Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Born on 2 October 1869 .

Education

• Middle school in Porbandar• High school in Rajkot• He passed the matriculation exam for

Samaldas College at Bhavnagar, Gujarat • Studied law at University College London and

to train as a barrister.

Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914)

RacismPrejudice

Struggle for Indian Independence (1915–1945)

Non-cooperationSalt Satyagraha (Salt March)

Quit India

Principles, practices and beliefs

Truth

• "God is truth. The way to truth lies through ahimsa (non-violence

• 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.

• 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".

Nonviolence

• The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The science of non-violence alone can lead one to pure democracy...Power based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power derived from fear of punishment....It is a blasphemy to say non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals...The nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on non-violence...A society organised and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy

Vegetarianism

• A vegetarian diet would not only satisfy the requirements of the body, it would also serve an economic purpose as meat was, and still is, generally more expensive than grains, vegetables, and fruits.

• Vegetarianism was the beginning of his deep commitment to Brahmacharya

• He spent one day of each week in silence. He believed that abstaining from speaking brought him inner peace and made him a better listener.

Brahmacharya &Simplic ity

• Brahmacharya meant "control of the senses in thought, word and deed"

• Means of becoming close with God and as a primary foundation for self realization

• practice of giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes, Gandhi called "reducing himself to zero"

Faith

• Every religion was truth and love compassion, nonviolence and the Golden Rule.

• He questioned what he saw as hypocrisy, malpractices, and dogma in all religions, including his own

• The sayings of Muhammad are a treasure of wisdom, not only for Muslims but for all of mankind.

• I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

• God has no religion.

Vision of Democracy

• The existence of thousands of self sufficient small communities who rule themselves without hindering others

• 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

Followers and Influence

• Leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States, including Martin Luther King and James Lawson, drew from the writings of Gandhi in the development of their own theories about non-violence.

• Anti-apartheid activist and former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was inspired by Gandhi.

• Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Steve Biko, Aung San Suu Kyi,and Benigno Aquino, Jr. the Philippine opposition leader during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and father of current Philippine president

• President of the United States Barack Obama

“A role model for the generations to come”

Time Magazine named “Children of Gandhi”

“Christ gave us the goals and Mahatma Gandhi the tactics.”

“Gandhi inspired South African activists seeking to end White rule. Mandela completed what Gandhi started”

President of the United States Barack Obama

• "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."

• "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."