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Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known as Mahatma Gandhi, led India to independence from Britain through nonviolent protest. Using legal skills he employed as a British-educated attorney, a host of finely honed strategic organizational methods, and an extraordinary capacity to move people’s hearts and minds through his writings, speeches, protest marches and example of personal sacrifice – as evidenced by his long protest fasts which brought him to the brink of death – Gandhi prevailed.

In addition to nonviolence, which is know by the word Satyagraha, (resisting tyranny through mass civil disobedience), his living philosophy included self-sufficiency, (he made his own clothes from cotton cloth woven at his ashram), and eating a simple vegetarian diet. He championed the rights of the poor, the need for liberation of women from all forms of bias, the elimination of the caste system and other discriminatory practices based on social class, and the need for all religions and philosophies to drop their hatred of other ways and cooperate together for the betterment of all humanity.

His leadership, (and the humiliation of those in power due to the many years Gandhi was imprisoned in both countries), gained the rights of Indians in South Africa and liberated the whole of greater India, which at that time included Pakistan.  Gandhi was extremely saddened by the split of his country into two, shortly after liberation from Britain, largely due to religious intolerance on the part of many Hindus and Muslims.

Gandhi’s legacy lives on in the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The Dalai Lama, Cesar Chavez, Lech Wałęsa, Benigno Aquino, Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi, Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela.

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”

“A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.”

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

“What do I think of Western civilization?  I think it would be a very good idea.”

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”

“Strength does not come from physical capacity.  It comes from an indomitable will.”

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever.”

- Mohandas 'Mahatma' Gandhi  (1869 –1948)

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Attorney, vegetarian and social activist Mahatma Gandhi worked to alleviate poverty, discrimination, the inequality of woman in society and foreign dominance by utilizing non-violence to take the moral high ground away from the holders of power, who had kept the status quo in place. His influence has reverberated well beyond India and helped to inspire our own civil rights movement.

“The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small voice' within me.”

 - Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

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