5.1 INTRODUCTION Figure 5.1: Postal Ticket in the Remembrance of Gandhiji Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who is also called Mahatma Gandhi was born in the city of Porbandar on October 2, 1869. He is named as Father of the Nation, but this was not his only role as he was also a social activist, politician, lawyer and also writer. His father worked as a government official under British Government and his Mother, a devout Hindu, sternly followed their community’s Vaishnava traditions. Though he became the leader of the Indian freedom movement, he was like many others who lived under it and was taken up with British ideologies. In course of time, he fought against the oppressive British Regime and led the country to independence from it using only non-violent civil disobedience as a tool. His campaign against the British government started with fighting for the rights of Indians in South Africa and then in India, wherein he peacefully protested against the ill-treatment that was meted to Indians by officials. However, this radically changed into protests for bringing down their rule in India completely, a task that was possible to accomplish only after World War II. It is to be noted that independence from British Rule did not happen peacefully as there was intense fighting between Hindus and Muslims. Due to this, independence was done only with partition of the Indian subcontinent into two countries – India and Pakistan, instead of a single large country. Achievement of this independence was done by Gandhi through non-violence, which had its roots in his religious practises. Gandhi’s family practised a kind of Vaishnavism that also has its foundation in Jainism’s morally rigorous tenets, which included ideas such as asceticism and nonviolence and they were considered highly important. Gandhi’s spiritual outlook in his later years had much of its basis in his childhood. Over the years of his life as he came across new belief systems his understanding of faith also evolved. Leo Tolstoy’s study of Christian heavily influenced Gandhi’s spiritual ideas as also did the Bible and the Quʾrān. 101 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Actually, he read the Hindu Epic – Bhagavad-Gita when in Britain in its translated form in English. The philosophy of Gandhi is carried forth by reformers like social activist Vinoba Bhave. Abroad, his idea of using nonviolence and civil disobedience to gain social equality was borrowed extensively by Martin Luther King, Jr. The fact that Gandhi’s movement gained independence signalled the end of British colonialism in countries across Asia and Africa. His influence encouraged existing Independence movements in these countries like wildfire and also started new ones. During his two decade stay in South Africa, Gandhi came back to India just twice once in 1896 and another time in 1901. During his time in South Africa, did a lot of pleas and petitions to the British Government to improve the lives of Indians there but when it did not bear fruit, he slowly started teaching policy of passive resistance and non-cooperation to them so that they can deal with the South African government better. His inspiration came from by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy as well as Henry David Thoreau, the famous 19th century American writer whose essay \"Civil Disobedience” had a strong impact on him. As he experimented with passive resistance and civil disobedience, he found that the results it reaped was not enough for his specific purposes. It is at this point that he came up with Satyagraha a name that was coined through a contest he had put in the Indian Opinion. It was one of its readers - Maganlal Gandhi who brought it forth. The word \"Satagraha” is in two parts, one ‘Sat’, meaning truth and the other ‘Agraha’ meaning firmness. Gandhi further changed this word to \"Satyagraha” to give it more clarity. In 1914 he left South Africa permanently and came back to India where he initiated the non-violence resistance movement against Britain. Soon after the Amritsar massacre happened by British soldiers, Gandhi initiated a non-cooperation organized campaign against the British Government. Due to this, the British arrested Gandhi but they were soon put in a position to release him. India gaining economic independence by avoiding British goods was the key theme of Gandhi's Swaraj Movement. (Swaraj is a Sanskrit word which meant \"self-rule\". Due to the setup of British industries inside the country, extreme poverty had setup and almost most Indian home industries were gone. In order to bring down this poverty, Gandhi promoted the setup of Indian industries and the first step towards this is Khadi production. What can be understood from this is that Gandhi was not just focused on India gaining independence but also that it should become a country without poverty, religious intolerance and social injustice. Due this Indians considered him as a Sage and called him Mahatma. The Indian National Congress, the group in the forefront of gaining independence for the country conferred executive authority upon him, along with the right to choose his successor. In 1922, the British again caught and imprisoned him. In the year 1924 Gandhi initiated a fast for 21 days to stop communal rioting that was taking place in many parts of the country. In the same year, he went to Belgaum where he presided 102 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
on the Congress Session as its President. He also underwent arrest in this year and once he was released from prison, he stopped being politically active and turned his focus into spreading communal unity. It was in 1932 that Gandhi started again new civil-disobedience campaigns to fight the British Government. He was twice arrested and sent to jail for extensive periods during which time he fasted. In this year he fasted for many days at a stretch in jail, making it to be an epic fast, at the end of which the Yeravada Pact was accepted the British government. In 1934, Mahatma Gandhi was declared by Jawaharlal Nehru. As leader of the Congress party and so he resigned from politics. He travelled across the country, spreading the word of ahimsa (non-violence) and also worked hard for people to take steps against \"untouchability so that it is removed from society. In 1939, he came back to political life as many Indian principalities had to still come together. He did a fast so that Rajkot’s ruler would change his autocratic rule and his demands were granted by the British Government because of the hue unrest that the fast generated. He thus became the champion of the Indian grievance and key figure in Indian political environment. The struggle for independence in India had reached it pinnacle by 1944 with the British Government opting to give independence to the country with the condition that the two opposing nationalist groups, namely the Congress Party and the Muslim. League should solve out their differences. Gandhi did not India to be partitioned but had to agree to this as this was the only way there would be peace inside the country as then the Muslim demand for separation would give them satisfaction to stop aggression inside the country. So, when India finally gained independence in 1947, both India and Pakistan were separate states. At the time of partition, there were riots happening and both Hindus and Muslims were pleaded by Gandhi to peacefully co-exist. .It was on January 13, 1948, in New Delhi Gandhi began a fast that would give peace to the country. Twelve days after he had completed his fasting when as usually, he was going for his evening prayer meet, Nathuram Godse, a fanatic Hindu killed him. This event was considered a global catastrophe and in the United Nations General Assembly there was a period of mourning. An outpouring of condolences came to the country from countries all across the globe and Gandhi’s teachings initiated nonviolent movements elsewhere. The most noteworthy of these was the actions of Martin Luther King, Jr in the U.S and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. In addition to being a lawyer, a politician or even a social reformer, the most important aspect about Gandhi is that he brought out a new ideology of life and governance. He did not claim that either he or his ideology was perfect which shows his humility and evidence of this can be seen in his autobiography in which he says that he viewed life as a series of experiments. 103 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
5.2 ABOUT M. K. GANDHI AND HIS LIFE Mahatma Gandhi was born in Porbandar city located in present day Gujarat state on October 2, 1869. When he was in his late teens, he went to study law at University College, London and in 1891 he was admitted into the British bar. He then returned to India, tried to setup a legal practise here, however he did not come up with much success. His life shifted when after two years he was called upon by an Indian firm in South Africa to be their legal advisor in their Durban office. However, in South Africa, he experienced first-hand the kind of treatment given to Indians and was appalled at being treated as a person belonging to an inferior race. Thereafter he plunged himself completely into fighting for the basic rights of Indians living in South Africa, When he was 13 Gandhi got married and together, they had five children. In 1888, when he went to London for studying law and also when he went in 1893 to South Africa for practising it, his family stayed in India. In 1897 they came with him to South Africa, and it was here that Kasturba helped him in carrying out his activism and she continued to do this even after they returned to India in 1915. His mother was the fourth wife of his father and he was her youngest child. His father held the position of dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar, which in British India was the capital of a small western India principality now known as Gujarat state. His father had no formal education but was able to carry out administration very capably, managing difficult princes, subjects who were long suffering under them and obstinate British political officers. However, in the course of his lifetime, his management of the non-violent struggle against British Rule made him become the father of the Country and his ideology of using non- violent protest (satyagraha to make way for social and political progress got him international acclaim. His mother Putlibai was a woman steeped into religious activities and devotion, hence did not care much for jewellery or finery. She would spend her time between the home and temple, would frequently go on fasts and most days, nights she should be nursing and tending to those who became sick in the family. Hence Mohandas’s upbringing was in Vaishnavism, in which presiding deity of worship is Lord Vishnu along with a strong connection with Jainism, an Indian religion that was morally rigorous with is key ideas being nonviolence and the eternal nature of the universe. So, his ideas on fasting for self-purification, vegetarianism, ahimsa (non- violence to all living beings) and existence of mutual tolerance between people of different sects, creeds originated here. In Porbandar the educational facilities were very ordinary and the school in which Gandhi studied at this early point in his life had children study the alphabet by writing them out on dust with their fingers. His father became the chief minister in the princely state of Rajkot and so he enrolled into better schools here. In these schools his performance was mediocre, but he did win many prizes and scholarships. One of his school term report stated that he was “good at 104 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
English, fair in Arithmetic and weak in Geography; conduct very good, bad handwriting.” As he got married at 13 years of age, he did not attend school for one year. He did not really excel in academics or in sports however he loved to go on long walks along when he was not tending to his physically sick father or helping his mother do her household activities. As he was so passive in his home, it is not without surprise that he experienced adolescent rebellion in which he did petty thefts, became against god, indulged in smoking and that too ate meat, which was quite shocking as he was a person from a Vaishnava family. During some ten years he went through what most people get into at this time of their life and such youthful transgressions stopped completely as he went into his later years in life. After such escapades he said to himself ‘Never Again’, so what he did was show himself through an unprepossessing exterior but inside it was the fire that yearned for enhancement. As part of this he took to reading about Prahlada and Harishcandra who are legends in Hindu Mythology, known for their truthfulness and sacrifice as role model. He just got through the exams held by the University of Bombay in 1887, after which he enrolled into the Samaldas College in Bhavnagar. He found his lectures difficult as they were in English and he knew only Gujarati, his mother tongue. At this point Gandhi’s family was considering about his future and if it had been his choice, he would certainly have been a doctor, but Vaishnava tradition is against vivisection. Furthermore, Gandhi has to upkeep the family heritage of holding a high place in office for which being a barrister was more suitable. In order to accomplish this, he would have to travel to London and Gandhi was quite unhappy at the Samaldas College liked this idea very much. In his young mind, he imagined Britain to be a place that was home to philosophers and poets and was the core place where civilization flourished. However, there were many issues that he had to face before reaching the country. He did not get much property from his father and his mother was not inclined for him to go to Britain as it was a distant land that would be very dangerous for her youngest child. However, Gandhi showed his determination to go there and for this purpose, money was raised by one of his brothers. He promised his mother that he would not touch wine, women, or meat. He belonged to the Modh Bania subcaste (a Vaishya caste) and its leaders forbade trip to Britain, because such an action was in violation of Hindu customs, but he did not accept it and set sail to Britain in September 1888. Within ten days of reaching Britain, he got into Inner Temple, one of the four main law colleges in London. He took the University of London matriculation examination in English and Latin to make himself better in these subjects and concentrated more on his studies. However, in the time spent in England he was really not into making himself very academically high profile but rather into personal and moral issues. It was indeed difficult for him to move from the village 105 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
