12-23-2005, 01:23 PM
காந்தீயமும் இந்திய சுதந்திரப்போராட்டமும்
தெரடருகின்றேன்.. சாத்திரியார் தமதுஆதாரத்தை சில இணையத் தெரடுப்புக்கள்மூலம் தந்திருந்தார்.. அவர் கொடுத்த கருத்துக்களிலிருந்து சிலபந்திகளை எடுத்து அதனு}டு அவருக்கு பதில் எழுதியிருந்தேன்.. தற்போது எனது அறிவுக்கு எட்டிய காந்தீயப்போராட்டத்தையும் இந்திய சுதந்திரத்தையும்பற்றி ஏற்கெனவே கொடுத்த கருத்தை ஒழுங்காக வடிவமைத்து எனது கருத்துக்கு ஆதாரமாகக்கொடுக்கிறேன்.. அதை வாசித்தபின்னர் உங்கள் கருத்தை முன்வைக்கவும்..
<b>The Gandhian generation</b>
India's option for an entirely original path to obtaining swaraj (self-rule, sometimes translated as Home Rule or Independence) was due largely to Mahatma Gandhi, (Mahatma meaning Great Soul). A native of Gujarat who had been educated in the United Kingdom, he had been a timid lawyer with a modest practice. His legal career lasted a short time, since he immediately took to fighting for just causes on behalf of the Indian community in South Africa. Gandhi had accepted an invitation in 1893 to represent indentured Indian laborers in South Africa, where he stayed on for more than twenty years, lobbying against racial discrimination. Gandhi's battle was not only against basic discrimination and abusive labour treatment; it was in protest of suppressive police control akin to the Rowlatt Acts. After several months of non-violent protests and arrests of thousands of indentured laborers, the ruler of South Africa, Gen. Jan Smutts released all prisoners and repealed the oppressive legislation. A young, timid Indian was now blooded in the art of revolution, and well on course to Mahatma-hood. His victory in South Africa excited many Indians at home.
He returned to India in 1915, virtually a stranger to public life but fired with a patriotic vision of a new India. It should be noted, however, that Gandhi did not yet believe that political independence from the Empire was the solution to India's problems. Upon his return, he had candidly stated that if as a citizen of the Empire, he wanted freedom and protection, it would be wrong of him not to aid in the defense of the Empire during World War I.
A veteran Congressman and Indian leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale became Gandhi's mentor, and Gandhi traveled widely across the country for years, through different provinces, villages and cities, learning about India's cultures, the life of the vast majority of Indians, their difficulties and tribulations.
Gandhi's ideas and strategies of nonviolent civil disobedience initially appeared impractical to some Indians and veteran Congressmen. In Gandhi's own words, "civil disobedience is civil breach of unmoral statutory enactments," but as he viewed it, it had to be carried out nonviolently by withdrawing cooperation with the corrupt state. Gandhi's ability to inspire millions of common people was initiated when he used satyagraha during the anti-Rowlatt Act protests in Punjab.
In Champaran, Bihar, Gandhi took up the cause of desperately poor sharecroppers, landless farmers who were being forced to grow cash crops at the expense of crops which formed their food supply, and pay horrendously oppressive taxes. Neither were they sufficiently paid to buy food. By now, Gandhi had shed his European dress for self-woven khadi dhotis and shawls, This simple Gandhi instantly electrified millions of poor, common Indians. He was one of them, not a fancy, educated elitist Indian. His arrest by police caused major protests throughout the province and the British government was forced to release him, and grant the demands of Gandhi and the farmers of Bihar, which were the freedom to grow the crops of their choosing, exemption from taxation when hurt by famine or drought, and proper compensation for cash crops.
It was with his victory in Champaran, that Gandhi was lovingly accorded the title of Mahatma. It was given not by journalists or observers, but the very millions of people for whom he had come to fight.
In 1920, under Gandhi's leadership, the Congress was reorganized and given a new constitution, whose goal was Swaraj (independence). Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee, and a hierarchy of committees was established and made responsible for discipline and control over a hitherto amorphous and diffuse movement. The party was transformed from an elite organization to one of mass national appeal and participation.
