Focus Assignment - Gandhi

Juan Jose Olaizola
December 12, 2007

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Mister Gandhi, as I first knew him, in my eyes, was a man of knowledge, an advocate of peace with a message of peace and love for India and the world. He is one of the most predominant figures in the 20th Century, and the hero of India! Yet as I started to read Gandhi’s biography by Olivia Coolidige, I began to see a totally different side to Gandhi… a “human” side to him, capable of mistakes, emotions, and violent actions. I regarded him as a saint, but then I also realized saints were humans enlightened by God, but still capable of bad habits, so I began to read and take in the human side of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar. Born into a devout Hindu Modh family, from very little Gandhi was a faithful to his Hindu religion, even though he sometimes didn’t quite understand it sometimes and was afraid of the dark, and cold temples to various different gods and goddesses and other sacred entities. He was actually quite a timid, quiet, and self-concealed boy with very little social life. When he would go to school, he would much rather run home at the end of school, than to hang around with his class mates. His social wasn’t his entire fault to be honest, people would laugh, scoff, or simply look at him oddly for his somewhat funny and weird physical appearance. He was short, skinny, with a big head, big ears, and a big nose. Pretty much a little elf, as to how the Brits might have thought of him. At the age of 13 Gandhi was married off to a young girl named Katsurbai, she would become Gandhi’s life partner for life. This fixed marriage would not only bring much excitement to Gandhi, mainly for the sex, but also distress and depression, caused by the sex. Gandhi would become extremely jealous of her activities outside or in the house, and would ban from going out into the public. Yet besides all this they were married for over 50 years.

At the age of 18 Gandhi moved to London, England, to become a lawyer, and would later move to the United Colonies of South Africa to serve as a medic in the Boer Wars, and as a lawyer for the administrative government of South Africa. Yet at the sight of soo many Indian casualties at the hands of British maltreatment and racial hatred from both Zulu and Europeans, Gandhi decided to move back to India and serve the Indian-British Government. So even after all he has gone through in that short span of his life, so much pain pressed on Indians and on himself, he still remained a loyal subject to British Crown, he was a prime example of a British subject. Also throughout his lifetime he would grow increasingly spiritual, and develop great love for his gods or god. This great display of faith in his superiors would later deteriorate as he begins to recent the British for favoring one White subject over a Indian subject at a criminal court…

His idea of independent would really begin to evolve with the aid of Indian nationalists and groups striving for independence in India. This would later be accomplished with great success. Yet the plans Gandhi had for India were unreal. He would want it to be a state for Muslim and Hindu citizens of India, where any foreigner would had to submit to Hindu and Muslim laws and practices in everyday life. His political, social, and economic reforms would be utopist, lacking in the sense of realism and neglecting factors from other countries. He was too hardheaded to accept the views of others and was critical on Westerners, rejecting different political ideals, religion and culture to the point of deporting some European citizens of India.

So in the end I realized that this humble, religious, and peaceful man was actually the opposite in some cases. He was an abusive husband, advocate for theocracy, a foolish and inefficient politician, and to a certain degree an admirer of Fascism and Communism. This book might be pages of lies, but it really made me think though of the human flaws everyone has, and the mistakes everyone is capable of their life, no matter who they are.