Gandhi

Mohandas Gandhi:
The Story of My Experiments the Truth
Gandhi played a major role in the development of nonviolence and peaceful activities. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He had many followers, and taught many how to protest peacefully, instead of using violence and war. Gandhi is a role model for many people today and is one of the most famous of all nonviolent activists. Gandhi made a large impact on the world through his work.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a small town in northwest India. His father, Karamchand Gandhi, was a local statesman who had accumulated valuable experience in local government. His mother, Putlibai, his father's fourth wife, was illiterate. Nonetheless, she took great interest in religious and spiritual matters and observed rules and customs mandated by religion with intense devotion. She showed particular willpower in her decisions to observe religious fasts. As child, Gandhi appeared shy and academically mediocre. He did not participate in athletics. He harbored no religious convictions as a young man. He also found Hindu temples too flamboyant. He did not exhibit an interest in politics either.
During Gandhi's childhood, Imperial Britain dominated India, traditional Indian figures of authorities, such as princes and rajas, received a considerable degree of power in local affairs, in exchange for swearing allegiance to the British Crown. These princes made decisions about creating local rules and maintaining traditions, such as child marriage, which remained a respected practice. For that reason, Gandhi was only 13 years old when he married Kasturbai, a local girl of the same age. Although, he despised the idea stating, “It is my painful duty to have to record here my marriage at the age of thirteen...I can see no moral argument in support of such a preposterously early marriage” (Gandhi 97). The early marriage was the primary cause of Gandhi maturing earlier than most teens his age had to. Essentially, Gandhi and Kasturbai didn’t love each other since there was no relation before the marriage but they eventually learned love one another.
When Gandhi's father passed away in 1885, his relatives decided that, as the most likely successor of his father's position as a local politician, and as head of the family, Gandhi should go to England to obtain a law degree. “While in London, I began, on one hand, my study of Indian law and, on the other, my experiments in dietetics in which Virchand Gandhi, a friend, joined me. My brother, for his part was trying his best to get me briefs. The study of India law was a tedious business” (Gandhi 150-51).
While studying, the Bhagavad-Gita made a profound impact on Gandhi's personal belief; he also became friends with many Christians and read the Bible for the first time. He readily embraced the Christian idea of humility and "the poor in spirit,” as expressed by Jesus Christ's Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament. Gandhi passed the bar to become enrolled as a lawyer on June 11 of 1891, after less than three years in England. Gandhi's shyness interfered with his first assignments as a practicing lawyer.
Gandhi viewed the trip to South Africa as a temporary assignment and an opportunity to escape professional mediocrity. The white settler and the independent Boer states continued to engage in volatile interactions with the British so a threat of violent eruptions always loomed large. In order to placate both the Boer and other white settlers, the British adopted a number of racist policies, and while the Indians, most of them working on sugar and coffee plantations, did not suffer as much as the black population, they clearly experienced a treatment as second-class citizens. From his very arrival in South Africa, Gandhi experience discrimination himself as he was forced to wait overnight in a Transvaal train station when he refused to give up his first- class seat to a white passenger. Later, Gandhi also had difficulty being admitted to hotels, and saw that his fellow-Indians, who were mostly manual laborers, experienced even more unjust treatment.
Very soon after his arrival, Gandhi's initial bafflement and indignation at racist policies turned into a growing sense of outrage and propelled him into assuming a position as a public figure at the assembly of Transvaal Indians, where delivered his first speech urging Indians not to accept inequality but instead to unite, work hard, learn English and observe clean living habits. Gandhi became known among Indians all around the world as "Mahatma," or "Great Soul.
Gandhi has described his life as a series of experiments, he performed, on truth, non-violence, brahmacharya, dietetics, hydropathy, naturopathy etc. He completed his law from England, and after that spent most of his life in South Africa. Its there he did lots of experiments with his life. And, these were which made the changes in him. It’s worth studying the adversaries he faced in there, but he never compromised with his ideologies and beliefs.
It was Mahatma Gandhi’s “arrogance” which influenced me the most. It’s easy to make ideologies and beliefs for one self, but it’s very difficult to follow them to the extreme, and this is what makes difference between a common man and a Legend. As you’ll read this book, there’ll be several places where your ’common’ mind won’t agree with his thinking. The difference is that you’re susceptible to change your thinking with time, situation, or reasoning. But Mr. Gandhi didn’t, this is what made all the difference.
When he believed that non-vegetarian (including milk and its products) is not for humans, he followed his ideology to his deathbed, while all the doctors around him kept on shouting. I call this arrogance. One may see it as a very haughty attitude, but there’s a glimpse of ’positive arrogance’ in it. He lived, and subsequently died, believing in his ideologies. Every legend (be it Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin etc.) had some arrogance in him/her (whether good or bad, positive or negative), and that’s why history (and we) remembers him/her.
I would suggest everyone to read this book, as it’s a live example of how modesty, wisdom, and humiliation adapt themselves in making of a MAHATMA. “When every hope is gone, 'when helpers fail and comforts flee,' I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplications, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal” (Gandhi 216).

Bibliography/Works Cited Page
Coolidge, Olivia E. Gandhi. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971. Print.
Gandhi, and Mahadev Desai. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with
Truth. London: Penguin, 2007. Print.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. "Gandhi - Biography of Mahatma Gandhi." About.com 20th Century
History. About.com Guide, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013
Fischer, Louis. Gandhi: His Life and Message to the World. New York: Penguin, 1982.

Outline I. Introduction A. Thesis II. Gandhi’s Childhood A. Background B. Early Values C. Marriage III. Adulthood A. Gandhi Father Dies 1. Decides to study law 2. His values/ his studies while in England B. Trip to South Africa 1. Gandhi shows Advocacy 2. The Revelations of the ‘Mahatma’/ the man he became IV. Conclusion

Initial Planning Sheet
1.What is the subject of your paper?
-The subject of my paper is Mohandas Gandhi.
2.Why do you want to write about this subject?
-Gandhi has been a global inspiration for his peaceful manner and momentous endeavors, helping India seek freedom/independence from the British Empire. He was also seldom shown to be depressed or sad. I also want to encourage the reader to read the book.
3.What audience will you write for?
-I am writing for my professor and classmates.
4.What question do you want your research paper to answer?
-Why is Gandhi still relevant as an important figure?
5.What is the main strategy you think will use?
-I will use examples and events from the book that support my argument.