Mohandas Gandhi

No Indian since Buddha has so fully captured the imagination, or taught the world as much, as Mohandas Gandhi. As one of the most complex personalities of the 20th century (Rushdie 129), his actions affected the lives of millions of people. His leadership of the movement to end British rule brought about India's independence and introduced a revolutionary new political method.

Few historical figures seemed as unlikely a candidate for memorable greatness as Gandhi. He was a soft-spoken, frail-looking man who would confer with his British adversaries dressed in the traditional Indian dhoti and sandals. Committed to a life of poverty, he occupied no elected office, held no academic distinction and made no scientific discoveries. And yet, upon hearing of his death in 1948, no less a figure than Albert Einstein paid tribute to Gandhi's extraordinary life with the statement, "Generations to come, it may be, will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon the earth" (Shirer, 11).

Gandhi's story begins in Porbandar, a port city on the west coast of what is now the Indian state of Gujurat. He was born on October 2, 1869, the youngest of four children born to Karamchand and Putliba Gandhi. Although the family name is taken directly from its subcaste of grocers, the Gandhis had been, for some 300 years or so, the Dewans, or administrators, who served the princely state of Porbandar.

The family were devout Vaishnavas who worshipped Vishnu, the p

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s a result of this and many other variously successful acts of defiance, he began to earn a measure of fame in his native India as an activist. As stated above, it was through his experiences in South Africa that he developed his revolutionary method of political activism known as Satyagraha. The word is a compound derived from the Sankrit words satya, truth, and agraha, to adhere to or to stand firm. Gandhi translated satyagraha as "truth force". The satayagrahi, or adherent of satyagraha, uses truth, and by extension, compassion, to move his opponent to act in ways which are moral, just and mutually beneficial. As Gandhi was quick to point out, there were subtle but distinct differences between his methods and those of passive resistance, with which satyagraha has often been confused. While passive resistance is often an aimless and sometimes hateful muddling in an opponent's affairs, satyagraha follows a well-defined pattern of actions taken with the intent of establishing a positive resolution to the political differences of conflicting parties. The methods of and conditions for the use of sataygraha are: There must first be evidence that a real grievance exists, that it may be removed through direct action and that

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