life in Rajkot to London’s cosmopolitan environment. He found it very difficult to adapt to foreign n food, etiquette and dress and felt quite out of place. As he was a strict vegetarian, he faced a lot of issues like embarrassment and was warned by his friends that it might eventually ruin his studies too. However, at this time he came across a vegetarian restaurant from which he could eat and to support his idea of vegetarian he also got a book about it, which gave a logic defence on the concept. This pushed him further to stick to being a vegetarian as it was not merely a practise of the Vaishnava community. He developed an enthusiasm for vegetarianism such that it pulled him out of his shy shell and into a personality who was the London Vegetarian Society executive committee member. As a result, he attended its conferences and also wrote articles for its journal. It was in Britain’s boarding-houses and vegetarian restaurants that Gandhi first came across people who were highly interested in food and also some very sincere, humble people who introduced him to the Bible and also the Bhagavadgita. He read the English version of the Gita done by Sir Edwin Arnold. The Gita a very important Hindu religious text is part of the great Hindu epic named Mahabharata and it is the centre of Hindu philosophical thought. The English vegetarians were largely made up of humanitarians and socialists like Edward Carpenter and also Fabians as can be seen in George Bernard Shaw and also Annie Besant like Theosophists. The members of this society were people who were idealist, and some were very much rebels of their times. They did not like the principles of the late-Victorian establishment, looked down upon capitalism and industrialization and propagates the concept of simple life, importance of moral value over material need and in being cooperative over fighting. When Gandhi came back to Indian in July 1891, there were many unhappy events awaiting him, the first being that his mother had passed away when he was absent, and he also found out that his venture to become a barrister did not mean that he will have a high profile and well- paying job. In 1891 he began to work as a lawyer in Bombay and Rajkot courts, but this did not work out. In between these opportunities he got the chance to work as a part-time teacher in a Bombay high school, but he did not accept it. In 1893 he got an offer from an Indian company in Natal to work for a year’s time and though he felt that this opportunity was not the best still he accepted it and set sail for South Africa. In South Africa he faced head-on the humiliation of colour discrimination and saw what type of a life was present for him in the country. As he presented himself in front of the Durban court, he was asked to remove his turban which he refused to do so and further went on to leave the court room completely. A couple of days later he was on-board a train to Pretoria when he was thrown out of the train because he was in a first-class railway compartment, an experience that left him shivering and brooding in the Pietermaritzburg rail station. In the same journey he had another bad experience because a stagecoach white driver beat him up because he was unable to travel on the coach footboard to give room for a European 106 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
passenger. Adding to this was the problem of him not being able to get into hotels which were means “for Europeans only.” Such type of humiliating treatment was meted out to many Indian traders and labourers here and they learnt to deal with it because they much needed their very poor earnings. So, in the following year, after the contact ended, he was preparing to sail back home but was convinced by the Indian community in natal to stay back, continue his work as a lawyer and do public service. So, Gandhi spent the next two decades in the place, coming back to Indian only in 1896 and 1901. It was in South Africa that the remaining two of his four children were born. He initiated the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 and was made its secretary and started infusing solidarity spirit into the heterogeneous Indian community. He wrote so many petitions with strong arguments about Indian grievances which were sent to the natal legislative assembly and the British government. He also brought to international attention the kind of ill- treatment given to. Queen Victoria subjects in her colonies in Africa. Gandhi capabilities of bringing powerful publicity to the grievances here that made leading newspapers of the time such as ‘The Times of London’ and ‘The Statesman and Englishman of Calcutta’ give focus to them and make comments on the grievances of Natal Indians. It was in 1903 that he managed to open a law office in the city of Johannesburg and in the coming year he started the Indian Opinion, a weekly journal. The first Satyagraha campaign happened in Johannesburg in protest of the Asiatic Ordinance. In the following year, he once again did a satyagraha protest when the government implemented registration as mandatory only for Asians. In 1908 he was put in jail for two months in Johannesburg because he had initiated Satyagraha. Gandhi had not ever read a newspaper and when he was studying law in England, he really did not have much interest in politics. At this time, he was frightened to go to the stage and speak such that he found it difficult to manage a speech at a function or when he had to defend a client. However, despite such handicaps he managed to come through when he had to create petitions got them singed by hundreds of people and sent to the Natal legislature and the British Government. Though he could not stop them from passing a bill by which Indians could not vote still he managed to draw attention to this issue and other Natal Indians grievances by getting attention from the Natal, Britain, Indian press and general public. He actually went to Britain through ship to present the case of rights of the Indian community in South Africa and on the way back he wrote Hind Swaraj. In 1896, he went to India to bring back with him his wife, Kasturba (or Kasturbai and along with them came their two elder children. He also took steps by which he could get people to support Indian overseas and in the course of doing so he met with many important Indian leaders. He requested them to talk in key Indian cities at public meetings, but all such activities 107 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
were reported in a garbled manner to the people in Natal and as a result there was a huge European population there that stood against him. So, when he came back to Durban in January 1897, he had to face a bad situation wherein he was nearly hit, lynched by an angry white mob. In order to further prevent escalation of the issue, the colonial secretary in the British Cabinet in South Africa, namely Joseph Chamberlain sent a message to the Natal government, asking them to put charges against the guilty men who carried out such actions. However, Gandhi did not prosecute the people who were trying to harm him so badly and instead said that it was his principle to not seek redress to a wrong action done to him personally in a law court. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is a very popular political and spiritual leader of the 20th century. He is called majestically ‘Father of the Nation’, who not only brought out the concept of Satya graham butt also implemented it in the best way. He strictly used Satyagraha which is putting down tyranny using mass nonviolent civil disobedience when he did campaign across the country to push forth the ideas for eliminating poverty, increasing the rights that women can enjoy, cultivating religious harmony, ethnic peace and removing the negative impacts of the caste system. In every stage of his protests and campaigns he applied the principles of nonviolent civil disobedience and though he was put into prison for his actions, many times for periods short as well as long enough to last for years, he still contained in practising it. He was rewarded for his steadfast resolve in nonviolent civil disobedience when India gained independence in 1947. At this time, the Muslim league said that they wanted the British to quit the country but with a proper division for Muslims in the process. Gandhi suggested that both groups agree to co-operate and gain the independence they want under a provisional government, first and after gaining independence they can resolve the need for partitioning through a plebiscite that will be carried out in those districts in which Muslims are living in a majority. Gandhi proposal was turned b down by Jinnah who later called out for Direct Action Day. The date set for it was on 16 August 1946 and its purpose want to make Muslim all across the country to gather together in various cities to support his idea of dividing the Indian subcontinent into two sections one being a Muslim state and the other a non-Muslim state. At that time, the Muslim League Chief Minister of Bengal was Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and he gave the police permission to enjoy Direct-Action Day in Calcutta. What happened on that day was a massive tragedy as huge number of Calcutta Hindus were killed, their home torched and with the police celebrating the day, there was no way to stop the problem. The British Government added fuel to the fire by not using its army to control the problem. As a result of the huge violence that erupted on this day, there was a revenge violence action according to Muslims across the country consequently leading to the killing of tens of thousands of Hindus and Muslims across the nation in a cycle of violence that went on for days. In the worst affected areas, Gandhi made a visit to implore people to store their brutal actions. 108 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
The Viceroy and Governor-General of British India up to February 1947 was Archibald Wavell and he had done the work of getting Gandhi and Jinnah together so that they could get into a common area prior to and after accepting Indian independence. He was however his opposing of Gandhi, condemning his character, aims, ideas, and accused home of having nothing but the intention of throwing out the British Government so that a Hindu Raj can be setup. He called him many names such as malevolent, malignant and termed him also as a shrewd politician. He also brought out his fears of a civil war occurring in the Indian subcontinent which he felt that Gandhi could do nothing to stop. Ultimately the British Government accepted the country want for independence, but they also agreed to what Jinnah asked which is dividing the country into two parts – Indian and Pakistan. Stanley Wolpert states that in reality Gandhi never accepted or gave permission for carving up British India even though Gandhi was taking part in those actions that led to it. Partition was a very difficult thing as it causes so much violence, bloodshed and controversy across the country. India saw about 10 million to 12 million non-Muslims coming inside from West Pakistan and East Pakistan. So, 15 August 1947 was not a day that Gandhi spent celebrating Indian independence but one in which he spent fating, spinning the wheel and also imploring his fellow countrymen to not take up violence. However, the streets on this day were filled with the bodies of people hit by violence and brutality. Some writers pointed out this would have become worse had it not been for Gandhi taking fasts at this time. It is to be noted that Gandhi was a very eminent writer of his time and Hind Swaraj, which was one of his early works that was published in 1909 in Gujarat, served as the foundation brainstorm for the country’s independence movement. In the following year, an English translation of it was published with a heading that said, \"No Rights Reserved\". Many newspapers such as the Harijan in Gujarati, Hindi and English were edited by him. These also include Indian Opinion and Young India in English in South Africa and Navajivan, which was a Gujarati monthly, upon coming back to India. The Story of My Experiments with Truth is Gandhi stunning autobiography and the most important of his many literary works. The work tells about the incidents in his life through chapters, each of which cover an incident or two from his life. The whole work is divided into five sections with many chapters in each that lay out various events of his life in a chronological form so that readers can understand the sequence of events as they occurred and what Gandhi derived from it. In the work’s introduction he says that it shows his search for the truth and through the many experiences of his life, he finds it. As a writer Gandhi showed remarkable capability to discuss different subjects such as social reforms, religion, health etc. His other works include Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, a political pamphlet, Satyagraha in South Africa, John Ruskin's Unto This Last. Paraphrased in Gujarati, which is actually an essay that shows his understanding about economics. 109 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
All his literary works were done in Gujarati and later came their English and Hindi translations. The entire body of his work were put into a book named ‘The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi’ and it was published by the Indian Government in the 1960s. This book had 50,000 pages and was printed in numerous volumes. Though a revised edition of it came out in 2000 there were too many errors and omissions unit which caused protest over it, leading the government to withdraw it from publication. As the First World War broke out, Gandhi was sailing to Britain. Here he initiated activities to arrange for a medical corps similar to what he had done at the time of the Boer War in South Africa, but due to problems with health he had to come back home. Upon return he was greeted by very enthusiastic crowds who called him Mahatma\" or \"Great Soul,\" a word that was reserved only for the purest and highest in the religious order. The first year of his return from South Africa was spent resting and the only major incident at this time was his short visit to Lord Willingdon, the British Governor of Bombay. He put efforts into settling down his family once again as well as those who has come along from South Africa’s Phoenix Settlement and Johannesburg’s Tolstoy Settlement. He started the Satyagraha ashram on May 25, 1915 for this purpose and its inhabitants were 25 people, one being an untouchable family, all of whom swore to poverty and chastity. Due to his decision to include untouchable he lost a lot of financial support. Incidentally, a Muslim merchant gave money to him generously so that he could manage his current living space and he even thought of moving into a district in Ahmedabad where untouchable lived. . At this time, Gandhi was affected by a deep tragedy – the passing away of Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Gokhale supported social reforms and sought to bring about key transformation within Indian society and its government institutions through non-violence protests. He was Gandhi’s supporter and also his mentor such that he also wrote a book on him named ‘Gokhale, My Political Guru’. While the thought of India gaining independence began to sway Gandhi, he did not get into it completely over worries that the country would be taken up by a very westernized Indian elite. So, he pushed forth the idea that Indian independence activities should also focus on implementing large-scale socio-political reforms that focused on eradicating caste restrictions and extreme poverty. In fact, according to him, Indians are worthy of self-government only when they take care of the needs of poor people. In 1916, he took up his public life once again and so gave a speed in new Hindu University in Banaras at its opening. In the speech she showed his knowledge and study of independence and reform and he brought out the bad conditions of the poor people which he had observed when travelling around India, specifically focusing on sanitation. Many of the ideas that Gandhi talk about in his speeches were not easily acceptable to higher caste Indians. However, Gandhi with his return to public life again wanted to change them into 110 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
