Gandhi's Passion

Mahatma Gandhi passionately courted suffering thoroughout most of his life. The intensity of Gandhi's yogic resolve to dedicate himself to the nationalist struggle for liberating India from British imperial rule inspired millions of ordinary people to follow his passionate lead on the arduous road to freedom. Gandhi taught his followers to set aside fear of prison, physical punishment, or death, while at the same time insisting that violence had no place in the Satyagraha campaign, arguing that non-violence or love was the essence of God. Early influenced by the non-violence teachings of Jainism, Jesus Christ, and Buddha, Gandhi insisted throughout the last six decades of his life on the primacy of love for one's adversary in any conflict, convinced that this mighty power would ultimatle disarm the cruelest enemy. He developed passionate techniques of non-violent struggle against the racial and political discrimination and injustice first in South Africa and then in India. In addition to his political leadership, Gandhi was also a religious reformer, who worked to try to remove the stain of untouchability from Hinduism's outcasts. Inspired by Ruskin, Tolstoy and Thoreau, he also renounced industrial violence and pollution and took up cotton-spinning, revitalizing India's handicrafts industry, which had been all but destroyed by foreign industrial competition. Paradoxically, though hailed as free India's father, Gandhi was never invited by his closest Congress disciples to join them in running India's first government. And though he was worshipped by millions of Hindus as their virtual god, a Brahman of his own faith, supported by many others, assassinated him. Gandhi's face adorns India's currency today and his birthday is still nationally celebrated, yet the long-term impact of his message of love and non-violence is unclear in modern India's nuclear-armed industrial state.