashram settlement at Phoenix and Tolstoy farm, Gandhi was much influenced by Tolstoy and Ruskin towards leading a simple community life. The third of "the moderns" who impressed Gandhi was Raj Chandra, the Jain philosopher and intellectual.

Service in hour of need

Gandhi combined his opposition to wrong with the compassion for the wrong-doer. During the Boer war and the Zulu rebellion he helped the Government at the hour of its need, by raising Indian Ambulance and Stretcher-bearer Corps which served close to the line of fire. Gandhi was awarded medals for this service.

The Indian struggle

The Natal India congress founded by Gandhi in 1894, on lines similar to the Indian National Congress, and later the British Indian committee in the Transvaal fought against restriction on Indian trade, movement and residence. During the campaign against the ‘Black’ Registration Act, Gandhi lit a grand bonfire of thousands of the registration certificates.

The Tolstoy Farm

The Passive Resistance Struggle was to be long-drawn-out. Thousands of satyagrahis suffered imprisonment, loss of property, trade. Tolstoy farm was built by Gandhi on land donated by Kallenbach, as a colony for housing satyagrahis families. They did farming, grew fruit, followed simple crafts and conducted school — all noble experiments in community living.

Gokhale

The Great March: - Gokhale visited south Africa in 1892, and studied the Indian problems first-hand. He met government leaders and securing promise of relief counselled Indian moderation. But government failure to abolish the 5 poll-tax drove them to despair. In November 1913, Gandhi led the ‘Great March’ from Natal into the Transvaal, defying law.

The Martyrs

After Gandhi, Polak and Kallenbach were arrested and jailed. Woman too courted imprisonment. Later the government released them and set up the Solomon commission of inquiry. C. F. Andrews and Person visited South Africa and interceded with the Government. Gandhi attend the unveiling of a memorial for Martyrs like Nagappan and Vilvilliamma.

The Mahatma Leaves

The Indian relief passed, Gandhi decided to return to India. After receiving farewell tributes, the Mahatma left South Africa in July 1914. When in England, enroute home, the great war broke out. Gandhi helped to raise an Indian Volunteer Corps. In December, Gandhi and Kasturba sailed for India.

Voyage home

On the voyage home, Gandhi wondered what was in store for him, he prayed "Lead Kindly Light". Back in India with Kasturba, clad in simple Kathiawadi clothes, Gandhi turned to Gokhale, his "Political Guru", for guidance. He was advised to closed study of scene, while refraining for making political speeches.

Hero’s welcome

The man in South Africa, who had striven valiantly, through satyagraha, for his peoples' honour and human dignity, received a Hero’s welcome everywhere. He traveled widely north and south, mostly by third class of the railways. Visiting Shantiniketan to meet Gurudev—Rabindranath – Tagore – was like going on a pilgrimage.

Honoured by all

In Madras Natesan described Gandhi as the embodiment of godliness and the wisdom of the saint and Kasturba as the incarnation of wifely virtue. In may 1915, Gandhi settled down at Kochrab, near Ahmedabad, where he founded the Satyagraha ashram. Honours came to him-the Kaiser-I-Hind and other medals for his ambulance services in war.

Champaran Satyagraha

Outward trappings meant little to Gandhi. At Banaras he blamed the Princes for their love of finery. At Allahabad he declared material progress of little worth without morality. Gandhi's first satyagraha test in India came in Champaran, Bihar, in 1917 and it led to inquiry into the evil Indigo system and help to end it.

Sabarmati Ashram

When in 1917 plague broke out at Kochrab, Gandhi moved his Ashram to Sabarmati. Hriday Kunj became his abode ; Kasturba lived in a separate Kuti, bound by her husband’s vow of brahmacharya. Close at hand were the grounds where Gandhi gathered Ashram inmates, morning and evening, for prayer.

Satyagraha again

Lokmanya Tilak dominated Indian politics at this time. But, in 1918, Gandhi emerged into National Leadership through satyagraha – for remission of land revenue in famine-stricken Kheda district; also the Ahmedabad Mills-hands’ strike, during which he fasted, lest strikers weaken. At prayer meetings under a tree, he called for discipline and concern for duties, not merely rights.

Bitter Fruit

The end of the great war brought India no freedom, only more repression. Gandhi called for country-wide hartal to protest against the Rowlatt Act Of 1919. In mosques and on beaches he preached Satyagraha; pacified rioters at Bombay and Ahmedabad; but Jallianwala in Punjab was to witness an unprecedented and cold blooded massacre.

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

People massed in thousands, to protest against Govt. repressive policy, at Jallianwala Bagh. Determined to "Make an example of them", the Government ordered troops to fire on the unarmed crowd. Hundreds died. Martial law and a reign of terror followed. Deeply shocked Gandhi returned his war decorations, decided to non-cooperate with a government that was evil.

Non-cooperation is Born

The Indian National Congress at Calcutta approved of non-cooperation: boycott of law-courts, government educational institutions and foreign goods. Gandhi saw it as the only alternative to violence for redress of the Khilafats and the Punjab wrongs. The founding of Gujarat Vidyapith in November 1920 was a symbol of the national re-awakening.

Swaraj fund-Swadeshi

"Swaraj in one year" was Gandhi’s slogan. Leaders of many shades came together, as at Madras, but few trusted Swaraj could came so quickly. The people rising to Gandhi’s call, raised a 10 million rupee memorial fund for Tilak who died on August 1, 1920. A year later a spectacular bonfire of foreign cloth ushered in the era of Swadeshi.

From Yerawada to Belgaum

1922 saw an eclipse: following violence at Chauri Chaura, Gandhi suspended non-cooperation. Arrested for seditious writings for Young India and tried March 18, he was sentenced to six years, but an operation of appendicitis brought early release from Yerawada Prison. 1924 was to see him once again at the helm at a Belgaum congress.

‘Unity’ Fast

In September 1924, Gandhi imposed on himself a 21 days fast to end Hindu-Muslim tension, an act of religion which taught him to love all equally. It restored peace in the riot-ridden country, brought all leaders together, led to some cleansing of hearts. It resulted in a communal truce.

Deshbandhu’s Death

1925 was a year of calamity: Deshbandhu C. R. Das, Swarajist leader, died in June at Darjeeling where Gandhi had just spent some days with him. It had brought nearer, the Mahatma who preached non-cooperation, and Deshbandhu who gave fight to the Government to the councils. Disconsolate at his death, Gandhi wrote a touching obituary in the glow of the funeral pyre.

On many fronts

1925-28 provided two landmarks of Gandhi’s leadership; Vaikom Satyagraha for giving untouchables use of temple roads, and the founding of All-India Spinner’s Association. For the rest the stage was occupied by Lajpat Rai, martyred during the Simon Commission boycott, hero of the Bardoli Satyagraha, Motilal Nehru, author of the Constitution Report, and Jawaharlal, champion of the "Complete Independence" resolution at the Calcutta congress.

Wheel of Time

And so the Wheel of time turned on. Gandhi’s use of the bicycle- a rare performance in order to be punctual at a meeting – indicated the lengths he was ready to go. And his constant companion, the spinning wheel, remained with him wherever he went, an instrument which spun the destiny of the country and symbolised his identification with the poor.

Salt Satyagraha

1929-30: "The Year of Grace". Gandhi was gathering his forces for onslaught on the citadel of authority. The "Salt Satyagraha" was not merely a protest against taxing the poor man’s diet, or a disobedience of the salt laws. In Gandhi’s eyes it was a "battle of right against might". While the world wondered, the "Dandi March" became the "first shot" in this unique fight.

Dandi March

Small though the chosen band, its 200 mile march to the sea recalled the other "Great March" of 1913 Gandhi had led in South Africa. He had sent viceroy Irwin an "Ultimatum" before embarking on civil disobedience. On "bended knees" he had asked "for bread and received a stone instead". On the night of may 5, 1930, they stole up to him like thieves in the night and arrested him.

Truce and Release

India was afire. Satyagraha, strikes, picketing, boycott of foreign goods and no-tax campaigns were the order of the day. Lakhs were jailed. Thousands suffered loss of limb, hundreds died on lathi charges, firing. Sapru, Jaykar helped to bring about a truce. Gandhi was released on June 25, 1931. While resting in Bombay, he took counsels with his associates, he wanted peace but with honour.

The Nehrus

Drawn into the political struggle, largely under Gandhi's influence, Motilal and Jawaharlal occupied the centre of the stage. At Allahabad they had presided over and addressed meetings attended by leaders like Kripalani, Tandon, Malaviya. When in February 1931, Motilal died, Gandhi felt "Widowed", and said, "What I have lost is loss for ever". Jawaharlal was a rich legacy.

Karachi Mandate

The congress met at Karachi in March, adopted a resolution moved by Jawaharlal and seconded by Badshan Khan endorsing the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. It reaffirmed the goal of "Poorna Swaraj", authorised Gandhi to represent it at the Second Round Table Conference in London. Congress also extolled the bravery of Bhagat Singh and his associates who were martyrs in the country’s struggle for freedom.

Way Clear for R. T. C.

Official implementation of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact was partial. There was repression in the frontier province, tension in U. P. Gandhi stood by the pledge to honour the truce and acquainted Viceroy Willingdon at Simla with official branches. After a second settlement, in August, Gandhi saw the way clear for the R. T. C.; at Bombay the nation bade him speed on August 29.

In Quest of Freedom

Malaviya, Sarojini Naidu, Madhav and Pyarelal- his secretary, Miraben and son Devdas accompanied Gandhi. On board S.S. Rajputana he was in high spirits, chatted with other passengers, made friends and played with children, held prayer meetings, spoke, examined the ship’s instruments, dozed on the sunlit deck, and most of the time plied the spinning wheel.

Friends Every Where

At Suez, port side, Gandhi received Egypt’s greetings, met Indian deputations, talked to journalists. At Marseilles he met European friends, like Deenbandhu C. F. Andrews. Arriving in London on September 12, Gandhi and party proceeded to the East End, the quarter of the poor coal miners and factory hands, lived in their midst at Kingsley Hall, managed by Muriel Lester, his English hostess.

Meeting the people

Scotland Yard had provided two top detectives to guard him, but he needed none. Wherever Mahatma went, children and women, simple folk and sophisticated gentry flocked round him, as when Charles Chaplin, the famous comedian, called. And it is on record that it was Gandhi who made him laugh.

Talking to Leaders

Gandhi met many groups of intellectuals, social workers and students. Addressed many meetings. He visited coal miners cottages, east end children celebrated his birthday with candles and cakes, leaders of all shades of thought-social, political, religious- discussed India with him; for instance, the "Red Dean" of Canterbury, Dr. Hewlett Johnson.

Welcome in Lancashire

Gandhi visited the cotton mills District in Lancashire, hard hit by foreign cloth boycott. Looms were idle, chimneys unsmoking, men unemployed, women miserable. But when he talked to them, explained the plight of India’s peasants, they understood him and even cheered him. And he took time off to attend the Dairy Animal show at Islington and to pat the prize-winning goats.

Futile Quest

And in the midst of all his social calls, Gandhi attended to his main business, the Round Table Conference. He pleaded fervently with the British leaders to give his country freedom, to avoid parting of ways. But they did not listen to him and he left Britain’s shores empty-handed. On the way home at Villeneuve in Switzerland Gandhi met Romain Rolland, the French savant.

Fresh Ordeal

1932: Returning to India, Gandhiji saw Willingdon’s Ordinance raj everywhere: close associates and colleagues were arrested. Soon he himself was taken to Yeravda Prison. In September he fasted against the Communal violence lying under the mango tree. He stirred the Hindu conscience, that led to the Yeravda Pact. On a second fast, in May 1933, for Harijan work, he was released.

From Sabarmati to Segaon

In July 1933, after the solemn last prayer, Gandhi disbanded the Sabarmati Ashram. In September he moved to Satyagraha Ashram at Wardha. Henceforth, the morning walks were on Wardha’s plains. In November, he commenced his country-wide Harijan tour, starting from Nagpur, for rousing the masses to a sense of their duty in regard to the abolition of untouchability.

Tireless pilgrimage

The story of Gandhiji is the story of his tireless pilgrimage throughout the length and breadth of the country for the emancipation of the dumb, downtrodden masses. The tour of 1934 had, for its aim, the upliftment of the "untouchable" whom he called the "Hari Jans" or the children of god.

The Blot of Untouchability

Gandhiji addressed meetings, spoke to people everywhere of the blot of untouchability and the Hindu duty to remove it. When Bihar was devastated by the earthquake in January in 1934, he rushed there to organize relief, but he considered disaster God’s punishment for the sin of the Hindus.

Retirement from Congress

In October 1934, at the Bombay congress he parted company. He differed from congress in the interpretation of the goal: Poorna Swaraj. For his was much more than independence. Means mattered as much as ends. The Congress session paved the way for the setting up the All-India Village Industrious Association.

Constructive work

Village work, Swadeshi claimed most of Gandhiji’s time and attention. Jamnalal Bajaj, J. C. Kumarappa were among those who teamed up with him. He addressed constructive workers from different parts of the country, showed keen interest in such basic things as compost-making, vital for rebuilding the village economy.

Work and Prayer

Harijan upliftment dominated Gandhiji’s mind; he held counsel with trusted social workers such as Thakkar Bapa. At the same time, he combined with thought and deed the act of prayer, leading the tallest of his associates to mass prayers in the Bhangi or Harijan colony. Meanwhile, the Government of India Act of 1935 was on the anvil.

Plague Relief

Relief to the plague-stricken had always a special appeal for Gandhiji whether in South Africa or in India. In 1935, Borsad and other Gujarat Villages suffered an epidemic. With Morarji Desai, Sardar Patel and other trusted lieutenants, Gandhiji toured them, stressed on sanitation, and educated the people in the riddance of rats.

Body of Mind

In his dynamic programme for the reconstruction of rural India, Gandhiji had the support of intellectuals like Nehru and Azad. While, in 1936, he presided over the Literary Conference at Nagpur and extolled the virtues of literature, he lost no opportunity to stress the dignity of labour, setting an example himself.

TOP 10 INDIAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS

2013-04-28T10:16:00.007-07:00

TOP 10 INDIAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS

1.Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Date of Birth : Oct 2, 1869 Date of Death : Jan 30, 1948 Place of Birth : Gujarat

Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) was born into a Hindu Modh family in Porbandar, Gujarat, India in 1869. He was the son of Karamchand Gandhi, the diwan (Chief Minister) of Porbandar, and Putlibai, Karamchand’s fourth wife (his previous three wives had died in childbirth), a Hindu of the Pranami Vaishnava order. Growing up 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.

In May 1883, at the age of 13, Gandhi was married through his parents’ arrangement to Kasturba Makhanji (also spelled “Kasturbai” or known as “Ba”), who was the same age as he. 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 the University of Bombay in 1887, where he joined Samaldas College. He was also unhappy at the college, because his family wanted him to become a barrister. He leapt at the opportunity to study in England, which he viewed as “a land of philosophers and poets, the very centre of civilization.” Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India, and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer and perfector of Satyagraha – the resistance of tyranny through mass civil disobedience strongly founded upon ahimsa (total non-violence) – which led India to independence, and has inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

Gandhi is commonly known and addressed in India and across the world as Mahatma Gandhi and as Bapu. Though his elders objected, Gandhi could not be prevented from leaving; and it is said that his mother, a devout woman, made him promise that he would keep away from wine, women, and meat during his stay abroad. Gandhi left behind his son Harilal, then a few months old. In London, Gandhi encountered theosophists, vegetarians, and others who were disenchanted not only with industrialism, but with the legacy of Enlightenment thought. They themselves represented the fringe elements of English society. Gandhi was powerfully attracted to them, as he was to the texts of the major religious traditions; and ironically it is in London that he was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita. Here, too, Gandhi showed determination and single-minded pursuit of his purpose, and accomplished his objective of finishing his degree from the Inner Temple.

He was called to the bar in 1891, and even enrolled in the High Court of London; but later that year he left for India. After one year of a none too successful law practice, Gandhi decided to accept an offer from an Indian businessman in South Africa, Dada Abdulla, to join him as a legal adviser. Unbeknown to him, this was to become an exceedingly lengthy stay, and altogether Gandhi was to stay in South Africa for over twenty years. The Indians who had been living in South Africa were without political rights, and were generally known by the derogatory name of ‘coolies’. Gandhi himself came to an awareness of the frightening force and fury of European racism, and how far Indians were from being considered full human beings, when he thrown out of a first-class railway compartment car, though he held a first-class ticket, at Pietermaritzburg. From this political awakening Gandhi was to emerge as the leader of the Indian community, and it is in South Africa that he first coined the term satyagraha to signify his theory and practice of non-violent resistance. Gandhi was to describe himself preeminently as a votary or seeker of satya (truth), which could not be attained other than through ahimsa (non-violence, love) and brahmacharya (celibacy, striving towards God). Gandhi conceived of his own life as a series of experiments to forge the use of satyagraha in such a manner as to make the oppressor and the oppressed alike recognize their common bonding and humanity: as he recognized, freedom is only freedom when it is indivisible. In his book ‘Satyagraha in South Africa’ he was to detail the struggles of the Indians to claim their rights, and their resistance to oppressive legislation and executive measures, such as the imposition of a poll tax on them, or the declaration by the government that all non-Christian marriages were to be construed as invalid. In 1909, on a trip back to India, Gandhi authored a short treatise entitled ‘Hind Swaraj’ or Indian Home Rule, where he all but initiated the critique, not only of industrial civilization, but of modernity in all its aspects.

Gandhi returned to India in early 1915, and was never to leave the country again except for a short trip that took him to Europe in 1931. Though he was not completely unknown in India, Gandhi followed the advice of his political mentor, Gokhale, and took it upon himself to acquire a familiarity with Indian conditions. He traveled widely for one year. Over the next few years, he was to become involved in numerous local struggles, such as at Champaran in Bihar, where workers on indigo plantations complained of oppressive working conditions, and at Ahmedabad, where a dispute had broken out between management and workers at textile mills. His interventions earned Gandhi a considerable reputation, and his rapid ascendancy to the helm of nationalist politics is signified by his leadership of the opposition to repressive legislation (known as the “Rowlatt Acts”) in 1919.

His saintliness was not uncommon, except in someone like him who immersed himself in politics, and by this time he had earned from no less a person than Rabindranath Tagore, India’s most well-known writer, the title of Mahatma, or ‘Great Soul’. When ‘disturbances’ broke out in the Punjab, leading to the massacre of a large crowd of unarmed Indians at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar and other atrocities, Gandhi wrote the report of the Punjab Congress Inquiry Committee. Over the next two years, Gandhi initiated the non-cooperation movement, which called upon Indians to withdraw from British institutions, to return honors conferred by the British, and to learn the art of self-reliance; though the British administration was at places paralyzed, the movement was suspended in February 1922 when a score of Indian policemen were brutally killed by a large crowd at Chauri Chaura, a small market town in the United Provinces.

Gandhi himself was arrested shortly thereafter, tried on charges of sedition, and sentenced to imprisonment for six years. At The Great Trial, as it is known to his biographers, Gandhi delivered a masterful indictment of British rule. Owing to his poor health, Gandhi was released from prison in 1925. Over the following years, he worked hard to preserve Hindu-Muslim relations, and in 1924 he observed, from his prison cell, a 21-day fast when Hindu-Muslim riots broke out at Kohat, a military barracks on the Northwest Frontier. This was to be of his many major public fasts, and in 1932 he was to commence the so-called Epic Fast unto death, since he thought of “separate electorates” for the oppressed class of what were then called untouchables (or Harijans in Gandhi’s vocabulary, and dalits in today’s language) as a retrograde measure meant to produce permanent divisions within Hindu society. Gandhi earned the hostility of Ambedkar, the leader of the untouchables, but few doubted that Gandhi was genuinely interested in removing the serious disabilities from which they suffered, just as no one doubt that Gandhi never accepted the argument that Hindus and Muslims constituted two separate elements in Indian society.

These were some of the concerns most prominent in Gandhi’s mind, but he was also to initiate a constructive programme for social reform. Gandhi had ideas — mostly sound — on every subject, from hygiene and nutrition to education and labor, and he relentlessly pursued his ideas in one of the many newspapers which he founded. Indeed, were Gandhi known for nothing else in India, he would still be remembered as one of the principal figures in the history of Indian journalism. In early 1930, as the nationalist movement was revived, the Indian National Congress, the preeminent body of nationalist opinion, declared that it would now be satisfied with nothing short of complete independence (purna swaraj). Once the clarion call had been issued, it was perforce necessary to launch a movement of resistance against British rule. On March 2, Gandhi addressed a letter to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, informing him that unless Indian demands were met, he would be compelled to break the “salt laws”.

Predictably, his letter was received with bewildered amusement, and accordingly Gandhi set off, on the early morning of March 12, with a small group of followers towards Dandi on the sea. They arrived there on April 5th: Gandhi picked up a small lump of natural salt, and so gave the signal to hundreds of thousands of people to similarly defy the law, since the British exercised a monopoly on the production and sale of salt. This was the beginning of the civil disobedience movement: Gandhi himself was arrested, and thousands of others were also hauled into jail. It is to break this deadlock that Irwin agreed to hold talks with Gandhi, and subsequently the British agreed to hold a Round Table Conference in London to negotiate the possible terms of Indian independence. Gandhi went to London in 1931 and met some of his admirers in Europe, but the negotiations proved inconclusive. On his return to India, he was once again arrested. For the next few years, Gandhi would be engaged mainly in the constructive reform of Indian society.

He had vowed upon undertaking the salt march that he would not return to Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, where he had made his home, if India did not attain its independence, and in the mid-1930s he established himself in a remote village, in the dead center of India, by the name of Segaon (known as Sevagram). It is to this obscure village, which was without electricity or running water, that India’s political leaders made their way to engage in discussions with Gandhi about the future of the independence movement, and it is here that he received visitors such as Margaret Sanger, the well-known American proponent of birth-control. Gandhi also continued to travel throughout the country, taking him wherever his services were required. One such visit was to the Northwest Frontier, where he had in the imposing Pathan, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (known by the endearing term of “Frontier Gandhi”, and at other times as Badshah Khan), a fervent disciple. At the outset of World War II, Gandhi and the Congress leadership assumed a position of neutrality: while clearly critical of fascism, they could not find it in themselves to support British imperialism. Gandhi was opposed by Subhas Chandra Bose, who had served as President of the Congress, and who took to the view that Britain’s moment of weakness was India’s moment of opportunity. When Bose ran for President of the Congress against Gandhi’s wishes and triumphed against Gandhi’s own candidate, he found that Gandhi still exercised influence over the Congress Working Committee, and that it was near impossible to run the Congress if the cooperation of Gandhi and his followers could not be procured. Bose tendered his resignation, and shortly thereafter was to make a dramatic escape from India to find support among the Japanese and the Nazis for his plans to liberate India. In 1942, Gandhi issued the last call for independence from British rule. On the grounds of what is now known as August Kranti Maidan, he delivered a stirring speech, asking every Indian to lay down their life, if necessary, in the cause of freedom.