action. Though he knew that he might get arrested, as he did in South Africa for his speeches there, yet he took the risk of speaking out for the Champaran district’s indigo-cultivators who lived in huge poverty. In the event of violence, he called for calm and this action was put in place when a group of mill workers in Ahmedabad went on strike, causing violence which he controlled by fasting till they stopped their actions. This action was termed blackmail, but this fast has such an impact that after three days of it an agreement was reached by workers and their employers. This brought out to Gandhi how powerful a weapon fasting was and it also set the stage for the kind of action that he took through this method during Satyagraha. During the ongoing First World War, Gandhi recruited men into the British Army, a task that went against the feeling of his supporters but still after listening to his deep speeches about using non-violent methods to resist injustice, they continued to be his followers. Ironically at this time, Gandhi was inclined to be loyal to the British Government and was taken up by British constitution ideal. However, while this feeling was present, along with it also arose his desire to act and support home rule for his own country, a feeling that became stronger with the passing years. In course of his assisting India to gain independent he travelled across the country, an activity that made his exhausted, ultimately making him succumb to dysentery. When ill, he opted for his own healing methods and so did not take any conventional form of treatment present at the time. He opted for dieting and spent many days in bed, healing himself in this manner and recovering as a result. At this time, Indians were quite daunted by what the British Government was doing to dismantle the Ottoman Empire, the only Muslim Power in the world and their need for independence became stronger. The British government stated that their key task inside the country was protecting individuals and small states from tyranny, still they really did not carry out this as they showed themselves to do. Once the war ended the British government implemented the Rowlatt Committee’s recommendations which were implementing wartime restrictions through curfews and other actions that would stop free speech. At this time Gandhi was sick so he did not participate in person and his loyalty to the British Government was considerably reduced. In course of time, the British Government implemented the Rowlatt Act and as opposition to this he made the country follow a day of fasting, prayer, fasting and non-involvement in physical labour in a way to peacefully protest about the oppressive law ill-treatment towards Indian public. There was such a huge response to his calling that millions of Indians were absent from work on April 6, 1919. The British government arrested Gandhi as the entire country stood still and this caused a lot of angry crowd to enter into the streets of many Indian cities where much to his dislike violence reared its ugly head everywhere. As there was so much violence Gandhi stopped his campaign and asked that people go back to their usual work and did this because he felt that if Satyagraha could not be done non-violently, it must never have happened at all. 111 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
However, it is to be noted that not all protestors were thinking on the same lines as Gandhi. In Amritsar, the place where many Hindu and Muslim Congress members were deported street mobs turned violent resulting in the government calling upon Brigadier-General Reginald E.H. Dyer to bring order back. The first thing that Dyer was stop meetings in public places and do whipping of those Indians who tried to meet British policemen. However, such regulations did not deter a group of ten thousand protesters from gathering in the middle of the city and Dyer punished them with an open firing that caused carnage. As they were so overcrowded in the place, the protestors could not easily run away and when they tried to escape the firing by lying in the ground it was purposely directed on them. This massacre stopped only when the soldiers had run out of ammunition causing deaths to hundreds while many were wounded. The Amritsar Massacre is one incident which shook up not only Indian society but a huge British public such that authorities in London condemned Dyer, as a result of which he resigned disgracefully. Such was the effect of the massacre that moderate politicians, like Gandhi supported Indian independence more which resulted in a huge hostile climate. Some time passed before Gandhi was able to get permission to travel to Amritsar and investigate into the matter. He did create a report on the tragedy which resulted in him contacting many Indian politicians all of whom stood by him in his advocating Independent India. . The Muslim League carried out a conference in Delhi in which they showed their fear of the Turkey Caliphs being suppressed and Gandhi was present in it. According to the Muslims, the Caliphs were heirs of Mohammed and also Islam’s spiritual leaders. The British Government viewpoint was to suppress their country’s people because it was necessary to bring back order after World War but to Muslim this action was a huge insult. Gandhi spoke to them, telling them not to accept actions of the British Government and boycott their goods. He also went on to say that if the Caliphate were abolished by the British government, Indian Muslims would be stronger in their non-cooperation actions which would extend into key sectors such as government employment and taxes. In the coming months, Gandhi asked people to be cautious and follow the path of peace because during this period Turkey and Britain were still at the point of negotiating peace terms. He was different from other politicians at the time with his support for the Indian Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms because it laid down the basis of constitutional self-government. However, in this situation, even if these politicians felt that these reforms did not give so much of change as was expected by them, still they had no other option but to support Gandhi due to his immense popularity, influence due to which the congress needed him to carry out even small tasks. The Rowlatt Act was implemented quite strongly as the British Government wanted to eradicate the Muslim Caliphate. In April 1920, he told his countrymen to use non-cooperation as a tool for protesting against British Rule. The first step they needed to take towards this was to not wear any western clothes or take jobs given to them by the British government. He set an example of what he preached by returning the kasar-i-hind medal, which was awarded to 112 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
him in South Africa, by the British Government for medical service done to British army soldiers who were physically hurt when the Boer War occurred. At this time, he was made the Home Rule League’s First President, a role that marked him to be the leader of Indian independence struggle. In 1921 there was a bonfire held in which foreign clothes were burnt and Gandhi presided over it. After this event, he stopped wearing shirt, cap and took to wearing loin-cloth that was made from cotton that was home spun There was so much unrest throughout the country which caused rioting and bloodshed that caused Gandhi to go on a five day fast. It was also in this year that he was given the position of sole executive authority of Congress. It was in March 1922 that an unhappy situation in Indian history of freedom struggle occurred. Protesters of the non-cooperation movement fought with the police who opened fire to which the protestors responded by attacking a police station, setting fire to it which killed all its occupants. Gandhi called an immediate stop to the non-co-operation movement. The British Government arrested him and gave him a jail sentence of six years but released him in 1924 due to ill health. It was during the time that he spent in jail that he wrote his autobiography. Figure 5.2: Gandhi’s View of His Autobiography It was 5:17 pm, a time when Gandhi was spending with grandnieces in the Birla House garden (now named as Gandhi Smriti) on 30 January 1948 when he stared to go for his prayer meet. Suddenly he was shot at by Nathuram Godse and three bullets from his pistol hit his chest, whereupon he fell on the ground dying instantly according to some reports but according to others he was taken into a bedroom in Birla House where he died, after 30 minutes. As he was passing away verses from Hindu scriptures were read by Gandhi's family members. On the All-India Radio, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the Nation wherein he said that Gandhi’s death can be said as ‘the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere’. He simply could not express the loss in words and felt he did not know what exactly to tell his countrymen about this situation. Bapu, as everyone addressed Ghandiji was no more than and as much as they had all seen him for years, he was not going to be seen 113 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
anymore, nor are they going to go to him for advice or solace anymore. In His words he says... ‘that is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for millions and millions in this country.’ Godse was arrested along with other conspirators but he had no regret for his actions not did he try to escape. He was very strong in justifying his actions stating that he killed Gandhi as he felt Gandhi was responsible for causing so much violence, suffering during the partition and that he had a leaning towards Muslims in the country. He also said that Gandhi spoke as if he only knew the truth. This behaviour was reported of him by Claude Markovits, a French historian who was known for his research on colonial India. He was tried at the red Fort court, found guilty and executed in 1949. 5.3 ANALYSIS OF ‘THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH’ The main leader of India’s independence movement was Mahatma Gandhi, and he was also the person responsible for laying down its foundation through non-violent civil disobedience that made a mark on not just the country but also the whole world. Till he passed away in 1948, his life and all the ideologies that he perched served as inspiration for many activists some of the most prominent being Nelson Mandela and Luther King Jr. The journey of Mahatma Gandhi’s life saw him initiate the use of nonviolent civil disobedience as a powerful means of protesting against injustice. This method was highly effective in rallying independence for India and also enabled his to carry out various actions, activities that were aimed at fighting to uphold rights of Indian in the country and also abroad in a country like South Africa. It was in 1906 that Gandhi started his first campaign through civil-disobedience. It was in response to call the restrictions on Indian rights which included the ominous non-recognition of Hindu marriages that was posed by Transvaal South African government’s he called the civil-disobedience campaign as “Satyagraha” (“truth and firmness”). The same type of campaign was carried out by him when he once again entered the Indian political scenario in 1930 to fight against the Britain’s Salt Acts. It was a very unjust Act, one that prevented Indian from collecting, using and selling salt a key food ingredient and also made them to pay heavy tax on it that was hard hitting on the poorest sections of its society, The Salt March involved marching 240-miles to the Arabian and when reaching the sea waters, he and his protestors would collect salt as symbol fight against the British government’s Salt Act and their monopoly over it. After this incident’s description, readers are given an account of his young life, childhood, parents, marriage and time spent in South Africa, after which they can read a lot about the activities that he did upon coming back to Indian in 1914. The story come to an end quickly in 1921 and it was four year after that he wrote out this autobiography. 114 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
5.4 LITERARY ELEMENTS IN STORY OF ‘MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH’ The name of Mohandas K. Gandhi autobiography is ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’. In Gujarati, this work is called Satya Na Prayogoathva Atmakatha. In it, Gandhi writes about the many incidents that occurred in his life, tracing them back to his childhood years up to the year 1921. Unlike other autobiographies which were published in a single book, Gandhi autobiography was written and published every week between the years 1925 to 1929. The publication was done in his own journal Navajivan in Gujarati and also in another journal called Young India, where it could be read in English. He wrote this work after getting a lot of insistence about it from Swami Anand and co-workers very close to him, who felt that he should write one to explain to people on the influences behind his public campaigns. It was named as the “100 Best Spiritual Books of the 20th Century\" by a committee made up of global spiritual and religious authorities in the year 1998. In his autobiography Gandhi takes us back in time to his childhood and upbringing, parents his marriage to Kasturibai at this time in his life, London tour through his studies, attempts to be like a real English gentleman, dietetics experiments, journey to South Africa. The book also takes readers into his experiences with prejudice against colour, search for dharma and also the social work that he carried out in South Africa during his two decade stay there. Readers are also taken into his journey back home, where he slowly but steadily takes up political awakening activities as well as social work to improve people’s lives. However, readers will find it coming to a quick close with the 1915 Congress Nagpur session. In his own words of his autobiography, Gandhi states that through it he wanted to bring out “the story of my experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but experiments”. 5.5 CRITICAL REVIEWS OF ‘STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH’ In his book Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan said that Gandhi was next to Buddha the most powerful Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan in India. He strongly made use of ancient methods of Ahimsa and Satyagraha to fight for liberty, justice and peace. According to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Gandhi brought to the people of the world the use of a supreme soul power, eliminating the use of rifles and machine guns to get out injustice. Such a power could be used exhaustively to spot wars. Rynne, another writer influenced by Gandhi quoted the words Martin Niemoeller’s in his book which said so majestically that when the Christina world and its church could not bring about peace, God sent Mahatma Gandhi as the Prophet of Non-Violence. He further went on to say that “Christians would not be the last group 115 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
