Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s biography Education, Religion Movements, Facts

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s biography Education, Religion Movements, Facts: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, commonly name known as Bapu, was an India Father of nation and Indian lawyer He was Born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar at Gujrar also he was Educated in Los Angle California United State of America also Knows he was Freedom Fighter of India across the World so this Post is Related to His Life Journey More Information Read Properly :

Branch Accounts Study Material Notes In Hindi

His Demise

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.

CHAPTER-VII

THE CONDITION OF INDIA (TEXT)

Reader: 1 now understand why the English hold India. I should like to know your views about the condition of our country.

Editor: It is a sad condition. In thinking of it my eyes water and my throat get parched. I have grave doubts whether I shall be able sufficiently to explain what is in my heart. It is my deliberate opinion that India is being ground down, not under the English heel, but under that of modern civilization. It is groaning under the monster’s terrible weight. There is yet time to escape it, but every day makes it more and more difficult. Religion is dear to me and my first complaint is that India is becoming irreligious. Here I am not thinking of the Hindu or the Mahomedan or the Zoroastrian religion but of that religion which underlies all religions. We are turning away from God.

Reader: How so?

Editor: There is a charge laid against us that we are lazy people and that Europeans are industrious and enterprising.

We have accepted the charge and we, therefore, wish to change our condition. Hinduism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and all other religions teach that we should remain passive about worldly pursuits and active about godly pursuits, that we should set a limit to our worldly ambition and that our religious ambition should be illimitable. Our activity should be directed into the latter channel.

Religion Movements

Reader: You seem to be encouraging religious charlatanism. Many a cheat has, by talking in a similar strain, led the people astray.

Editor: You are bringing an unlawful charge against religion. Humbug there undoubtedly is about all religions. Where there is light, there is also shadow. I am prepared to maintain that humbugs in worldly matters are far worse than the humbugs in religion. The humbug of civilization that I am endeavouring to show to you is not to be found in religion.

Reader: How can you say that? In the name of religion Hindus and Mahomedans fought against one another. For the same cause Christians fought Christians. Thousands of innocent men have been murdered, thousands have been burned and tortured in its name. Surely this is much worse than any civilization.

Editor: I certainly submit that the above hardships are far more bearable than those of civilization. Everybody understands that the cruelties you have named are not part of religion although they have been practiced in its name; therefore there is no aftermath to these cruelties. They will always happen so long as there are to be found ignorant and credulous people. But there is no end to the victims destroyed in the fire of civilization. Its deadly effect is that people come under its scorching flames believing it to be all good. They become utterly irreligious and, in reality, derive little advantage from the world. Civilization is like a mouse gnawing while it is soothing us. When its full effect is realized, we shall see that religious superstition is harmless compared to that of modern civilization. I am not pleading for a continuance of religious superstitions. We shall certainly fight them tooth and nail, but we can never do so by disregarding religion. We can only do so by appreciating and conserving the latter.

Religion Movements

Reader: Then you will contend that the Pax Britannica is a useless encumbrance?

Editor: You may see peace if you like; I see none.

Reader: You make light of the terror that the Thugs, the Pindaris and the Bhils were to the country.

Editor: If you give the matter some thought, you will see that the terror was by no means such a mighty thing. If it had been a very substantial thing, the other people would have died away before the English advent. Moreover, the present peace is only nominal, for by it we have become emasculated and cowardly. We are not to assume that the English have changed the nature of the Pindaris and the Bhils. It is, therefore, better to suffer the Pindari peril than that someone else should protect us from it and thus render us effeminate. I should prefer to be killed by the arrow of a Bhil than to seek unmanly protection. India without such protection was an India full of valour. Macaulay betrayed gross ignorance when he libelled Indians as being practically cowards. They never merited the charge. Cowards living in a country inhabited by hardy mountaineers and infested by wolves and tigers must surely find an early grave. Have you ever visited our fields? I assure you that our agriculturists sleep fearlessly on their farms even today, but the English and you and I would hesitate to sleep where they sleep. Strength lies in absence of fear, not in the quantity of flesh and muscle we may have on our bodies. Moreover, I must remind you who desire Home Rule that, after all, the Bhils, the Pindaris, and the Thugs are our own countrymen. To conquer there is your and my work. So long as we fear our own brethren, we are unfit to reach the goal. deeply influenced by religion, Gandhiji complains that India is going to be devoid of religion. He is not thinking of the Hindu or the Mahomedan or Zoroastrian religion but he is thinking of the religion which underlines all religions. Everybody is going away from God.

