who did gandhi became a leader?

Answer 1

India is Gandhi's country of birth; South Africa his country of adoption. He was both an Indian and a South African citizen. Both countries contributed to his intellectual and moral genius, and he shaped the liberatory movements in both colonial theaters.

He is the archetypal anticolonial revolutionary. His strategy of noncooperation, his assertion that we can be dominated only if we cooperate with our dominators, and his nonviolent resistance inspired anticolonial and antiracist movements internationally in our century.

Both Gandhi and I suffered colonial oppression, and both of us mobilized our respective peoples against governments that violated our freedoms.

The Gandhian influence dominated freedom struggles on the African continent right up to the 1960s because of the power it generated and the unity it forged among the apparently powerless. Nonviolence was the official stance of all major African coalitions, and the South African A.N.C. remained implacably opposed to violence for most of its existence.

Gandhi remained committed to nonviolence; I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Unkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle. Even then, we chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Militant action became part of the African agenda officially supported by the Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) following my address to the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1962, in which I stated, "Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence."

Gandhi himself never ruled out violence absolutely and unreservedly. He conceded the necessity of arms in certain situations. He said, "Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor ..."

Violence and nonviolence are not mutually exclusive; it is the predominance of the one or the other that labels a struggle.

Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 at the age of 23. Within a week he collided head on with racism. His immediate response was to flee the country that so degraded people of color, but then his inner resilience overpowered him with a sense of mission, and he stayed to redeem the dignity of the racially exploited, to pave the way for the liberation of the colonized the world over and to develop a blueprint for a new social order.

He left 21 years later, a near maha atma (great soul). There is no doubt in my mind that by the time he was violently removed from our world, he had transited into that state.

No Ordinary Leader — Divinely Inspired

He was no ordinary leader. There are those who believe he was divinely inspired, and it is difficult not to believe with them. He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and the personal is at the heart of his philosophy. He seeks the simultaneous and interactive development of the moral person and the moral society.

Answer 2

This is a shame for the Congress for not having the capacity to choose a more promising Candidate for the PM post in 55 yrs but another Gandhi, that speaks volumes about the state of affairs in the Congress, Its also a shame for the Country as to why are we electing them at all again and again? What is his qualification ? Just becoz he belongs to this Gandhy Family, he is eleigible to be the PM? Moreover the entire congress is questioning the contribution of Advaniji for the nation except the Babri Masjid, I am asking what is the contribution of Raul ? And on what basis The current PM ( ? ) and Priyanka telling the Nation that Raul is eligible to become the PM ? This is the height of Hypocrisy and sooner we change this scenario in Indian Politics the better or else we will not have time even to mourn this BIG political mistake in the history of this country.

Answer 3

He was a total pacifist - the fact he became a leader mystifies me. Here is a neat quote from the wonderful man...

"I think it would be a good idea." - Mahatma Gandhi when asked what he thought of Western civilization.

Answer 4

He had a few strengths going for him. First, he had charisma. How else could he have drawn the large crowds during the demonstrations in South Africa. He had a simple message which appealed to people : You can still fight for your rights and the rights of other people forcibly and yet behave well within the bounds of pacifism. He lived as he preached, and earnt the respect of people who were neutral to his causes. His crusade in South Africa is historically one of the seminal moments in the history of apartheid. Finally he was assassinated. This ensured his cult status. Like many great men and women, he lived and died for his beliefs.

Answer 5

1869 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi born in Porbandar in Gujarat.
1893
Gandhi leaves for Johannesburg for practicing law and is thrown out of a first class bogie because he is colored.
1906
Mohandas K. Gandhi, 37, speaks at a mass meeting in the Empire Theater, Johannesburg on September 11 and launches a campaign of nonviolent resistance (satyagraha) to protest discrimination against Indians. The British Government had just invalidated the Indian Marriage.
1913
Mohandas Gandhi in Transvaal, South Africa leads 2,500 Indians into the in defiance of a law, they are violently arrested, Gandhi refuses to pay a fine, he is jailed, his supporters demonstrate November 25, and Natal police fire into the crowd, killing two, injuring 20.
1914
Mohandas Gandhi returns to India at age 45 after 21 years of practicing law in South Africa where he organized a campaign of “passive resistance” to protest his mistreatment by whites for his defense of Asian immigrants. He attracts wide attention in India by conducting a fast—the first of 14 that he will stage as political demonstrations and that will inaugurate the idea of the political fast
1930
A civil disobedience campaign against the British in India begins March 12. The All-India Trade Congress has empowered Gandhi to begin the demonstrations (see 1914). Called Mahatma for the past decade, Gandhi leads a 165-mile march to the Gujarat coast of the Arabian Sea and produces salt by evaporation of sea water in violation of the law as a gesture of defiance against the British monopoly in salt production
1932
Gandhi begins a “fast unto death” to protest the British government's treatment of India's lowest caste “untouchables” whom Gandhi calls Harijans—”God's children.” Gandhi's campaign of civil disobedience has brought rioting and has landed him in prison, but he persists in his demands for social reform, he urges a new boycott of British goods, and after 6 days of fasting obtains a pact that improves the status of the “untouchables”
1947
India becomes free from 200 years of British Rule. A major victory for Gandhian principles and non-violence in general.
1948
Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic at a prayer meeting

Answer 6

because in actuality he was a ruthless dictator who would stop at nothing until he had total control over India. Even up to his assassination he was plotting his attempt at world domination, and he probably would have succeeded when his army attacked without mercy throughout the world