of men and women to learn the lesson that God is teaching us through this prophet.” (Rynne 2009: 169). In his autobiography what readers can experience is getting a glimpse and understanding of the life of a prominent leader of the nation, whose personality is a wonderful combination of charisma and humility. Every person in the country is aware of him, children are taught to sing praises about him in blind hero worship and in textbooks he is presented to children as a divine being, a faultless man. In fact, after reading the book, readers are sure to change their thinking completely and will show what kind of a person Gandhi really was and how deeply he affected people’s life. Gandhi never said that he was perfect person, and this is brought out right at the outset of his autobiography, which only shows his humility and also brings out his discreet writing style. In his work he brings out his personal life in such an open manner, without hiding anything about himself, no matter how bitter his reading audience might find some of his experiences. His work demonstrates grandiloquence like none other. In an attempt to improve his understanding of life he enhance his mental abilities, Gandhi writes that he did many experiments, ranging from taking elocution classes so that he should not be shy to speak in front of the public to taking dance classes, learning singing, learnt Latin and cured diseases through diet restrictions. His grilled himself physically by taking 10 mile walks every day, opting for a vegetarian diet, fasting continuously. His physical appearance does tend to make readers mull if indeed this is the man who has been so adventurous in his life so much so that he gave up intake of salt for ten years so that he could fight against British tyranny. Gandhi as a devout Hindu but he appreciated all religions, and he did not feel to tell his mistakes to anyone be it his carnal desires or his wife’s warmth a wanting to be a celibate. He had an erudite personality and was also a personality that compared various religions. In both his personal and professional life, he displayed commendable fortitude and his non-violent techniques proved to be highly effective in the end even though they sparked a lot of controversy at that time. Gandhi talks about many aspects of life such as truth, success, hope, faith and morality and much of what people understand about him is from the information gained from textbooks, however they do not bring out the true picture and give a complete understanding into what he is really like. ‘My Experiments with Truth’ is a book that must be read by everyone, especially those who have just entered college. Young school children may not be able to understand the depth of what Gandhi is saying in it, but it is surely something that teenagers can pick up. The book is heavily in its ideas and thoughts hence it is sure to help develop a unique thinking ability one that come out through rational thinking. It shows how people can resolve their problems in, life through a pragmatic approach as Gandhi shows through his real-life experiences. 116 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Removal of the registration law was promised to Gandhi by Jan Christian Smuts however he did not take any action on it. However, this issue did not create any obstacles for Gandhi. He decided to go to London in 1909 and there he went about mustering support from the British officials there so that Smuts would be forced to remove the law. In fact, he was the first Indian to appear before a magistrate for not registering, an action that had him in jail for two months. Actually, he even asked for more punishment in the form of a difficult sentence which was an action in tune with his idea of self-denial. Upon release he continued with his campaign which led to thousands of Indian burning their registration card and thus moving through the Transvaal-Natal border without having a pass, many of whom went to jail for their actions. A large-scale Satyagraha was initiated by Gandhi owing to the marked unjust regulations that the British government. In this Satyagraha, there were many women who crossed the Natal- Transvaal border illegally as a protest. This led to their arrest which immediately caused thousand Indian coal miners to go on a strike, but when these miners were going to be arrested Gandhi himself took them across the Natalese border. Gandhi and Smuts did not agree on many points, still they respected one another. Due to the large number of Indians participating in protests, Smuts relented and came to a settlement with them which made Indian marriages legal and also removed the poll tax. By 1920, importing indentured labourers was also phased out. In 1914 when Gandhi travelled to Britain by sea, he had become a person who was admired as ‘Mahatma’ and also known to people across the world for his success through Satyagraha. Relating Gandhism in 21st Century With regards to key religions of the world, Gandhi attitude was very interpretative and explanative, rather than being mystic and dogmatic. He was more concerned with the spiritual, philosophical messages that religion put forth and not about revelations made in religious books. As a result of this attitude, he was able to make critical remarks and also disapprobative observations, which also helped him to stand against some qualities in his own religions, harijan status, and child marriage to name a few. Gandhi philosophical approach towards Ahimsa and Satya was characterized by his of interpretative–explanative attitude and though the meaning of these terms got enhanced, they are the fundamental concepts of Gandhian thought. In ancient Hindu religious texts, Ahimsa is a concept used together with Brahman (God). Mahatma Gandhi brought out that the ‘Truth’ is ‘God, making it more than just an ethical demand or moral idea and his religion is based on the ‘Truth’ and ‘Non-Violence’. He stated clearly that for him ‘God’ is ‘Truth’ and realizing this ‘God’ is done through ‘Ahimsa’ or ‘Non-Violence’. Gandhi was a famous personality of the 20the century, but it is in the last part of this century that his influence became widespread, and it was unmatched by anyone else’s. Even in today’s 117 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
global world there are voices that say his ideologies and philosophies are realistic and also quite relevant. Gandhi said that the most unique, large contribution of Hind religion to India’s tradition, culture is Ahimsa, a method which according to him influenced the country for actually three thousand years and more. Even then it has not stopped to be a strong force in the lives of so many millions of Indians later too. These remarks show how proud Mahatma was of the Hindu religious tradition. According to Gandhi such is the deep root influence of Ahimsa in the Indian psyche that doing an armed revolution in India is impossible. Religious beliefs alone were not the reason to opt for the path of Satyagraha, it observations of many happenings in his life were also responsible. He saw what happened to people who fought with the British Government through violent retaliation and both World Wars also set an example of outcomes caused by violence. Deep down he understood that without non-violent means to achieve the end peace is not possible and he clearly stated this putting an end to any importance give to violent agitations as a means of achieving goals. He felt that people should not become confused by certain example of retaliation that happen then and there, which include the use of fraud and force through which some temporary success is gained. He said that the reason why the world existed is not because it has so much hatredness in it but because it was filled with a lot of love and there is more truth present in it than untruth. The key qualities for good health are truth and non-violence whereas diseases are caused by fraud and force. In fact, the main reason why the world has not come to an end is because there is more of health in it than diseases. (Gandhi 1999j: 29). As the Second World War progressed, Gandhi pointed out that Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini are people who clearly showed the empty results of violence and brutality. The actions that they carried out had an immediate effect as it hurt the lives of so many people causing as a result a lot of hatredness in hearts and devastation all around. The only element that exists beyond such difficult actions is the “effects of Buddha’s non-violent action” which will enhance with age as this is his fundamental point of view. (Gandhi 1999k: 261).Whatever he had understood from Satya as a concept he also applied to how it mean in terms of Ahimsa. Despite the fact that ahimsa or non-violence is a word with a negative prefix, still Gandhi through his ingenious mind was able to turn it into a positive energy, ideology and also an active force. Ahimsa’s doctrine of refusal to do harm to anyone became a Satyagrahi’s key attribute. It is to be noted that Gandhi use of non-violent resistance against British colonialism’s brute force was successful. However likewise equally effective was Martin Luther King civil rights activities in the U.S and Nelson Mandela’s anti-apartheid resistance both of which brought about social reform as they were also based on Gandhian satyagraha ideology that is based on the foundation of ahimsa and satya. The same initiative occurred much later during the 118 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
seventies and eighties in Poland wherein there was an anti-communist movement that culminated in the country becoming the first to become democratic amongst the former Eastern bloc of communist countries. Gandhi’s moral jiu-jitsu”3 (Gregg 1966: 43-51) in the form of Satyagraha has shown real results in those sections wherein brutality did not get results. The key point to understand about t Gandhi is that his multidimensional social and political though is not based on any modern thought but on thousand-years-old religious and philosophical traditions, but they proved to be very effective in his non-violent fight against British Rule. 5.6 SUMMARY • Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 and later he came to be known in the country as Father of the Nation • .Gandhi was a lawyer and his means of fighting against British colonial rule was truth and non-violence. • .According to Gandhi Truth is in word and deed, but the ultimate truth is God and the foundation for it is moral laws and code • Gandhi’s views on non-violence is that it involves having the highest selflessness and so if anyone wants to gain the truth such should be his behaviour that those around him will think of him as safe. • Gandhi felt that non-violence was pure love and very positive and hence certainly it is not a negative idea. So, he talked about showing love to wrong-doers but not making a big issue out of their wrong. He opposed any type of cohesion with wrongs and injustice by being indifferent about it and according to him wrong doers can be stopped only by cutting away all relation with them. • Satyagraha means the being devoted only to the truth, resisting lies without the use of violence and being retrenched only in the truth. • Gandhi pointed out that for a Satyagrahi the concepts of truth and nonviolence are like his in her creed. It is vital also for a Satyagrahi to believe in the human nature’s inherent goodness. A Satyagrahi must lead a life that is chaste and should be ready to give his life and possessions for the sake of his cause. • Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography is ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’ and it was published in Navjivan, a weekly journal from 1925 to 1929. It is a work that showcases the vents of his life from childhood up to 1921. • It was Swami Anand, a person who later became his literary manager who compelled him to write out his autobiography. In the book Gandhi brings out all the experiments that he did as an activist and it is considered one of the most important, popular spiritual books to be published in the 20th century. 119 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
• .At the outset of the book, in the introduction Gandhi states that he does not want through this work to show a static image of himself. The ideas and thoughts given in it are certainly subject to change. However, he wants to point out how personal truths can over time evolve into very powerful concepts and tools of action. • Gandhiji says that the book is not just an autobiography or a book detailing out events of his life but one that is quite spiritual and also moral, not really focused on politics as such. He brings out the usefulness of such a work – ambivalence that it has, which is a Western literary invention. • In the autobiography’s beginning readers are taken back to his childhood and early life in Rajkot and Porbandar at a time, when he was very different in his mindset, eating meat and living a hedonistic lifestyle both of which he renounced in his later years. • He admits in his autobiography that he stole and also drank a lot, actions which he wants to redeem himself from and his favourite books are Harishchandra and Shravana Pitra bhakti Nataka. In the latter, he is moved by the main character Shraavana’s deep respect for his parents • He got married at 13 and felt very bad about it stating that it was “preposterously early” and though it was a Hindu custom he denounced it. • His marriage occurred at the age of eighteen and he felt a lot of regret about it. Calling it an action that was “preposterously early” he went against its typical moral foundation. • The loss of his father Karamchand Gandhi at a very early part of his life shook up a lot and a lot of the activist task that he did later in life was heavily influenced by this and other losses that he underwent at such an early age. • Upon his father passing away, he went away to study in Bhavnagar by enrolling into college there but was able to complete just a semester there, after which he went to Britain with the aim of studying there to become a barrister. His mother did not approve of this plan, but he persuaded her by promising her never to touch wine, meat or women during this stay there. In Britain, he finished his education, passed the law exams and came back to India to enrol into the courts. • After coming back to the country, he lost confidence to practice law. Furthermore, whatever he had studied and gained by way of practise really did not help him to prevent, repair the mistakes he and also those with him had made. • He attempted to become a mediator by law of a friend and his brother, but this did not come out well as the situation only became worse. Adding to this is the fact that the friends went onto become England’s Political Agent, so he became in-charge of deciding the turnout of the legal appeal that they were all involved in earlier. • He moved to South Africa to better his career prospects and work for a legal firm for case that was complicated and also quite lengthy. However, after completing a year, he stayed on in the same place so that he could help the struggling Indian population living there this period of his life went on till 1914 when he returned to India just two weeks prior to the start of the First World War... 120 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
