My Science School

            Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was one of the most influential independence activists during India’s freedom struggle. He was also a noted writer, poet, and journalist.

            He was a prominent political leader of the Indian National Congress, and was elected as Congress president in 1923 and 1940.

            He was elected as the president of the special session of the Congress in Delhi in 1923. Maulana Azad was arrested in 1930 for the violation of the salt laws as part of Gandhiji’s salt Satyagraha. He was put in Meerut jail for a year and a half.

            Maulana Azad became the President of the Congress in 1940, and remained in the post till 1946. Maulana Azad started a weekly called AlBalagh with the same mission of propagating Indian nationalism based on Hindu-Muslim unity. Azad was a staunch opponent of partition, and supported a confederation of autonomous provinces having common defence and economy.

                Like Gandhiji, partition hurt him greatly, and shattered his dream of a unified nation. Azad was the first education minister of Independent India. 

          Rabindranath Tagore played a significant role in our freedom movement. He wrote the national anthem for our country.

          Even though Gandhiji and Tagore had differences over various matters, their patriotism connected them.

          Tagore was the one who first addressed Gandhiji as the Mahatma, which means great soul. Gandhiji called Tagore, Gurudev. Tagore and Gandhiji met for the first time on March 6, 1915.

          Gandhiji changed the system of the Congress and introduced new methods such as the non-cooperation movement and civil disobedience. Rabindranath Tagore had some differences of opinion regarding these movements, and he opposed the burning of foreign clothes. In spite of his differences with Gandhiji, Tagore respected Gandhiji for his great influence on the life of Indians. 

 

 

            Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, more popularly known as ‘Frontier Gandhi’ in India, and ‘Bacha Khan’ in Pakistan was the pioneer of a Gandhian-style, non-violent struggle against the British.

            He was a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, and also a political and spiritual leader of the Muslims and the rest of the country. Ghaffar Khan met Gandhi and entered politics in 1919, during the agitation over the Rowlatt Act, which permitted the confinement of political protestors without trial. During the following year, he became part of the Khilafat Movement, and in 1921, he was elected president of a district Khilafat committee in his native province. 

 

 

 

          Soon after attending a Congress meeting in 1929, Ghaffar Khan founded the Red Shirts movement among the Pashtuns. It championed non-violent nationalist agitation in support of Indian independence, and sought to awaken the Pashtuns’ political consciousness.

          By the late 1930s, Ghaffar Khan had become a member of Gandhi’s inner circle of advisers.

          Ghaffar Khan, who had opposed the partition, chose to live in Pakistan. His memory, ‘My Life and Struggle’, was published in 1969.

            Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was the first Deputy Prime Minister of India. Patel’s meeting with Gandhiji brought a significant change in his life and brought him into the Indian freedom struggle. He met Gandhiji for the first time at the Gujarat Political Conference in Godhra. On Gandhi’s encouragement, Patel became the secretary of the Gujarat Sabha and later led the Kheda Satyagraha.

            Patel supported Gandhiji’s non-cooperation movement. Not only that, he supported Gandhiji’s decision of calling off the non-cooperation movement after the Chauri Chaura incident. He considered Gandhiji as a role model, and worked against alcoholism, untouchability, and caste discrimination, as well as for the empowerment of women. Gandhiji and Patel developed a close bond of affection, trust, and frankness. Their relationship could be described as that of an elder brother and his younger brother.

            Patel was intensely loyal to Gandhiji, and both he and Nehru looked to him to arbitrate disputes. 

            Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had an indissoluble bond of love, reverence, and a common cause. “Jawaharlal will be my successor. He says that he does not understand my language, and he speaks a language foreign to me. This may or may not be true. But language is no bar to a union of hearts. And I know that when I am gone, he will speak my language”, wrote Gandhiji.

            In spite of his admiration for Gandhiji, Nehru was never a blind follower of Gandhiji. To Nehru, freedom, dignity of man, refinement and ethical values were as important as economic development for raising the standard of living.

            Nehru believed in the ideals of socialism and democracy, and he said, “I am a convinced socialist and believer in democracy, and have, at the same time, accepted wholeheartedly the peaceful technique of non-violent action which Mahatma Gandhi has practiced so successfully”. 

            Gandhiji’s memory lingers in the minds and hearts of admirers all over the world.

            Indians can take great pride in the fact that some of the most well-known personalities of the 20th and 21st centuries cite Mahatma as their role model.