Gandhi always stressed that the movement should not be directed against the British people, but the unjust system of foreign administration. British officers and leaders are human beings, emphasized Gandhi, and capable of the same mistakes of intolerance, racism and cruelty as the common Indian or any other human being. Punishment for these sins was God's task, and not the mission of the freedom movement. But the liberation of 350 million people from colonial and social tyranny definitely was.
During his first nationwide satyagraha, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions, law courts, and products; to resign from government employment; to refuse to pay taxes; and to forsake British titles and honors. Although this came too late to influence the framing of the new Government of India Act of 1919, the magnitude of disorder resulting from the movement was unparalleled and presented a new challenge to foreign rule. Over 10 million people protested according to Gandhi's guidelines in all cities and thousands of towns and villages in every part of the country. But Gandhi made a tough decision and called off the campaign in 1922 because of an atrocious murder of policemen in Chauri Chaura by a mob of agitators. He was deeply distressed with the act, and the possibility that crowds of protestors would lose control like this in different parts of the country, causing the fight for national freedom to degenerate into a chaotic orgy of bloodshed, where Englishmen would be murdered by mobs, and the British forces would retaliate against innocent civilians. He felt Indians needed more discipline and had to understand that they were not out to punish the British, but to expose the cruelty and evil behind their discrimination and tyranny. As much as liberating India, he hoped to reform the British, see them as friends and break the back of racism and colonialism across the world.
He was imprisoned in 1922 for six years, but served only two. On his release from prison, he set up the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, on the banks of river Sabarmati, established the newspaper Young India, and inaugurated a series of reforms aimed at the socially disadvantaged within Hindu society - the rural poor, and the untouchables.
Emerging leaders within the Congress --Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose, and others-- championed Gandhi's leadership in articulating nationalist aspirations. The Indian political spectrum was further broadened in the mid-1920s by the emergence of both moderate and militant parties, such as the Swaraj Party, Hindu Mahasabha, Communist Party of India and the Rashtriya Swayemsevak Sangh. Regional political organizations also continued to represent the interests of non-Brahmans in Madras, Mahars in Maharashtra, and Sikhs in Punjab.
தெரடருகின்றேன்.. சாத்திரியார் தமதுஆதாரத்தை சில இணையத் தெரடுப்புக்கள்மூலம் தந்திருந்தார்.. அவர் கொடுத்த கருத்துக்களிலிருந்து சிலபந்திகளை எடுத்து அதனு}டு அவருக்கு பதில் எழுதியிருந்தேன்.. தற்போது எனது அறிவுக்கு எட்டிய காந்தீயப்போராட்டத்தையும் இந்திய சுதந்திரத்தையும்பற்றி ஏற்கெனவே கொடுத்த கருத்தை ஒழுங்காக வடிவமைத்து எனது கருத்துக்கு ஆதாரமாகக்கொடுக்கிறேன்.. அதை வாசித்தபின்னர் உங்கள் கருத்தை முன்வைக்கவும்..
<b>The Gandhian generation</b>
India's option for an entirely original path to obtaining swaraj (self-rule, sometimes translated as Home Rule or Independence) was due largely to Mahatma Gandhi, (Mahatma meaning Great Soul). A native of Gujarat who had been educated in the United Kingdom, he had been a timid lawyer with a modest practice. His legal career lasted a short time, since he immediately took to fighting for just causes on behalf of the Indian community in South Africa. Gandhi had accepted an invitation in 1893 to represent indentured Indian laborers in South Africa, where he stayed on for more than twenty years, lobbying against racial discrimination. Gandhi's battle was not only against basic discrimination and abusive labour treatment; it was in protest of suppressive police control akin to the Rowlatt Acts. After several months of non-violent protests and arrests of thousands of indentured laborers, the ruler of South Africa, Gen. Jan Smutts released all prisoners and repealed the oppressive legislation. A young, timid Indian was now blooded in the art of revolution, and well on course to Mahatma-hood. His victory in South Africa excited many Indians at home.