• When the war began Gandhi began recruiting soldier for the British Army and this made many wonder about his actions as he had given such stunning speeches that had moved them so much on the subjects of religious tolerance, pacifism and nonviolent revolution. • ,she felt that he work involved activities that went against his ore beliefs, he came back to India, working as a lawyer who took up the grievances of poorer sections of society. The good reputation that he earned in South Africa helped him and so he could select the work he wanted to take up to the point when he wrote his autobiography. • Being a leading non-violent resistance advocate, he took on many civil disobedience cases. • Gandhi states that all the good work that he had done in his life was the result of curbing his destructive activities and desires. According to him, when one desires power, one also gets into experiencing violence, greed, ignorance which are feelings inside every human being. He also says that the desire to go for an outright war is overthrown actually by men’s need to control people. • .According to him, it is possible to gain salvation only by avoiding impulses, imbibing spiritual, moral codes and working actively to make a more just, tolerant world. • As readers go over the Farewell” section, they come to know that Gandhi never thought that these writing would eventually turn into an autobiography. • In his autobiography he says that readers should try to look beyond the genre of the work and gain insight into what is the truth as well as their pasts from the experiences given in it. • The key idea in Gandhi’s autobiography is that truth is an ever-evolving process, one that is the course of its evolution will change the mindset of people across the world and it is not a static object to be studied. • In his autobiography what is noted is how he searched for the truth and his strong belief in it, that it is indeed God and all that he had experimented in life was to reach this truth and gain its purity. • He did a lot of experiments with dietetics and he was seeking the right diet, one that would keep away sensual pleasures from the mind, enabling its and its thoughts to be properly controlled. Using this as his framework he came up with government reform principles, which also included protesting against injustice through civil disobedience and resistance but no violence. • Before practising civil disobedience, the laws of the land must be known and respected, based on which the laws which one wants to disobey can be selected along with the time for such disobedience. Uneducated people have no idea about such matters and that is the reason for violence occurring on the national day of Hartal. • Such was Gandhi’s popularity in South Africa that when he went to Port Natal, there were a group of rioters awaiting him, determined to prevent his entrance there. Many thought that all dark-skinned passengers on-board the ship taking Gandhi were poor 121 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Indian immigrants who he had only brought along, which was a mistake as they were passengers coming back to natal from India. • In Natal port Gandhi was escorted by the police superintendent and his wife to safety as he was able to gain a friendly relationship with the British here. It was after this particular incident that the local white people showed him more regard, respect. • At one time Gandhi had believed that the principles of the British constitution which included values of liberty and equality which he had embraced, it was imperative that all British subjects, including Indians showed their loyalty to it. In fact, he looked upon South Africa racist policy as a characteristic aberration that was only for the time period and not something that would set in permanently. He was at that point feeling that their governance over the country was beneficial and benevolent something that totally changed in his later years. • When he stayed with Gokhale in his home for about a month’s time, he met many politicians and connected with them, something that helped out in his later years. As he had promised to help out his Natal friends he came back to South Africa, as soon as a telegram reached him saying that both the British and Boers were unified through a peace treaty which made them stand together against and do detrimental activities the minority Indian community. At this time, Britain was planning to put only white people in powerful position in South Africa as it had done in countries Australia and Canada. • He was influenced by John Ruskin's Unto This Last in which the author showed that a life of manual labour was best over any other form of living. Consequently, he stopped following Western dress and habits and moved to Phoenix, which is a Transvaal farm. In this farm he drastically altered his usually way of life, giving up on the use of oil- powered engine. He published Indian Opinion using a hand-wheel and did agriculture on the farm using old-fashioned farming tools, equipment’s. • He considered his public work as the means to bring back the old days of Indian civilization and its virtues and was against Indians falling prey to western ideas and this also include use of technology, electricity. • In the period between 1901 and 1906 he went on to achieve Brahmacharya, wherein he abstained from sexual relations a hallmark in his personal life. This decision was based on his ideologies of self-restraint and selflessness. Later he came out with Satyagraha, meaning meant \"truth-force”, which is his particular method of making political protest. According to this concept, protesting against injustice can be done in a steadfast way but only through non-violence. • In 1906 he implemented what he had preached all along by asking the Transvaal Indian community in large gathering to take a pledge of law disobedience as the British Government there were registering Indian children who were more than eight years of age, which will make them officially South Africans. • It was on 30 January 1948 at 5:17 pm that Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse when he fired at his chest with three bullets at close range using a piston. He was 122 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
spending time with his grandnieces at that time in the Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti), and was on his way for a prayer meeting address when this incident occurred. The bullets took his life instantly. . • His assassination came five months after Indian independence from British rule, but his teaching of truth and non-violence will remain with everyone for years to come. 5.7 KEYWORDS • Rebellion: The rejection by adolescents of family values and family control over their behaviour, reflecting their desire for increased independence. • Satyagraha: is the idea of non-violent resistance (fighting with peace) started by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (also known as \"Mahatma\" Gandhi) • Activism: The policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change. • Civil Disobedience Campaign: is the refusal by ordinary people in a country to obey laws or pay taxes, usually as a protest. • Discrimination: recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another. 5.8 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Complete the quiz by choosing the correct option: Q1. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on----- a) October 5, 1896 b) October 3, 1840 c) October 2, 1869 d) October 10, 1880 Q2. At which place was Gandhiji born? a) Porbandar b) Rajkot c) Ahmedabad d) Delhi Q.3. In which South African unit had most of the India emigrants taken up abode? a) Johannesburg b) b) Natal 123 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
c) Maritzburg d) Durban Q .4. Which of the following, according to Gandhiji, is an essential principle of satyagraha? a) Infinite capacity for suffering b) Non-violence c) Truth d) All the three Answers:1-c; 2-a; 3-b; 4-d 2. Complete the following table: Sr. Description Answers No. 1] Name of the Journal wherein Gandhi’s Autobiography was _______________________________. first published…. 2] Two gifts of M.K. Gandhi to human mankind ______________ and _____________. 3] Name the Guru of Gandhi ________________________________. 5.9 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. Name the Western Philosophers who influenced M. K. Gandhi? 2. Explain the logic behind ‘Dandi March’ and choosing ‘salt’? 3. Do you think ‘Truth and Non-Violence’ can work in today’s modern world? Justify. 4. How did M. K. Gandhi influence rural people for Indian freedom struggle? 5. How did Gandhi succeed in ‘Non-Cooperation Movement?’ Long Questions 1. .Establish the link between Hinduism and Gandhian philosophy with the examples. 124 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
2. “Gandhi’s travelling throughout India made him to understand the contemporary ‘Bharat.’ ”Justify your answer with points you studied. 3. Draw the character-sketch of M. K. Gandhi through his personality traits, skills, words of wisdom and western influence. 4. Discuss the religious and spiritual beliefs portrayed in the autobiography. 5. Illustrate the initiatives taken by M. K. Gandhi to raise the awareness about the Indian Freedom Struggle. B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Which one of the following books is the work of Gandhiji? a) Light of India b) Hind Swaraj c) My Experiments with Truth d) Both (b) & (c) 2. Which of the following, according to Gandhiji, is an essential principle of Satyagraha? a) Infinite capacity for suffering b) Nonviolence c) Truth d) All of these 3. When did Gandhi return to India from South Africa? a) 1918 b) 1910 c) 1915 d) 1905 4. Who assassinated Gandhi? a) Ruskin Bond b) Nathuram Godse c) Lord Mountbatten d) Satya Bhan Gokhale 5. At which place was Gandhiji arrested for the first time by the British Government for sedition? a) Bombay b) Pune c) Calcutta d) Ahmedabad Answers: 1-(d), 2-(d), 3-(c), 4-(b), 5-(d) 5.10 REFERENCES Textbooks 125 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
• Gandhi, M. K. (1956). Unto this last: A paraphrase. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan. • Kumar, K. (1994). Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. In Z. Morsy (Ed.), Thinkers on education (Vol. 2, pp. 47-65). Paris, France: UNESCO. • Gandhi, M. K. (1908). Indian opinion (p. 171). Phoenix Farm, South Africa: Author. • Gandhi, M. K. (1909). Hind Swaraj. South Africa: Author. • Gandhi, M. K. (1921). A guide to health. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan. • Gandhi, M. K. (1927). The story of my experiments with truth. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan. • Gandhi, M. K. (1931). Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi. New Delhi, India: Publications Division, Government of India References • Suhrud, Tridip (2011). \"Gandhi's key writings: In Search of Unity\". In Brown, Judith; Parel, Anthony (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi. Cambridge University Press. pp. 71-92. ISBN 978-1-139-82484-2. • Suhrud, Tridip (November-December 2018). \"The Story of Antaryami\". Social Scientist. 46 (11-12): 37-60. JSTOR 26599997 • Malinar, Angelika (2019). \"Chapter 30? Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: [An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth]\". In Wagner-Egelhaaf, Martina (ed.). Handbook of Autobiography / Autofiction. De Gruyter Handbook. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 1703-1718. doi:10.1515/9783110279818-141. ISBN 978-3-11-038148-1. • Suhrud, Tridip (2011). \"Gandhi's key writings: In Search of Unity\". In Brown, Judith; Parel, Anthony (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi. Cambridge University Press. pp. 71-92. ISBN 978-1-139-82484-2. • Suhrud, Tridip (November-December 2018). \"The Story of Antaryami\". Social Scientist. 46 (11-12): 37-60. JSTOR 26599997 Websites • http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-an-autobiography-the-story-of-my- experiments-with-truth/#gsc.tab=0 • https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi • https://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/gandhi.htm • https://www.academia.edu/35705295/The_Relevance_of_Mahatma_Gandhis_Philoso phy_for_the_21st_Century_1 126 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT-6: ANNIE BESANT’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, CHAPTER VII, ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT STRUCTURE 6.0 Learning Objectives 6.1 Introduction 6.2 About Annie Besant and Her Life 6.3 Analysis of the Autobiography 6.4 Literary Elements in Autobiography 6.5 Critical Reviews of Autobiography 6.6 Summary of Autobiography 6.7 Keywords 6.8 Learning Activity 6.9 Unit End Questions 6.10 References 6.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, student will be able to: • Describe the life and works of Annie Besant. • Conceptualize the autobiography as a literary form. • Explain the critical elements in Annie Besant's Autobiography. • Describe the salient features, socio-economic conditions of the contemporary age. 127 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
6.1 INTRODUCTION The human history has noted contributions of women in all different spheres of life which includes literature. Women have remained the central point of story discussions, movie making, writing, serial production and autobiography. The literatures are self-expressing tools which monitor the faults of the society. They are introduced for educating about changes with time alignment. She is among the people who have contributed to the field of literature. Her thinking was innovative and thought provoking for the womenfolk in this society. It has made long lasting impressions on the literatures of English. Her writings have made their mark in the sphere of history as well. It is difficult narrating a story of someone’s life and even more so when it comes to autobiography. The best part is taking delight in narrating a story which reflects many of these women. Even in difficult times like these, this is an experience to savour. For the person writing the autobiography, the work he is still thinking of and the costs of some unpleasant experiences towards him. The person writing will be able to throw some light on the problem that those annoying the soul of the contemporary and probably stretching a hand for helping to others who struggle in the dark so as to bring cheers at times when desperately are gripping someone. Since everyone is it people of any gender are always restless and eager enough in the current generation. They are combined into those groups who are unable to understand and are not connected with it. They are often not ready for new ideas as there is greed for the results. The knowledge resulting is brought up with the help of scientific thoughts but in turn questioning the aesthetics, greed and the hunger for great ideas. The husks represent part of a person’s soul with his attributes and their memories are kept alive in one’s life. There is the great need of 128 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
spiritual ideas relating to the grief, hope, passions and the desire towards gaining of knowledge. This will prove helpful in narrating the story by going through the dark phases towards the side of brightness. There is the storm arising in the different directions in her life. 6.2 ABOUT ANNIE BESANT AND HER LIFE Annie Besant was amongst the most well-known and popular women of the age. She (née Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, philosophical person, women rights activist, author, teacher and a philanthropist. She is a human rights activist who was in favour of both the Irish and the Indian rule. She was a stellar writer who has written over 300 books and pamphlet in her name. As someone from the field of education, her contributions include being one of the founders of the Banaras Hindu University. In the year of 1867, when she was twenty years old, she got married to Frank Besant who was a clergy and had two kids. But Annie had unconventional religious view which led to their legally getting separated in the year 1873.After which she had become a great orator with the NSS and an author. She was on friendly terms with Charles Bradlaugh. In the year 1877 all of them were executed for book publishing for birth control campaigning Charles Knowlton. These scandals made them popular, and she was then elected the MP for Northampton in the year 1880. After the war, she continued to conduct campaigns for the fight for India’s Independence as well as theosophical values till she died in 1933. She was also a part of demonstrations like the “Bloody Sunday” and the “London match girls” in the year 1888. She was also a noted speaker at two societies namely “Fabians society” and the “Socialist Democratic Federation”. She was at that point in time elected as the president of London School of Hamlets during that period of time. It was during 1890 when she had met Helena and her writings in the field of theology continued as her interests continued to remain in the same. She joined the Theosophical society as a member and became an expert in the relevant field. It was because of work she had to travel to India. In the year 1898, she helped build the Hindu School and in the year 1922 she had helped start the “Hyderabad National College Board” in Mumbai which was in India. In 1902, she had constructed the first ever lodge overseas of international orders of masonry in Humain. In due course of time, the lodges became spread throughout the network of British Empires. In the year 1907, she became the President of the Society of Theology which was having its centre at Adyar in Chennai. She was involved in the field of politics when she joined the National Congress. When there was an end to the World War in the year 1914, she had helped launch the home rule movement during the struggle of India’s independence. By the year 1917, she was heading of “Indian National Congress”. It was. In the later parts of 1920, she travelled with her scholar and her son named Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was the rebirth of Buddha for her. But he did not believe in the claims made by her in 1929. Between the years 1870 and 1880, she was promoting the socialistic causes with great enthusiasm. She later went on to become the vice-president of the NSS, whose members 129 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
