MAHATMA GANDHI

By Andreea Nicoleta Radu

Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi (1869-1848) was an Indian thinker. He is commonly knew by the nickname Mahatma which signify "good soul". He had studied law in the university College of Londres and he had returned to India in 1915.

In 1921 he was just a member of the Indian National Congress. He had instaured new methods of fighting (strikes and hunger strikes, he rejected armed struggle and preached the non-violence.

Its moral influence on the development of the conversations for the Independence of India was cosiderable, but after the separation from Pakistan he was deeply discouraged.

Ghandi had tried to reform the indian society by integrate the lowest castes and developing the rural zones. He had disapproached the religious conflicts after the Indian Independence.

THE NON-VIOLENCE

Gandhi wasn't the creator of the non-violence, but he was the first in aplique it in the politic stair. Gandhi explains his filosofy and his way of life in the autobiography "THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH". He said:

• "When I despair, I remember that throughout history has always won the way of truth and love. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time seemed invincible, but in the end always fall; - think about it always."

• "What difference does the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the wanton destruction carried out in the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

• "The eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

• "There are many causes that I'm prepared to die, but none that I'm prepared to kill."

When the invasion of the Britanic Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent in 1940, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British:

• "I wish you surrender the weapons must be useless for saving you or saving humanity. Invite Mr. Herr Hitler and Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions ... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your home, I leave them. If you don't want to let go, allowing you to kill everyone-men, women and children, but I promised them to deny your loyalt

In an interview after the war in 1946, he offered a view at an even further extreme:

• "Hitler," Gandhi said, "killed five million Jews. Crime is the greatest of our time. But the Jews were offered the butcher's knife. Should be thrown into the sea from cliffs ... and that stirred the world and the people of Germany ... "

When he was little, he ate meat. But all his life, Mahatma Gandhi was vegetarian because his family was hindu and, in the Hinduism all the believers are vegetarians. He said:

• "I feel that spiritual progress will demand that we mustn't kill and eat the creatures of God just to meet our sensual desire and perverted."