            Barack Obama, the former president of the United States of America had once talked about Gandhi as his ‘real hero’. Dalai Lama, Pearl S. Buck, and Steve Jobs are a few among the long list of his admirers.

            American historian, Will Durant, best known for his great work, The Story of Civilization, was an admirer of Gandhiji. 

            The inspiration for Attenborough’s film Gandhi was ‘The Life of Mahatma Gandhi’, the book written by the celebrated American journalist Louis Fischer. He was a follower of Gandhi. He said on Gandhi’s assassination, “Just an old man in a loin cloth in distant India. Yet when he died, humanity wept”.

            It is no wonder Gandhiji is admired even today. The ardent expression of his will goes beyond the spirit of his Age.

            Einstein was a lifelong pacifist, and so was Mahatma Gandhi. Both believed that war was an obstacle in the way of human progress.

            Einstein talked about Gandhiji after his death in a memorial service held in Washington, “Everyone concerned with a better future for humankind must be deeply moved by the tragic death of Gandhi. He died a victim of his own principle, the principle of non-violence. He died because, in a time of disorder and general unrest in his country, he refused any personal armed protection. It was his unshakable belief that the use of force is an evil in itself, to be shunned by those who strive for absolute justice”.

            “Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth”. Einstein’s words on Gandhiji stand evergreen. 

          Romain Rolland was a French novelist, dramatist, and essayist. Being an idealist, he was deeply involved with pacifism, the fight against fascism, and the search for world peace. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.

          Gandhiji and Romain Rolland met in 1931. His regard for Gandhi was so great that he admired him as “another Christ”. Romain Rolland published a famous biography of Gandhiji in 1924, titled ‘Mahatma Gandhi’, written originally in French, it was later translated into several European languages.

          Since the publication of his biography of Gandhi in 1924, Romain Rolland remained an ardent supporter of Gandhian ideas. Rolland believed that the Gandhian path was towards international cooperation, reimbursement of the grievances of colonized nations, and a negotiating mechanism to satisfy the mutual needs of imperialistic powers and the countries seeking Independence.

          Rolland read Gandhi’s books like ‘Hind Swaraj’, and articles that came in Young India, and was deeply moved by his ideas. Gandhiji and this French philosopher had many things in common. They were born in the same generation. Both were influenced by Tolstoy. Both detested violence and warfare. 

            Aung San Suu Kyi is the politician and activist from Myanmar, who unfolded a rally of protests against the brutal rule of the dictator, Ne Win.

            She spoke out against him, and initiated a non-violent movement toward achieving democracy and human rights.

            In 1989, the government placed Suu Kyi under house arrest, and she spent fifteen years in custody. In 1991, her efforts won her the Nobel Prize for Peace, and she was finally released from house arrest in November 2010.

            In March 2016, Suu Kyi became the State Counsellor, a position above the presidency that allows her to direct the country’s affairs. She believed that values like love and compassion should be a part of politics, and justice should always be tempered by compassion.

            Aung San Suu Kyi has often said that the greatest influences on her life were her father, Aung San, and India’s greatest leader, Gandhiji. She drew her commitment to non-violence from Gandhiji.

            Once entrenched in the fight for democracy in Myanmar, Suu Kyi embraced many of Gandhi’s protest techniques in her own resistance movement against military rule. 

            Nelson Mandela was the great leader, who fought for ending apartheid, a system that separated whites from non-whites in South Africa.

            Mandela travelled throughout South Africa, and encouraged people to take part in non-violent demonstrations against the racial segregation policies of the government. He was arrested for anti government activities and eventually, sentenced to life in prison in 1964. Protests against this were held not only in South Africa, but around the world. On February 11th 1990, South African president F.W. de Klerk released Mandela from prison, and the two worked together to end apartheid. Later, they won the Nobel Prize for their efforts.

             In 1994, for the first time in history, non-whites were allowed to vote in the elections. In that election, Mandela was elected President by a huge majority.

            Mandela was a true follower of Gandhian philosophy. He grew up in the land where Satyagraha was born, and Gandhi’s legacy was still very strong there. In short, there were many parallels between the life of Gandhiji and Mandela. Mandela was no doubt an ‘African Gandhi’.

 

            Gandhiji was very famous world-wide for his non-violent movements, including indefinite fasts and marches. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize about five times throughout his life. His life and teachings have inspired many revolutionaries and liberationists of the 20th century, and Martin Luther King Jr. of the United States was one of them.

            Martin Luther King Jr., the key figure in the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, was greatly inspired by the thoughts and actions of Mahatma Gandhi. He acknowledged this fact many times himself.