thought as highly of her as they thought about Charles Bradlaugh who was the president during that time. Later in the year 1889, she joined the Society of Theosophy. All of her friends were shocked at her move. Even after becoming the president of the Theosophical society, she gained popularity amongst other members just as a prophet who was, Madame Blavatsky. She moved from material atheists of the secular people towards the new age thinkers of theosophy. All of her last biographer had emphasized on the contrasts between the two. They have not been able to draw any correlations within the secular Fabians and the movements of theosophy. Indeed, they have spoken about many of her lives, as though she was wandering aimless, even if it was enthusiastic, from its causes with no guiding principle by whatever means. When we look for patterns in her life, they typically turn not to be the reasons for doing what she can do, but rather to her needs which are hidden such as to following a dominant man or to exercising heron power. They often turn to her emotional side to explain her final situation from the reason, and they can then explain her earlier commitment by referring to her emotions they have uncovered. Annie Besant was born to a middle-class family who was living in London. Her father was a religious critic, her mother turned towards reviving the ideas of theological liberalising which rejected documents as Biblical hell, eternal damnations, and penal substitution as well as the equality of the Son with the Father in the Trinity. Annie herself had a rigorous upbringing under eye of Miss Marryat, who was a spinster with whom she lived after the death of her father in 1852. She did not allow any book other than Bible to be read on Sundays and her charges were taught that theatre was a bad influence. She took in the religious spirit of the house by freely determinate never to miss a dance even if someone had invited for it. Later on, she recalled as to how 'the strong and vigorous’ had impact of Miss Marryat which impacted the whole of her early religious thoughts'. She even fully enjoyed the rituals, incenses, and pumps of Roman Catholics, which she had witnessed when she visited Paris in the year 1862. It was after she left Miss Marryat, she turned to the Anglo-Catholic ideas as well as practices, telling about the Church priests, Keble replaced Milton as her favoured author, she began to regular fasting, and even testing herself to see whether or not she could withstand the pain she might have to face if she ever were called upon to be a martyr, a fate for which she was destined. Annie Wood was born in the year 1847 in London in an upper middle-class family. She was the daughter of William Press Wood (1816-1852) and Emily Roche Morris (who died in1874). The Woods originally hailed from Devon and her uncle was the politician named Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet from whom was derived the title Page Wood baronet. Her father was originally from England but lived in Dublin after receiving a medical degree from the Trinity College of Dublin. Her mother was an Irish Catholic, from a family of more people by the modest means. Besant would go on promoting the Irish culture and thereby supporting the rule of Irish people through her adult days. Her cousin Kitty had an affair with Charles which had led to his failure. Her father died when she was just five years old, leaving behind with no source of income. Her mother supported the family by running a boys board housing for a 130 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
school. But she was not able to care for her daughter and asked her friend Marryat to take care after her. She made sure that she got educated. She developed a strong sense of duty to the society and thereby making her an independent person. When Annie was young, she had to travel across Europe. It is where she had got accustomed to Roman Catholic cultures and values. In the year 1867, at age of 20, she was married to 26-year-old Frank who was Walter’s youngest brother. He was similar to crusader who seemed to have looked into many of her problems. On the day of the wedding, she became more controversial by the visiting her friends in Manchester, who had got her in touch with both English radicals and the Manchester Martyrs of the Republic of Ireland and the Fijian Brotherhoods, analysing the conditions of the poor. Figure 6.1: Annie Besant Figure 6.2: Grave of Frank Besant 131 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Soon Frank had become the clergy of Sissy in the city of Lincolnshire. Annie Besant and her husband relocated to Sissy. They had two kids whom they named Arthur and Mabel. The marriage turned out to be a disaster. Annie had written that they were a mismatched pair the first conflicts coming over to financial and leading to her independence. She started to write shorter story, kid’s books, and the articles. The women who were married were not given rights to property. He was able to take the money that she earned. Politics had further divided both of them. She supported the farm workers who were engaged in fights to provide better conditions to the workers. Frank Besant being a clergyman supported the landlords. The tensions grew bigger when did not attend the Communion. In 1873 Annie had come back to London. They separated eventually and she got the daughter. She began questioning her faith in Christianity. At the same time, she began to turn towards the Church for asking advice. There she visited Edward Pusey, who was a well-known leader in the world movement of the church. When she asked him for recommending books that will answer her question, he told her that she had read too much. Besant then had turned to Frank so as to reconcile their marriage. After which, she left to go to London. Some writings of Annie Besant • The Political Status of Women in 1874 • Christianity: Its Evidence, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History in 1876 • The Law of Population in 1877 • My Path to Atheism in 1885 • Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, And As It Should Be: A Plea for Reform in 1878 • The Atheistic Platform: 12 Lectures One by Besant in1884 • Autobiographical Sketches in1885 • Why I Am a Socialist in1886 • Why I Became a Theosophist in 1889 • The Seven Principles of Man in1892 • Bhagavad Gita (translated as The Lord's Song) in 1895 • Karma in 1895 • In the Outer Court in 1895 • The Ancient Wisdom in 1897 • Dharma in 1898 • Thought Forms with C. W. Lead beater in1901 • The Religious Problem in India in 1901 • Thought Power: Its Control and Culture in 1901 • Esoteric Christianity in 1905 • A Study in Consciousness: A contribution to the science of psychology. In 1918 132 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
• Occult Chemistry with C. W. Lead beater in 1908 • An Introduction to Yoga in 1908 • Australian Lectures in 1908 • Annie Besant: An Autobiography in 1908 • The Religious Problem in India Lectures on Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, Theosophy in 1909 • Man, and His Bodies in 1911 • Elementary Lessons on Karma in 1912 • A Study in Karma in 1912 • Initiation: The Perfecting of Man in 1912 • Man's Life in This and Other Worlds in 1913 • Man: Whence, How and Whither with C. W. Lead beater in 1913 • The Doctrine of the Heart in 1920 • The Future of Indian Politics in 1922 • The Life and Teaching of Muhammad in 1932 • Memory and Its Nature in 1935 • writings of Helena Blavatsky between (1889–1910) Special contributions made by Besant Besant along with Charles published her first book on “birth control”. This marked her rise to prominence as the book created a rage amongst the public. There were lots of controversies related to it including condemnation of the church. Besant started working for causes like rights of woman and rights of workers. She played an important role in the London’s match girl strikes in1888 and the dock strike. In all possible ways, she was fighting for uplifting the conditioners of the workers. She was the President of the “Society of Theology”. During her tenure, she became active in the India’s struggle for independence. She was the founder of the Home Rule. Apart from that, she was the founding member of the Banaras University. She served as the first president of INC in 1917. She was honoured with a Doctorate from the “Banaras University”. She was given recognition for her literary works in the rise of a universal consciousness within Hindu thoughts which was opposed to being more nationalistic, exclusively of Hinduism of Dayananda Sarasvati who had founded the Arya Samaj. Her legacy is still living in the school and in number of publications which are in print and are available in electronically. Though her ideas had sometime polarized the people based on the issue around which she campaigned, she was at heart a bridge building. She wanted all the above to build the bridge between the east as well the west. She was called an \"Indo-British commonwealth\" and was indeed given credit for first using the word \"Commonwealth\" referring to the British Empire. She is known for helping to make India the 133 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
country that India will become, confident and asserting in world. In Chicago, she had described Vivekananda as a pride of his country, race and a representative of one of the oldest religions on earth inquisitively viewed upon by younger religions. India was proud in front of the arrogant West by her representative and her son. He brought the message and then remembering the dignity of the royals land where he came for purpose , masculine, stronger as he stood out among men in order to have hold his own. India was proud of its heritage and was unwilling to \"be shamed before the hurrying arrogant West\" owes its debt towards legacy of Annie Besant. Gandhi as well as Nehru was two of the people of India, crediting her with arousing their pride in the country, as for Rabindranath Tagore. Bhagavan Das who had citied Shri Sarojini Naidu, the first woman president of INC, stated that Besant was \"is entitled by her own greater qualities, the work and philosophies of Gandhi’s principles. 6.3 ANALYSIS OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY Besant the Reformer and the Secularist Besant began fighting for things which were correct, beginning with freedom of expressions, women rights, secular thinning, birth controlling, Fabians socialist and rights of workers. She was a significant member of the NSS with Brad laugh and Ethical Society. Getting divorced was not imagined by her as they were from the middle class. Annie continued to be known as the wife of Frank her entire life. In the initial days, she kept in touch with the children. Her daughter Mabel was with her. She managed with whatever she had got from her husband. Once free of Frank and exposed to new kind of thinking, she began to question not only her long-standing religious beliefs but complete conventional thoughts. She began writing about the attacks on the churches and the ways they controlled people lives. Specifically, she kept questioning the status of the Church of England as a state-run sponsored faith. Later she was earned smaller wages by writing columns for the “National Reformer” which was the newspaper of the NSS. The NSS wanted a secularist state and to put a stop to giving a special status to Christianity and allowing her voice her opinions as one of the public speakers. Public lecturing was a very popular during Victorian times. Besant was a capable orator and was in great demand. Using the railways, she had crisis crossing the whole country, speaking about all of the most important issues of the day that always demand improving, reform and freedom. For years Annie was a close friend of the NSS's leader Brad laugh. Brad laugh who was an ex- soldier, was separated from his wife; Annie Besant lived with him and her daughter as they worked together on different projects. He was an atheist and a republican. He was trying to get elected as MP for Northampton. Home Rule Movement in India 134 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Annie Besant had been giving rise to the Indian people by relating to topics such as child marriages and the caste system. She was bringing in under the education system. Along with the work, Besant continued to be active in politics. She later joined the INC. By the name itself, it was a body where debating and discussions used to take place. It usually talked about the middle classes and the poor. It was in the initial stages of becoming a mass movement with local organisations. About the same time her co-worker named Lead beater had moved to the Sydney. In the year 1914 when there was World War and Britain was asking for support to the British in the fights against Germany. Echoes of Irish nationalist slogans, Besant had declared, \"England is their needs are India's opportunity\". She was the editor of the “New India” where she had attacked the colonized government of the country for transparent and definitive moves towards self-ruling. Echoing to an Irish nationalist slogan, Besant had declared, \"The need of England is the opportunity for India\". As the editor of the New India newspaper, she had attacked the colonial governments of India and called for a clear and decisive move towards self-ruling. As for Ireland, the governments had declined to discuss any changes as long as the war lasted. In t 1916 Annie had launched the “Home Rule League” with Tilak, once again making requests for India on the Irish government’s moves. It was the first kind of political party. Apart from the Congress, the League was working all year around. It built branches locally, it enabled in the mobilizing protests, public speeches and agitations. In June 1917 Besant was arrested and interned at hill stations, where she was defying flying a red and green flag. The Congress and the Muslim League are coming together warned to launch protests if she was not freed. Besant was detained for having created a focal point for protests. The government was forced coerced on giving in and to make it different, but it was in significant concessions given. It was only announced that aim of Britishers was India’s independence, and steps were taken in that direction as promised. Besant was free in September of 1917 and she was welcomed by crowds around India and later in December she took charge as the president of the “Nationalist Congress” for a year. Both Nehru and Gandhi spoke about her influences with a lot of admiration. In the aftermath of the war , a fresh leadership of the INC began emerging around Gandhi who was among those who had advocated demands on Besant being released. He had just returned from South Africa where he was instrumental in leading Asians against racism. Jawaharlal Nehru, who was closest to Gandhi, was educated as a tutor of theosophy. The brand-new leadership were infected by natural and militant leaders. Apart from past, she was not happy with the socialistic learning’s. It continued until the end of her life, she carried on campaigning for India’s independence, not only within the country but on speeches outside Britain. In her versions of Indian attire, she remained to have a presence on speaking platforms. She produced lot of letters and articles demanding independence for India. Christianity 135 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Annie Besant had pointed towards a more general view of the rise of the New Age movement in relations to Christian religion and secularism. We should be able to consider how she was. On one side, her uniqueness of the quests for the truth is what mattes her interests. There she played