Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) was an Indian lawyer who came to lead a non-violent campaign to free India from the British Empire.
He was born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and he was first given the honorific 'Mahatma' when he was working in South Africa. Mahatma means great-souled or venerable.
Gandhi trained to be a lawyer in London. He passed his exams at age 22. When he moved back to India, he found it difficult making a living as a lawyer, so he moved to South Africa, where he lived for 21 years. When he returned to India, aged 45, he began to work organising farmers and urban labourers to protest excessive land-tax and discrimination.
In 1921, he became the leader of the political party the Indian National Congress. Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic friendship, and ending untouchability. However, his main cause was achieving self-rule for India.
Gandhi began to wear a dhoti, a kind of sarong, as a sign of allegiance with the poor in India's countryside.
Gandhi was imprisoned several times, and for many years, for his activism, both in South Africa and in India.
Gandhi's dream was for a free and united India, a country with religious freedom, where Muslims and Hindus would live side by side. This vision was challenged early on by Muslim nationalists, who demanded a separate Muslim country.
In August 1947, Britain granted independence. However, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions: a Muslim-majority Pakistan and a Hindu-majority India.
Believing that Gandhi had shown too much support for Muslims and Pakistan, a militant Hindu nationalist assassinated Gandhi in Delhi on 30 January 1948.
Gandhi's philosophy of non-violent resistance has inspired movements all over the world.
About the speech
The Quit India speech was held on 8 August 1942 in Mumbai. In the speech Gandhi calls for passive resistance against the British rule of India. Gandhi believed that non-violence was the best way to ensure freedom for India.
Quit India
(...)
I believe that in the history of the world, there has not been a more genuinely democratic struggle for freedom than ours. I read Carlyle’s French Revolution while I was in prison, and Pandit Jawaharlal has told me something about the Russian revolution. But it is my conviction that inasmuch as these struggles were fought with the weapon of violence they failed to realize the democratic ideal. In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by non-violence, there will be equal freedom for all. Everybody will be his own master. It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today. Once you realize this you will forget the differences between the Hindus and Muslims, and think of yourselves as Indians only, engaged in the common struggle for independence.
Then, there is the question of your attitude towards the British. I have noticed that there is hatred towards the British among the people. The people say they are disgusted with their behaviour. The people make no distinction between British imperialism and the British people. To them, the two are one. This hatred would even make them welcome the Japanese. It is most dangerous. It means that they will exchange one slavery for another. We must get rid of this feeling. Our quarrel is not with the British people, we fight their imperialism. The proposal for the withdrawal of British power did not come out of anger. It came to enable India to play its due part at the present critical juncture. It is not a happy position for a big country like India to be merely helping with money and material obtained willy-nilly from her while the United Nations are conducting the war. We cannot evoke the true spirit of sacrifice and valour, so long as we are not free. I know the British Government will not be able to withhold freedom from us, when we have made enough self-sacrifice. We must, therefore, purge ourselves of hatred. Speaking for myself, I can say that I have never felt any hatred. As a matter of fact, I feel myself to be a greater friend of the British now than ever before. One reason is that they are today in distress. My very friendship, therefore, demands that I should try to save them from their mistakes. As I view the situation, they are on the brink of an abyss. It, therefore, becomes my duty to warn them of their danger even though it may, for the time being, anger them to the point of cutting off the friendly hand that is stretched out to help them. People may laugh, nevertheless that is my claim. At a time when I may have to launch the biggest struggle of my life, I may not harbor hatred against anybody.
Discuss:
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What is the main message in the excerpt you have read?
Why do you think Gandhi is still famous all over the world?
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Write a short rhetorical analysis of the speech (250-300 words).