            From his schooldays in Pennsylvania, Martin Luther King Jr. was drawn towards Gandhiji’s philosophy and actions. When he was leading the struggle for achieving civil liberty for African-American citizens, he incorporated Gandhian principles. To fight for liberty, he declared his two weapons as faith in God, and non-violence. His incorporation of non-violence started with the famous ‘Bus-Boycott Movement’ in the country.

            King Jr. had claimed that “the spirit of passive resistance came to me from the Bible and Jesus. But the techniques of execution came from Gandhi”.

            Many Gandhian ideals like love, non-violence, and self -sacrifice did go into the formulation of the philosophy and technique of King’s social protest movement. 

Mahatma Gandhi’s funeral procession took place on January 31st. The Mahatma had specified before he died, that he did not want his body preserved, but instead, wanted a traditional cremation.

Gandhi’s body was placed upon a flower bedecked military weapons carrier, which was pulled, using ropes, by two hundred men from the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force. The vehicles had their engines switched off. It took four and a half hours for the procession to cover eight kilometres, beginning at the Birla House and proceeding to the banks of the Yamuna River.

Ramdas, the third son of Gandhiji, lit the funeral pyre. People shouted the slogan ‘Mahatma Gandhi Ki Jai’. The next day, the second service was held by his friends and relatives by collecting the ashes in a Khadi bag and then, the bag was placed in a copper urn. Ashes of Gandhiji were carried through the streets of Allahabad in procession.

After thirteen days of mourning, Gandhiji’s ashes were sprinkled in seven sacred rivers of India.

On his death, Nehru remarked, “the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere...” Gandhiji’s monument at Raj Ghat attracts visitors from around the world, as well as noted personalities who wish to pay their respects to the father of the nation.

 

          Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on 30th January 1948, by Nathuram Godse at Birla House in New Delhi.

          At 5:17 pm on 30th January 1948, Gandhiji walked to the prayer grounds. His grandnieces held his arms, as he had trouble walking alone. Gandhiji was weakened by fasting. Hundreds of people had assembled for the prayers.

          Gandhiji reached the stage, and greeted the audience. Suddenly, a young man rushed forward. He kneeled before Gandhiji, and then rose to pull out a pistol and fired three bullets. Everything finished within minutes. Gandhiji fell down dead. His last words were “Hey Ram”.

          The assassin was Nathuram Godse. He was an extremist who believed that Gandhiji was associating with Muslims, against Hindus. Nathuram Godse was seized immediately. Godse had planned the murder along with Narayan Apte, another extremist, and six others. Both Godse and Apte were executed in 1949. The other conspirators were sentenced to life imprisonment. 

          Gandhiji began his last fast on 13th January 1948. He announced his intention to fast till death. He was then aged 78 and it was his eighteenth fast.

          Gandhiji’s health declined very quickly during this time. On 18th January, after five very difficult days, political and religious leaders came to assure Gandhiji that attacks would end. They promised to restore communal peace and friendship by every possible effort. Gandhiji broke his fast on the sixth day. But, without giving time for his body to recover from the fast, he again started working.

          But, there was a fraction of a society that disliked Gandhi, and slowly, their number was growing. On one of his evening prayer meetings, a bomb was thrown. It didn’t injure anyone. But it was clearly a warning sign that Gandhiji’s life was under threat.

          Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the then minister of home affairs, was fearful that Gandhiji would be killed. He wanted to search everyone attending the prayer meeting. But Gandhi refused to agree to this proposal. 

          On 15th August 1947, when the day of independence finally arrived, it was celebrated with gusto everywhere in the country. Jawaharlal Nehru, who had become the first Prime Minister of India, hoisted the Indian national flag at the Red Fort in Delhi.

          But in Calcutta, disturbed by the partition, Gandhiji was on his tireless pursuit to end the violence that had torn the nation apart. Gandhiji refused to participate in any merriment along with his protégé Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who was the last person to fight partition till the very end. He believed that the kind of freedom India had got contained the seeds of future conflict between India and Pakistan.

          Gandhiji’s fears came true at the time of partition. Many people lost their lives. India and Pakistan witnessed fifteen crores of its citizens migrating from one place to another. Soon communal riots broke out. On 9th August, Gandhi reached Calcutta ready to move on to Noakhali, a place torn by communal riot. Gandhiji decided to stay at Hyderi Manzil, adjacent to a Muslim dominated slum called Miabagan. There, he held prayer meetings.