Religion Movements

Summary in Brief

The Condition of India

The charge of being lazy is laid against Indians while the Europeans are praised that they are very active and laborious. Accepting this charge we wish to change our condition. All religions teach to be passive about worldly pursuits and active about godly pursuits. Our worldly ambitions should be limited and religious ambitions should be extended. The charge against religion of leading the people astray is unlawful. There is humbug in all religions but religious humbug is less bad than the worldly humbugs. Gandhiji is trying to show the humbug of civilization and not the religious hunbug of civilization. It is also a fact that Hindus and Mohamedans fought against one another in the name of religion. Again it is also religion which led christians to fight against christians and is responsible of murdering and burning a number of innocent people. This is worse than any other civilization. Religion never encourages these cruelities yet they have been practised in its name. The humbug and cruelities will continue so long as there are credulous people. On the other hand, civilization makes people its victims which has no end. The people come under its influence considering it good. Consequently they become irreligious. The influence of modern civilization is deadly. When it is compared to religious superstition, it proves harmful. Without disregarding religion, we should fight against superstitions. According to Gandhi Ji peace is only for name. It is this peace which has made us coward. If we are tortured we should suffer it, but if other people save us from that torture, it is like a spot. India is full of valour without such protection. There is absence of fear among Indians and this is her true strength. The Pindaris, Bhils and Thugs are our countrymen. It is our work to have victory over them. We can not achieve our goal till we are afraid of our own brethren

Religion Movements

CHAPTER-XIII

WHAT IS TRUE CIVILIZATION? (TEXT)

Reader : You have denounced railways, lawyers and doctors. ! can see that you will discard all machinery. What, then, is civilization?

Editor : The answer to that question is not difficult. I believe that the civilization, India has evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors. Rome went, Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become Westernized; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or, other, sound at the foundation. The people of Europe learn their lessons from the writings of the men of Greece or Rome, which exist no longer in their former glory. In trying to learn from them, the Europeans imagine that they will avoid the mistakes of Greece and Rome. Such is their pitiable condition. In the midst of all this India remains immovable and that is her glory. It is a charge against India that her people are so uncivilized, ignorant and stolid, that it is not possible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really against our merit. What we have tested and found true on the anvil of experience, we dare not change. Many thrust their advice upon India, and she remains steady. This is her beauty: it is the sheet-anchor of our hope.

Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our minds and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means “good conduct”.

Religion Movements

If this definition is correct, then India, as so many writers have shown, has nothing to learn from anybody else, and this is as it should be. We notice that the mind is a restless bird; the more it gets the more it wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions the more unbridled they become. Our ancestors, therefore, set a limit to our indulgences. They saw that happiness was largely a mental condition. A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich, or unhappy because he is poor. The rich are often seen to be unhappy, the poor to be happy. Millions will always remain poor. Observing all this, our ancestors dissuaded us from luxuries and pleasures. We have managed with the same kind of plough as existed thousands of years ago. We have retained the same kind of cottages that we had in former times and our indigenous education remains the same as before. We have had no system of life corroding competition. Each followed his own occupation or trade and charged a regulation wage. It was not that we did not know how to invent machinery, but our forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after such things, we would become slaves and lose our moral fibre. They, therefore, after due deliberation decided that we should only do what we could with our hands and feet. They saw that our real happiness and health consisted in a proper use of our hands and feet. They further reasoned that large cities were a snare and a useless encumbrance and that people would not be happy in them, that there would be gangs of thieves and robbers, prostitution and vice flourishing in them and that poor men would be robbed by rich men. They were, therefore, satisfied with small villages. They saw that kings and their swords were inferior to the sword of ethics. and they, therefore, held the sovereigns of the earth to be inferior to the Rishis and the Fakirs. A nation with a constitution like this is fitter to teach others than to learn from others. This nation had courts, lawyers and doctors, but they were all within bounds. Everybody knew that these professions were not particularly superior. Moreover, these vakils and vaids did not rob people; they were considered people’s dependants. not their masters. Justice was tolerably fair. The ordinary rule was to avoid courts. There were no touts to lure people into them. This evil noticeable only in and around capitals. The common people lived independently and followed their agricultural occupations. They true Home Rule.