important roles in two societies. She provided us with one life in which we have clear examples of the two historic processes that we are concerned with as, secular thinking and the rising of New Age thinking. Her life is an embodiment of the relationships between secularism and theosophical ideologies. On the other, we can use her life to point about more generalist conclusions as in many ways she was truthful to a particular type. The reasons that she had for giving up on Christianity was for secularism in thinking and also not turning to theosophy are common of contemporary secularist persons and theosophical people. Here I am suggesting the basic dilemma that she had faced were those in the midst of the Victoria crisis of faiths, and apart from them, I will refer it through the others who were attracted towards the movements as she was and for the reasons similar to her. Secularism In 1872, Besant had attended meetings of the liberal Christians going on at the St. George's Hall which was presided by Voysey. After that, she bought some tracts that were put them on sales, and so she began to read works by him as well as other prominent Unitarian such as the American preacher Channing. There was no doubt that she had liked what she found which after all, Voysey did not think the Bible did not have revelations and, he had also criticised the doctrines of sin, eternal punishment and penal substitution, as brutal and immoral. He expressed just the misgiving that she was feeling. These liberal Christians even led her to questioning the divinity of the Christ. She had thus rejected the presence as it was not compatible with a moral God. If there was not a need for sinless persons to regret the sins of humanity, then there was no need for the God to become an incarnation. Hence the whole basis of Christianity had been collapsing. Besant had now begun to think about herself being a theist. Soon after, he invited her to their home, where she had met Thomas, who presided over a many religious liberalisers like Charles Bray, Bishop Colenso along with Sarah Hennell. When she left her husband, it was one of them, Conway, who was a devout preacher at the South Place Ethical Society, who arranged for her to stay with his family until she could manage on her own. Besant had now set foot into the world of religious liberalising made up of independent thinkers, theists and members of ethical society. Her theism had met the requirements for which she rejected Christianity. Like many people from Victorian era, Besant had believed in an omnipresent God. She said 'God is patiently showing Him by His works, by the flow of events and, by the advancement in Humanities: if He did not speak from Heaven in the language of human. He is speaking about the world around us. Her God revealed him through nature in a way that did not require referencing to either the supernatural or a revealing source of moral. The laws of morality came 136 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
from nature within, more accurately from the celestial power within the nature: 'the origin of all morals in the man is the omnipresent Spirits showing in the spirits’. As God appeared not in the Bible, but in the nature’s working of the moral laws within each of us. Hence, the new God was neither shown down by people for eternal nor in the sufferings. Justice and it’s the likelihood of a victory over evil were confirmed by the operations of the laws of morality within the natural orders There were no hints towards transcendental realms where judgement could lead to tormenting. Socialism In January 1885, Besant applied for joining the Fabians Society, as a part of the primitive socialist movements. The N.S.S had. The centres were growing grounds of recruiting centres to socialist activities. Many secularists, that included Brad laugh, who were strict who were preaching socialist ideology to be a threats to liberty. To them Besant and her conversion were dissenting. Nevertheless, there were growing similarity amongst socialism and secularism, and this could help to explain conversion of Besant. First, it was the humanitarian appeal made by early socialist appealing to the positive ethics of some secularists. This can be seen not only in people like Edward Availing and Herbert Burrows who had joined the socialist movements with secularist backgrounds, but it was also in the extensive commitments towards ethical positive towards within the Fabians Societies. Sydney crisis of the faith had produced with much of the family stress and concluded with him describing the Comte as the 'very much the most thorough thinking that we have seen since the births of Aristotle’; Edward Pease and Frank Pod more had argued permanently for a socialising comprising of ethical positivity; Graham Wallis’s first publications was called the 'Personal Duties Under the Present Systems'; and even when Sidney Webb approached his socialist by way of positivity. Besant herself had first reacted in favour to socialist ideologies as on 12 January of 1883 when she had listened to Louise Michel, a communist, lecture emotionally on the need for superior sense of brotherhood if the society is to bring up the issues of the starving people living in the Paris slums. According to Annie Besant, socialism is not a negative philosophy concern to the end of exploitation, but it is a moral idea, an ethical positivity. Socialism has stemmed out of the ‘a profound moral impulsions' of ‘selfless brotherhood’ It has shown a new creations of man. Socialist aims be of service to the causes of humanity. Hence, the socialistic movement is not a ‘class movements', but rather 'a movement for people of all classes towards a common end'; 'the Social army is comprising of people of various ranks, who have been renounced for them in the class distinction as they are teamed up together for destroying. Besant saw the socialism as the economic movements in order to remove exploitation and also moral movements in order to further universal brotherhood in places of class division. The two topics underlay her attitudes towards the trade union movements. Firstly, she had said Malthusianism had showed trade unions could not be having a general, long-term impact on the wages: 'wages are rising 137 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
and falling of unions and are not to be controlling impacted by the business. Secondly, however, trade unions have engulfed a 'willingness for subordinating for one and all', in order 'to use strength for the mutual support' in accordance with 'the superior social morals'. Specifically, the growth of new unions among the women and the unskilled labour suggested that the trade unions would be embracing all the workers. While the old unions had stood for exclusive and so-called class feelings, the new union strived for brotherly attitudes. Theosophy The positive ethics within Besant socialist systems came to limelight in February 1888. She had announced that she and the others had spoken about 'of starting a new brotherly attitude, in which a service of the Man should be taking the place while giving in to services of God as a brotherhood where work should be worshipped, and love should be baptised'. . They had spoken about the 'Church of the future to lead 'the teaching of doing social duty, in supporting of social right, the building up of the true commonwealth ‘In order to promote such Churches, Besant began publishing a journal which was titled The Link and the subtitled 'A Journal for Servants of Man'. . She had come here to believe that too many of her fellow socialists had overemphasized on the economic sides of socialist reforms. She wanted to be stressing on the need for the new social morals in order to motivate people in order to sacrifice them for the better of other. She wanted to advance moral transforming base on socialistic ideas. Besant increasing stress on the needs for a moral transforming reflected in a deeper shifts in her thoughts. Around the year1886, she became more focused in some mental phenomena’s that she found that she could not be explaining in terms of her atheistic materiality. She began investigating the peripheral aspects of conscious such as the dream, and also psychic phenomena’s such as mesmerising. She read the reports by the Dialectical Society on the experiments on the psychic research. The report had convinced her that there was something there that had to be explained. Besant trusted in the importance of psychic phenomena’s that were not unusual. Scholar’s sas Janet Oppenheim and Alex Owen have shown how the people from various backgrounds had set foot into the spiritualist movements within the contexts of the Victorian crisis of the faith. Among those who had come to be interested in spirituality were many people who were like Besant, had background in the secularist as well as socialist movement Secularists as Seth Ackroyd, Herbert Burrows, E. W. Wallis, and Alfred Russell Wallace found spirituality gave answers to the questions that were earlier which had diverted them away from the Protestantism of their childhood. In the same manner, socialist such as Pease and Pod more who were vital members of the Society for Psychical Research, while various other radical people and Twenties went on giving embracement to all of secularises, socialist, and spiritual needs. Watching the various, embodiments and the likes of numerous Victorian people who had assumed that what they saw was reality. Apart from that, if none of the spiritualist phenomena were genuine and respectable people resorted to lying as well as few Victorians questioned the 138 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
honour of their fellows. To have thought that so many gentle people were capable of showing falsely would have nearly been as difficult so as to believe some spiritualist phenomena in order to be truthful. Hence, Besant had accepted the fact before she did the theory. She thought that the phenomena was inducible but the spiritual explanations of them unbelievable'. Nor was the explaining of all that was unbelievable. The scientific community that was still setting itself up as a professions with a specific basis of institution, and even today science can tell us little more about how we can treat mental event. Besant had in the beginning turned to spirituality as the way it assisted to understand psychological phenomena. Later on, she extend her spiritual comprehension from the mental to the physical. Long before Besant began to host instances in her home at St. John's Wood in London. Friends have even begun to talk about her becoming a spiritualist person. As Besant had been investigating the happenings in psychology, so she had become convinced of the necessity for a more spiritual comprehension of the world about her, and she had just got understanding about her own and the external world around her. There were different forms of socialism. In the particular way, her moves towards a more ethical form of socialising reflecting on her growing convictions that were 'Pantheism' might solve 'some of the problems, especially psychological, which Atheists is leaving untouched' Social and Cultural Pressures There were religious people who were concerned about values of the Victorians. As per T. H. Green had recognized, his contemporary had a ' sense of personal identities which was been derived largely by the religious believes. ‘when old keep questioning about Gods, the freedom, and the immortality that are being put by each man for himself in the direct as well as popular forms which they have now assumed, as questions which are bearing on his own life, as it is idle towards denying that he will be different man as per to the answer which he is giving to them'. Religious issues had also mattered. The Victorians had been discussing theology nicely with real passions. What is more than the Christianity of the early Victorians era that was popular by Bible literacy and its theories? The most interesting features of Besant attempts in order to harmonize the gospel is that, as she had later talked, the anticipation of her futures secularist goals, so much as to the indication of her beliefs in the absolute truths of the Bible. For someone who has assumed that the gospel was perfect and historically precise would have been expected from them to be compatible. Such Bible literacy, typical of many such Victorian, could soon face an onslaught from the geology, history criticism and theoretical evolutions. Similarly, the most fascinating features of Besant moral revolutions against Christian religions is not, that as she might have later implied, the anticipating of her future theosophy ethic, so much as the indicating her commitments to atonement theology. Only someone who was stressed to the needs to atone for the sins over the sanctifying of life could find Christianity morally being so bleak. Such a theology, again is typical of many Victorian, has soon faced an assault from a new moral consciences. The whole crisis of faith resembles that of Besant in that it is arising from not 139 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
from attack on all possible form of Christianity but rather from the series of challenges to Bible literacy and atonements theology. The Dilemmas Posed Annie Besant herself had a rigorously strong raising under the eye of Miss Marryat, with whom she lived after her father died in 1852. Miss Marryat did not allow books other than the Bible on Sundays and her charges soon learnt that theatre was a bad influence. Annie had absorbed the religious spirits of the house and was determined to never go for a dance even if someone asked her. Later on, she had recalled as to how 'the powerful and intense thoughts of Miss Marryat had impacted the whole of her early religious thoughts'. Nevertheless, she thoroughly had enjoyed the ritualistic, incense, and pomp of Roman Catholics, which she had witnessed when she visited Paris in the1862. Indeed, soon after leaving Miss Marryat, she had turned to Anglo Catholic for ideas and practices, pouring in over from the works of the Church priests, had Keble replaced Milton as her favourite author, she started fasting regularly, and had even began test herself to check whether or not she would be able to stand the pain she might have to be facing if she ever were called upon to be a martyr, a destiny for which she had never yearned. Annie had the first taste of doubt while passing through her High Church phases. She set out at thinking back to the original event of Holy Weeks in order to experience them to herself. To help her in the effort, she tried producing a single table of happening out of the four gospels. Imagine her condition when she found as many had done before her that the gospel contained disparity that the gospel could not be in harmony. After some time of confusing activities, she asked her confusions by telling it to her God had placed the disparities in the books as a test of faith. She had settled down to her previous life of sacrifices to, and coding service of the Christ. . 'To serve Him through His Church became ideal in my life, and my thoughts were beginning to turn towards some kind of life of religion, in which I might have to prove my love by sacrifices and turn my passionate gratitude’s into active services.' With such thoughts, she would been moved into marriage with Frank, a clergyman who was then working as a schoolteacher. She hardly knew him, he disliked the thoughts of leaving her mother, and as she became engaged partly as a result of a confusion around her. But she went through with marriage as she thought priest were people on the divine and marrying one would enable her to devote herself more fully to Church and towards the poor. Mutual sex and her dominating character made their marriage unsuccessful. Besant doted on their children. Then, in the year 1871, the younger child became very ill and Besant herself became exhausted after she had taken care of the child in order to get back to health. She collapsed mentally as well as physically. The unhappy marriage made her think about suffering in the world, and her daughter and her agony had rekindled her thoughts. How, she had wondered, could God of mercy allow such pains? Her struggles with doubts lasted just around three years and nearly 140 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