He gave them this mantra: “Do or Die”; at the same time, he asked the British to ‘Quit India’. The response of the British government was to place Gandhi under arrest, and virtually the entire Congress leadership was to find itself behind bars, not to be released until after the conclusion of the war. A few months after Gandhi and Kasturba had been placed in confinement in the Aga Khan’s Palace in Pune, Kasturba passed away: this was a terrible blow to Gandhi, following closely on the heels of the death of his private secretary of many years, the gifted Mahadev Desai. In the period from 1942 to 1945, the Muslim League, which represented the interest of certain Muslims and by now advocated the creation of a separate homeland for Muslims, increasingly gained the attention of the British, and supported them in their war effort. The new government that came to power in Britain under Clement Atlee was committed to the independence of India, and negotiations for India’s future began in earnest. Sensing that the political leaders were now craving for power, Gandhi largely distanced himself from the negotiations. He declared his opposition to the vivisection of India.

It is generally conceded, even by his detractors, that the last years of his life were in some respects his finest. He walked from village to village in riot-torn Noakhali, where Hindus were being killed in retaliation for the killing of Muslims in Bihar, and nursed the wounded and consoled the widowed; and in Calcutta he came to constitute, in the famous words of the last viceroy, Mountbatten, a “one-man boundary force” between Hindus and Muslims. The ferocious fighting in Calcutta came to a halt, almost entirely on account of Gandhi’s efforts, and even his critics were wont to speak of the Gandhi’s ‘miracle of Calcutta’. When the moment of freedom came, on 15 August 1947, Gandhi was nowhere to be seen in the capital, though Nehru and the entire Constituent Assembly were to salute him as the architect of Indian independence, as the ‘father of the nation’. The last few months of Gandhi’s life were to be spent mainly in the capital city of Delhi. There he divided his time between the ‘Bhangi colony’, where the sweepers and the lowest of the low stayed, and Birla House, the residence of one of the wealthiest men in India and one of the benefactors of Gandhi’s ashrams. Hindu and Sikh refugees had streamed into the capital from what had become Pakistan, and there was much resentment, which easily translated into violence, against Muslims. It was partly in an attempt to put an end to the killings in Delhi, and more generally to the bloodshed following the partition, which may have taken the lives of as many as 1 million people, besides causing the dislocation of no fewer than 11 million, that Gandhi was to commence the last fast unto death of his life. The fast was terminated when representatives of all the communities signed a statement that they were prepared to live in “perfect amity”, and that the lives, property, and faith of the Muslims would be safeguarded.

A few days later, a bomb exploded in Birla House where Gandhi was holding his evening prayers, but it caused no injuries. However, his assassin, a Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin by the name of Nathuram Godse, was not so easily deterred. Gandhi, quite characteristically, refused additional security, and no one could defy his wish to be allowed to move around unhindered. In the early evening hours of 30 January 1948, Gandhi met with India’s Deputy Prime Minister and his close associate in the freedom struggle, Vallabhai Patel, and then proceeded to his prayers. That evening, as Gandhi’s time-piece, which hung from one of the folds of his dhoti (loin-cloth), was to reveal to him, he was uncharacteristically late to his prayers, and he fretted about his inability to be punctual. At 10 minutes past 5 o’clock, with one hand each on the shoulders of Abha and Manu, who were known as his ‘walking sticks’, Gandhi commenced his walk towards the garden where the prayer meeting was held. As he was about to mount the steps of the podium, Gandhi folded his hands and greeted his audience with a namaskar; at that moment, a young man came up to him and roughly pushed aside Manu. Nathuram Godse bent down in the gesture of an obeisance, took a revolver out of his pocket, and shot Gandhi three times in his chest. Bloodstains appeared over Gandhi’s white woolen shawl; his hands still folded in a greeting, Gandhi blessed his assassin: He Ram! He Ram! As Gandhi fell, his faithful time-piece struck the ground, and the hands of the watch came to a standstill. They showed, as they had done before, the precise time: 5:12 P.M.

2. Subhash Chandra Bose

: Subhash Chandra Bose

Date of Birth : Jan 23, 1897 Date of Death : Aug 18, 1945 Place of Birth : Orissa

Subhash Chandra Bose (January 23, 1897 – August 18, 1945?), also known as Netaji, was one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian Independence Movement against the British Raj. Subhas Chandra Bose was born to an affluent family in Cuttack, Orissa. His father, Janakinath Bose, was a public prosecutor who believed in orthodox nationalism, and later became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. His mother was Prabhavati Bose, a remarkable example of Indian womanhood. Bose was educated at Cambridge University. In 1920, Bose took the Indian Civil Service entrance examination and was placed second. However, he resigned from the prestigious Indian Civil Service in April 1921 despite his high ranking in the merit list, and went on to become an active member of India’s independence movement. He joined the Indian National Congress, and was particularly active in its youth wing. Subhas Chandra Bose felt that young militant groups could be molded into a military arm of the freedom movement and used to further the cause. Gandhiji opposed this ideology because it directly conflicted with his policy of ahimsa (non-violence). The British Government in India perceived Subhas as a potential source of danger and had him arrested without any charge on October 25, 1924. He was sent to Alipore Jail, Calcutta and in January 25, 1925 transferred to Mandalay, Burma. He was released from Mandalay in May, 1927 due to his ill health. Upon return to Calcutta, Subhas was elected President of the Bengal Congress Committee on October 27, 1927.

Subhas was one of the few politicians who sought and worked towards Hindu-Muslim unity on the basis of respect of each community’s rights. Subhas, being a man of ideals, believed in independence from the social evil of religious discord. In January 1930 Subhas was arrested while leading a procession condemning imprisonment of revolutionaries. He was offered bail on condition that he signs a bond to refrain from all political activities, which he refused. As a result he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. On his release from jail, Subhas was sworn in as Mayor of the Calcutta Corporation. In 1931 the split between Gandhiji and Subhas crystallized. Although the two never saw eye to eye on their view of freedom and the movement itself, Subhas felt that Gandhiji had done a great disservice to the movement by agreeing to take part in the Second Round Table Conference. Subhas viewed freedom as an absolute necessity, unlike the freedom which Gandhiji was “negotiating” with the British. Subhas was arrested again while returning from Bombay to Calcutta, and imprisoned in several jails outside West Bengal in fear of an uprising. His health once again deteriorated and the medical facilities diagnosed him with tuberculosis. It was recommended that he be sent to Switzerland for treatment. Realizing that his avenues abroad were greater with the restrictions of the British, Subhas set sail for Europe on February 23, 1933. Subhas stayed in various parts of Europe from March 1993 to March 1936 making contacts with Indian revolutionaries and European socialists supporting India’s Struggle for Independence. Subhas met Mussolini in Italy and made Vienna his headquarters. Subhas was opposed to the racial theory of Nazism but appreciated its organizational strength and discipline. On March 27, 1936 he sailed for Bombay and but was escorted to jail immediately after disembarking. After lying low for a year, he was able to work actively. He attended the All India Congress Committee Session in Calcutta, the first one he attended after a lapse of nearly six years. Time had healed the tensions between Subhas and Gandhiji, and Gandhiji supported Subhas in his efforts to become the President of the next Congress session, 1938. He went to England for a month in 1938 and rallied for the Indian freedom cause amongst Indian students and British labor leaders sympathetic toward India’s cause. It was a bold move since he was constantly under British surveillance. Upon his return to India in February 1938, Subhas was elected President of the Indian National Congress. An excerpt from his Presidential address read, “I have no doubt in my mind that our chief national problems relating to the eradication of poverty, illiteracy and disease and the scientific production and distribution can be tackled only along socialistic lines… .” Subhas emphasized that political freedom alone would not be sufficient, as the ills of the British reign would continue to haunt post-Independent India. He stressed the need to solve linguistic and religious prejudices and to achieve a high literacy rate amongst Indians. Gandhiji found Subhas’s ideologies far too leftist and strongly disagreed with Subhas’s criticism of village industries and stress on competing with the rest of the world in the Industrial age. Opposition from Sardar Vallabhai Patel, lack of support from Gandhiji and Nehru’s indecision marked Subhas’s year as the President of the Congress. One of Subhas’ major contributions was setting up of a National Planning Committee, for the development of an economic program running parallel to the national movement. Differences between Gandhiji and Subhas led to a crisis when Gandhiji opposed Subhas’ idea that the Bengal Government (a coalition between the Krishak Praja Party & Muslim League) be ousted and the Congress take charge in coalition with the Krishak party. The idea was criticized by Gandhiji and Nehru, which resulted in the strengthening of the Muslim League in Bengal and ultimately partition of India. It is obvious today that had Subhas been able to carry out his plans, Bengal would be a different entity on the atlas. Despite opposition from the Congress brass, Subhas was a favorite amongst the majority as he was re-elected for a second term in March 1939. Gandhiji considered Subhas’s victory as his personal defeat and went on a fast to rally the members of the Working Committee to resign. Subhas resigned and Dr. Rajendra Prasad assumed the Presidency of the Congress. In May 1939, Subhas formed the Forward Bloc within the Congress as an umbrella organization of the left forces within the Congress. Gandhiji and his supporters accused Subhas of breach of Congress party discipline and drafted a resolution removing Subhas from the Congress Working Committee and restrained him from holding any office for three years. On September 3, 1939 Subhas was informed that war had broken out between Britain and Germany. Subhas discussed the idea of an underground struggle against the British with members of the Forward Bloc. Subhas pressurized the Congress leaders to get a Declaration of War Aims from the Viceroy; he declined. Subhas was elected President of the West Bengal Provincial Congress. In December the Congress Working Committee subverted the Provincial Committee’s authority and appointed its own ad hoc committee. The Forward Bloc progressively became militant and by April 1940 most of its senior members were arrested. Subhas was convinced that the only way he could bring about India’s Independence was by leaving the country and fighting from foreign territories. He had made contact with radical Punjab and Pathan activists who had contacts in Afghanistan and Russia to organize a militia. Subhas knew that Britain was in a vulnerable position following the surrender of France in June 1940. He announced the launch of Siraj-ud-daula Day on July 3, in memory of the last king of Bengal who was defeated by Clive. His plan was to hold a procession and to unify Hindu and Muslim nationalists. The Government interceded and imprisoned Subhas on July 2, 1940 in Presidency Jail, Calcutta. Netaji believed that foreign assistance was a must to free India from British rule. In 1939, when the Second World War broke out, Subhas sought assistance from Germany, Italy, and Japan as they were enemies of Britain and thus would be natural allies. In 1941, he evaded a house-arrest in Calcutta by disguising himself as a Maulavi and going to Kabul, Afghanistan. Later, he procured an Italian passport and fled to Berlin, Germany. There he met Hitler and discussed his plans and sought his assistance to free India. He also sought assistance from Mussolini. From time to time, he aired his speeches on the Azad Hind Radio from Berlin to communicate his intentions to fellow Indians and to prove that he was still alive. After the defeat of Germany, Netaji realized that he could not continue his struggle from Germany anymore. Ultimately, Netaji reached Japan in June, 1943. He established the Indian National Army (INA) with some 30,000 Indian soldiers. He also set up a radio network in South East Asia in order to appeal to the people, both in India and outside, for support. The INA declared war against Britain and America. However, the INA had to retreat from the Indo-Burmese border after a heavy defeat of the Japanese troops there. The British defense was impenetrable. Though the “Delhi Chalo” mission failed, Netaji proved to the world that his determination was strong and his attitude was positive in his dream to free India from the clutches of the British.

On August 16, 1945 Netaji boarded a plane from Singapore to Bangkok. Netaji was scheduled to fly in a Type 97-2 bomber ‘Sally’ from Bangkok to Saigon. The plane made a stopover in Taipei and crashed within minutes of take-off from Taipei. Netaji’s body was cremated in Taipei on August 20, 1945 and his ashes were flown to Tokyo on September 5, 1945 where they rest in the Renkoji Temple. To this day, many believe that Netaji escaped from the air crash and went into hiding.

Netaji wanted unconditional and complete freedom. He dreamed of a classless society with no caste barriers, social inequalities or religious intolerance. He believed in equal distribution of wealth and destruction of communalism. His slogan “Jai Hind” still acts as a great binding force today

3. Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru

Date of Birth : Nov 14, 1889 Date of Death : May 27, 1964 Place of Birth : Uttar Pradesh Political party : Indian National Congress Took Office : Aug 15, 1947 Left Office : May 27, 1964 Successor : Lal Bahadur Shastri

Jawaharlal Nehru also called Pandit Nehru, was an important leader of the Indian Independence Movement and the Indian National Congress, and became the first Prime Minister of India when India won its independence on August 15, 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, to Swaroop Rani, the wife of Motilal Nehru, a wealthy Allahabad based barrister and political leader himself. He was Nehru’s only son amongst three younger daughters. The Nehru family is of Kashmiri lineage and of the Saraswat Brahmin caste. Educated in the finest Indian schools of the time, Nehru returned from education in England at Harrow, Trinity College, Cambridge and the Inner Temple to practice law before following his father into politics. By his parents’ arrangement, Nehru married Kamala Nehru, then seventeen in 1916. At the time of his wedding on 8 February 1916, Jawaharlal was twenty-six, a British-educated barrister. Kamala came from a well-known business family of Kashmiris in Delhi. His father Motilal Nehru was already a prominent figure in the Indian National Congress and had served as its president. Nehru did not share Motilal’s moderate-liberal line.

He began to draw closer to the rising leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a former barrister who had won battles for equality and political rights for Indians in South Africa, and had emerged a national hero with the successful struggles in Champaran, Bihar and Kheda in Gujarat. Nehru was instantly attracted to Gandhi’s commitment for active but peaceful, civil disobedience. Gandhi himself saw promise and India’s future in the young Jawaharl Nehru. The Nehru family transformed their lifestyle according to Gandhi’s teachings. Jawaharlal and Motilal Nehru abandoned western clothes and tastes for expensive possessions and pastimes, and adopted Hindi, or Hindustani as their common language of use. Young Jawaharlal now wore a khadi kurta and a Gandhi cap, all white – the new uniform of the Indian nationalist. Nehru was first arrested by the British during the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-1922), but released after a few months. After Gandhi suspended civil resistance in 1922 as a result of the killing of policemen in Chauri Chaura, thousands of Congressmen were disillusioned.

When Gandhi opposed participation in the newly created legislative councils, many followed leaders like Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru to form the Swaraj Party, which advocated entry but only to sabotage government from within, as a tool to extracting concessions from the British to ensure stability. But Nehru did not join his father and stayed with Gandhi and the Congress. Jawaharlal was elected President of the Allahabad Municipal Corporation in 1924, and served for two years as the city’s chief executive. Upon his release from prison in 1924, Gandhi succeeded in re-uniting the Congress Party and increasing discipline of Congressmen by expanding activities for social reform and the alleviation of India’s poor. From 1926 to 1928, Jawaharlal served as the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee, an important step in his rise to Congress national leadership. With the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928, led by the rising nationalist leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Congress was back in the business of revolution. In 1928-29, the Congress’s annual session under President Motilal Nehru considered the next step. Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose backed a call for full political independence, while Motilal Nehru and others wanted dominion status within the British Empire.

To resolve the point, Gandhi said that the British would be given two years to grant India dominion status. If they did not, the Congress would launch a national struggle for full, political independence. Nehru and Bose reduced the time of opportunity to one year. The British did not respond. When the Congress convened its session in 1929, Gandhi backed the young Jawaharlal for the Congress presidency. Although confessing embarrassment at his hurried ascent, President Nehru declared India’s independence on January 26, 1930 in Lahore, raised free India’s flag in a large public convention on the banks of the Ravi and inaugurated the struggle. Nehru was arrested in 1930, and during the Salt Satyagraha of 1931 for a number of years. The revolt was an astounding national success. Millions of Indians had participated, and the British were ultimately forced to acknowledge that there was a need for major political reform. When the British promulgated the Government of India Act 1935, the Congress Party decided to contest elections. Nehru stayed out of the elections, but campaigned vigorously nationwide for the party.

The Congress formed governments in almost every province, and won the largest number of seats in the Central Assembly, which the Congress had denounced as powerless. But it was able to exercise control of provincial affairs, giving India its first taste of democratic self-government. Nehru was elected again to the Congress Presidency in 1936, and again in 1937. In his famous speech to the session in Lucknow in 1936, he pushed the passage of the Avadi Resolution which committed the Congress to socialism as the basis of the future agenda of a free India’s government. But the effort was strongly criticized by major Congress leaders, including Gandhi and Sardar Patel, though for different reasons. Nehru transformed his position to commit that the resolution did not in fact bind Congress to socialism, and that the Congress Party’s main goal was independence, not socialism. However, Nehru had grown politically closer to Congress socialists like Jaya Prakash Narayan, Narendra Dev and the liberal-socialist Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. During this period, Nehru also wrote his autobiography in which he vividly describes his struggle for (political) freedom, noting that ‘This book was written entirely in prison’.

It is a very readable and honest account that contains many anecdotes and insights in the political and social circumstances of pre-war India. When World War II broke out, Nehru and the Congress condemned the unilateral decision made by the British viceroy to enter India, but were divided as to what to do about it. Nehru and Patel made an offer of cooperation with the British, promising whole-hearted support if after the war, the British would deliver India’s political freedom. This was opposed by Gandhi, but marked the first occasion when Nehru, and indeed a majority of Congress leaders went against his advice. Several British politicians and British officials backed the offer, considering Indian support valuable, but the bid failed when the British ruled out any political reform. The Congress Party ordered all of its elected members in the Central and provincial assemblies to resign, and another national struggle seemed inevitable. Nehru and Maulana Azad were lukewarm to Gandhi’s call for revolt, still considering it a good possibility that the British would ultimately concede independence for Indian support. Although many other Indian political parties opposed the call, Gandhi and Sardar Patel convinced Nehru and Azad, and the entire Indian National Congress to a final showdown with the British Empire.

The Quit India Movement was launched on August 13, 1942. The Congress made an open call for complete independence immediately. Only an independent India would decide whether India would participate in the war. The Congress asked all Indians to boycott British goods, the institutions and factories run by the British, public services and government programs. Major strikes, protests and demonstrations broke out all over India, and although other political parties did not participate, it proved to be the most forceful revolt in the history of British rule. Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were immediately arrested. The Committee was imprisoned in a fort-turned-prison in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, separate from Gandhi, who was imprisoned in Pune. The British had made arrangements to deport the leaders if necessary, but felt that then any chance of regaining order would be lost due to public outrage. Outside, hundreds of thousands of Indian freedom fighters were imprisoned, and thousands were killed in police firings. Upon the end of the war, Nehru and the Congress leadership were released. The new Labour Party government of Clement Attlee in the United Kingdom was preparing plans for India’s independence. Imprisoned for a total of over 13 years, he was President of the Congress in 1929, 1936, 1937 and 1947.

He became the Vice President of the Interim Government on September 2, 1946 and later the Prime Minister of Independent India on August 15, 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru served as India’s Prime Minister from August 15, 1947, to May 27, 1964 – the day he died. Nehru loved children; therefore his birthday is observed as Children’s Day. For children, he was Chacha (uncle) Nehru. In 1946, Nehru had moved into the former residence of the British Commander in Chief of the Indian Army on York Road, in Delhi. With independence, this became the official residence of the PM, and after Nehru’s death in 1964, the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Nehru lived alone initially, but was later joined by his daughter Indira Gandhi, who despite having a young family of her own felt a need to take care of her father’s personal needs. Over the years she became his virtual chief of staff – managing his schedule and appointments, instructing the staff of the residence and often accompanying him on foreign trips and in meetings with world leaders. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s administration created the policies that formed the backbone of India’s social and economic development, national defense and position in world affairs for decades, although many times are criticized as very much wrong policies. Nehru also sired the most powerful political dynasty in India’s modern history. His daughter Indira Gandhi would become Prime Minister within two years of his death in 1966, and would serve for 15 years and 3 terms.

His grandson Rajiv Gandhi would hold that office from 1984 to 1989. Today, Rajiv’s widow Sonia Gandhi is Congress President.

4. Bhagat Singh

: Bhagat Singh

Date of Birth : Sep 27, 1907 Date of Death : Mar 23, 1931 Place of Birth : Jalandhar

Bhagat Singh (September 27, 1907 – March 23, 1931) was an Indian revolutionary, considered to be one of the most famous martyrs of the Indian freedom struggle. For this reason, he is often referred to as Shaheed Bhagat Singh (the word shaheed means “martyr”). Bhagat Singh was born into a Sikh family to Sardar Kishan Singh and Vidyavati in the Khatkar Kalan village near Banga in the Jalandhar district of Punjab. His uncle, Sardar Ajit Singh, as well as his father, were great freedom fighters, so Bhagat Singh grew up in a patriotic atmosphere. Ajit Singh established the Indian Patriots’ Association, along with Syed Haidar Raza, to organize the peasants against the Chenab Canal Colony Bill. He also established the secret organization, the Bharat Mata Society. At an early age, Bhagat Singh started dreaming of uprooting the British empire. Never afraid of fighting during his childhood, he thought of “growing guns in the fields,” so that he could fight against the British. The Ghadar Movement left a deep imprint on his mind. Kartar Sing Sarabha, hanged at the age of 19, became his hero. The massacre at Jallianwala Bagh on April 13, 1919 drove him to go to Amritsar, where he kissed the earth sanctified by the martyrs’ blood and brought back home a little of the soaked soil. He studied in the D.A.V. School in Lahore. At the age of 16, he used to wonder why so many Indians could not drive away these fistful of invaders. In search of revolutionary groups and ideas, he met Sukhdev and Rajguru. Bhagat Singh, along with the help of Chandrashekhar Azad, formed the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA). The aim of this Indian revolutionary movement was now defined as not only to make India independent, but also to create “a socialist India.” During the Simon Commission, Sher-e-Punjab Lala Lajpat Rai was wounded and died later. To avenge his death, Bhagat Singh and Rajguru killed Mr. Saunders (one of the deputy officers in connection with the Simon Commission).

