Essay on Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi greatly influenced on the minds of many people, while Rabindranath Tagore found it possible to compare Gandhi with the Buddha, describing his impact on people’s consciousness in the following way, saying that Gandhi stood at the threshold of the huts of thousands destitute being dressed the same way as they were dressed. He spoke to them in their language; here, finally, was a living truth instead of quotes from books … In response to the call of Gandhi, India opened again its heart for great things, just as it was in earlier times, when Buddha proclaimed the truth of empathy and compassion among all living (Deluca, 2000).

Gandhi’s contemporaries called him “the conscience of mankind”, a prophet and a saint. But above all, they saw him as the spiritual leader of India’s fight against British imperialism for their liberation. Gandhi was also very often called “a man of religion”, but not a religious figure because Gandhi was never proclaiming one or another religion. The juxtaposition of the religious and the secular are not applicable to this person because Gandhi never acted as an apologist for one particular religious system, or as a representative of a particular religious community. According to his words, he has always been guided by the fact that religious practices and dogmas may differ, but the ethical principles of all religions are similar in their essence (Gandhi, 1958). Gandhi also stated that “by religion, I do not mean formal religion, or customary religion, but that religion which underlies all religions, which brings us face to face with our Maker” (Gandhi, 1958). Thus, his religion has nothing to do with religious fanaticism and religious restrictions.

Presenting events of actual symbolic values, we can said that Gandhi always emphasized that his outlook was based on Indian values, Indian civilization, and those socio-economic, political, and ethical institutes of other people and countries belonging to other civilizations and cultures can not be mechanically transferred to India (Becker, 2006). Thus, he proved that any country has its own way of development, and it is wrong to change the country’s life, principles and traditions only by the own desire to meddle in other people’s business.

Giving priority to human values, Gandhi created essentially pragmatic religion, which served very specific political and social goals, but it would be wrong to argue that unstoppable contradiction laid between pragmatic religion that serves to address social and political issues of his homeland, and his search for the world in general, the inherent higher truths. On the contrary, they seem to complement each other. The fates of the people of India were inseparable from human destinies to Gandhi, and he found reflection of human values in Indian culture.

In conclusion, we have observed the personality of Mahatma Gandhi in the speech, and demonstrated that Gandhi, trying to make the world better, proved by the own example that only spiritual perfection can help to many people to aware of the need of non-violence, and only this awareness can end the violence of nature, wars and conflicts between nations.



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