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74 pages

English

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On his passport he was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The poet Rabindranath Tagore gave him the title Mahatma - the great soul- but he was rather uncomfortable with that. Nelson Mandela calls him a sacred warrior ; others describe him as the the saint of the spinning wheel and we now declare him as our Father of the Nation . A courageous freedom fighter; a shrewd politician; a passionate social reformer and a staunch nationalist; Mahatma Gandhi was all this and much more. He was the most unusual leader this country has seen; and one of the most influential personalities whose name is synonymous with India s independence. He was the one who touched the lives of millions; whose ideals of satyagraha and ahimsa inspired great leaders of the world; and who could make the entire country come to a halt by going on a fast. Through a vivid narrative; author Subhadra Sen Gupta recreates the life and legacy of this phenomenal leader to portray the man beneath the simple handspun clothes; who ate saltless vegetables and bitter neem chutney; who greeted kings and paupers alike; who walked 240 miles at the age of sixty to break the Salt Law; and whose entire life was dedicated to truth and to peace. Even today as we read inspirational accounts of Gandhiji s life and talk of gandhigiri; we know that his ideals are alive and relevant to today s generation.

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Lettres et linguistique

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Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	30 avril 2010
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9788184752595
Langue	English

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I am the history bug. Watch out for me in the pages of this book as I bring to you interesting facts and unusual trivia from the past.
On his passport he was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The poet Rabindranath Tagore gave him the title ‘Mahatma’—the great soul—but he was rather uncomfortable with that. Nelson Mandela calls him a ‘sacred warrior’, others describe him as the ‘the saint of the spinning wheel’ and we now declare him as our ‘Father of the Nation’.
A courageous freedom fighter, a shrewd politician, a passionate social reformer and a staunch nationalist, Mahatma Gandhi was all this and much more. He was the most unusual leader this country has seen, and one of the most influential personalities whose name is synonymous with India’s independence. He was the one who touched the lives of millions, whose ideals of satyagraha and ahimsa inspired great leaders of the world, and who could make the entire country come to a halt by going on a fast. This is the fascinating story of Gandhiji’s life, of the ideals and principles that shaped him, and the eccentric fads and fancies that set him apart.
Through a vivid narrative, author Subhadra Sen Gupta recreates the life and legacy of this phenomenal leader to portray the man beneath the simple handspun clothes, who ate saltless vegetables and bitter neem chutney; who greeted kings and paupers alike; who walked 240 miles at the age of sixty to break the Salt Law; and whose entire life was dedicated to truth and to peace. Even today as we read inspirational accounts of Gandhiji’s life and talk of gandhigiri , we know that his ideals are alive and relevant to today’s generation.
Cover illustration by Vivek Shinde
PUFFIN BOOKS MAHATMA GANDHI
Subhadra Sen Gupta has been writing since college and has worked as a copywriter in many advertising agencies. She specializes in historical fiction and non-fiction, travel writing, detective and ghost stories as well as comic strips. She is currently writing the scripts of comics based on the famous Feluda stories available in Puffin.
Other books in the Puffin Lives series
Jawaharlal Nehru: The Jewel of India by Aditi De Ashoka: The Great and Compassionate King by Subhadra Sen Gupta Rani Lakshmibai: The Valiant Queen of Jhansi by Deepa Agarwal Akbar: The Mighty Emperor by Kavitha Mandana

PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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Penguin Group (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in Puffin by Penguin Books India 2010
Copyright © Subhadra Sen Gupta 2010
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-01-4333-081-3
This digital edition published in 2011.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-259-5
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this e-book.
Contents
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE We Call Him Bapu
CHAPTER TWO A Boy from Porbandar
CHAPTER THREE The ‘Coolie’ Barrister
CHAPTER FOUR Discovering the Real India
CHAPTER FIVE India Refuses to Cooperate
CHAPTER SIX A Long Walk to Dandi
CHAPTER SEVEN ‘Do or Die!’
CHAPTER EIGHT The Lonely Pilgrim
Trivia Treasury
You are called a true Vaishnava, When you can feel the pain of others. You do good to others who face misery, And do not let pride enter your mind. You tolerate and praise the whole world, And you do not criticize anyone. You keep your actions and your thoughts pure, Your motherland is blessed by you. Vaishnava jana to tene kahiye je Peed parayi jaane re Par dhukkhey, upkar kare tohey Man abhimaan na janey re Sakal lok maan sahuney bandey Nindaa na kare keni re Vaach kachh man nischal rakhey Dhan-dhan janani teni re …
—Bapu’s favourite bhajan, Vaishnava jana to by Narasingh Mehta
1 We Call Him Bapu
On his passport he was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The poet Rabindranath Tagore gave him the title ‘Mahatma’—the great soul—but he was rather uncomfortable with that. He was amused when the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described him as a ‘half naked faqir’. Nelson Mandela calls him a ‘sacred warrior’, others describe him as the ‘the saint of the spinning wheel’ and we now declare him as our ‘Father of the Nation’.
However, for the common people of India—that row ofwomen planting rice in a muddy field under a hot sun, or a sweaty cook at a street-side food shop, a teacher in a village school or a weaver at his loom—he remains simply Bapuji, beloved father. And he liked that name.
The man in his chhoti si dhoti
He was a courageous freedom fighter, a very shrewd politician and a passionate social reformer. He was also a man who enjoyed a good joke, loved to walk and led a quiet green movement to protect our environment at a time when no one had even heard of the term. And he disliked putting on his false teeth and ate the most boring food you can imagine.
Mahatma Gandhi was the most unusual leader this country has ever seen.
Cartoonists loved to caricature him because it was so easy to capture his gangly, eccentric looks. He looked like a benign, slightly absent-minded grandfather, until you noticed the large, sharp, intelligent eyes. He had a round domed bald head with big ears that stuck out at an angle, and it was these ears that made Sarojini Naidu call him ‘Mickey Mouse’, which made him laugh.
He had a stick thin body and long spindly arms and legs that made him look like a human grasshopper. When he was reading anything he would perch round, steel-rimmed glasses at the end of his long, bulbous nose. He was very conscious of time and always wore a battered steel watch, tied at his waist with a string. He had a surprisingly sweet and gentle smile that charmed even the most cynical news reporter.
As he walked along the dusty village paths with his tall bamboo stick, he looked like any Indian villager. This image was at the centre of Gandhiji’s ability to win the hearts and minds of his people. He did not wear the suit and tie of a city man or the expensive silk achkan of a maharaja or nawab. Even though people called him a ‘mahatma’ he was not clad in the saffron robes of a holy man.
He wore the clothes worn by the poorest Indian. At a time when there was no television, Bapu made a visual statement that even an illiterate farm labourer could understand—he was one of them, he understood the trials of their lives and he was on their side. His charisma came from this very human, transparent love for his land and his people.
The world still remembers him
What is amazing is how Mahatma Gandhi remains a part of our lives and continues to inspire people across the world. Great freedom fighters like Martin Luther King of the United States and Nelson Mandela of South Africa have acknowledged that they learnt from Gandhiji’s philosophy of satyagraha. We still write books and make films about the man in his chhoti si dhoti and coin new words like gandhigiri.
In the Gandhi Museum in Delhi, one whole wall is covered with postage stamps featuring his face, printed in just about every country in the world. Roads are named after him and his statue stands in many important cities in every continent. We not only remember the serious and important things he said but also his jokes, because he had a wonderful sense of humour; and unlike most of our leaders, he enjoyed laughing at himself.
So what did Gandhiji do to make a whole nation love him so much that they followed him out into the streets to face the batons of the police and go proudly to jail?
He did not win freedom single-handed—no human being can do that—but he led a great band of freedom fighters in their struggle against the might of the British empire. He created an army of unarmed soldiers who showed the greatest courage of all—they fought with the weapons of peace and non-violence. It is a fascinating story because no one in the history of the world had done that before.
Keeping life simple
Gandhiji never let his popularity go to his head. He was never dictatorial, and persuaded people to his way of thinking through discussions. He also had no problem admitting publicly that he had made a mistake, once calling one of his decisions a ‘Himalayan blunder’. He never demanded unquestioning obedience from his followers, who often disagreed with him, and all party decisions were taken after long debates. Tough, hard-headed leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel and Motilal Nehru were not easy to convince, and the Congress Party did not listen to him when he opposed the partition of India.
A deeply religious man, he was also absolutely secular. He opposed the caste system and took off his sacred thread when he d