When the British government promulgated the two bills “Trade Union Dispute Bill” and “Public Safety Bill” which Bhagat Singh and his party thought were Black Laws aimed at curbing citizens’ freedom and civil liberties, they decided to oppose these bills by throwing a bomb in the Central Assembly Hall (which is now Lok Sabha). However, things changed, and the Britishers arrested Bhagat Singh and his friends on April 8, 1929. He and his friends wanted to be shot dead, since they were termed as prisoners of war. Their request was not fulfilled, and on March 23, 1931, Bhagat Singh, Shivram Rajguru, and Sukhdev were hanged to death. This man’s only mission in life was to see his country free from British rule. He did his best and when he was being led to the gallows, he was satisfied that he had lived up to his principles, irrespective of the consequences. The only thing that made him sad was that he couldn’t do more for his country.

5. Dr. Rajendra Prasad

Dr. Rajendra Prasad

Date of Birth : Dec 3, 1884 Date of Death : Feb 28, 1963 Place of Birth : Zeradei, Bihar Tenure Order : 1st President Took Office : Jan 26, 1950 Left Office : May 13, 1962 Successor : Dr.S Radhakrishnan

Dr. Rajendra Prasad was the first President of India. Rajendra Prasad was a great freedom-fighter, and the architect of the Indian Constitution, having served as President of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Constitution of the Republic from 1948 to 1950. He had also served as a Cabinet Minister briefly in the first Government of Independent India. He was a crucial leader of the Indian Independence Movement. Prasad was born in Jiradei, in the Siwan district of Bihar. His father, Mahadev Sahay, was a Persian and Sanskrit language scholar; his mother, Kamleshwari Devi, was a devout lady who would tell stories from the Ramayana to her son. At the age of 5, the young Rajendra Prasad was sent to a Maulavi for learning Persian. After that he was sent to Chapra Zilla School for further primary studies.

He was married at the age of 12 to Rajvanshi Devi. He then went on to study at R.K. Ghosh’s Academy in Patna to be with his older brother Mahendra Prasad. Soon afterward, however, he rejoined the Chapra Zilla School, and it was from there that he passed the entrance examination of Calcutta University, at the age of 18. He stood first in the first division of that examination. He then joined the Presidency College, Calcutta. He was initially a student of science and his teachers included J.C.Bose and Prafulla Chandra Roy. Later he decided to switch his focus to the arts. Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy, who was impressed by his intellect and dedication asked him on the occasion “Why have you deserted your class?.” Prasad lived with his brother in the Eden Hindu Hostel. A plaque still commemorates his stay in that room. He had been initiated into the Swadeshi movement by his brother. He then joined the Dawn Society run by Satish Chandra Mukherjee, and Sister Nivedita. In 1911, he joined the A.I.C.C. However, his family estate was in bad condition. He was looked upon as the provider. But he sought permission from his brother in a letter to join the Indian freedom movement. He wrote, “Ambitions I have none, except to be of some service to the Motherland”. The shock of his brother, however, held him to the family. In 1916, Rajendra Prasad joined the High Court of Bihar, and Orissa. Such was his intellect and his integrity, that often when his adversary failed to cite a precedent, the judges asked Rajendra Prasad to cite a precedent against himself. After meeting Mahatma Gandhi, he quit as a Senator of the University, much to the regret of the British Vice-Chancellor.He also responded to the call by the Mahatma to boycott Western education by asking his son Mrityunjaya Prasad, a brilliant student to drop out of the University and enroll himself in Bihar Vidyapeeth, an institution he had along with his colleagues founded on the traditional Indian model. He wrote articles for Searchlight and the Desh and collected funds for these papers. He toured a lot, explaining, lecturing and exhorting. When the earthquake of Bihar occurred on January 15, 1934, Rajendra Prasad was in jail. He was released two days later. He set himself for the task of raising funds. The Viceroy had also raised a fund. However, while Rajendra Prasad’s fund collected over 38 Lakhs (Rs. 3,800,000), the Viceroy could only manage one-third of that amount. The way relief was organized left nothing to be desired. Nationalist India expressed its admiration by electing him to the President of the Bombay session of the Indian National Congress.

After India became independent he was elected the President of India. As President, he used his moderating influence so silently and unobtrusively that he neither reigned nor ruled. His sister Bhagwati Devi died on the night of 25 January 1960. She doted on her dearly-loved younger brother. It must have taken Rajendra Prasad all his will power to have taken the Republic Day salute as usual, on the following day. It was only on return from the parade that he set about the task of cremation. In 1962, after 12 years as President, he announced his decision to retire. He was subsequently awarded the Bharat Ratna, the nation’s highest civilian award. Within months of his retirement, early in September 1962, his wife Rajvanshi Devi passed away. In a letter written a month before his death to one devoted to him, he said, “I have a feeling that the end is near, end of the energy to do, end of my very existence”. He died on 28 February 1963 with ‘Ram Ram Ram’ on his lips. Because of the enormous public adulation he enjoyed, he was referred to as Desh Ratna or the Jewel of the country. His legacy is being ably carried forward by his great grandson Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad, a psychiatrist and a scientist of international repute who introduced sodium valproate as a safer alternative to lithium salts in the treatment of bipolar disorders.

6.Lal Bahadur Shastri

Lal Bahadur Shastri

Date of Birth : Oct 2, 1904 Date of Death : Jan 11, 1966 Place of Birth : Uttar Pradesh

Lal Bahadur Shastri was the second Prime Minister of independent India and a significant figure in the struggle for independence. Shashtriji was born in Mughalsarai, in Uttar Pradesh. To take part in the non-cooperation movement of Mahatma Gandhi in 1921, he began studying at the nationalist, Kashi Vidyapeeth in Kashi, and upon completion, he was given the title Shastri, or Scholar, Doctor at Kashi Vidyapeeth in 1926. He spent almost nine years in jail in total, mostly after the start of the Satyagraha movement in 1940, he was imprisoned until 1946. Following India’s independence, he was Home Minister under Chief Minister Govind Ballabh Pant of Uttar Pradesh. In 1951, he was appointed General Secretary of the Lok Sabha before re-gaining a ministerial post as Railways Minister. He resigned as Minister following a rail disaster near Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu. He returned to the Cabinet following the General Elections, first as Minister for Transport, in 1961, he became Home Minister. After Jawaharlal Nehru’s death in May 27, 1964, he became the prime minister. Shastri worked by his natural characteristics to obtain compromises between opposing viewpoints, but in his short tenure was ineffectual in dealing with the economic crisis and food shortage in the nation.

However, he commanded a great deal of respect in the Indian populace, and he used it to advantage in pushing the Green Revolution in India; which directly led to India becoming a food-surplus nation, although he did not live to see it. His administration began on a rocky turf. In 1965 Pakistan attacked India on the Kashmiri front and Lal Bahadur Shastri responded in kind by punching toward Lahore. In 1966 a cease-fire was issued as a result of international pressure. Lal Bahadur Shastri went to Tashkent to hold talks with Ayub Khan and an agreement was soon signed. Lal Bahadur passed away in Tashkent before returning home. All his lifetime, he was known for his honesty and humility. He was the first person to be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna and a memorial “Vijay Ghat” was built for him in Delhi. The slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ is attributed to Shastri. ‘If one person gives up one meal in a day, some other person gets his only meal of the day.’: made during the food crisis to encourage people to evenly distribute food.

7. Chandrashekhar Azad

Chandrashekhar Azad

Date of Birth : Jul 23, 1906 Date of Death : Feb 27, 1931 Place of Birth : India

Chandrasekhar Azad was a great Indian freedom fighter and revolutionary thinker. Revered for his audacious deeds and fierce patriotism, he was the mentor of Bhagat Singh, the famous Indian martyr. Chandrasekhar Azad is considered one of the greatest Indian freedom fighter along with Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Ram Prasad Bismil, and Ashfaqulla Khan. Chandrasekhar Azad’s parents were Pandit Sita Ram Tiwari and Jagrani Devi. He received his early schooling in Bhavra District Jhabua (Madhya Pradesh). For higher studies he went to the Sanskrit Pathashala at Varanasi. Young Azad was one of the young generation of Indians when Mahatma Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation Movement. But many were disillusioned with the suspension of the struggle in 1922 owing to the Chauri Chaura massacre of 22 policemen. Although Gandhi was appalled by the brutal violence, Azad did not feel that violence was unacceptable in the struggle, especially in view of the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, where Army units killed hundreds of unarmed civilians and wounded thousands in Amritsar. Young Azad and contemporaries like Bhagat Singh were deeply and emotionally influenced by that tragedy. As a revolutionary, he adopted the lastname ‘Azad’, which means “Free” in Urdu.There is an interesting story that while he adopted the name “Azad” he made a pledge that the Police will never capture him alive. Azad and others had committed themselves to absolute independence by any means. He was most famous for The Kakori Rail Dacoity in 1925 and the assassination of the assistant superintendent of Police John Poyantz Saunders in 1928.

Azad and his compatriots would target British officials known for their oppressive actions against ordinary people, or for beating and torturing arrested freedom fighters. Azad was also a believer in socialism as the basis for a future India, free of social and economic oppression and adversity. Bhagat Singh joined Azad following the death of Lala Lajpat Rai, an Indian leader who was beaten to death by police officials. Azad trained Singh and others in covert activities, and the latter grew close to him after witnessing his resolve, patriotism and courage. Along with fellow patriots like Rajguru and Sukhdev, Azad and Singh formed the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, committed to complete Indian independence and socialist principles of for India’s future progress. Betrayed by an informer on 27 February 1931 Azad was encircled by British troops in the Alfred park, Allahabad. He kept on fighting till the last bullet. Azad is a hero to many Indians today. Alfred Park was renamed Chandrasekhar Azad park, as have been scores of schools, colleges, roads and other public institutions across India.

8. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Date of Birth : Oct 31, 1875 Date of Death : Dec 15, 1950 Place of Birth : Gujarat

Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel was born at his maternal uncle’s house in Nadiad, Gujarat. His actual date of birth was never officially recorded – Patel entered October 31st as his date of birth on his matriculation examination papers. He was the fourth son of Jhaverbhai and Ladba Patel, and lived in the village of Karamsad, in the Kheda district. Somabhai, Narsibhai and Vithalbhai Patel (also a future political leader) were his elder brothers. He had a younger brother, Kashibhai, and a sister, Dahiba. Patel helped his father in the fields, and bimonthly kept a day-long fast, abstaining from food and water – a cultural observance that enabled him to develop physical tougheness. He entered school late – parental attention was focused on the eldest brothers, thus leading to a degree of neglect of Patel’s education. Patel travelled to attend schools in Nadiad, Petlad and Borsad, living self-sufficiently with other boys. He took his matriculation at the late age of 22; at this point, he was generally regarded by his elder relatives as an unambitious man destined for a commonplace job. But Patel himself harbored a plan – he would pass the Pleader’s examination and become a lawyer. He would then set aside funds, travel to England, then train to become a barrister.

During the many years it took him to save money, Vallabhbhai – now a pleader – earned a reputation as a fierce and skilled lawyer. He had also cultivated a stoic character – he lanced a painful boil without hesitation, even as the barber supposed to do it trembled. Patel spent years away from his family, pursuing his goals assiduously. Later, Patel fetched Jhaverba from her parent’s home – Patel was married to Jhaverba at a young age. As per Indian custom at the time, the girl would remain at her mother’s house until her husband began earning – and set up his household. His wife bore him a daughter, Manibehn, in 1904, and later a son, Dahyabhai, in 1906. Patel also cared for a personal friend suffering from Bubonic plague when it swept the state. After Patel himself came down with the disease, he immediately sent away his family to safety, left his home, and moved into an isolated house in Nadiad (by other accounts, Patel spent this time in a dilapidated temple); there, he recovered slowly. Patel took on the financial burdens of his homestead in Karamsad even while saving for England and supporting a young family. He made way for his brother Vithalbhai Patel to travel to England in place of him, on his own saved money and opportunity. The episode occurred as the tickets and pass Patel had applied for arrived in the name of “V. J. Patel,” and arrived at Vithalbhai’s home, who bore the same initials. Patel did not hesitate to make way for his elder brother’s ambition before his own, and funded his trip as well. In 1909, Patel’s wife Jhaverba was hospitalized in Bombay to undergo a major surgical operation for cancer. Her health suddenly worsened, and despite successful emergency surgery, she died. Patel was given a note informing him of his wife’s demise as he was cross-examining a witness in court. As per others who witnessed, Patel read the note, pocketed it and continued to intensely cross-examine the witness, and won the case. He broke the news to others only after the proceedings had ended. Patel himself decided against marrying again. He raised his children with the help of his family, and sent them to English-medium schools in Mumbai (then Bombay). At the age of 36, he journeyed to England and enrolled at the Middle Temple Inn in London. Finishing a 36-month course in 30 months, Patel topped his class despite having no previous college background. Patel settled in the city of Ahmedabad, and became one of the city’s most successful barristers. Wearing European-style clothes and urbane mannerisms, he also became a skilled bridge player at the Gujarat Club. His close friends would include his neighbours Dr. Balwantray and Nandubehn Kanuga, who would remain dear to him, and a young lawyer, Ganesh Vasudev Mavlankar. He had also made a pact with his brother Vithalbhai to support his entry into politics in Bombay, while Patel himself would remain in Ahmedabad and provide for the family. According to some of Patel’s friends, he nurtured ambitions to expand his practise and accumulate great wealth, and to provide his children with modern education.

Vallabhbhai Patel was a major political and social leader of India and its struggle for independence, and is credited for achieving the political integration of independent India. In India and across the world, he is known as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, where Sardar stands for Chief in many languages of India. Patel organized the peasants of Kheda, Borsad, and Bardoli in Gujarat in non-violent civil disobedience against the oppressive policies imposed by the British Raj – becoming one of the most influential leaders in Gujarat. He rose to the leadership of the Indian National Congress and at the forefront of rebellions and political events – organizing the party for elections in 1934 and 1937, and leading Indians into the Quit India movement. He was imprisoned by the British government on numerous occasions, especially from 1931 to 1934, and from 1942 to 1945. Becoming the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India, Patel organized relief and rehabilitation efforts in the riot-struck Punjab and Delhi, and led efforts to restore security. Patel took charge of the task to forge a united India from a plethora of semi-independent princely states, colonial provinces and possessions. Patel employed an iron fist in a velvet glove diplomacy – frank political negotiations backed with the option (and the use) of military action to weld a nation that could emancipate its people without the prospect of divisions or civil conflict. His leadership obtained the peaceful and swift integration of all 565 princely states into the Republic of India. Patel’s initiatives spread democracy extensively across India, and re-organized the states to help transform India into a modern federal republic. His admirers call him the Iron Man of India. He is also remembered as the “patron saint” of India’s civil servants for his defence of them against political attack, and for being one of the earliest and key defenders of property rights and free enterprise in independent India.

On 29 March 1949, a plane carrying Patel and the Maharaja of Patiala lost radio contact, and Patel’s life was feared for all over the nation. The plane had made an emergency landing in the desert of Rajasthan upon an engine failure, and Patel and all passengers were safe, and traced by nearby villagers. When Patel returned to Delhi, members of Parliament and thousands of Congressmen gave him a raucous welcome. In Parliament, MPs gave a thunderous ovation to Patel – stopping proceedings for half an hour. Till his last few days, he was constantly at work in Delhi. Patel’s health worsened after 2 November 1950, and he was flown to Bombay to recuperate. After suffering a massive heart attack – his second – he died in Bombay on December 15th, 1950. In an unprecedented gesture, more than 1,500 officers of India’s civil and police services congregated at Patel’s residence in Delhi on the day after his death to mourn him – they pledged “complete loyalty and unremmitting zeal” in India’s service. His cremation in Sonapur, Bombay, was attended by large crowds, Nehru, Rajagopalachari, President Prasad and many Congressmen and freedom fighters.

9. Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Date of Birth : Jul 23, 1856 Date of Death : 1920 Place of Birth : Maharashtra

Bal Gangadhar Tilak, was an Indian nationalist, social reformer and freedom fighter who was the first popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. Tilak sparked the fire for complete independence in Indian consciousness, and is considered the father of Hindu nationalism as well. Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it! This famous quote of his is very popular and well-remembered in India even today.

Reverently addressed as Lokmanya (meaning “Beloved of the people” or “Revered by the world”), Tilak was a scholar of Indian history, Sanskrit, Hinduism, mathematics and astronomy. He was born on July 23, 1856, in a village near Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, into a middle class Chitpavan Brahmin family. Tilak was an avid student with a special aptitude for mathematics. He was among India’s first generation of youth to receive a modern, college education. After graduation, Tilak began teaching mathematics in a private school in Pune and later became a journalist. He became a strong critic of the Western education system, feeling it demeaning to Indian students and disrespectful to India’s heritage. He organized the Deccan Education Society to improve the quality of education for India’s youth. Tilak founded the Marathi daily Kesari (The Lion) which fast became a popular reading for the common people of India. Tilak strongly criticized the government for its brutalism in suppression of free expression, especially in face of protests against the division of Bengal in 1905, and for denigrating India’s culture, its people and heritage. He demanded the British immediately give the right to self-government to India’s people. Tilak joined the Indian National Congress in the 1890s, but soon fell into opposition of its liberal-moderate attitude towards the fight for self-government. Tilak opposed the moderate views of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and was supported by fellow Indian nationalists Bipin Chandra Pal in Bengal and Lala Lajpat Rai in Punjab. In 1907, the Congress Party split into the Garam Dal (literally, “Hot Faction”), led by Tilak, Pal and Lajpat Rai, and the Naram Dal (literally, “Soft Faction”) led by Gokhale during its convention at Surat in Gujarat. When arrested on charges of sedition in 1906, Tilak asked a young Mohammad Ali Jinnah to represent him. But the British judge convicted him and he was imprisoned from 1908 to 1914 in Mandalay, Burma. Upon his release, Tilak re-united with his fellow nationalists and re-united the Indian National Congress in 1916. He also helped found the All India Home Rule League in 1916-18 with Annie Besant and Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Tilak proposed various social reforms, such as a minimum age for marriage, and was especially keen to see a prohibition placed on the sale of alcohol. His thoughts on education and Indian political life have remained highly influential – he was the first Congress leader to suggest that Hindi, written in the devanagari script, should be accepted as the sole national language of India, a policy that was later strongly endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi. However, English, which Tilak wished to remove completely from the Indian mind, remains an important means of communication in India. But the usage of Hindi (and other Indian languages) has been reinforced and widely encouraged since the days of the British Raj, and Tilak’s legacy is often credited with this resurgence. Another of the major contributions relates to the propagation of Sarvajanik (public) Ganesh festival, over 10-11 days from Bhadrapada Shukla (Ganesh) Chaturthi to (Anant) Chaturdashi (in Aug/Sept span), which contributed for people to get together and celebrate the festival and provided a good platform for leaders to inspire masses. His call for boycott of foreign goods also served to inspire patriotism among Indian masses. Tilak was a critic of Mahatma Gandhi’s strategy of non-violent, civil disobedience. Although once considered an extremist revolutionary, in his later years Tilak had considerably mellowed. He favored political dialogue and discussions as a more effective way to obtain political freedom for India, and did not support leaving the British Empire. However, Tilak is considered in many ways to have created the nationalist movement in India, by expanding the struggle for political freedoms and self-government to the common people of India. His writings on Indian culture, history and Hinduism spread a sense of heritage and pride amongst millions of Indians for India’s ancient civilization and glory as a nation.

Tilak was considered the political and spiritual leader of India by many, and Gandhi is considered his successor. When Tilak died in 1920, Gandhi paid his respects at his cremation in Bombay, along with 200,000 people. Gandhi called Tilak “The Maker of Modern India”.

Tilak is also today considered the father of Hindu Nationalism. He was the idol of Indian revolutionary Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who penned the political doctrine of Hindutva.

10. Gopal Krishna Gokhale

Gopal Krishna Gokhale

Date of Birth : May 9, 1866 Date of Death : 1915 Place of Birth : Maharashtra

Gopal Krishna Gokhale was born on May 9, 1866, in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, and he became one of the most learned men in India, a leader of social and political reformists and one of the earliest, founding leaders of the Indian Independence Movement. Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and the Servants of India Society. The latter was committed to only social reform, but the Congress Party in Gokhale’s time was the main vehicle for Indian political representation. Gokhale was a great, early Indian champion for public education. Being one of the first generations of Indians to receive college education, Gokhale was respected widely in the nascent Indian intellecutal community and acoss India, whose people looked up to him as the least elitist of educated Indians. Coming from a background of poverty, Gokhale was a real man of the people, a hero to young Indians discovering the new age and the prospects of the coming 20th century; he worked amongst common Indians to encourage education, sanitation and public development. He actively spoke against ignorance, casteism and untouchability in Indian society. Gokhale was also reputed for working for trust and friendship between Hindu and Muslim communities. It should be remembered that Gokhale was a pioneer in this work, never done before in Indian history by Indians. Along with distinguished colleagues like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Dadabhai Naoroji, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai and Annie Besant, Gokhale fought for decades to obtain greater political representation and power over public affairs for common Indians. He was moderate in his views and attitudes, and sought to petition the British authorities, cultivate a process of dialogue and discussion which would yield greater British respect for Indian rights. In 1906, he and Tilak were the respective leaders of the moderates and extremists (now known by the more politically correct term,’aggressive nationalists’) in the Congress. Tilak advocated civil agitation and direct revolution to overthrow the British Empire, and the Congress Party split into two wings. The two sides would patch up in 1916. Gokhale did not support explicit Indian independence, for such an idea was not even understood or expressed until after the World War I.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s biggest contribution to India was as a teacher, nurturer of a whole new generation of leaders conscious to their responsibilities to a wider nation. Gokhale was famously a mentor to a young barrister who had been blooded in the work of revolution in South Africa a few years earlier. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi received great warmth and hospitality from Gokhale, including personal guidance, knowledge and understanding of India, the issues of common Indians and Indian politics. By 1920, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi would become known as Mahatma Gandhi, and ad the leader of nationalist Indians and the largest non-violent revolution in the history of the world. However, Gokhale himself died in 1915. In his autobiography, Gandhi calls Gokhale his mentor and guide, while Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the future founder of Pakistan, in 1912 wanted to become the “Muslim Gokhale,” “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity.”

Shimla State Museum

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Shimla State Museum

¤ Main Attractions

As you walk on along the Mall, you’ll reach the Himachal State Museum, a colonial building set in spacious lawns.It has a good collection of coins, photographs, local handicrafts and other items. The doll gallery consists of a collection of Himachali bride and tribal dolls while the collection of Pahari miniature painting is also worth a look.

Numerous damaged sculptures from all over the state have been preserved here, like the 8th century stone images from Masrur andBajaura. There are also some 11th century miniature bronzes like the beautiful standing Vishnu (second of the Hindu Trinity of Creator-Preserver-Destroyer) figure.

