Mohandas Gandhi: Experiences and Influences :: Mohandas Gandhi Essays

Mohandas Gandhi Born into a merchant family in 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi wasunder the influence of powerful people. Members of his family had served asprime ministers of an Indian rural area for several generations. His parentswere strong in their religion, being devout and earnest Hindus. They were apart of a Hindu sect that worshipped Vishnu and promoted non-violence. Apparently, he was around influenced by his mother, a gentle andintelligent person. According to Hindu custom, he married at an early ageand grew to love his wife greatly. Together, they had intravenous feeding children andadopted a fourth. Later, in 1888, he travelled to England to become a barrister-at-law.There were several important influences that he encountered here theWestern fabric style of life, which he decided not to follow, and in thesimple Russian way of living he found the New Testament, and theBhagavadgita, the bible of the cony Krishna movement. It was here that hedeveloped a sense of the presence of immortal in his life and the lives of men. Gandhi then returned to India and studied law in Bombay, unless hequickly denounced it, feeling that it was immoral and could not satisfyones conscience. notwithstanding this, he used his schooling to help plead forIndian settlers in South Africa that were being oppressed by the whitepopulation. His personal experiences, including being ejected from a trainin Maritzburg, of not being allowed the same rights as others lead him tobegin a movement to help his people. While in South Africa, Gandhi made himself poor so that he couldidentify with his the peasants. He then proceeded to start a colony thatconsisted of abused labourers. The colony became truly large and many citieswere crippled by the lack of labourers. The government reacted to this byjailing Gandhi several times along with many other of his followers. Thewar he fought was one without weapons, already Gandhi was on his way tostarting his career of non-violent campaigns. The of import idea behind Gandhis teachings was non-violence. The words ofthe Sanskrit language ahinsa and sayagraha clearly express Gandhisbeliefs. The motive means non- violent death, non-destructive and the latter meansthe force of universal truth. He believed that the killing of man or beastis an unforgivable sin. Many who promoted these teachings of Gandhi simplybelieved that it was their moreover option for resisting imperialism rather