E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesIn ancient India, ashrams and religious retreats for monks were well-knownphenomena. Pilgrimages to four ashrams in different parts of the land signifiedthat one's legs had proved the unity of India. Ashramites resigned from theworld and, contemplating themselves inside and out, waited for the end whiletorturing the body to hasten it. Gandhi and his ashram, however, remained inclosest contact with the world. The ashram, in fact, became the navel of India.Contemplating the ashram, Indians attached themselves to its first citizen. Nordid Gandhi ever purposely hurt his body. He had it massaged; he sleptadequately; he walked for strength; all his dietetic aberrations, queer to manyWesterners and even to many Indians, were designed to make him a biologicallyperfect instrument for the attainment of spiritual goals. Though he drasticallyreduced his food consumption he did not want to be famished, and in SouthAfrica he always carried chocolate-coated almonds to still sudden hunger. Heremained, until he was killed, a healthy specimen. Who but a very healthy mancould have fasted as often and as long as he did yet reach the age of seventyeight?A photograph taken shortly after his return to India shows him seated on aplatform, legs crossed, nude but for a short loincloth, making a speech whilearound him stand Indian politicians in European clothes. He soon told them toshed those garments. How could persons in Bond Street suits or Bombay coatsand trousers win peasant support?Peasants! Politicians had nothing to do with peasants. They were hoping topersuade the British to withdraw or, at least, to ameliorate the imperialregime; to achieve this end y°u either had to shoot well or appear in stripedtrousers to deliver petitions in impeccable English to English bureaucrats.India's Independence Hall, they thought, would be papered with petitions andmemorials addressed to a most gracious sovereign or the sovereign's satrap.But Gandhi told them to get out among the people. To do so they would haveto drop English and use the native languages of India: Hindi, Urdu, Tamil,Telugu, Malayalam, Kanarese, Bengali, Punjabi, etc., each spoken by manymillions who had had no benefit of Western education or perhaps anywww.mkgandhi.org Page 146