¤ Visiting Hours

1000-1330, 1400-1700; Closed on Mondays and public holidays.

RANI LAKSHMI BAI

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RANI LAKSHMI BAI (1835 - 1858)

JHANSI KI RANI was the great heroine of the First War of Indian Freedom. She became a widow at the tender age of 18 and lived only till 22 yet she has inspired many and is still a living legend. She was the embodiment of patriotism, self-respect and heroism. Her life is a thrilling story of womanliness, courage, adventure, deathless patriotism and martyrdom. In her tender body there was a lions spirit.

At birth she was named Manu. The young Manu, unfortunately she lost her mother when she was only four. The entire duty of bringing up the daughter fell on her father. Along with formal education she acquired the skill in sword fighting, horse riding and shooting. Manu later became the wife of Gangadhar Rao, Maharaj of Jhansi, in 1842. From then on she was known as Maharani Laksmi Bai of Jhansi.

In 1851 Maharani Lakshmi Bai bore a son but her fate was cruel and she lost her child within three months. The Maharaja passed away on the 21st November 1853. Although prior to this the Maharaja and Maharani adopted a boy the British government claimed they did not recognise the right of the adopted boy. Thus they tried to buy off the Rani however she stated: "No, impossible! I shall not surrender my Jhansi!"It did not take her long to realise how difficult it was for the small state of Jhansi to oppose the British when even the Peshwas and Kings of Delhi had bowed down to the British Demands. The Rani’s battle now was against the British who had cunningly taken her kingdom from her.

After the British took over her government her daily routine changed. Every morning from 4am to 8am were set apart for bathing, worship, meditation and prayer. From 8am to 11am she would go out for a horse ride, practise shooting, and practise swordmanship and shooting with the reins held on her teeth. Thereafter she would bathe again, feed the hungry, give alms to the poor and then have food; then rested for a while. After that she would chant the Ramanyan. She would then exercise lightly in the evening. Later she would go through some religious books and hear religious sermons. Then she worshipped her chosen deity and had supper. All things were done methodically, according to her strict timetable. Such a dedicated and devoted women!

All these disciplined and training patterns came in use during the Indian Mutiny in 1857. Many lives were lost and innocence people killed. Although Bharat did not gain independence the Rani did win back Jhansi and created the state to its former glory having a full treasury and army of women matching the army of men. However Sir Hugh Rose attacked Jhansi on 17th March 1858. The next day’s battle was the Rani’s last. Her death was heroic, her army had declined as they were out numbered by the opposition. The British Army had encircled her and her men. There was no escape blood was flowing, darkness was approaching. The British army was pursuing her. After a great struggle the Rani died muttering quotes from the Bhagvad Gita.

When she went to War and took up arms she was the very embodiment of the War Goddess Kali. She was beautiful and frail. But her radiance made men diffident. She was young in years, but her decisions were mature. Such an confident and dominant women! A lesson is to be learnt for us all from her experiences! The words of the British General Sir Hugh Rose who fought against the Maharani several times and was defeated time and time again stated: "Of the mutineers the bravest and the greatest commander was the Rani".

Mohandas K. Gandhi

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Born	Mohandas K. Gandhi 2 October 1869 Porbandar, Kathiawar Agency,British Indian Empire^[1]
Died	30 January 1948 (aged 78) New Delhi, Dominion of India
Cause of death	Assassination by shooting
Resting place	Cremated at Rajghat, Delhi. 28.6415°N 77.2483°E
Nationality	Indian
Other names	Mahatma Gandhi, Bapu, Gandhiji
Ethnicity	Indo-Aryan (Gujarati)
Alma mater	Alfred High School, Rajkot, Samaldas College, Bhavnagar, University College, London (UCL)
Known for	Prominent figure of Indian independence movement, propounding the philosophy ofSatyagraha and Ahimsa advocating non-violence, pacifism
Religion	Hinduism, with Jain influences
Spouse(s)	Kasturba Gandhi
Children	Harilal Manilal Ramdas Devdas
Parents	Putlibai Gandhi (Mother) Karamchand Gandhi (Father)
Signature

Early life and background

Gandhi in his earliest known photo, aged 7, c. 1876

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi^[10] was born on 2 October 1869^[1] in Porbandar, a coastal town which was then part of the Bombay Presidency, British India.^[11] He was born in his ancestral home, now known as Kirti Mandir.^[12] His father, Karamchand Gandhi (1822–1885), who belonged to theHindu Modh community, served as the diwan (chief minister) of Porbander state, a small princely salute state in the Kathiawar Agency of British India.^[12]^[13] His grandfather was Uttamchand Gandhi, also called Utta Gandhi.^[12] His mother, Putlibai, who came from the Pranami Vaishnava community, was Karamchand's fourth wife, the first three wives having apparently died in childbirth.^[14]

The Indian classics, especially the stories of Shravana and king Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood. In his autobiography, he admits that they left an indelible impression on his mind. He writes: "It haunted me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without number." Gandhi's early self-identification with truth and love as supreme values is traceable to these epic characters.^[15]^[16]

In May 1883, the 13-year-old Mohandas was married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Makhanji (her first name was usually shortened to "Kasturba", and affectionately to "Ba") in an arranged child marriage, according to the custom of the region.^[17] In the process, he lost a year at school.^[18] Recalling the day of their marriage, he once said, "As we didn't know much about marriage, for us it meant only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives." However, as was prevailing tradition, the adolescent bride was to spend much time at her parents' house, and away from her husband.^[19]In 1885, when Gandhi was 15, the couple's first child was born, but survived only a few days. Gandhi's father, Karamchand Gandhi, had also died earlier that year.^[20]

Mohandas and Kasturba had four more children, all sons: Harilal, born in 1888; Manilal, born in 1892; Ramdas, born in 1897; andDevdas, born in 1900.^[17] At his middle school in Porbandar and high school in Rajkot, Gandhi remained a mediocre student. He shone neither in the classroom nor on the playing field. One of the terminal reports rated him as "good at English, fair in Arithmetic and weak in Geography; conduct very good, bad handwriting." He passed the matriculation exam at Samaldas College in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, with some difficulty. Gandhi's family wanted him to be a barrister, as it would increase the prospects of succeeding to his father's post.^[21]

English barrister

Gandhi and his wife Kasturba (1902)

In 1888, Gandhi travelled to London, England, to study law at University College London, where he studied Indian law and jurisprudence and to train as a barrister at theInner Temple. His time in London was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother upon leaving India, in the presence of a Jain monk, to observe the precepts of abstinence from meat and alcohol as well as of promiscuity.^[22] Gandhi tried to adopt "English" customs, including taking dancing lessons. However, he could not appreciate the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady and was frequently hungry until he found one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. Influenced by Henry Salt's writing, he joined the Vegetarian Society, was elected to its executive committee,^[23] and started a local Bayswater chapter.^[14] Some of the vegetarians he met were members of theTheosophical Society, which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of Buddhist and Hindu literature. They encouraged Gandhi to join them in reading the Bhagavad Gita both in translation as well as in the original.^[23] Not having shown interest in religion before, he became interested in religious thought.

Gandhi was called to the bar in June 1891 and then left London for India, where he learned that his mother had died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from him.^[23] His attempts at establishing a law practice in Bombay failed because he was too shy to speak up in court. He returned to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but he was forced to close it when he ran afoul of a British officer.^[14]^[23] In 1893, he accepted a year-long contract from Dada Abdulla & Co., an Indian firm, to a post in the Colony of Natal, South Africa, then part of the British Empire.^[14]

Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914)

Gandhi was 24 when he arrived in South Africa^[24] to work as a legal representative for the Muslim Indian Traders based in the city of Pretoria.^[25] He spent 21 years in South Africa, where he developed his political views, ethics and political leadership skills.

Purported photograph of Gandhi in South Africa (1895)

Indians in South Africa were led by wealthy Muslims, who employed Gandhi as a lawyer, and by impoverished Hindu indentured laborers with very limited rights. Gandhi considered them all to be Indians, taking a lifetime view that "Indianness" transcended religion and caste. He believed he could bridge historic differences, especially regarding religion, and he took that belief back to India where he tried to implement it. The South African experience exposed handicaps to Gandhi that he had not known about. He realised he was out of contact with the enormous complexities of religious and cultural life in India, and believed he understood India by getting to know and leading Indians in South Africa.^[26]

In South Africa, Gandhi faced the discrimination directed at all coloured people. He was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to move from the first-class. He protested and was allowed on first class the next day.^[27] Travelling farther on by stagecoach, he was beaten by a driver for refusing to move to make room for a European passenger.^[28] He suffered other hardships on the journey as well, including being barred from several hotels. In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court ordered Gandhi to remove his turban, which he refused to do.^[29]

These events were a turning point in Gandhi's life and shaped his social activism and awakened him to social injustice. After witnessing racism, prejudice and injustice against Indians in South Africa, Gandhi began to question his place in society and his people's standing in the British Empire.^[30]

Gandhi extended his original period of stay in South Africa to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote. In regards to this bill Gandhi sent out a memorial to Joseph Chamberlain, British Colonial Secretary, asking him to reconsider his position on this bill.^[25] Though unable to halt the bill's passage, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the Natal Indian Congress in 1894,^[14]^[27] and through this organisation, he moulded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force. In January 1897, when Gandhi landed in Durban, a mob of white settlers attacked him^[31] and he escaped only through the efforts of the wife of the police superintendent. He, however, 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.^[14]

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 11 September that year, Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of Satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or non-violent protest, for the first time.^[32] He urged Indians to defy the new law and to suffer the punishments for doing so. The community adopted this plan, and during the ensuing seven-year struggle, thousands of Indians were jailed, flogged, or shot for striking, refusing to register, for burning their registration cards or engaging in other forms of non-violent resistance. The government successfully repressed the Indian protesters, but the public outcry over the harsh treatment of peaceful Indian protesters by the South African government forced South African leader Jan Christiaan Smuts, himself a philosopher, to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi. Gandhi's ideas took shape, and the concept of Satyagraha matured during this struggle.

Gandhi and the Africans

Gandhi in South Africa (1909)

Gandhi focused his attention on Indians while in South Africa and opposed the idea that Indians should be treated at the same level as native Africans while in South Africa.^[33]^[34]^[35] He also stated that he believed "that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race."^[36] After several treatments he received from Whites in South Africa, Gandhi began to change his thinking and apparently increased his interest in politics.^[37] White rule enforced strict segregation among all races and generated conflict between these communities. Bhana and Vahed argue that Gandhi, at first, shared racial notions prevalent of the times and that his experiences in jail sensitized him to the plight of blacks.

During the Boer War Gandhi volunteered in 1900 to form a group of ambulance drivers. He wanted to disprove the British idea that Hindus were not fit for "manly" activities involving danger and exertion. Gandhi raised eleven hundred Indian volunteers. They were trained and medically certified to serve on the front lines. At Spion Kop Gandhi and his bearers had to carry wounded soldiers for miles to a field hospital because the terrain was too rough for the ambulances. Gandhi was pleased when someone said that European ambulance corpsmen could not make the trip under the heat without food or water. General Redvers Buller mentioned the courage of the Indians in his dispatch. Gandhi and thirty seven other Indians received the War Medal.^[38]

In 1906, the British declared war against the Zulu Kingdom in Natal, Gandhi encouraged the British to recruit Indians.^[39] He argued that Indians should support the war efforts in order to legitimise their claims to full citizenship.^[39] The British accepted Gandhi's offer to let a detachment of 20 Indians volunteer as a stretcher-bearer corps to treat wounded British soldiers. This corps was commanded by Gandhi and operated for less than two months.^[40] The experience taught him it was hopeless to directly challenge the overwhelming military power of the British army—he decided it could only be resisted in non-violent fashion by the pure of heart.^[41]

After the black majority came to power in South Africa, Gandhi was proclaimed a national hero with numerous monuments.^[42]

Struggle for Indian Independence (1915–47)

See also: Indian independence movement

In 1915, Gandhi returned to India permanently. He brought an international reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and organizer. He joined the Indian National Congress and was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people primarily by Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Gokhale was a key leader of the Congress Party best known for his restraint and moderation, and his insistence on working inside the system. Gandhi took Gokhale's liberal approach based on British Whiggish traditions and transformed it to make it look wholly Indian.^[43]

Gandhi took leadership of Congress in 1920 and began a steady escalation of demands (with intermittent compromises or pauses) until on 26 January 1930 the Indian National Congress declared the independence of India. The British did not recognize that and more negotiations ensued, with Congress taking a role in provincial government in the late 1930s. Gandhi and Congress withdrew their support of the Raj when the Viceroy declared war on Germany in September 1939 without consulting anyone. Tensions escalated until Gandhi demanded immediate independence in 1942 and the British responded by imprisoning him and tens of thousands of Congress leaders for the duration. Meanwhile the Muslim League did cooperate with Britain and moved, against Gandhi's strong opposition, to demands for a totally separate Muslim state of Pakistan. In August 1947 the British partitioned the land, with India and Pakistan each achieving independence on terms Gandhi disapproved.^[44]

Role in World War I

In April 1918, during the latter part of World War I, the Viceroy invited Gandhi to a War Conference in Delhi.^[45] Perhaps to show his support for the Empire and help his case for India's independence,^[46] Gandhi agreed to actively recruit Indians for the war effort.^[47] In contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants. In a June 1918 leaflet entitled "Appeal for Enlistment", Gandhi wrote "To bring about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them...If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army."^[48] He did, however, stipulate in a letter to the Viceroy's private secretary that he "personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe."^[49]

Gandhi's war recruitment campaign brought into question his consistency on nonviolence as his friend Charlie Andrews confirms, "Personally I have never been able to reconcile this with his own conduct in other respects, and it is one of the points where I have found myself in painful disagreement."^[50] Gandhi's private secretary also had acknowledged that "The question of the consistency between his creed of 'Ahimsa' (non-violence) and his recruiting campaign was raised not only then but has been discussed ever since."^[47]

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 and Kheda agitations of Bihar and Gujarat. The Champaran agitation pitted the local peasantry against their largely British landlords who were backed by the local administration. The peasantry was forced to grow Indigo, a cash crop whose demand had been declining over two decades, and were forced to sell their crops to the planters at a fixed price. Unhappy with this, the peasantry appealed to Gandhi at his ashram in Ahmedabad. Pursuing a strategy of non-violent protest, Gandhi took the administration by surprise and won concessions from the authorities.^[51]

In 1918, Kheda was hit by floods and famine and the peasantry was demanding relief from taxes. Gandhi moved his headquarters to Nadiad,^[52] organising scores of supporters and fresh volunteers from the region, the most notable being Vallabhbhai Patel.^[53] Using non-cooperation as a technique, Gandhi initiated a signature campaign where peasants pledged non-payment of revenue even under the threat of confiscation of land. A social boycott of mamlatdars and talatdars (revenue officials within the district) accompanied the agitation. Gandhi worked hard to win public support for the agitation across the country. For five months, the administration refused but finally in end-May 1918, the Government gave way on important provisions and relaxed the conditions of payment of revenue tax until the famine ended. In Kheda, Vallabhbhai Patel represented the farmers in negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection and released all the prisoners.^[54]

Khilafat movement

In 1919 Gandhi, with his weak position in Congress, decided to broaden his base by increasing his appeal to Muslims. The opportunity came from the Khilafat movement, a worldwide protest by Muslims against the collapsing status of the Caliph, the leader of their religion. The Ottoman Empire had lost the World War and was dismembered, as Muslims feared for the safety of the holy places and the prestige of their religion.^[55] Although Gandhi did not originate the All-India Muslim Conference,^[56] which directed the movement in India, he soon became its most prominent spokesman and attracted a strong base of Muslim support with local chapters in all Muslim centers in India.^[57] His success made him India's first national leader with a multicultural base and facilitated his rise to power within Congress, which had previously been unable to reach many Muslims. In 1920 Gandhi became a major leader in Congress.^[58]^[59] By the end of 1922 the Khilafat movement had collapsed.^[60]

Gandhi always fought against "communalism", which pitted Muslims against Hindus in politics, but he could not reverse the rapid growth of communalism after 1922. Deadly religious riots broke out in numerous cities, including 91 in U.P. (Uttar Pradesh) alone.^[61]^[62] At the leadership level, the proportion of Muslims among delegates to Congress fell sharply, from 11% in 1921 to under 4% in 1923.^[63]

Non-cooperation

Main article: Non-cooperation movement

Mahatma Gandhi spinning yarn, in the late 1920s

With Congress now behind him in 1920, Gandhi had the base to employ non-cooperation, non-violence and peaceful resistance as his "weapons" in the struggle against the British Raj. His wide popularity among both Hindus and Muslims made his leadership possible; he even convinced the extreme faction of Muslims to support peaceful non-cooperation.^[64] The spark that ignited a national protest was overwhelming anger at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (or Amritsar massacre) of hundreds of peaceful civilians by British troops inPunjab. Many Britons celebrated the action as needed to prevent another violent uprising similar to the Rebellion of 1857, an attitude that caused many Indian leaders to decide the Raj was controlled by their enemies. Gandhi criticised 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.^[65]

After the massacre and subsequent violence, Gandhi began to focus on winning complete self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, maturing soon into Swaraj or complete individual, spiritual, political independence.^[66] During this period, Gandhi claimed to be a "highly orthodox Hindu" and in January 1921 during a speech at a temple in Vadtal, he spoke of the relevance of non-cooperation to Hindu Dharma, "At this holy place, I declare, if you want to protect your 'Hindu Dharma', non-cooperation is first as well as the last lesson you must learn up.".^[67]

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 reorganised 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 organisation 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.^[68]

Gandhi even invented a small, portable spinning wheel that could be folded into the size of a small typewriter.^[69] This was a strategy to inculcate discipline and dedication to weeding 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.^[70]

"Non-cooperation" enjoyed widespread 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.^[71] This was the third time that Gandhi had called off a major campaign.^[72] Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He began his sentence on 18 March 1922. He was released in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only 2 years.^[73]

Without Gandhi's unifying 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 byChakravarti 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.^[74] In this year, Gandhi was persuaded to preside over the Congress session to be held in Belgaum. Gandhi agreed to become president of the session on one condition: that Congressmen should take to wearing homespun khadi. In his long political career, this was the only time when he presided over a Congress session.^[75]

Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)

Main article: Salt Satyagraha

Original footage of Gandhi and his followers marching to Dandi in the Salt Satyagraha

Gandhi stayed out of active politics and, as such, the limelight for most of the 1920s. He focused instead on resolving 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. In the preceding year, the British government had appointed a new constitutional reform commission under Sir John Simon, which did not include any Indian as its member. 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-cooperation 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 reduced his own call to a one year wait, instead of two.^[76]

The British did not respond. On 31 December 1929, the flag of India was unfurled in Lahore. 26 January 1930 was celebrated as India's Independence Day by the Indian National Congress meeting in Lahore. This day was commemorated by almost every other Indian organisation. Gandhi then launched a new Satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930. This was highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from 12 March to 6 April, where he marched 388 kilometres (241 mi) 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 hold on India; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.^[77]

Women

Gandhi strongly favoured the emancipation of women, and he went so far as to say that "the women have come to look upon me as one of themselves." He opposed purdah, child marriage, untouchability, and the extreme oppression of Hindu widows, up to and includingsati. He especially recruited women to participate in the salt tax campaigns and the boycott of foreign products.^[78] Sarma concludes that Gandhi's success in enlisting women in his campaigns, including the salt tax campaign, anti-untouchability campaign and the peasant movement, gave many women a new self-confidence and dignity in the mainstream of Indian public life.^[79]

Gandhi as folk hero

Congress in the 1920s appealed to peasants by portraying Gandhi as a sort of messiah, a strategy that succeeded in incorporating radical forces within the peasantry into the nonviolent resistance movement. In thousands of villages plays were performed that presented Gandhi as the reincarnation of earlier Indian nationalist leaders, or even as a demigod. The plays built support among illiterate peasants steeped in traditional Hindu culture. Similar messianic imagery appeared in popular songs and poems, and in Congress-sponsored religious pageants and celebrations. The result was that Gandhi became not only a folk hero but the Congress was widely seen in the villages as his sacred instrument.^[80]

Negotiations

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

The government, represented by Lord Edward Irwin, decided to negotiate with Gandhi. TheGandhi–Irwin Pact was signed in March 1931. The British Government agreed to free all political prisoners, in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. Also as a result of the pact, 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, because it focused on the Indian princes and Indian minorities rather than on a transfer of power. Lord Irwin's successor, Lord Willingdon, taking a hard line against nationalism, began a new campaign of controlling and subduing the nationalist movement. Gandhi was again arrested, and the government tried and failed to negate his influence by completely isolating him from his followers.^[81]

Untouchables

In 1932, through the campaigning of the Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar, the government granted untouchables separate electorates under the new constitution, known as theCommunal Award. In protest, Gandhi embarked on a six-day fast on 20 September 1932, while he was imprisoned at the Yerwada Jail, Pune.^[82] The resulting public outcry successfully forced the government to adopt an equitable arrangement (Poona Pact) through negotiations mediated by Palwankar Baloo.^[82] 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.^[83]

On 8 May 1933, Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement.^[84]This new campaign was not universally embraced within the Dalit community, as Ambedkar condemned Gandhi's use of the termHarijans 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 had also refused to support the untouchables in 1924–25 when they were campaigning for the right to pray in temples. Because of Gandhi's actions, Ambedkar described him as "devious and untrustworthy".^[72] Gandhi, although born into the Vaishya caste, insisted that he was able to speak on behalf of Dalits, despite the presence of Dalit activists such as Ambedkar.^[85] Gandhi and Ambedkar often clashed because Ambedkar sought to remove the Dalits out of the Hindu community, while Gandhi tried to save Hinduism by exorcising untouchability. Ambedkar complained that Gandhi moved too slowly, while Hindu traditionalists said Gandhi was a dangerous radical who rejected scripture. Guha noted in 2012 that, "Ideologues have carried these old rivalries into the present, with the demonization of Gandhi now common among politicians who presume to speak in Ambedkar’s name."^[86] Guha adds that their work complemented each other, and Gandhi often praised Ambedkar.