He returned to India in 1915, virtually a stranger to public life but fired with a patriotic vision of a new India. It should be noted, however, that Gandhi did not yet believe that political independence from the Empire was the solution to India's problems. Upon his return, he had candidly stated that if as a citizen of the Empire, he wanted freedom and protection, it would be wrong of him not to aid in the defense of the Empire during World War I.
A veteran Congressman and Indian leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale became Gandhi's mentor, and Gandhi traveled widely across the country for years, through different provinces, villages and cities, learning about India's cultures, the life of the vast majority of Indians, their difficulties and tribulations.
Gandhi's ideas and strategies of nonviolent civil disobedience initially appeared impractical to some Indians and veteran Congressmen. In Gandhi's own words, "civil disobedience is civil breach of unmoral statutory enactments," but as he viewed it, it had to be carried out nonviolently by withdrawing cooperation with the corrupt state. Gandhi's ability to inspire millions of common people was initiated when he used satyagraha during the anti-Rowlatt Act protests in Punjab.
In Champaran, Bihar, Gandhi took up the cause of desperately poor sharecroppers, landless farmers who were being forced to grow cash crops at the expense of crops which formed their food supply, and pay horrendously oppressive taxes. Neither were they sufficiently paid to buy food. By now, Gandhi had shed his European dress for self-woven khadi dhotis and shawls, This simple Gandhi instantly electrified millions of poor, common Indians. He was one of them, not a fancy, educated elitist Indian. His arrest by police caused major protests throughout the province and the British government was forced to release him, and grant the demands of Gandhi and the farmers of Bihar, which were the freedom to grow the crops of their choosing, exemption from taxation when hurt by famine or drought, and proper compensation for cash crops.
It was with his victory in Champaran, that Gandhi was lovingly accorded the title of Mahatma. It was given not by journalists or observers, but the very millions of people for whom he had come to fight.
In 1920, under Gandhi's leadership, the Congress was reorganized and given a new constitution, whose goal was Swaraj (independence). Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee, and a hierarchy of committees was established and made responsible for discipline and control over a hitherto amorphous and diffuse movement. The party was transformed from an elite organization to one of mass national appeal and participation.
Gandhi always stressed that the movement should not be directed against the British people, but the unjust system of foreign administration. British officers and leaders are human beings, emphasized Gandhi, and capable of the same mistakes of intolerance, racism and cruelty as the common Indian or any other human being. Punishment for these sins was God's task, and not the mission of the freedom movement. But the liberation of 350 million people from colonial and social tyranny definitely was.
During his first nationwide satyagraha, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions, law courts, and products; to resign from government employment; to refuse to pay taxes; and to forsake British titles and honors. Although this came too late to influence the framing of the new Government of India Act of 1919, the magnitude of disorder resulting from the movement was unparalleled and presented a new challenge to foreign rule. Over 10 million people protested according to Gandhi's guidelines in all cities and thousands of towns and villages in every part of the country. But Gandhi made a tough decision and called off the campaign in 1922 because of an atrocious murder of policemen in Chauri Chaura by a mob of agitators. He was deeply distressed with the act, and the possibility that crowds of protestors would lose control like this in different parts of the country, causing the fight for national freedom to degenerate into a chaotic orgy of bloodshed, where Englishmen would be murdered by mobs, and the British forces would retaliate against innocent civilians. He felt Indians needed more discipline and had to understand that they were not out to punish the British, but to expose the cruelty and evil behind their discrimination and tyranny. As much as liberating India, he hoped to reform the British, see them as friends and break the back of racism and colonialism across the world.
He was imprisoned in 1922 for six years, but served only two. On his release from prison, he set up the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, on the banks of river Sabarmati, established the newspaper Young India, and inaugurated a series of reforms aimed at the socially disadvantaged within Hindu society - the rural poor, and the untouchables.
Emerging leaders within the Congress --Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose, and others-- championed Gandhi's leadership in articulating nationalist aspirations. The Indian political spectrum was further broadened in the mid-1920s by the emergence of both moderate and militant parties, such as the Swaraj Party, Hindu Mahasabha, Communist Party of India and the Rashtriya Swayemsevak Sangh. Regional political organizations also continued to represent the interests of non-Brahmans in Madras, Mahars in Maharashtra, and Sikhs in Punjab.
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