THE COMPLETE BLOG ON MAHATMA GANDHI

By Swami Chidanand Saraswati India Heritage Research Foundation, Rishikesh (In this article the author explains the spirit of Gandhi's life. According to him Gandhi's life was one of sacrifice for his country unto his last breath. His belief in God was unshakeable and his humbleness was legendary. He devoted his life for his country and never considered whether he would personally gain or loose. What one can learn from his life is to give something worthwhile and useful to the world during our lifetime). In August 1997, we celebrated the golden Jubilee of India's Independen ce, and on January 30 1998, we observed the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The former was an occasion for somber reflection. We won our Independence, but we lost a beautiful soul, a true Mahan Atma (Great soul). As we revel in the joy of India's freedom, we must not forget the message of his life. As we reflect on the greatness of Mahatma Gandhiji's li...

By P. D. Tandon (The author, Mr. Tandon, being associated with Gandhi has written this short and enlightening article about Gandhi's love for children. The anecdotes given in this article were witnessed by the author and hence hold greater importance than that which is written on the basis of hearsay. We realize that Gandhi truly believed that children were "flowers of God's garden" and accepted them as they were. He was able to get down to their level and play with them whilst at the same time taught them values. Today's method of 'learn while you play' was in fact being practised by Gandhi half a century ago.) Gandhijiwas a poet of patriotism and prophet of humanity. It was said about him thatwhenever he walked, it was a pilgrimage and wherever he sat it acquired thesanctity of a temple. Children from all over the world wrote to him. It washe who aspired to wipe out every tear from every eye and it was he who hadsaid that "God dare...

[This article by Hassim Seedat was published by The Leader, a weekly in Durban, South Africa, on 31 January 1997 in connection with the centenary of the attack on Gandhi by a European mob.] Mr. Hassim Seedat, the author of this article, brings to our attention a slice of history which may have remain hidden all these years quoting from various South African newspapers of that time. He has given us facts as they happened and leaves it to us to draw our own conclusions about the harmful effects of racism and violence. He emphasizes the fact that black Africans could be incited to act violently by the very race who were their subjugators and therein lay great danger. A HUNDRED years ago an incident took place in Durban that demonstrated tangibly for the first time in all its ugliness the racialism of the white colonist against the Indians. It could have been forgotten save for the fact that Gandhi had become the focus of the agitation and against whom all the pent up racia...

By Drew Pearson [Mr. Pearson (1897-1969), a prominent American journalist, columnist and radio commentator, visited India in 1923 and sought to interview Gandhiji, then in prison. His request to the Governor of Bombay for permission to see Gandhiji in prison was refused. This article by Drew Pearson shows the similarity between two people, Mahatma Gandhi and Henry Ford, who are completely opposite in their lifestyles and thoughts and yet were working towards the same goal (each without knowing or having met the other) i.e. to make villages self-sufficient so that village dwellers are not dependent on the city for their livelihood and survival during the slack period.] If you were to search the four corners of the world, you would not find two men superficially more unlike than Mahatma Gandhi and Henry Ford. Gandhi is a small, frail man, brown-skinned and naked to the waist. He sits cross-legged on a straw mat, serene and unflustered by what goes on around him. Ford is a ta...

A comparison of prison experiences and conditions of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in South Africa( 1 ) By Nelson Mandela Gandhi threatened the South African Government during the first and second decades of our century as no other man did. He established the first anti-colonial political organisation in the country, if not in the world, founding the Natal Indian Congress in 1894. The African People's Organisation (APO) was established in 1902, the ANC in 1912, so that both were witnesses to and highly influenced by Gandhi's militant satyagraha which began in 1907 and reached its climax in 1913 with the epic march of 5,000 workers indentured on the coal mines of Natal. That march evoked a massive response from the Indian women who in turn, provoked the Indian workers to come out on strike. That was the beginning of the marches to freedom and mass stay-away-from-work which became so characteristic of our freedom struggle in the apartheid era. Our Defiance C...

[The liberator of South Africa looks at the seminal work of the liberator of India] - Nelson Mandela India is Gandhi's country of birth; South Africa his country of adoption. He was both an Indian and a South African citizen. Both countries contributed to his intellectual and moral genius, and he shaped the liberatory movements in both colonial theaters. He is the archetypal anti-colonial revolutionary. His strategy of non-cooperation, his assertion that we can be dominated only if we cooperate with our dominators, and his nonviolent resistance inspired anti colonial and antiracist movements internationally in our century. Both Gandhi and I suffered colonial oppression, and both of us mobilized our respective peoples against governments that violated our freedoms. The Gandhian influence dominated freedom struggles on the African continent right up to the 1960s because of the power it generated and the unity it forged among the apparently powerless. Nonv...