In the summer of 1934, three attempts were made on Gandhi's life.^[87]^[88]

Congress politics

In 1934 Gandhi resigned from Congress party membership. He did not disagree with the party's position but felt that if he resigned, his popularity with Indians would cease to stifle the party's membership, which actually varied, including communists, socialists, trade unionists, students, religious conservatives, and those with pro-business convictions, and that these various voices would get a chance to make themselves heard. Gandhi also wanted to avoid being a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj.^[89]

Gandhi returned to active politics again in 1936, with the Nehru presidency and the Lucknow session of the Congress. Although Gandhi wanted 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 Chandra Bose, who had been elected president in 1938, and who had previously expressed a lack of faith in non-violence as a means of protest.^[90] Despite Gandhi's opposition, Bose won a second term as Congress President, against Gandhi's nominee, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya; but left the Congress when the All-India leaders resigned en masse in protest of his abandonment of the principles introduced by Gandhi.^[91]^[92] Gandhi declared that Sitaramayya's defeat was his defeat.^[93]

World War II and Quit India

Main article: Quit India Movement

Gandhi and Nehru in 1942

Gandhi initially favoured offering "non-violent moral support" to the British effort when World War IIbroke out in 1939, but the Congressional leaders were offended by the unilateral inclusion of India in the war without consultation of the people's representatives. All Congressmen resigned from office.^[94] After long 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, calling for the British to Quit India in a speech at Gowalia Tank Maidan. This was Gandhi's and the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from India.^[95]

Gandhi was criticised by some Congress party members and other Indian political groups, both pro-British and anti-British. Some felt that not supporting Britain more in its struggle against Nazi Germany was unethical. Others felt that Gandhi's refusal for India to participate in the war was insufficient and more direct opposition should be taken, while Britain fought against Nazism, it continued to refuse to grant India Independence. Quit India became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle, with mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale.^[96]

In 1942, although still committed in his efforts to "launch a non-violent movement", Gandhi clarified that the movement would not be stopped by individual acts of violence, saying that the "ordered anarchy" of "the present system of administration" was "worse than real anarchy."^[97]^[98] 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.^[99]

Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Bombay, 1944

Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were arrested in Bombay by the British on 9 August 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 50-year old secretaryMahadev Desai died of a heart attack 6 days later and his wife Kasturba died after 18 months imprisonment on 22 February 1944; six weeks later Gandhi suffered a severemalaria attack. He was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. He came out of detention to an altered political scene—the Muslim League for example, which a few years earlier had appeared marginal, "now occupied the centre of the political stage"^[100] and the topic of Jinnah's campaign for Pakistan was a major talking point. Gandhi met Jinnah in September 1944 in Bombay but Jinnah rejected, on the grounds that it fell short of a fully independent Pakistan, his proposal of the right of Muslim provinces to opt out of substantial parts of the forthcoming political union.^[101]^[102]

While the leaders of Congress languished in jail, the other parties supported the war and gained organizational strength. Underground publications flailed at the ruthless suppression of Congress, but it had little control over events.^[103] 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.^[104]

Partition and independence, 1947

See also: Partition of India

Gandhi with Louis Mountbatten, Britain's last Viceroy of India, 1947

As a rule, Gandhi was opposed to the concept of partition as it contradicted his vision of religious unity.^[105] Concerning the partition of India to create Pakistan, while the Indian National Congress and Gandhi called for the British to quit India, the Muslim League passed a resolution for them to divide and quit, in 1943.^[106] Gandhi suggested an agreement which required the Congress and Muslim League to cooperate and attain independence under a provisional government, thereafter, the question of partition could be resolved by a plebiscite in the districts with a Muslim majority.^[107] When Jinnah called for Direct Action, on 16 August 1946, Gandhi was infuriated and personally visited the most riot-prone areas to stop the massacres.^[108] He made strong efforts to unite the Indian Hindus, Muslims, and Christians and struggled for the emancipation of the "untouchables" in Hindu society.^[109]

On 14 and 15 August 1947 the Indian Independence Act was invoked. In border areas some 10—12 million people moved from one side to another and upwards of a half million were killed in communal riots pitting Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs against each other.^[110] But for his teachings, the efforts of his followers, and his own presence, there perhaps could have been much more bloodshed during the partition, according to prominent Norwegian historian, Jens Arup Seip.^[111]

Stanley Wolpert has argued, The "plan to carve up British India was never approved of or accepted by Gandhi...who realised too late that his closest comrades and disciples were more interested in power than principle, and that his own vision had long been clouded by the illusion that the struggle he led for India's freedom was a nonviolent one."^[112]

Assassination

Raj Ghat, Delhi is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi that marks the spot of his cremation.

On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was shot while he was walking to a platform from which he was to address a prayer meeting. The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu nationalist with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha, who held Gandhi guilty of favouring Pakistan and strongly opposed the doctrine of nonviolence.^[113] Godse and his co-conspirator were tried and executed in 1949. Gandhi's memorial (or Samādhi) atRāj 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.^[114]Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the nation through radio:^[115]

"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."—Jawaharlal Nehru's address to Gandhi^[116]

Funeral procession of Gandhi at New Delhi on 6 February 1948

Gandhi's death was mourned nationwide. Over two million people joined the five mile long funeral procession that took over five hours to reach Raj Ghat from Birla house, where he was assassinated. Gandhi's body was transported on a weapons carrier, whose chassis was dismantled overnight to allow a high-floor to be installed so that people could catch a glimpse of his body. The engine of the vehicle was not used, instead four drag-ropes manned by 50 people each pulled the vehicle.^[117] All Indian owned establishments in London remained closed in mourning as thousands of people from all faiths and denominations and Indians from all over Britain converged at India House in London.^[118]

While India mourned and communal (inter-religious) violence escalated, there were calls for retaliation, and even an invasion of Pakistan by the Indian army. Nehru and Patel, the two strongest figures in the government and in Congress, had been pulling in opposite directions; the assassination pushed them together. They agreed the first objective must be to calm the hysteria.^[119] They called on Indians to honor Gandhi's memory and even more his ideals.^[120] They used the assassination to consolidate the authority of the new Indian state. The government made sure everyone knew the guilty party was not a Muslim. Congress tightly controlled the epic public displays of grief over a two-week period—the funeral, mortuary rituals and distribution of the martyr's ashes—as millions participated and hundreds of millions watched. The goal was to assert the power of the government and legitimize the Congress Party's control. This move built upon the massive outpouring of Hindu expressions of grief. The government suppressed the RSS, the Muslim National Guards, and the Khaksars, with some 200,000 arrests. Gandhi's death and funeral linked the distant state with the Indian people and made more understood the need to suppress religious parties during the transition to independence for the Indian people.^[121]

Ashes

By Hindu tradition the ashes were to be spread on a river. Gandhi's ashes were poured into urns which were sent across India for memorial services.^[122] Most were immersed at the Sangam at Allahabad on 12 February 1948, but some were secretly taken away. In 1997, Tushar Gandhi immersed the contents of one urn, found in a bank vault and reclaimed through the courts, at the Sangam at Allahabad.^[123]^[124] Some of Gandhi's ashes were scattered at the source of the Nile River near Jinja, Uganda, and a memorial plaque marks the event. On 30 January 2008, the contents of another urn were immersed at Girgaum Chowpatty. Another urn is at the palaceof the Aga Khan in Pune^[123] (where Gandhi had been imprisoned from 1942 to 1944) and another in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Los Angeles.^[125]

Principles, practices and beliefs

Main article: Gandhism

Gandhism designates the ideas and principles Gandhi promoted. Of central importance is nonviolent resistance. A Gandhian can mean either an individual who follows, or a specific philosophy which is attributed to, Gandhism.^[51] M.M.Sankhdher argues that Gandhism is not a systematic position in metaphysics or in political philosophy. Rather, it is a political creed, an economic doctrine, a religious outlook, a moral precept, and especially, a humanitarian world view. It is an effort not to systematize wisdom but to transform society and is based on an undying faith in the goodness of human nature.^[126] However Gandhi himself did not approve of the notion of "Gandhism", as he explained in 1936:

There is no such thing as "Gandhism", and I do not want to leave any sect after me. I do not claim to have originated any new principle or doctrine. I have simply tried in my own way to apply the eternal truths to our daily life and problems...The opinions I have formed and the conclusions I have arrived at are not final. I may change them tomorrow. I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.^[127]

Influences

Gandhi with famous poet Rabindranath Tagore, 1940

Historian R.B. Cribb argues that Gandhi's thought evolved over time, with his early ideas becoming the core or scaffolding for his mature philosophy. In London he committed himself to truthfulness, temperance, chastity, and vegetarianism. His return to India to work as a lawyer was a failure, so he went to South Africa for a quarter century, where he absorbed ideas from many sources, most of them non-Indian.^[128] While Gandhi was born a Hindu, he grew up in an eclectic religious atmosphere and throughout his life searched for insights from many religious traditions.^[129] He was exposed to Jain ideas through his mother who was a devout Jain and was in contact with Jain leaders. Themes from Jainism that Gandhi absorbed included asceticism; compassion for all forms of life; the importance of vows for self-discipline; vegetarianism; fasting for self-purification; mutual tolerance among people of different creeds; and "syadvad", the idea that all views of truth are partial, a doctrine that lies at the root of Satyagraha.^[130]^[131] He received much of his influence from Jainismparticularly during his younger years.^[132]

Gandhi's London experience provided a solid philosophical base focused on truthfulness, temperance, chastity, and vegetarianism. When he returned to India in 1891, his outlook was parochial and he could not make a living as a lawyer. This challenged his belief that practicality and morality necessarily coincided. By moving in 1893 to South Africa he found a solution to this problem and developed the central concepts of his mature philosophy.^[133] N. A. Toothi^[134] felt that Gandhi was influenced by the reforms and teachings of Swaminarayan, stating "Close parallels do exist in programs of social reform based on to non-violence, truth-telling, cleanliness, temperance and upliftment of the masses."^[135] Vallabhbhai Patel, who grew up in aSwaminarayan household was attracted to Gandhi due to this aspect of Gandhi's doctrine.^[136]

Gandhi's ethical thinking was heavily influenced by a handful of books, which he repeatedly meditated upon. They included especially Plato's Apology, (which he translated into his native Gujarati); William Salter's Ethical Religion (1889); Henry David Thoreau's On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1847); Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1893); and John Ruskin's Unto this Last (1862), which he also translated into Gujarati. Ruskin inspired his decision to live an austere life on a commune, at first on the Phoenix Farm in Natal and then on the Tolstoy Farm just outside Johannesburg, South Africa.^[137]

Balkrishna Gokhale argues that Gandhi took his philosophy of history from Hinduism and Jainism, supplemented by selected Christian traditions and ideas of Tolstoy and Ruskin. Hinduism provided central concepts of God's role in history, of man as the battleground of forces of virtue and sin, and of the potential of love as an historical force. From Jainism, Gandhi took the idea of applying nonviolence to human situations and the theory that Absolute Reality can be comprehended only relatively in human affairs.^[138]

Historian Howard Spodek argues for the importance of the culture of Gujarat in shaping Gandhi's methods. Spodek finds that some of Gandhi's most effective methods such as fasting, noncooperation and appeals to the justice and compassion of the rulers were learned as a youth in Gujarat. Later on, the financial, cultural, organizational and geographical support needed to bring his campaigns to a national audience were drawn from Ahmedabad and Gujarat, his Indian residence 1915–1930.^[139]

Tolstoy

Mohandas K. Gandhi and other residents of Tolstoy Farm, South Africa, 1910

In 1908 Leo Tolstoy wrote A Letter to a Hindu, which said that only by using love as a weapon through passive resistance could the Indian people overthrow colonial rule. In 1909, Gandhi wrote to Tolstoy seeking advice and permission to republish A Letter to a Hindu in Gujarati. Tolstoy responded and the two continued a correspondence until Tolstoy's death in 1910. The letters concern practical and theological applications of non-violence.^[140] Gandhi saw himself a disciple of Tolstoy, for they agreed regarding opposition to state authority and colonialism; both hated violence and preached non-resistance. However, they differed sharply on political strategy. Gandhi called for political involvement; he was a nationalist and was prepared to use nonviolent force. He was also willing to compromise.^[141] It was at Tolstoy Farm where Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach systematically trained their disciples in the philosophy of nonviolence.^[142]

Truth and Satyagraha

"God is truth. The way to truth lies throughahimsa (non-violence)"—Sabarmati 13 March 1927

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.^[143]

Bruce Watson argues that Gandhi based Satyagraha on the Vedantic ideal of self-realization, and notes it also contains Jain and Buddhist notions of nonviolence, vegetarianism, the avoidance of killing, and 'agape' (universal love). Gandhi also borrowed Christian-Islamic ideas of equality, the brotherhood of man, and the concept of turning the other cheek.^[144]

Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities. Gandhi summarised 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".^[145]

The essence of Satyagraha (a name Gandhi invented meaning "adherence to truth"^[146]) is that it seeks to eliminate antagonisms without harming the antagonists themselves and seeks to transform or "purify" it to a higher level. A euphemism sometimes used for Satyagraha is that it is a "silent force" or a "soul force" (a term also used by Martin Luther King Jr. during his famous "I Have a Dream" speech). It arms the individual with moral power rather than physical power. Satyagraha is also termed a "universal force", as it essentially "makes no distinction between kinsmen and strangers, young and old, man and woman, friend and foe."^[147]

Gandiji wrote: "There must be no impatience, no barbarity, no insolence, no undue pressure. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy, we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause."^[148] Civil disobedience and non-cooperation as practised under Satyagraha are based on the "law of suffering",^[149] a doctrine that the endurance of suffering is a means to an end. This end usually implies a moral upliftment or progress of an individual or society. Therefore, non-cooperation in Satyagraha is in fact a means to secure the cooperation of the opponent consistently with truth and justice.^[150]

Nonviolence

Gandhi with textile workers at Darwen, Lancashire, 26 September 1931.

Although Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of non-violence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a large scale.^[151] The concept of nonviolence (ahimsa) andnonresistance 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. Some of his other remarks were widely quoted, such as "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."^[152]"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."^[153] Gandhi realized later that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he believed everyone did not possess. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it were used as a cover for cowardice, saying, "where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence."^[154]^[155]

Gandhi thus 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.^[156]^[157]

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."^[158]

Gandhi's views came under heavy criticism in Britain when it was under attack from Nazi Germany, and later when the Holocaust was revealed. He told the British people in 1940, "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."^[159]

In a post-war interview in 1946, he said, "Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs... It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions."^[160] Gandhi believed this act of "collective suicide", in response to the Holocaust, "would have been heroism".^[161]

Muslims

One of the Gandhi's major strategies, first in South Africa and then in India, was uniting Muslims and Hindus to work together in opposition to British imperialism. In 1919–22 he won strong Muslim support for his leadership in the Khilafat Movement to support the historic Ottoman Caliphate. By 1924 that Muslim support had largely evaporated.^[162]^[163]

Jews

In 1931, he suggested that while he could understand the desire of European Jews to emigrate to Palestine, he opposed any movement that supported British colonialism or violence. Muslims throughout India and the Middle East strongly opposed the Zionist plan for a Jewish state in Palestine, and Gandhi (and Congress) supported the Muslims in this regard. By the 1930s all major political groups in India opposed a Jewish state in Palestine.^[164]

This led to discussions concerning the persecution of the Jews in Germany and the emigration of Jews from Europe to Palestine, which Gandhi framed through the lens of Satyagraha.^[165]^[166] In 1937, Gandhi discussed Zionism with his close Jewish friend Hermann Kallenbach.^[167] He said Zionism was not the right answer to the Jewish problem^[168] and instead recommended Satyagraha. Gandhi thought the Zionists in Palestine represented European imperialism and used violence to achieve their goals; he argued that "the Jews should disclaim any intention of realizing their aspiration under the protection of arms and should rely wholly on the goodwill of Arabs. No exception can possibly be taken to the natural desire of the Jews to found a home in Palestine. But they must wait for its fulfillment till Arab opinion is ripe for it."^[169] In 1938, Gandhi stated that his "sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions."^[170] Philosopher Martin Buber was highly critical of Gandhi's approach and in 1939 wrote an open letter to him on the subject. Gandhi reiterated his stance on the use of Satyagraha in Palestine in 1947.^[171]

Vegetarianism and food

Stephen Hay argues that Gandhi in London looked into numerous religious and intellectual currents. He especially appreciated how thetheosophical movement encouraged a religious eclecticism and an antipathy to atheism. Hay says the vegetarian movement had the greatest impact for it was Gandhi's point of entry into other reformist agendas of the time.^[172] The idea of vegetarianism is deeply ingrained in Hindu and Jain traditions in India, especially in his native Gujarat.^[173] Gandhi was close to the chairman of the London Vegetarian Society, Dr. Josiah Oldfield, and corresponded with Henry Stephens Salt, a vegetarian campaigner. Gandhi became a strictvegetarian. He wrote the book The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism and wrote for the London Vegetarian Society's publication.^[174] Gandhi was somewhat of a food faddist taking his own goat to travels so he could always have fresh milk.^[175]

Gandhi noted in his autobiography that vegetarianism was the beginning of his deep commitment to Brahmacharya; without total control of the palate, his success in Brahmacharya would likely falter. "You wish to know what the marks of a man are who wants to realize Truth which is God", he wrote. "He must reduce himself to zero and have perfect control over all his senses-beginning with the palate or tongue."^[176]^[177]

Fasting, with young Indira Gandhi, mid-1920s

Fasting

Gandhi used fasting as a political device, often threatening suicide unless demands were met. Congress publicized the fasts as a political action that generated widespread sympathy. In response the government tried to manipulate news coverage to minimize his challenge to the Raj. He fasted in 1932 to protest the voting scheme for separate political representation for Dalits; Gandhi did not want them segregated. The government stopped the London press from showing photographs of his emaciated body, because it would elicit sympathy. Gandhi's 1943 hunger strike took place during a two-year prison term for the anticolonial Quit India movement. The government called on nutritional experts to demystify his action, and again no photos were allowed. However his final fast in 1948, after India was independent, was lauded by the British press and this time did include full-length photos.^[178]

Alter argues that Gandhi's fixation on diet and celibacy were much deeper than exercises in self-discipline. Rather, his beliefs regarding health offered a critique of both the traditional Hindu system of ayurvedic medicine and Western concepts. This challenge was integral to his deeper challenge to tradition and modernity, as health and nonviolence became part of the same ethics.^[179]

Celibacy

A core Gandhian value that came in for much bantering and ribald music hall humour in Britain was his nakedness—Churchill publicly called him a "half-naked fakir"^[180] – and his experiments in "brahmacharya" or the elimination of all desire in the face of temptation.^[181]In 1906 Gandhi, although married and a father, vowed to abstain from sexual relations. In the 1940s, in his mid-seventies, he brought his grandniece Manubehn to sleep naked in his bed as part of a spiritual experiment in which Gandhi could test himself as a "brahmachari." Several other young women and girls also sometimes shared his bed as part of his experiments.^[182] Gandhi discussed his experiment with friends and relations; most disagreed and the experiment ceased in 1947.^[183] Religious studies scholar Veena Howard argues that Gandhi made "creative use"^[184]^:130 of his celibacy and his authority as a mahatma "to reinterpret religious norms and confront unjust social and religious conventions relegating women to lower status."^[184]^:130 According to Howard, Gandhi "developed his discourse as a religious renouncer within India’s traditions to confront repressive social and religious customs regarding women and to bring them into the public sphere, during a time when the discourse on celibacy was typically imbued with masculine rhetoric and misogynist inferences.... his writings show a consistent evolution of his thought toward creating an equal playing field for members of both sexes and even elevating women to a higher plane—all through his discourse and unorthodox practice of brahmacharya."^[184]^:137

Nai Talim, basic education

Main article: Nai Talim

Gandhi's educational policies reflected Nai Talim ('Basic Education for all'), a spiritual principle which states that knowledge and work are not separate. It was a reaction against the British educational system and colonialism in general, which had the negative effect of making Indian children alienated and career-based; it promoted disdain for manual work, the development of a new elite class, and the increasing problems of industrialisation and urbanisation. The three pillars of Gandhi's pedagogy were its focus on the lifelong characterof education, its social character and its form as a holistic process. For Gandhi, education is 'the moral development of the person', a process that is by definition 'lifelong'.^[185]

Nai Talim evolved out of the spiritually oriented education program at Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, and Gandhi's work at the ashram at Sevagram after 1937.^[186] After 1947 the Nehru government's vision of an industrialized, centrally planned economy had scant place for Gandhi's village-oriented approach.^[187]

Swaraj, self-rule

Main article: Swaraj

Rudolph argues that after a false start in trying to emulate the English in an attempt to overcome his timidity, Gandhi discovered the inner courage he was seeking by helping his countrymen in South Africa. The new courage consisted of observing the traditional Bengali way of "self-suffering" and, in finding his own courage, he was enabled also to point out the way of 'Satyagraha' and 'ahimsa' to the whole of India.^[188] Gandhi's writings expressed four meanings of freedom: as India's national independence; as individual political freedom; as group freedom from poverty; and as the capacity for personal self-rule.^[189]

Gandhi was a self-described philosophical anarchist,^[190] and his vision of India meant an India without an underlying government.^[191]He once said that "the ideally nonviolent state would be an ordered anarchy."^[192] While political systems are largely hierarchical, with each layer of authority from the individual to the central government have increasing levels of authority over the layer below, Gandhi believed that society should be the exact opposite, where nothing is done without the consent of anyone, down to the individual. His idea was that true self-rule in a country means that every person rules his or herself and that there is no state which enforces laws upon the people.^[193]

This would be achieved over time with nonviolent conflict mediation, as power is divested from layers of hierarchical authorities, ultimately to the individual, which would come to embody the ethic of nonviolence. Rather than a system where rights are enforced by a higher authority, people are self-governed by mutual responsibilities. On returning from South Africa, when Gandhi received a letter asking for his participation in writing a world charter for human rights, he responded saying, "in my experience, it is far more important to have a charter for human duties."^[194]

A free India did not mean merely transferring the established British administrative structure into Indian hands. He warned, "you would make India English. And when it becomes English, it will be called not Hindustan but Englishtan. This is not the Swaraj I want."^[195]Tewari argues that Gandhi saw democracy as more than a system of government; it meant promoting both individuality and the self-discipline of the community. Democracy was a moral system that distributed power and assisted the development of every social class, especially the lowest. It meant settling disputes in a nonviolent manner; it required freedom of thought and expression. For Gandhi, democracy was a way of life.^[196]

Gandhian economics

A free India for Gandhi meant the flourishing of thousands of self-sufficient small communities who rule themselves without hindering others. Gandhian economics focused on the need for economic self-sufficiency at the village level. His policy of "sarvodaya"^[197] called for ending poverty through improved agriculture and small-scale cottage industries in every village.^[198] Gandhi challenged Nehru and the modernizers in the late 1930s who called for rapid industrialization on the Soviet model; Gandhi denounced that as dehumanizing and contrary to the needs of the villages where the great majority of the people lived.^[199] After Gandhi's death Nehru led India to large-scale planning that emphasized modernization and heavy industry, while modernizing agriculture through irrigation. Historian KuruvillaPandikattu says "it was Nehru's vision, not Gandhi's, that was eventually preferred by the Indian State."^[200] After Gandhi's death activists inspired by his vision promoted their opposition to industrialization through the teachings of Gandhian economics.