Religion Movements

And where this cursed modern civilization has not reached India remains as it was before. The inhabitants of that part of India will very properly laugh at your new-fangled notions. The English do not rule over them, nor will you ever rule over them. Those in whose name we speak we do not know, nor do they know us. I would certainly advise you and those like you who love the motherland to go into the interior that has yet been not polluted by the railways and to live there for six months; you might then be patriotic and speak of Home Rule.

Now you see what I consider to be real civilization. Those who want to change conditions such as I have described are enemies of the country and are sinners.

Reader : It would be all right if India were exactly as you have described it, but it is also India where there are hundreds of child widows, where two-year-old babies are married, where twelve-year-old girls are mothers and housewives, where women practice polyandry, where the practice of Niyoga obtains, where, in the name of religion, girls dedicate themselves to prostitution, and in the name of religion goats and sheep are killed. Do you consider these also as symbols of the civilization that you have described?

Religion Movements

Editor : You make a mistake. The defects that you have shown are defects. Nobody mistakes them for an ancient civilization. They remain in spite of it. Attempts have always been made and will be made to remove them. We may utilize the new spirit that is born in us for purging ourselves of these evils. But what I have described to you as emblems of modern civilization are accepted as such by its votaries. The Indian civilization, as described by me, has been so described by its votaries, In no part of the world, and under no civilization, have all men attained perfection. The tendency of the Indian civilization is to elevate the moral being, that of the Western civilization is to propagate immorality. The latter is godless, the former is based on a belief in God. So understanding and so believing, it behoves every lover of India to cling to the Indian civilization even as a child clings to the mother’s breast. 13. For ma – ? (TUT)

Religion Movements

SUMMARY IN BRIEF

What is true civilisation?

Gandhi ji has tried to explain the meaning of true civilization and clear the doubts created in the minds of those human beings who take the favour of western civilisation. They think that Gandhiji is not ready to accept any change in Indian civilisation. But Gandhiji makes their doubts clear saying that no other civilization equals Indian civilisation because nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors. He gives the example of many countries just like Rome and Greece. Rome had lost its existence. Greece also met the same result. Japan accepted western civilization. What can we say of China. ? But Indian Civilizationstill exists at the foundation. Indians have learnt many things from the people of Greece and Rome. Rome and Greece have last their existence but their techniques are alive in the civilisation of India. Indians take lessons from their mistakes. Indians do not accept any change. It is not India’s demerit. In reality, it is the merit of India. Now Gandhi defines “Civilization as that way of conduct in which general people perform their duties, through which they try to control their mind and passions. This is the real civilization.”

Religion Movements

According to many English writers Hindustan does not want to learn any new thing. Everybody knows that ‘mind is a restless bird, the more it gets, the more it wants.” It does not get satisfaction at any stage. There is no end of human wishes. So our ancestors decided to limit our wishes. It is a fact that happiness and sorrows are creations of our heart. Indians have managed with the same kind of houses as existed thousands of years ago. They have not given place to competition in lives. Indian people believe in the power of hands and feet. They see that real happiness and satisfaction lie in the proper use of hands and feet. According to the large cities were useless because large cities give birth to thieves and robbers. The poor men would be robbed by the rich men. So they were satisfied with their small cities. They think that cursed modern civilization is not good. Free India is full of peace and happiness. They saw that the power of good conduct is better than the power of kings and their swords. So they gave less importance to kings than monks.

Gandhi ji says that India is able to teach other countries. There were courts, lawyers and doctors in India. But everybody knew that these professions were not superior. The people where this cursed modern civilization has not left its impact, are honest. India remains so as it was before. Gandhi ji admits that there are many defects in India as two years old babies are married, where twelve years old girls are mothers and in the name of religion goats and sheep are killed. But Indians are trying to remove these defects. Gandhiji wanted the Indians should not to leave their civilization.

Religion Movements