Literary works

Young India, a weekly journal published by Gandhi from 1919 to 1932

Gandhi was a prolific writer. One of Gandhi's earliest publications, Hind Swaraj, published in Gujarati in 1909, is recognised^{[by whom?]} as the intellectual blueprint of India's freedom movement. The book was translated into English the next year, with a copyright legend that read "No Rights Reserved".^[201] For decades he edited several newspapers including Harijan in Gujarati, in Hindi and in the English language; 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. In addition, he wrote letters almost every day to individuals and newspapers.^[202]

Gandhi also wrote several books including his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth(Gujarātī "સત્યના પ્રયોગો અથવા આત્મકથા"), of which he bought the entire first edition to make sure it was reprinted.^[72] His other autobiographies included: 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.^[203] This last essay can be considered his programme 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.^[204]

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 it constituted large number of errors and omissions.^[205] The Indian government later withdrew the revised edition.^[206]

Legacy and depictions in popular culture

A wall graffiti in San Francisco containing a quote and image of Gandhi

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). Rabindranath Tagore is said to have accorded the title to Gandhi.^[207] In his autobiography, Gandhi nevertheless explains that he never valued the title, and was often pained by it.^[208]^[209]^[210]

Followers and international influence

Mahatma Gandhi on a 1969 postage stamp of the Soviet Union

Gandhi influenced important leaders and political movements. Leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States, including Martin Luther King, James Lawson, and James Bevel, drew from the writings of Gandhi in the development of their own theories about non-violence.^[211]^[212]^[213] King said "Christ gave us the goals and Mahatma Gandhi the tactics."^[214] King sometimes referred to Gandhi as "the little brown saint."^[215]Anti-apartheid activist and former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was inspired by Gandhi.^[216] Others include Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan,^[217] Steve Biko, and Aung San Suu Kyi.^[218]

In his early years, the former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was a follower of the non-violent resistance philosophy of Gandhi.^[216] Bhana and Vahed commented on these events as "Gandhi inspired succeeding generations of South African activists seeking to end White rule. This legacy connects him toNelson Mandela...in a sense Mandela completed what Gandhi started."^[219]

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. In 1931, notable European physicist Albert Einstein exchanged written letters with Gandhi, and called him "a role model for the generations to come" in a later writing about him.^[220] Einstein said of Gandhi:

Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion. The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of the entire civilized world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works.We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come.

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood.^[221]

Lanza del Vasto went to India in 1936 intending to live with Gandhi; he later returned to Europe to spread Gandhi's philosophy and founded the Community of the Ark in 1948 (modelled 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.^[222]^[223]

In addition, the British musician John Lennon referred to Gandhi when discussing his views on non-violence.^[224] 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.^[225]

President of the United States Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of the Parliament of India said that:

"I am mindful that I might not be standing before you today, as President of the United States, had it not been for Gandhi and the message he shared with America and the world."—Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of theParliament of India, 2010^[226]

Obama in September 2009 said that his biggest inspiration came from Mahatma Gandhi. His reply was in response to the question 'Who was the one person, dead or live, that you would choose to dine with?'. He continued that "He's somebody I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. King with his message of nonviolence. He ended up doing so much and changed the world just by the power of his ethics."^[227]

Time Magazine named The 14th Dalai Lama, Lech Wałęsa, Martin Luther King, 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.^[228] The Mahatma Gandhi District inHouston, Texas, United States, an ethnic Indian enclave, is officially named after Gandhi.^[229]

Global holidays

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly declared Gandhi's birthday 2 October as "the International Day of Non-Violence."^[230]First proposed by UNESCO in 1948, as the School Day of Non-violence and Peace (DENIP in Spanish),^[231] 30 January is observed theSchool Day of Non-violence and Peace in schools of many countries^[232] In countries with a Southern Hemisphere school calendar, it is observed on 30 March.^[232]

Awards

Monument to M.K. Gandhi inNew Belgrade, Serbia. On the monument is written "Non-violence is the essence of all religions".

Time magazine named Gandhi the Man of the Year in 1930. Gandhi was also the runner-up to Albert Einstein as "Person of the Century"^[233] at the end of 1999. The Government of India awards the annual 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. In 2011, Time magazine named Gandhi as one of the top 25 political icons of all time.^[234]

Gandhi did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize, although he was nominated five times between 1937 and 1948, including the first-ever nomination by the American Friends Service Committee,^[235] though he made the short list only twice, in 1937 and 1947.^[109] Decades later, the Nobel Committee publicly declared its regret for the omission, and admitted to deeply divided nationalistic opinion denying the award.^[109] Gandhi was nominated in 1948 but was assassinated before nominations closed. That year, the committee chose not to award the peace prize stating that "there was no suitable living candidate" and later research shows that the possibility of awarding the prize posthumously to Gandhi was discussed and that the reference to no suitable living candidate was to Gandhi.^[109] When the 14th 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."^[109]

World Farm Animals' Day

Gandhi's birthday is chosen as a commemoration for the billions of non-human animals that are slaughtered by the human farming industry each year. The practice started in 1983^[236]

Film and literature

Mahatma Gandhi has been portrayed in film, literature, and in the theatre. Ben Kingsley portrayed him in the 1982 film Gandhi, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Gandhi is a central figure in the 2006 Bollywood comedy Lage Raho Munna Bhai. The 1996 film The Making of the Mahatma documents Gandhi's time in South Africa and his transformation from an inexperienced barrister to recognised political leader.^[237]

Anti-Gandhi themes have also been showcased through films and plays. The 1995 Marathi play Gandhi Virudh Gandhi explored the relationship between Gandhi and his son Harilal. The 2007 film, Gandhi, My Father was inspired on the same theme. The 1989 Marathi play Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy and the 1997 Hindi play Gandhi Ambedkar criticized Gandhi and his principles.^[238]^[239]

Several biographers have undertaken the task of describing Gandhi's life. Among them are D. G. Tendulkar with his Mahatma. Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in eight volumes, and Pyarelal and Sushila Nayyar with their Mahatma Gandhi in 10 volumes. There is another documentary, Mahatma: Life of Gandhi, 1869–1948, which is 14 chapters and six hours long.^[240] The 2010 biography, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India by Joseph Lelyveld contained controversial material speculating about Gandhi's sexual life.^[241] Lelyveld, however, stated that the press coverage "grossly distort[s]" the overall message of the book.^[242]

Current impact within India

The Gandhi Mandapam, a temple inKanyakumari, Tamil Nadu in India. This temple was erected to honour M.K.Gandhi.^[243]

India, with its rapid economic modernization and urbanization, has rejected Gandhi's economics^[244] but accepted much of his politics and continues to revere his memory. Reporter Jim Yardley notes that, "modern India is hardly a Gandhian nation, if it ever was one. His vision of a village-dominated economy was shunted aside during his lifetime as rural romanticism, and his call for a national ethos of personal austerity and nonviolence has proved antithetical to the goals of an aspiring economic and military power." By contrast Gandhi is "given full credit for India’s political identity as a tolerant, secular democracy."^[245]

Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is a national holiday in India, Gandhi Jayanti. Gandhi's image also appears on paper currency of all denominations issued by Reserve Bank of India, except for the one rupee note.^[246] Gandhi's date of death, 30 January, is commemorated as a Martyrs' Day in India.^[247]

There are two temples in India dedicated to Gandhi.^[248] One is located at Sambalpur in Orissa and the other at Nidaghatta village near Kadur in Chikmagalur district of Karnataka.^[248] The Gandhi Memorial in Kanyakumariresembles central Indian Hindu temples and the Tamukkam or Summer Palace in Madurai now houses the Mahatma Gandhi Museum.^[249]

Mohandas K. Gandhi

2013-04-27T21:03:00.001-07:00


Born	Mohandas K. Gandhi 2 October 1869 Porbandar, Kathiawar Agency,British Indian Empire^[1]
Died	30 January 1948 (aged 78) New Delhi, Dominion of India
Cause of death	Assassination by shooting
Resting place	Cremated at Rajghat, Delhi. 28.6415°N 77.2483°E
Nationality	Indian
Other names	Mahatma Gandhi, Bapu, Gandhiji
Ethnicity	Indo-Aryan (Gujarati)
Alma mater	Alfred High School, Rajkot, Samaldas College, Bhavnagar, University College, London (UCL)
Known for	Prominent figure of Indian independence movement, propounding the philosophy ofSatyagraha and Ahimsa advocating non-violence, pacifism
Religion	Hinduism, with Jain influences
Spouse(s)	Kasturba Gandhi
Children	Harilal Manilal Ramdas Devdas
Parents	Putlibai Gandhi (Mother) Karamchand Gandhi (Father)
Signature

Early life and background

Gandhi in his earliest known photo, aged 7, c. 1876

English barrister

Gandhi and his wife Kasturba (1902)

Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914)

Purported photograph of Gandhi in South Africa (1895)

Gandhi and the Africans

Gandhi in South Africa (1909)

After the black majority came to power in South Africa, Gandhi was proclaimed a national hero with numerous monuments.^[42]

Struggle for Indian Independence (1915–47)

See also: Indian independence movement

Role in World War I

Champaran and Kheda

Main article: Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha

Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the Kheda and Champaran Satyagrahas

Khilafat movement

Non-cooperation

Main article: Non-cooperation movement

Mahatma Gandhi spinning yarn, in the late 1920s

Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhi's home in Gujarat

Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)

Main article: Salt Satyagraha

Original footage of Gandhi and his followers marching to Dandi in the Salt Satyagraha

Women

Gandhi as folk hero

Negotiations

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

Untouchables

In the summer of 1934, three attempts were made on Gandhi's life.^[87]^[88]

Congress politics

World War II and Quit India

Main article: Quit India Movement

Gandhi and Nehru in 1942

Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Bombay, 1944

Partition and independence, 1947

See also: Partition of India

Gandhi with Louis Mountbatten, Britain's last Viceroy of India, 1947

Assassination

Raj Ghat, Delhi is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi that marks the spot of his cremation.

"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."—Jawaharlal Nehru's address to Gandhi^[116]

Funeral procession of Gandhi at New Delhi on 6 February 1948

Ashes

Principles, practices and beliefs

Main article: Gandhism

There is no such thing as "Gandhism", and I do not want to leave any sect after me. I do not claim to have originated any new principle or doctrine. I have simply tried in my own way to apply the eternal truths to our daily life and problems...The opinions I have formed and the conclusions I have arrived at are not final. I may change them tomorrow. I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.^[127]

Influences

Gandhi with famous poet Rabindranath Tagore, 1940

Tolstoy

Mohandas K. Gandhi and other residents of Tolstoy Farm, South Africa, 1910

Truth and Satyagraha

"God is truth. The way to truth lies throughahimsa (non-violence)"—Sabarmati 13 March 1927

Nonviolence

Gandhi with textile workers at Darwen, Lancashire, 26 September 1931.

Muslims

Jews

Vegetarianism and food

Fasting, with young Indira Gandhi, mid-1920s

Fasting

Celibacy

Nai Talim, basic education

Main article: Nai Talim

Swaraj, self-rule

Main article: Swaraj

Gandhian economics

Literary works

Young India, a weekly journal published by Gandhi from 1919 to 1932

Legacy and depictions in popular culture

A wall graffiti in San Francisco containing a quote and image of Gandhi

Followers and international influence

Mahatma Gandhi on a 1969 postage stamp of the Soviet Union

Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion. The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of the entire civilized world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works.We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come.

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood.^[221]

President of the United States Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of the Parliament of India said that:

"I am mindful that I might not be standing before you today, as President of the United States, had it not been for Gandhi and the message he shared with America and the world."—Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of theParliament of India, 2010^[226]

Global holidays

Awards

Monument to M.K. Gandhi inNew Belgrade, Serbia. On the monument is written "Non-violence is the essence of all religions".

World Farm Animals' Day

Gandhi's birthday is chosen as a commemoration for the billions of non-human animals that are slaughtered by the human farming industry each year. The practice started in 1983^[236]

Film and literature

Current impact within India

The Gandhi Mandapam, a temple inKanyakumari, Tamil Nadu in India. This temple was erected to honour M.K.Gandhi.^[243]

Mohandas K. Gandhi

2013-04-27T21:02:00.001-07:00


Born	Mohandas K. Gandhi 2 October 1869 Porbandar, Kathiawar Agency,British Indian Empire^[1]
Died	30 January 1948 (aged 78) New Delhi, Dominion of India
Cause of death	Assassination by shooting
Resting place	Cremated at Rajghat, Delhi. 28.6415°N 77.2483°E
Nationality	Indian
Other names	Mahatma Gandhi, Bapu, Gandhiji
Ethnicity	Indo-Aryan (Gujarati)
Alma mater	Alfred High School, Rajkot, Samaldas College, Bhavnagar, University College, London (UCL)
Known for	Prominent figure of Indian independence movement, propounding the philosophy ofSatyagraha and Ahimsa advocating non-violence, pacifism
Religion	Hinduism, with Jain influences
Spouse(s)	Kasturba Gandhi
Children	Harilal Manilal Ramdas Devdas
Parents	Putlibai Gandhi (Mother) Karamchand Gandhi (Father)
Signature

Early life and background

Gandhi in his earliest known photo, aged 7, c. 1876

English barrister

Gandhi and his wife Kasturba (1902)

Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914)

Purported photograph of Gandhi in South Africa (1895)

Gandhi and the Africans

Gandhi in South Africa (1909)

After the black majority came to power in South Africa, Gandhi was proclaimed a national hero with numerous monuments.^[42]

Struggle for Indian Independence (1915–47)

See also: Indian independence movement

Role in World War I

Champaran and Kheda

Main article: Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha

Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the Kheda and Champaran Satyagrahas

Khilafat movement

Non-cooperation

Main article: Non-cooperation movement

Mahatma Gandhi spinning yarn, in the late 1920s

Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhi's home in Gujarat

Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)

Main article: Salt Satyagraha

Original footage of Gandhi and his followers marching to Dandi in the Salt Satyagraha

Women

Gandhi as folk hero

Negotiations

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

Untouchables

In the summer of 1934, three attempts were made on Gandhi's life.^[87]^[88]

Congress politics

World War II and Quit India

Main article: Quit India Movement

Gandhi and Nehru in 1942

Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Bombay, 1944

Partition and independence, 1947

See also: Partition of India

Gandhi with Louis Mountbatten, Britain's last Viceroy of India, 1947

Assassination

Raj Ghat, Delhi is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi that marks the spot of his cremation.

"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."—Jawaharlal Nehru's address to Gandhi^[116]

Funeral procession of Gandhi at New Delhi on 6 February 1948

Ashes

Principles, practices and beliefs

Main article: Gandhism

There is no such thing as "Gandhism", and I do not want to leave any sect after me. I do not claim to have originated any new principle or doctrine. I have simply tried in my own way to apply the eternal truths to our daily life and problems...The opinions I have formed and the conclusions I have arrived at are not final. I may change them tomorrow. I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.^[127]

Influences

Gandhi with famous poet Rabindranath Tagore, 1940

Tolstoy

Mohandas K. Gandhi and other residents of Tolstoy Farm, South Africa, 1910

Truth and Satyagraha

"God is truth. The way to truth lies throughahimsa (non-violence)"—Sabarmati 13 March 1927

Nonviolence

Gandhi with textile workers at Darwen, Lancashire, 26 September 1931.

Muslims

Jews

Vegetarianism and food

Fasting, with young Indira Gandhi, mid-1920s

Fasting

Celibacy

Nai Talim, basic education

Main article: Nai Talim

Swaraj, self-rule

Main article: Swaraj

Gandhian economics

Literary works

Young India, a weekly journal published by Gandhi from 1919 to 1932

Legacy and depictions in popular culture

A wall graffiti in San Francisco containing a quote and image of Gandhi

Followers and international influence

Mahatma Gandhi on a 1969 postage stamp of the Soviet Union

Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion. The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of the entire civilized world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works.We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come.

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood.^[221]

President of the United States Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of the Parliament of India said that:

"I am mindful that I might not be standing before you today, as President of the United States, had it not been for Gandhi and the message he shared with America and the world."—Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of theParliament of India, 2010^[226]

Global holidays

Awards

Monument to M.K. Gandhi inNew Belgrade, Serbia. On the monument is written "Non-violence is the essence of all religions".

World Farm Animals' Day

Gandhi's birthday is chosen as a commemoration for the billions of non-human animals that are slaughtered by the human farming industry each year. The practice started in 1983^[236]

Film and literature

Current impact within India

The Gandhi Mandapam, a temple inKanyakumari, Tamil Nadu in India. This temple was erected to honour M.K.Gandhi.^[243]

Mohandas K. Gandhi

2013-04-27T20:58:00.001-07:00


Born	Mohandas K. Gandhi 2 October 1869 Porbandar, Kathiawar Agency,British Indian Empire^[1]
Died	30 January 1948 (aged 78) New Delhi, Dominion of India
Cause of death	Assassination by shooting
Resting place	Cremated at Rajghat, Delhi. 28.6415°N 77.2483°E
Nationality	Indian
Other names	Mahatma Gandhi, Bapu, Gandhiji
Ethnicity	Indo-Aryan (Gujarati)
Alma mater	Alfred High School, Rajkot, Samaldas College, Bhavnagar, University College, London (UCL)
Known for	Prominent figure of Indian independence movement, propounding the philosophy ofSatyagraha and Ahimsa advocating non-violence, pacifism
Religion	Hinduism, with Jain influences
Spouse(s)	Kasturba Gandhi
Children	Harilal Manilal Ramdas Devdas
Parents	Putlibai Gandhi (Mother) Karamchand Gandhi (Father)
Signature

Early life and background

Gandhi in his earliest known photo, aged 7, c. 1876

English barrister

Gandhi and his wife Kasturba (1902)

Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914)

Purported photograph of Gandhi in South Africa (1895)

Gandhi and the Africans

Gandhi in South Africa (1909)

After the black majority came to power in South Africa, Gandhi was proclaimed a national hero with numerous monuments.^[42]

Struggle for Indian Independence (1915–47)

See also: Indian independence movement

Role in World War I

Champaran and Kheda

Main article: Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha

Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the Kheda and Champaran Satyagrahas

Khilafat movement

Non-cooperation

Main article: Non-cooperation movement

Mahatma Gandhi spinning yarn, in the late 1920s

Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhi's home in Gujarat

Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)

Main article: Salt Satyagraha

Original footage of Gandhi and his followers marching to Dandi in the Salt Satyagraha

Women

Gandhi as folk hero

Negotiations

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

Untouchables

In the summer of 1934, three attempts were made on Gandhi's life.^[87]^[88]

Congress politics

World War II and Quit India

Main article: Quit India Movement

Gandhi and Nehru in 1942

Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Bombay, 1944

Partition and independence, 1947

See also: Partition of India

Gandhi with Louis Mountbatten, Britain's last Viceroy of India, 1947

Assassination

Raj Ghat, Delhi is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi that marks the spot of his cremation.

"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."—Jawaharlal Nehru's address to Gandhi^[116]

Funeral procession of Gandhi at New Delhi on 6 February 1948

Ashes

Principles, practices and beliefs

Main article: Gandhism

There is no such thing as "Gandhism", and I do not want to leave any sect after me. I do not claim to have originated any new principle or doctrine. I have simply tried in my own way to apply the eternal truths to our daily life and problems...The opinions I have formed and the conclusions I have arrived at are not final. I may change them tomorrow. I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.^[127]

Influences

Gandhi with famous poet Rabindranath Tagore, 1940

Tolstoy

Mohandas K. Gandhi and other residents of Tolstoy Farm, South Africa, 1910

Truth and Satyagraha

"God is truth. The way to truth lies throughahimsa (non-violence)"—Sabarmati 13 March 1927

Nonviolence

Gandhi with textile workers at Darwen, Lancashire, 26 September 1931.

Muslims

Jews

Vegetarianism and food

Fasting, with young Indira Gandhi, mid-1920s

Fasting

Celibacy

Nai Talim, basic education

Main article: Nai Talim

Swaraj, self-rule

Main article: Swaraj

Gandhian economics

Literary works

Young India, a weekly journal published by Gandhi from 1919 to 1932

Legacy and depictions in popular culture

A wall graffiti in San Francisco containing a quote and image of Gandhi

Followers and international influence

Mahatma Gandhi on a 1969 postage stamp of the Soviet Union

Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion. The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of the entire civilized world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works.We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come.

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood.^[221]

President of the United States Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of the Parliament of India said that:

"I am mindful that I might not be standing before you today, as President of the United States, had it not been for Gandhi and the message he shared with America and the world."—Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of theParliament of India, 2010^[226]

Global holidays

Awards

Monument to M.K. Gandhi inNew Belgrade, Serbia. On the monument is written "Non-violence is the essence of all religions".

World Farm Animals' Day

Gandhi's birthday is chosen as a commemoration for the billions of non-human animals that are slaughtered by the human farming industry each year. The practice started in 1983^[236]

Film and literature

Current impact within India

The Gandhi Mandapam, a temple inKanyakumari, Tamil Nadu in India. This temple was erected to honour M.K.Gandhi.^[243]

Shimla State Museum

2013-04-27T08:16:00.003-07:00

Shimla State Museum

2013-04-27T08:16:00.001-07:00

Shimla State Museum

2013-04-27T08:13:00.003-07:00

Shimla State Museum

2013-04-27T08:13:00.001-07:00

Shimla State Museum

2013-04-27T08:12:00.009-07:00

Shimla State Museum

2013-04-27T08:12:00.007-07:00

Shimla State Museum

Purana Qila - The Mughal Wonder

2013-04-27T08:00:00.002-07:00

¤ Purana Qila - The Mughal Wonder

When the second Mughal emperor Humayun decided to make a city of his own he decided on the site of the ancient city of Indraprastha. Humayun was quite a scholar with a fine grasp on such matters and so it is certain that the site was chosen deliberately. When his enemy Sher Shah Suri overthrew him, he destroyed most of Dinpanah (refuge of the faithful) as the city of Humayun was called to make way for his own Dilli Sher Shahi or Shergarh. Incidentally, Humayun was probably the only emperor in history who built a city in Delhi and did not give it his own name – this was typical of Humayun's rather sophisticated and dreamy character.

¤ Purana Qila Delhi - The Architectural Marvel
In plan the Old fort, now simply called Purana Qila by Delhites, is irregularly orbital. The walls of the immense Qila tower down on the road that takes one to Pragati Maidan from the height of 18m, and run on for about 2km. It has three main gates – the Humayun darwaza, Talaqi darwaza and Bara darwaza (which one uses to enter the fort today). The double-storeyed gates are quite huge and are built with red sandstone. of all the gates entry was forbidden from Talaqi (forbidden) darwaza, the northern gate. It is not clear why this was so. Other Attractions of The Fort

¤ Purana Qila - The History of Old Fort
Sher Shah Suri and his successor could not complete the city, and when Humayun defeated Sher Shah's son to take back his city, he did not deal with Dilli Sher shahi as the latter had done with Dinpanah. In fact the Mughal emperor very handsomely completed the city and even used several of the buildings like the Sher Mandal, a rather pretty two-storeyed octagonal building. Humayun used this as his library and, then tripped to his death from its steps.

¤ Purana Qila - Excavation of Grey Ware Pottery

Several excavations have taken place in the Purana Qila in an attempt to prove, or disprove as the case may be, whether it is indeed the site of Indraprastha or not. Diggings have yielded Painted Grey Ware pottery which has been dated to 1000BC. Similar stuff has been noticed in other sites associated with the epic Mahabharata as well, which seem to conclusively prove that this indeed was the place where Indraprastha once flourished. These excavation have also thrown up material, like coins, associated with the Gupta (about 4-5th century AD) and post-Gupta ages (700-800AD) of Indian history as well.

¤ Qila-i-kuhna Masjid

One of the most fascinating buildings, and also one of the few that still survive, in the Purana Qila is the Qila-i-kuhna masjid. Sher Shah Suri built it in 1541 (also see History) and he was obviously out to make a definite style statement. The mosque is quite a place; its prayer hall measures 51.20m by 14.90m and has five doorways with the 'true' horseshoe-shaped arches. Apparently the idea was the build the whole mosque in marble, but the supply ran out and red sandstone had to be used instead. But the builder used the material at hand very skillfully and the result is quite spectacular – the red sandstone and the marble contrast beautifully with each other to give the mosque a very distinctive air. The mihrabs (prayer niches) inside the mosque are richly decorated with concentric arches. From the prayer hall, staircases lead you to the second storey where a narrow passage runs along the rectangular hall. The central alcove is topped by a beautifully worked dome. In the courtyard at one time there was a shallow tank, which had a fountain. The mosque has an inscription which says 'As long as there are people on this earth, may this edifice be frequented, and people be happy in it.' A noble thought – amen to it.

Nalanda- Most Ancient Seats of Learning

2013-04-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

Nalanda- Most Ancient Seats of Learning

A nondescript suburb on the outskirts of Rajagriha played host to Buddha and Mahavira. Centuries later, it was destined to become the world’s most ancient seat of learning.

Nalanda owes its name to a naga (serpent) who lived in a tank, not very far from the royal capital Rajagriha. The Chinese legend accounts for the naga being injured while digging the foundation of a monastery. The soothsayers observed that "this is a very superior site. If you build here a Sangharama (monastery), it must of necessity become highly renowned. Throughout the five Indies it will be a model. For a period of a thousand years it will flourish still. Students of all degrees will here accomplish their studies. But many will spit blood because of this wound given to the Naga."

¤ The Significance of the Holy City

Buddha is believed to have travelled to Nalanda a number of times. He often stayed here at the Pavarika mango grove which was later purchased by the merchants and gifted to the Buddha. The town is depicted as prosperous and accounts for numerous buildings. One of them was a beautiful bathing hall supported by a hundred pillars. Buddha’s favourite disciple, Sariputra was born here and he died preaching at this place. In the third century B.C. Mauryan emperor, Ashoka honoured the famous monk with a grand stupa. Gradually it became associated with the Buddhist map of India. Individual monks and scholars often gathered here for discourses. However, it was not until the fifth century A.D. that the monastery at Nalanda was established by the ruling king of the Gupta dynasty.

¤ Encouraging Learning

Since the time of Buddha, the bhikkus were always encouraged to study the variours arts and sciences. Learning was greatly encouraged as it served dual purposes: knowledge and practice. The monks travel across the globe to take admission in the famous Nalanda university. They took to learning so that they might practice it and realise Dhamma perfectly and thereby enrich the masses. The old and incapable were suggested to attach more importance to the practice of meditation. Buddha is believed to have said that if a man lived in a Sangha for a few days only and observed the precepts prescribed in the Patimokha his life would be more precious than his previous one.

¤ The Practice of Sangharama

A long succession of kings from fifth to twelfth century extended their royal patronage to ensure the progress and prosperity of the Sangharama. One of them was Harshavardhana (606-47), who considered himself to be the servant of the monks, and he is credited for the construction of a huge monastery plated in brass together with the revenues of a 100 villages to defray the expenses of the university. The Pala kings were great patrons of Mahayana Buddhism and during the four centuries of their rule in Bihar and Bengal they were very helpful to the cause of Nalanda. The Nalanda copper plate inscription reflects the international character of the Sangharama and informs us about the erection of a monastery by the king of Sumatra and records the grant of five villages by the Pala kings for the maintenance of the monastery at the request of the foreign king.

¤ Nalanda University

Most of what we know of Nalanda University during the sixth and seventh centuries is due to the accounts left by the Chinese pilgrims. Hiuen Tsang came to India in the first half of the seventh century and spent about three years at Nalanda. His subjects of study included Yoga sastra under Silabhadra, the head of the institution. Hiuen Tsang records Nalanda as a flourishing residential university with over 10,000 monks and 1,500 teachers. The university was marked by a lofty wall with one gate. He describes the tall Sangharama buildings which were three to six storeys high. One of them was capped with 80 feet high copper image of Buddha. Other accounts attest for monasteries with their pinnacles kissing the clouds and a white palace that eclipsed the splendour of the moon. Equally poetic were the names of the nine storeyed library complex called Ratnasagar (sea of gems), Ratnodadhi (ocean fo gems) and Ratnaranjaka (delighter of gems).

¤ Hiuen Tsang- A Noted Scholar

Following Hiuen Tsang’s departure. no less than eleven Chinese and Korean travellers are known to have visited Nalanda. One such scholarly pilgrim was I-Tsing who travel to India by the sea-route and spent over ten years in the same monastery. He observes that the learned priests of Nalanda uses to ride in sedan chairs and never on horseback. He mentions eight monastic buildings and over 300 apartments. These apartments were small rectangular cells serving as single and double seated rooms for students. From these accounts we learn about the craze of Asian students to qualify for admission at Nalanda. Normally not more than two or three out of ten candidates were selected after routine screening that lasted for weeks. The admission seekers were lodged in guest houses where the Dwar Pandits (gate professors) who guarded entry to the institution’s numerous discourses, studied the personality, behaviour and intellect of the candidates under scrutiny. The severity of the examination was necessary to maintain the high standard of learning for which the university was famous. The students seeking admission were supposed to have atained a degree of proficiency in Sanskrith grammar, Vedas, Upanishads and of course the canons of Buddhism.

¤ Nalanda Teachings

Strict code of conduct and disciplined life framed the alumni of Nalanda who were famous throughout the land for the their learning and high morals. The Nalanda method of teaching was based on the concept of discussion and debate among the scholars under the guidance of respective teachers, something akin to today’s seminar. The freshers were lectured by the teachers but more advanced students worked in smaller groups and there are references of even one teacher for a single student.

¤ Nalanda University

A Buddhist University, as Nalanda was, its curriculum included a wide range of subjects in the Mahayana doctrine but the eighteen rival schools were not ignored. Even Brahmanical subjects were included alongwith Sankrith. One was required to be proficient in grammar before joining the Sangharama Besides theology, philosophy and grammar, logic was compulsory as students were expected to defend the Buddhist ideas and thoughts against others. Astrology, medicine, mathematics and much later tantric studies too became a part of the university syllabus.

The bhikkus were not confined to literature but were given to fine arts as well. It began with the creation of the statues of Buddha followed by painting and decoration of the viharas Jataka Stories

with Jataka stories. Though Buddha, by an injunction, had forbidden the painting of male and female figures in the viharas but the later scholars held that there was no harm in painting the monasteries with Jataka themes which created religious sentiments.

The university took care of the student’s requirements of cloth, food, bedding and medicine. A student’s breakfast consisted of rice water while midday meals included rice, fruits, milk etc. Hiuen Tsang accounts for his usual ration of Mahasali rice which was as large as bean and when cooked, it turned out to be aromatic and shining like no other rice. However, excavations have revealed a community kitchen with large ovens which indicates a common mess for the students. The revenues of several local villages were allocated to defray the expenses of the monastery.

¤ The Scholars At The University

The student teacher relationship was basd on reverence, respect and affection. In case of sickness, the students and teachers took care of each other. The students were responsible for over all care and maintenance of the university. Sweeping the floor, organising the kitchen, maintaining discipline, allotment of rooms and residential arrangements were the responsibilities of the monks. On completion of the study, the pupil paid as much as he wished to his teacher. Award ceremonies were periodically organised to honour the students with degrees and certificates. Seals were affixed on the certificates to distinguish them from the prevailing frauds. The general Sangharama seal of Nalanda depicted the wheel of law flanked two gazelles. After finishing their education in the University, the scholars proceeded to the king’s court and presented themselves for appointments or assignments. Scholars from Nalanda went to far off places to preach and propagate Budhism. At times the were invited to countries like Ceylon, China, Tibet, Java and Korea for translating the leading works into foreign languages, establishing monasteries or simple for royal consultation. One such acharya from Nalanda was Padmasambhava, the chief tantric teacher who taught yoga and occult science. He left for Tibet where he established the first monastery and became the founder of Lamaism. Prabhakaramitra, along with his select monks left for Iran and at the invitation of Chinese emperor, he reached the Chinese capital in 626 where he was occupied in translation works. A century later, Vajrabodhi went to China via Ceylon and translated 500 Buddhist scriptures into 130 volumes in 25 years.

The glory on Nalanda ebbed with the violence of Mihiragula-the Hun king and later the Turks (Bakhtiar Khilji) fell upon the city in 1199 forcing the monks to flee. Few decades later when the monastery was once again trying to re-establlish itself, some aggriveved Brahmins finally torched the libraries and destroyed the grand sangharama.

¤ The Archaeological Site In Nalanda

The archaeological site in Nalanda is spread over an area of 1600 feet (NS) by 800 feet (EW). Unfortunately, most of the buildings mentioned by Hiuen Tsang and others have remained unidentified. Moreover, a good number of mounds continue to be unexplored. Excavations have revealed a symmetrical row of monasteries on the east that faces a parallel row of temples on the west with wide space in-between.

¤ Sariputra Stupa

The most imposing structure is the Sariputra Stupa (temple site 3) at the southern extremity. What we see here is the outcome of seven layers of successive constructions that shileds the original stupa which appears to be small and buried deep within. The corner towers and the surrounding stupas are deocrated with a stretch of niches depicting Buddha, Bodhisattvas and other events of Buddha’s life. A stairway leads to the top which offers a better perspective of the grand university.

¤ Monasteries

Facing the Sariputra Stupa are two monasteries (sites 1A and 1B) on the east. The main gates are on the north and it leads to the wide verandah, the roof of which rested on pillars. Monks’s cells are spread on all four sides. In Site 1B we find an octagonal well in the corner of the courtyard and well planned drains for sewage disposal. Further north there are 9 other monasteries following the same layout, except for the entrances facing west. Each monastery was provided with a shrine chamber which contained the colossal image of Buddha (most evident in Monastery Site 1). The monasteries were well worked out with thick plaster walls within which there stood the monastic cells, a safe, a well, and drains. The monasteries clearly reveal the different layers of constructions and thereby indicating various periods of occupation. Monastery Site 1 suggests no less than nine different levels while other monasteries show two or three layers.

¤ Temples

Most of the rectangular temples are two tiered brick structures with sanctum being centrally built on the upper tier with ample space marked for circumambulation. Temple Site 2 is somewhat unusual in absence of the prevalent brick structures. This temple is dressed in stones and its beauty lies in over two hundred sculptured panels. The themes borrow heavily from the Hindu mythology like Siva and Parvati, Gaja Lakshmi, Kubera, Agni etc. Some of the panels are interesting geometric patterns while others are amazing decorative devices depicting birds, animals, couples, musical instruments, etc. These panels are separated by pilasters with pot and foliage designs.(1919words)

¤ Around Nalanda

1. Close to the archaeological site is a sum temple housing interesting images of Surya, Vishnu, Siva Parvati, Avalokitesvara among others. On the outskirts of the archaeological site but lose to Chaitya Site 4 lies a colossal image of Buddha. It is popular withthe villagers who claim its existence prior th the excavations at Nalanda. Further east lies an interesting image of Marichi amidst the paddy field.
2. 2 kms form the archaeological site is the Nava Nalanda Mahavihar, a post graduate institute for research into Buddhism and pali literature. Close to this Mahavihar is a beautiful Thai temple.
3. 3 kms from the archaeological site is Jagadishpur where an impressive image of Buddha can be seen.
4. 1.6 kms from Nalanda is Kundalpur. The Digamber jains beleive it to be the birth place of Lord Mahavir. (90 word)

¤ Resources

1. Nalanda is 90 kms south of Patna (nearest airport) and is well connected by road.
2. The archaeological museum remains closed on Fridays.
3. Choice of accommodation at Nalanda is limited to PWD guest house and the inexpensive youth hostel.
It is advisable to consider Rajgir (15 kms away) as a better option. (52 words)

¤ Archeological Museum

Nalanda archaeological museum is a treasure house of antiquities discovered during excavations in and around Nalanda and Rajgir. It offers a veritable peep into the Pala art which establishes that the university was equally famous for its prolific school of stone sculpture, bronze casting and manuscript painting. General Cunningham evaluates the Nalanda sculptures to be the finest in India. Beside the artistic skill, the variety of sculpture elucidate us on the dress, jewellery and other aspects of life during the Pala period.

¤ Famous Sculptures

Buddhism during the 8th century had started drifting towards Tantra and Vajrayana with elaborate emphasis on rituals and esoteric practices which included the use of mudras, magical spells and mystic diagrams. The influx of Shiva and Shakti cult further heightened the need for worship of the female energy which greatly expanded the list of Buddhist divinities. A number of female deities were introduced and the museum offers an interesting study of who’s who in Buddhist pantheon.

¤ Buddhal In Abhaya Mudra (Pose)

The most dominating image is that of Buddha which took shape in the first century and thereon became the artist’s first priority. The Pala school at Nalanda depicts him in all available postures. However, the finest bronze depicts him in Abhaya mudra which is noted for its simplicity and convincing modelling.

¤ Tara - The Goddess Sculpture

Next to Buddha, most of the sculptures account for Tara (the goddess of compassion and consort of Avalokitesvara) clad in a saree that reaches her ankle while her head is decorated with a crown and the wrist is replete with bangles. Other female deities depicted at Nalanda are three faced Marichi, Prajnaparamita, Hariti, Sarvvani, Aparajita, Vasudhara, Mahasarasvati, etc. The representations of Bodhisattvas include Padmapani, Manjusri, Avalokitesvara, Vajrapani, Manjuvara, etc.

¤ Images of Shiv and Parvati

Among the Brahmanical images found at Nalanda, mention may be made of Shiva and Parvati assembled in one sculpture as seated in Lalitasana, Vishnu, Surya and his son Revanta, Ganesha, Sarasvati, Chandika and Ganga. They seem to suggest the need of an appeal to the masses of the people to attract the votaries of Hinduism by introducing some element of their religion. However,one wonders at some of the rare and unexplained statues like those of Tralokyavijaya trampling upon Siva and Parvati lying prostrate. In another statue Ganesha is seen subdued by Aparajita.

Besides copper, stone and brick inscriptions, the museum has numeorus coins, seals and plaques on display which includes the official seal of the Sangharama.

¤ Hawa Mahal Also Known As The Palace of Winds

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¤ Hawa Mahal Also Known As The Palace of Winds

The Hawa Mahal, or the Palace of Winds, is arguably Jaipur’s best-known monument. For one, it is unlike any other Rajput monument – fort, palace or temple. Secondly, it’s a bit too whimsical and delicate, almost like a magical structure from the Arabian Nights. Despite its towering height and length, the Hawa Mahal looks like a light, airy structure which might blow away with the slightest wind.

Placed right in the middle of the bustling Johari Bazaar, near the Badi Chaupad (the big square), this reddish-pink building made of red sandstone is a constant reminder of Jaipur’s colourful history which refuses to just curl up and die.

¤ Construction of The Palace

Adjacent to the City Palace (where the family of the last Maharaja of Jaipur still lives) is the Hawa Mahal Jaipur, built by Sawai Pratap Singh and designed by Lalchand Usta in 1799. If you view it from a distance, it looks like a palace with the promise of big, spacious rooms inside. But once you cross the road for a closer inspection, you realise that it is little more than a finely chiselled facade. Out of its five floors, the top three are just a room deep while the lower floors are connected to rooms and courtyards. Hawa Mahal, Jaipur, is an enormous tapering structure with numerous arches, spires and a mind-boggling 953 latticed casements and small windows. If you observe it closely, you’ll realise that it is actually a portion of the zenana palace (women’s quarters) and what you can view from the road is merely the back of the building.

¤ Constructed For The Royal Ladies of The Court

The building is a bit of an enigma as nobody knows precisely why it was built. A couplet ascribed to Sawai Pratap Singh, a poet and a devotee of the Hindu deities Radha and Krishna, suggests that the monument was dedicated to them. However, the most widely accepted conjecture is that it was a viewing gallery for the ladies of the royal household. Sitting in the cool, airy interior of the Hawa Mahal, they could watch the goings-on below while remaining hidden themselves. The carved screen balconies meant that the windows caught even the slightest whiff of breeze, making the ladies comfortable as they watched the royal parades and processions.

Visiting hours: 1000-1630 Hrs. Free on Monday and closed on Friday, Still & Vedio Camera charges are also there.

Birla Mandir

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Birla Mandir

Birla Temple Fast Facts

Location- Mandir Marg , Munrika, New Delhi
Built during- 1933 to1939
Built by- Baldeo Das Birla (B.D. Birla) under the guidance of Pandit Vishwanath Shastri
Inauguration- Mahatma Gandhi
Known as- Laxmi Narayan Temple (Lord Vishnu and his consort Laxmi)
Dedicated – Lord Shiva
Architecture Nagara style of Hindu temple architecture
Important celebrations- Janmashtami and Diwali
Also known as- Famed Vaisnava place of worship
Timings- 06.00 am to 10 pm
Photography- Allowed but prohibited in the main prayer hall.

Birla Mandir Delhi

Strictly speaking, this structure is not part of the New Delhi designed by Lyutens who has creates a significance lives on in Delhi’s architectural landscape. The famous Birla Mandir in Delhi is essentially a Hindu temple which came up alongside with the capital city and has therefore been pegged with it. Popularly known as the Birla Mandir temple, it is the first of the temples built across the country by the industrial family of Birla. Located just off Connaught Place on Mandir Marg, it is dedicated to Vishnu, the second of the Hindu Trinity of creator-preserver-destroyer, and his companion Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth.

Birla Mandir history

The temples is certainly one of the most important in India and Birla Mandir history dates back to the time India was fighting for independence from the imperial crown. The construction of this temple started in the year 1933 and it was built by industrialist Baldeo Das Birla and his son Jugal Kishore Birla. The foundation stone of this monument was laid by Maharaja Udhaybhanu Singh who was the Jat ruler of Dholpur. B. D. Birla sought the guidance of Pandit Vishwanath Shastri who able rendered his direction during the construction. The concluding yagna and the dedication of this temple was presided by Swami Keshwa Nandji. Finally this temple was inaugurated at the hands of Mahatma Gandhi. At that time the Mahatma put forward a condition that entry to temple should be not be reserved only for the faithful (Hindus) but must be kept open for individuals who seek God wit true faith and observance.

Spread over 7.5 acres of land, this temple is adorned with many shrines, fountains and a large garden. It also houses the Geeta Bhavan that is place known for discourses. This place of worship is one of the major attractions of the capital city and scores of thousand ascend to the temple on the occasion of Janmashtami and Diwali.

Birla Mandir Temple - The Architectural Brilliance

Undoubtedly an architectural marvel the temple is constructed in Nagara style of architecture. The temple is designed with tall curved towers capped by large amalakas (circular ribbed motif at the summit of a temple tower). The exterior is faced with the white marble and red sandstone typical of Delhi’s Mughal architecture. The interior court is overlooked by two-storey verandahs on three sides. There are gardens and fountains at the rear. The profusion of sculptures, idols, spires and jalis, the Birla Mandir in Delhi is also considered as splendor in terms of its architecture.

Lotus Temple Fast facts

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Lotus Temple Fast facts

Location- New Delhi
Completed – 13th November 1986
Open to the public- 24^th December,1986
Type- House of worship
Known- Baha’i house of worship
Architecture- expressionist
Also known as- The first Bahi Temple in India.
Timings- The timings of the Lotus Temple are as follows
Winter- 09.00 am to 06.00 pm
Summer- 09.00 am to 07.00 pm

Lotus temple is one of the largest places of worship and is an intrinsic architecture style that resonates neo expressionalism and also the thoughts and the beliefs of the Bahai religion. So much so that it is called the Taj Mahal of modern India. This place of worship is dedicated to the unity and the oneness of religions and mankind. Though the followers are a very small thread in the secular fabric of the nation there values and thought process is well grounded in the modern times. Imbibing a true spirit of service this temple also serves as center for relief to those in need, a source of sustenance to the depressed, a place for the homeless wayfarer and education to those who need it the most.

Before moving onto the details of this temple some words about the religion. There are distinctive features of the Bahai religion. First of all they are no clergymen who administer. The lay faithful themselves perform the various observances. The Bahai service consists of prayer and selected reading from Bahai scriptures. There is also reading of texts from other religious texts of faiths across the globe. Prayer and meditation and converting prayer into the acts of mercy is the essence of the religion.

The Lotus temple is one of the major six houses in the world the other five include Apia, Western Samosa, Sydney Australia, Kampala Uganda, Panama city, Panama, Frankfurt, Germany and Wilmette, USA.

Architecture of Lotus Temple- Remarkable and spectacular are the two adjectives that fittingly describe the architecture of Lotus Temple. This monument for prayer asserts that a spiritful vision can work wonders can and also works marvels and miracles. The temple a masterpiece of expressionalist architectural work can be visible furlongs away. The structure is designed in the form of half bloom lotus with 27 petals that is surrounded by lawns and nine pools. The 40 meter temple has a setting capacity of 1,300. The surface of the temple is made from white marble that was specially outsourced from Pentili hills in Greece. The same marble has been used for the construction of various other Bahai monuments. Fariborz Sahba is the architect who designed this monument. He was approached almost ten years before the completion of the monument and was overseer of the project. A major part of the construction of the land was burse of the entire life savings of Ardishír Rustampúr of Hyderabad.

Since the day it was opened to the public for veneration, scores of individuals have flocked to this temple of solace. A statistic suggests that the daily average footfall of the temple is close to 10,000. This place not only serves a place of worship but also a popular tourist. So much so that this building features in the list of most visited building around the globe.

Chittorgarh Fort

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¤ The Colossal Walls

Standing on a rocky plateau on a 500 feet high hill, the 700 acre fort went through three sieges, and each time Chittor turned out the loser. But that did not mean that the fort was inferior to any other in Rajasthan. It was just that that the Rajputs had a habit of riding out to meet the enemy outside the safety of their walls instead of allowing the enemy to launch the first assault. The first time the fort was stormed in 1303AD, it was purely for matters of the heart. Alauddin Khilji fell in love with Rani Padmini the moment he heard of her and decided to take Chittor and subsequently Padmini. He did get Chittor but Padmini was nothing more than ashes in a huge jauhar (mass suicide by fire) which left 30,000 women burnt alive by choice.

The second siege came 232 years later in 1535 from Muhammad Shah of Gujarat, and this time it was outright war. Chittor fell again, and 13,000 women and children died in a different kind of jauhar. The fortress was on the brink of being seized by Bahadur Shah and there was no time to arrange for a bonfire. Gunpowder was brought out from the magazines and laid out in excavations in the ground. A tremendous blast took the lives of women and children this time.

The final assault was by Akbar in 1567, and it was fatal for Chittor. The seven gates of Chittor were opened and 8,000 Rajputs rode out in their saffron war robes once again to die at Mughal swords. Tradition repeated itself within the walls of Chittor, and women and children sallied forth into flames. When Akbar entered the fort, it is said that there was not a living soul left inside. After this final sack the backbone of Chittor was broken, and its ruler Rana Udai Singh fled to lay the foundations of Udaipur. Chittor never recovered and the fort was taken over by nature.

¤ Fort Palaces

Rana Kumbha was the one who officially built Chittor, and his palace is the oldest monument within the fort walls. The palace was built from 1433-68 in plastered stone, and the entrance is through Suraj Pol which directly leads into a courtyard. On the right of Suraj Pol is the Darikhana or Sabha (council chamber) behind which lies a Ganesha temple and the zenana (living quarters for women). A massive water reservoir is located towards the left of Suraj Pol. Ruined houses towards the south of the palace may have been used by lesser nobles, or were probably used by palace attendants. Below the central courtyard is a subterranean chamber where Rani Padmini committed jauhar with the rest of the women of Chittor when Alauddin Khilji besieged the fort. But perhaps the most remarkable feature of the palace is its splendid series of canopied balconies. The complex also houses stables for elephant and horses, but is now in ruins.

¤ Other Attractions

¤ Fateh Prakash
Near Kumbha’s palace is Fateh Prakash, the most modern building in Chittor. Built in the early 20th century, the palace was the home for Maharana Fateh Singh, Chittor’s ruler who died in 1930. A part of the building has now been converted into a museum but the rest of it is closed to visitors.

Timings : The museum is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. except on Fridays.

¤ Kunwar Pade ka Mahal

was the palace of the prince of Chittor, and was built in 1450. Interestingly, this palace incorporates for the first time in Rajput architecture the use of ogee arches. These S-shaped arches later became an essential part of Rajput architecture and were widely used in palaces, step wells and temples. In the prince’s palace can be seen some of the beautiful blue tiles that went into decorating most of the palaces here. Prolific use of the ogee arch can also be seen in Rana Ratan Singh’s palace built from 1527-32. Ratan Singh was Padmini’s husband, and his palace is styled on Rana Kumbha’s royal residence.

¤ Rani Padmini’s Palace

is a compact three storeyed white building, but what is seen today is a 19th century reconstruction of the original. The palace is surrounded by water, and the inevitable chhatris (pavilions) crown its roofs. This was perhaps the forerunner of the concept of jagmahals (palaces surrounded by water), and it was from here that Akbar carried off huge bronze gates and installed them in Agra. Close by is Bhimlat kund, an artificial tank dedicated to the strongest of the Pandava brother, Bhima (see Mahabharata).

¤ Palaces of Jaimal and Patta

The palaces of Jaimal and Patta were the last two buildings to be built in Chittor fort, and calling them palaces is really misleading. Compared to other palaces in Rajasthan, they are small and of not much architectural significance. Both these havelis (houses) are built very frugally, taking into consideration that they were constructed more as simple residences than splendid palaces. Both lie in ruins now, and their facades are minimal and hardly bear any resemblance to the palaces of Rana Kumbha or Padmini.

Towards the south of these two havelies is the three-storeyed tower called Chonda house built in early 15th century, and now in ruins. Chonda was the founder of the Chondawat clan and gave up his throne on the insistence of his father.

¤ Main Gate Ways To Fort

A limestone bridge supported by ten arches across the Gambheri river leads into the fort. Nine of these arches are pointed, and by some mishap one was built as a curve. The road to Chittor is arduous and a kilometer long, with seven imposing gateways forming defensive entrances. Padal Pol the first gate, is where Bagh Singh was cut down in the second siege by Bahadur Shah in 1535.

Here it must be remembered that gateways to a fort in Rajasthan were no diminutive ones – they were massive stone structures with reinforced doors to ward off elephants and even cannon shots. The gates of Chittor are of special architectural interest, for it was here that for the first time that defense surpassed décor. The arches are pointed, and the top of the gates are notched parapets from where archers could shoot at their tormentors.

None other than Emperor Akbar dedicates two of the seven gates to Chittor’s brave defenders. Bhairon Pol was where Jaimal fell by the Emperor’s bullet, and Patta died at Ram Pol, the fort’s main gate which was built in 1459. It is crowned by two little chhatris (pavilions), and the roof is supported by a corbeled arch. Each side of the gate consists of a small hall. On returning to Agra Akbar ordered the construction of statues of the valiant warriors to commemorate their deaths. Cenotaphs for both Jaimal and Patta were also built by Rajputs at each gate. A statue of a Rajput warrior on horseback, lance in hand, is Jaimal’s cenotaph, while another colonnaded cenotaph lies nearby, dedicated to Raghudeva of Mewar.

The eastern wall is entered through Suraj Pol (Sun Gate). Hanuman Pol lies before Ganesh Pol, and then come two gates joined together in a peculiar manner. The upper arch of the Jorla (Joined Gate) is connected to the base of Lakshman Pol, a feature never seen anywhere else in India.

¤ Fort Temples

In the western side of the fort is an ancient Tulja Bhawani temple in honour of goddess Tulja, held sacred by the scribes of Chittor. Adjacent to this temple is an open courtyard, the tope khana (cannon foundry) of yester years where a few old cannons can still be seen.

¤ Naulakha Bhandar- Treasure Store

The Naulakha bhandar (nine lakh treasury) built by Rana Kumbha is a small citadel in itself, and it was here that all the wealth of Chittor was hoarded. The bastion once had lofty walls and towers to guard it, but now lies in ruins. The Naulakha bhandar is also said to have been the residence of Banbir, the usurper.

¤ Shringar Chaori Jain Temple

In northeastern corner there is a small domed temple called the Shringar Chaori with detailed carvings of gods and goddesses on the outside. This richly sculpted Jain temple was built into the fort wall in 1448 in honour of Shantinath, a Jain fordmaker.
The palace of the Ranas, built by Rana Raimal, is a plain edifice with notched battlements, following the style of original Rajput architecture devoid of any Mughal influence. This palace was the home for the very first rulers of Chittor, or that of the Moris from whom Chittor was seized.
Within the courtyard surrounding the palace is another temple, this one for Devji. Rana Sanga had a special affinity for Devji, and on each of his forays outside Chittor to engage the enemy he would first visit the temple. On a victorious return, Sanga would once again pay homage to the deity (see Chittor introduction).

¤ Mira Bai Temple

Two massive temples also lie within the fort. One was built by Rana Kumbha and the other by Mira Bai, the saint-poetess and Krishna’s devotee. The masonry for these temples was brought from the ruins of ancient shrines near Chittor. Rana Kumbha’s Vrij temple (1450AD) is dedicated to Varah, the god with the body of a man and the head of a boar. Near these temples are two kunds or reservoirs, each measuring 125 feet in length, 50 feet across and 50 feet deep. However, they were not meant to store water and were constructed for the wedding of a Chittor princess to a prince of Gagron. They were filled with oil and ghee (clarified butter) which was served out to attendants and guests.
Near Mirabai’s temple is the cenotaph of Mirabai’s guru Shri Rai Das. Inside the cenotaph is a statue depicting five human bodies fused together with one head, signifying that there are no caste differences and even outcasts can reach out to god.

¤ Kallika Mata temple

Bappa Rawal built the Kallika Mata temple sometime during the 8th century for Surya, the Sun god. Alauddin Khilji destroyed it in the first sack of Chittor, but Rana Hammir rebuilt it as a Kali temple in the 14th century. The temple consists of five chambers, all devoid of their original roofs. The walls of this temple are plain but the cornices are decorated with lotus symbols. The inner sanctum’s walls depict the Sun god Surya in nichés surrounded by consorts and angels. The moon god Chandra is also shown in sculptures in the walls which rise up into a flat ceiling supported by quadrangular pillars, also intricately carved and bracketed at the top. The doorframe of the inner sanctum has four ornamental bands with Surya forming the central theme of its carvings. The entire frame is flanked by an elaborate panel in which are carved figures of deities around a main figure of the sun god. The temple still retains the flavour of the Gupta style of architecture, and an inscription within the edifice informs us that it was built by king Manabhanga.

¤ Kumbhashyama temple

The Kumbhashyama temple is similar to the Kallika temple but in is honour of the god Krishna. Simplicity is the main theme, but nichés in the walls are filled with diamonds and carry images of gods and goddesses as well as the eight regents of Chittor. The upper walls are decorated with a frieze of entwined loops. A major part of the temple seems to have been restored, but the inner chamber still retains its originality.
The 16th century Adbhutnath temple demonstrates a style which emerged in the 10^th century. Here, images of gods tend to be differently portrayed than in other temples. Heads are almost circular and the statues’ limbs form a tubular shape, making the images look like crude toys. The main image of Mahesha or Lord Shiva is made of wood and is an unrefined depiction of the Destroyer god. His face is flat and two more adjoining faces are turned forward in an obvious display of the lack of dimension.

¤ Brahma Temple

Rana Kumbha’s Brahma temple is not really that of the Creator of the Universe, and is in honour of Kumbha’s father, Mukul. Apparently Brahma was never worshipped here, and the temple was only named after him since a bust of Mukul stands in the centre of the solitary chamber. Adjoining this temple is Charbagh, a garden of cenotaphs where the ashes of each one of Chittor’s rulers – from Bappa Rawal to Udai Singh II, the founder of Udaipur – are kept.

¤ Mahasati

The Ranas of Chittor were cremated in the Mahasati, a small terrace surrounded by stones marking satis (widows burnt with the bodies of their husbands).

¤ Gaumukh

Beyond the Charbagh is Gaumukh, a perennial fountain formed in the mouth of a `cow’. The `cow’ is actually a cleft in a rock face through which water flows out into a reservoir. Near the Gaumukh is the Rani Bindar tunnel which leads into the subterranean chamber where Rani Padmini committed jauhar during Alauddin Khilji’s siege of Chittor.
Within the same complex is the Sammidheshwara temple in which light enters from four different directions. The temple walls are short and take the form of blind balustrades. Small pillars support the roof on the outside while columns support the dome of the inner chamber. This central chamber is largely open on all sides and its columns meet in arches in the upper reaches.

¤ Towers of Glory

The most imposing monuments in Chittor are the dual towers that stand as a grim reminder of the jaded grandeur of Chittor. Vijaystambha or Victory Tower was erected by Rana Kumbha from 1457-58 after he defeated the combined armies of Malwa and Gujarat. The tower is 122 feet high and its summit spans an area of more than 17 feet. Nine storeys ascend into the sky from the 35 feet broad base on a 42 feet broad platform. Each of the nine storeys have doorways leading into colonnaded balconies. Designed by an architect called Jaita in the Jain revivalist style, the tower is built of quartz and compact limestone abundantly found in Chittor. The colonnaded top storey has a statue of a kanya (young girl) surrounded by gopis (milkmaids) in dancing postures playing various musical instruments. Black marble tablets in this floor contain shlokas (verses) tracing the genealogy of Chittor rulers. However, most of the slabs have been defaced and only one is still in its original condition. The fifth floor contains reliefs of the builders of the tower, and a simple staircase which leads right up to the top connects all the storeys.

¤ Kirtistambha

The secondary tower in Chittor is the huge Kirtistambha (Tower of Fame) originally dedicated to Adinath, the first Jain saint. 75 feet high and 39 feet wide at the base, the Kirtistambha is also richly decorated with Jain motifs. Similar to Vijaystambha, this tower is also built of quartz, is seven storeys high with a chunkier façade. A number of Jain inscriptions can be found within and outside the tower, dating it to 896AD.

Mohair Margi

Mohair Margi is a little hill raised under orders from Akbar during his siege of Chittor in 1567. The Mughal army was engaged to raise a hill as high as the fort walls so that they could fire cannons into Chittor. For this purpose earth was excavated and dumped near the walls. Legend has it that Akbar paid one gold mohur (coin) for each basket of mud since the task meant certain death. Eventually the mound did reach as high as the fort walls and Akbar was able to seize Chittor.

Delhi Red Fort

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Location- near Pragati Maidan, New Delhi
Founded by- Sher Shah Suri and Humayun
Constructed around- 1538- 1545
Timings- 08.00am to 06.00 pm
Entry Fees- Entry fee for Indian citizens is Rs 5/-

Entry fee for foreign citizen is Rs 100/-

Photography Charges- No charges for still cameras and Rs 25/- for video cameras

When the second Mughal emperor Humayun decided to make a city of his own he decided on the site of the ancient city of Indraprastha. Humayun was quite a scholar with a fine grasp on such matters and so it is certain that the site was chosen deliberately. When his enemy Sher Shah Suri overthrew him, he destroyed most of Dinpanah (refuge of the faithful) as the city of Humayun was called to make way for his own Dilli Sher Shahi or Shergarh. Incidentally, Humayun was probably the only emperor in history who built a city in Delhi and did not give it his own name – this was typical of Humayun's rather sophisticated demeanor.

Purana Qila Delhi - The Architectural MarveI-. The walls of the immense Qila tower down on the road that takes one to Pragati Maidan from the height of 18m, and run on for about 2km. It has three main gates – the Humayun Darwaza, Talaqi Darwaza and Bara Darwaza (which one uses to enter the fort today). The double-storeyed gates are quite huge and are built with red sandstone. Of all the gates entry was forbidden from Talaqi (forbidden) Darwaza, the northern gate. It is not clear why this was so.

The History of Old Fort- Sher Shah Suri and his successor could not complete the city, and when Humayun defeated Sher Shah's son to take back his city, he did not deal with Dilli Sher shahi as the latter had done with Dinpanah. In fact the Mughal emperor very handsomely completed the city and even used several of the buildings like the Sher Mandal, a rather pretty two-storeyed octagonal building. Humayun used this as his library and, then tripped to his death from its steps.

Purana Qila - Excavation of Grey Ware Pottery-Several excavations have taken place in the Purana Qila in an attempt to prove, or disprove as the case may be, whether it is indeed the site of Indraprastha or not. Diggings have yielded painted grey ware pottery which has been dated to 1000BC. Similar artifacts has been noticed in other sites associated with the epic Mahabharata as well, which seem to conclusively prove that this indeed was the place where Indraprastha once flourished. These excavations have also thrown up material, like coins, associated with the Gupta (about 4-5th century AD) and post-Gupta ages (700-800AD) of Indian history as well.

Qila-i-kuhna Masjid

One of the most fascinating buildings, and also one of the few that still survive, in the Purana Qila is the Qila-i-kuhna Masjid. Sher Shah Suri built it in 1541. It was the emperor’s definite style statement. The mosque serenades with peace and quiet. The prayer hall has five doorways with the 'true' horseshoe-shaped arches. Apparently the idea was the build the whole mosque in marble, but the supply ran out and red sandstone had to be used instead. But the builder used the material very skillfully .As a result spectacular red sandstone and the marble contrast beautifully with each other to give the mosque a very distinctive air. The mihrabs (prayer niches) inside the mosque are richly decorated with concentric arches. From the prayer hall, staircases lead you to the second storey where a narrow passage runs along the rectangular hall. The central alcove is topped by a beautifully worked dome. In the courtyard at one time there was a shallow tank, which had a fountain.

Khajuraho Temples - Temples of Love

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Khajuraho India quick facts

State:

Madhya Pradesh

Location:

The City of Khajuraho is situated in the forested plains of Madhya Pradesh in the region known as Bundelkhand and at a reasonable distance from most cities and town centers of the state

Main Attractions:

Western Group of Temples, Eastern Group of Temples Southern Group of Temples

Khajuraho Dance Festival:

Khajuraho Dance Festival is held from – 25^th Feb – 30^th Feb

World Heritage Site:

Western Group of Temples

Right through the Mughal invasion and the early British forays into the country, Khajuraho temples in India remained unknown. Rediscovered in this century, they are fine reminders of India's glorious past.

Khajuraho Temples - Temples of Love

To some, Khajuraho Temples are the most graphic, erotic and a sensuous sculpture of India, the world has ever known. But Khajuraho has not received the attention it deserves for its significant contribution to the religious art of India – there are literally hundreds of exquisite images on the interior and exterior walls of the shrines.

Khajuraho Temples architecture

Architecturally these temples are unique. While each temple in Khajuraho has a distinct plan and design, several features are common to all. They are all built on high platforms, several metres off the ground, either in granite or a combination of light sandstone and granite. Each of these temples has an entrance hall or mandapa, and a sanctum sanctorum (main sanctum) or garbha griha. The roofs of these various sections have a distinct form. The porch and hall have pyramidal roofs made of several horizontal layers. The inner sanctum's roof is a conical tower - a colossal pile of stone (30m high) made of an arrangement of miniature towers called shikharas.

The famous Western groups of temples are designated as a World Heritage Site and are enclosed within a beautifully laid out park. The Lakshmana and Vishwanath Temples to the front and The Kandariya Mahadev, Jagadami and Chitragupta Temples displays the best craftmanship of Khajuraho

Khajuraho Temples complex

For the purpose of convenience, the village of Khajuraho has been divided into three directional areas where the major groups of temple complex are located. These are:

Western Group Temples- These groups of Khajuraho temples are entirely Hindu, and constitute some of the finest examples of Chandela art at its peak. The largest being the Kandariya Mahadev temple, followed by a granite temple - Chaunsath Yogini. The Chitragupta Temple is dedicated to the Sun God, while the Vishwanath Temple sports a three-headed image of Brahma – the Creator of the Universe. The Lakshmana Temple is superbly decorated, while the Devi Jagdambi Temple is dedicated to Goddess Kali. Other temples in the Western Group include the Varaha Temple with a nine-foot high boar-incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the Matangeshwara Temple with a eight-feet high lingam, and the Brahma Temple.

Eastern Group Temples- This group of Khajuraho temples comprises of two historic Jain temples. The Adinath Temple lavishly embellished with sculpted figures, and the Parsvanath Temple which is the largest Jain temple, sculpted with charming detail. There are other shrines such as the Vamana Temple with apsaras (fairies) in sensuous poses, and the Javari Temple that has a richly-carved doorway.

Southern Group Temples- This southern group has two impressive temples, mainly belonging to the 12th century – the Chaturbhuj Temple, with a massive, carved image of Vishnu, and the Duladeo Temple, one of the last temples of the Chandela era, dedicated to Lord Shiva. Symbolizing a medieval legacy, the Khajuraho temples of India are a perfect combination of architectural and sculptural excellence, representing one of the finest examples of Indian art.

Shopping And Souvenirs Around Khajuraho Temples-Being one of the most visited temples in India, many shops have mushroomed around the temple complex which offers souvenirs at best of prices. There are number of stalls in front of these temples that present a wide array of articles which are worth buying.

Khajuraho Temple Dance Festival- This dance festival is held every year from 25th February to 2nd March, the Khajuraho Dance festival has become a platform that showcase some of the best and distinctive Indian classical dance forms that include Bharatnatyam, Kathak, Odisi, Kathakali etc. For over 25 years now, the carved stones fill with life during the month of Feb as music and dance take centers stage as in the former days.

How to Reach Khajuraho Temples

Air- The airport is 5 kms from the city centre and is well connected by domestic flights to and from Agra, Varanasi and Kathmandu.
Train- Mahoba, Satna and Jhansi are the nearest railway stations. All of these are well connected by most of the major cities of India.
Road- Khajuraho is connected by regular bus services with Mahoba, Harpalpur, Satna, Jhansi, Gwalior, Agra, Jabalpur and Bhopal. Khajuraho is 590 kms from Delhi via Gwalior and Jhansi.

Accommodation Options at Khajuraho India

There a wide range of accommodation options available. Ranging from budget to deluxe, Hotels in Khajuraho offer good accommodation at your price.

5 star hotels

Jass Trident
Hotel Chandela

3 star hotel

Hotel Khajuraho Ashok
Usha Bundela
Kairali Ayurvedic Health Spa

Quick Facts About Khajuraho India

State :	Madhya Pradesh
Location :	The City of Khajuraho is situated in the forested plains of Madhya Pradesh in the region known as Bundelkhand and at a reasonable distance from most cities and town centers of the state
Main Attractions :	Western Group of Temples Eastern Gropu of Southern Group of Temples
Khajuraho Dance Festival :	Khajuraho Dance Festival is held from - 25 th Feb - 30 th Feb
World Heritage Site :	Western Group of Temples

¤ Khajuraho Temples India

For the purpose of convenience, the village of Khajuraho has been divided into three directional areas where the major groups of temples are located.These are:

Western Group Temples
These groups of Khajuraho temples are entirely Hindu, and constitute some of the finest examples of Chandela art at its peak. The largest being the Kandhariya Mahadev, followed by a granite temple - Chaunsath Yogini. The Chitragupta Temple is dedicated to the Sun God, while the Vishwanath Temple sports a three-headed image of Brahma – the Creator of the Universe. The Lakshmana Temple is superbly decorated, while the Devi Jagdambi Temple is dedicated to Goddess Kali. Other temples in the Western Group include the Varaha Temple with a nine-feet high boar-incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the Matangeshwara Temple with a eight-feet high lingam, and the Brahma Temple.