cost her life through illness and suicide. No other times in her much-varied life were of such importance. 6.4 LITERARY ELEMENTS IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY When Annie Besant had written in her 1893 Autobiography that her life was as 'much attacked and slandered' she was only about 45 years old, and many more of controversies were yet to come. In the book, Besant charted her political and ethical awakening, up to the point where she was part of the Theosophical movement. She had described how she was unhappy in her marriage to a clergy, attempted suicide, embraced atheistic, and legally separation from her husband. She recounts as to how she became a writer and speaker, then she joined the National Secular Society, got involved in the controversial publication of a birth control leaflets, and was involved in active participation for worker’s rights and home rule for the country of Ireland. She has reflected on her own ideologies and spiritual nature. Besant did a lot to surprise and challenges the Victorian society, and the book widely portrays her struggle and success. Besant had now entered the world of religious liberalism, a world of theology, theist, and members of the ethical society. Her theorists met the requirement implicating in her reason for turning away from Christianity religion. Like many other l Victorian, Besant had come to trust in an omnipresent God. She said 'God is steadily showing Himself by His work, by the course of event, in the advancement of Humanity: if He has not spoken frothed Heaven in the human language, He is speaking in the world around us. Her new form of God revealed himself through nature in a manner that does not require referencing to either the supernatural’s or a revealing source of morals. . The moral law was derived from the nature, or to be more exact from the divine in nature: 'the source of all morality in man is the Universal Spirit dwelling in the spirits'. God is not present in the Bible, but in the natural works of the law within each of us. Moreover, the new God neither punished people for eternal nor excluded in their suffering. . Justice and the possibility of a winning over wicked were confirmed by the operations of the moral laws in the natural order. There was no clue of transcendental realms where judgements could cause perpetual fomentation. The belief that the east knew about the spiritual knowledge that the west had been lacking was increasingly getting common within Victorian society. The Empire had inspired some exemplary studies on Indian culture, and while most of western thinking people were only too happy to reject this culture as backward, there was a significant minority turned to an idealised version of it as alternatives to materialistic and soulless westerners. The romantics are in particular often tied with their beliefs in the mystical powers of natures to an interpretations of eastern religion as pathetic and eastern society as intrinsically spiritual. Besant believed that any adequate accounts of the universe had to steering clear of supernatural’s and also take on the board evolution theory. Her theosophy did for them. No doubt others will think about theosophy entailing a belief in the objects outside the natural 141 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
orders, but they will do it so because of their views of the natural orders, and here too we should avoid using our assumptions to understand and evaluate the others. Taken on the own terms of theosophical terms in general, and in Besant's theosophy in particular, do not take part in any supernaturalism activity. Certainly, Besant had fully accepted the teachings about brotherhoods of adapting based in Tibet who had possessed remarkable occult powers that used to watch over humanity and to preserve the ancient wisdoms of the unimpaired. CHAPTER VII: ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT The first steps which is leaving behind the idea of God being limited, the extra cosmic Creators, and leading the student to the point where Atheists and Pantheism are both diverging, is the recognizing that a profound coming together of substances underlying the infinite diversities of natural phenomena, the disconcerting of the One beneath the Many. This was the step I had taken ere my first meeting with Charles Brad laugh, and I had written:— \"It is manifesting to all the people who will be taking the trouble to think in a steady manner, that there can be only one internal and basic substance, and that the matters and spirits must hence only be of vary the embodiments of these substances. The distinction that are made between matters and spirits is, then, simply being made for the sake of convenience and clearness, just as there are being distinguished in perceptions from judgments, both of which are , however, are similar process of thinking. Matter is that it constitutes elements, the same as in the spirits; existence is one which however is manifold in its phenomena as life is one, however multiform in the evolution. As the heat of the coal is differing from the coal by itself, so does the memories, perceptions, judgments, emotions, and will be different from the brains for thinking. But they are the same products of important substances, different not only in the conditions that I am finding myself in, but then, compelling to be able to believe in that one only substance existing in all the things around me; that the universe is the core , or at least external as far as our facility are concerned, so we cannot, as someone doing quaintly put it, 'getting to the outside of somewhere'; that a God cannot be conceived of as apart from the universe; that the Worker and the Work are intermingled among one another, and in some senses internally and undissolving bought together. Having got far, we will be able to proceed to examining into the possibilities of proving the existing of that one essence which is popularly called by God, under the conditions is defined by the orthodox. Having been demonstrated, as I hope to do, that the strict idea of God is not reasonable and vague, we endeavour in order to certain whether there is any idea of God, worthy to be called the same, is attained in the present times.\" \"The God must of ultimate importance to be that one and the substance out of which all things are coming, under the conditions and laws of the universe; He must be, Parker as he puts it, 'is the material form of the matters as well as the spirituality of spirits these must both be product of this one substances; a truth which is readily accepted as soon as spirit and matter that are seen to be but in different modes of the essence. Hence, we can be identifying substances with the compressive and vivid forces of nature, and in so doing it we can simply 142 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
reduce the physical impossibly of the existence of being described by the orthodox people as a God who possesses the attributes of personalities. The Deity is identifiable with nature, co- existing with universe, but the God of orthodox that no longer excising; we may change the importance of God and use of the words in expressing a different ideas as we can no longer mean by it person Being in the same sense, having an individual identities which are dividing Him from the rest of the whole of the world.\" ' It was going in search for God that he was attained, I came to conclude that evidence of the existing conscious of Power that were lacking, and that the ordinary proofs offered were not conclusive enough as they were able to grasp the powers of God. \"There appears, to be possibilities in nature as though we have been seeing as to what intelligent people think it is not possible. There cannot be judgements, argument and instances as there is no one with perfect mind, unchanged, calm, and quite? Our faculty has failed us so when we try to estimate God and we can get into betrayed into contradictions of absurd nature; but does not follow that He is not there? It seems to me that it is to deny that there is no God. He is existent in order to overstepping the boundary of powers is lost as much tried and definitive. We pretend so as to knowing that the Unknown if we are to declaring Him to be the Unknowns. Unknowingly to us at the present, yes! Not knowing forever, in other possible stages of existing. We have been reaching a region into which one cannot penetrate; here all the humans fail us; we bow our head on 'the thresholds of the unknowns.' And the ears cannot hear what the eyes can see 'But if we are able to see and hear in the visions, were it is not God?” Hence, sings Tennyson who is the poet in physics if you are not able to see as well as God. It is always as it is” These refusals was to believe without any evidence, and the declaring that something \"behind the phenomena’s\" is unknown to the man as at present constitution these are the 2 chief planks of the Atheistic platforms, as Atheists were held up by Charles and him. In the y 1876 this position was then clearly reaffirmed. \"It is important to put in brief the mastics positions, as for no other positions are more continuous and interrupted. Atheism is that phenomenon without God. It does not assert that there is no God. 'The Atheists are not saying \"There are no Gods,\" but he says, \"I know now not what you mean by God; I have no ideas of God; the word of God is to me a sounds like converting no clear or distinct confirmation. I am not denying that God, because I cannot refuse that which I have no importance about, and the conceptions of which, by affirming, is it so imperfect that he is not able to define it to me.\" The Atheists are not affirming nor is denying the possibilities of phenomena which are different from those being recognised by human experiences. As for his knowledge of the world that is extremely limiting and in imperfect manner, the Atheists is declining either to denying or affirming anything with respect to mode of existing of which he is knows nothing about. Further on, he had refused to 143 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
believe in anything that is concern that of which he knows nothing about and affirms that which he can never be the subjects of knowledge that ought never to be the objects of beliefs. While being the Atheist, then, neither can he affirmative nor denying the unknown, is he not denying all those conflict with the knowledge in which he has already attaining. Say for instance, he knows that there is only one, and that there are 3 times one are the three; he had denied that 3 times one are, or can be, the one. The position of the Atheist is a very clear and reasonable one: I knew nothing about the 'God,' and therefore I do not believe in His presence or in it; what you tell me about God is self-explanatory and is therefore great. . I do not deny in 'God,' which is not known mother tongue to me; I do deny that God, who is an impossible thing. I am here without God. In the year 1887 I was finding myself writing on the same lines: \"No man can be rational in its affirming 'There is no presence of God,' until the word 'God' had for him definite meanings, and until everything that existed is known to him, and is known with what Leibnitz is calling the 'perfect knowledge.' The Atheist denying of God begins only when the God is defined as well as described. Never yet has been a God defined in terms which were not preferably self-contradicting as well as vague; never yet has the God has been explained so that a concepts of God are made possible to human thought. Nor isothere anything gained by the asserting of Deity when they allege that He is incomprehensive. If 'God' had existed and is incomprehensive, His incomprehensiveness is an admiring reason for the silence about Him, but he can never be justifying the affirming of self-contradicting propositions, and the threats of people with damning if they do not accept them. The belief of the Atheists is stopping where his evidence are stopped. The belief of the Atheists is being stopped where his evidence stops it. He believes in the existing of the universe, judging the accessing of proof thereof by being to be adequate, and he is finding in these universe sufficient causes for the happenings of all phenomena’s. He finds that there is no intellectual satisfaction in the placing a huge part behind the universe, which is only adding to its own unintelligent nature to the already sufficient difficult problems of existence. Our lungs are not fit to breathe beyond the atmospheric which is surrounding our globe and our faculties which cannot breathe outside the atmosphere of the phenomena’s\" And I had summed up this essay with the word: \"I don’t believe in God. My mind is finding no ground on which to build up the reasonable faiths. My heart is revolting against the differences in the existence of God. My conscience is rebelling against the injustices, the cruel nature, the inequalities, which is surrounding me on each side. But I believe in the Man. The knowledge is the power for reforming a person. It gives energy to achieve success. There are different views on the colours for the presence of the souls. And here are the steps in the differences among Athletics and Pantheists; both in the forms of Existing at present times by human nature, of which all phenomena’s are the modes; but not to the Atheists that there Existed manifestations as Force that Matters, unconscious, not intelligently, while to the Pantheists it is manifestation of matters of life, conscious of an intelligent person. To the ones, life and the conscious efforts are the attributes, property are, depending upon arrangement of matter; to the other hand they are fundamental, essential, and are only limited in their 144 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
manifestations by arrangement of the matter. Despite the attraction held for me in the Spinoza luminous argument, the over masters swaying in which Science had just begin to exercise all that is over me to drive me to the seeking for the explaining of all the life problem and the minds are at the hands of the biologist and the chemist. They have had done so much, explaining so much, that they could they not explain at all? Sure, I thought, the one safe ground is that of experiment and the remembering of agony of doubts made me very slowly to believe where I will not prove. . So, I was in regard to life as an attribute, and this again strengthened the Atheistic position. \"Scientifically regarding life an entity but a property; it is the mode of existing but character of certain kind. Life is the result of arranging matters, and when rearrangements are occurring in the former results can no longer be present; we can call the results of the changed arrangements of death. Life and death are the two convenient words for expressing the general outcomes of two arrangements of matters, one of which is always found preceding the others.\" And so, having been resorted to the chemistries for one example, I have taken another from one of them striking and easily grasping the analogies facility to seek and show of which has ever been one of the secret of my success as the propaganda. . Like the pictures, they impress the minds of the hearing with various senses of realities. Every individual is different from one another just like mother of pearl. How different and dull are the pieces of wax? Yet take that dull, black wax and mould it so closely to the surface of the mother of the pearls that it shall be taking every delicate marking of the shells, and when you are raising it the 7hued glory shall be smiling at yours from the great colourless surfaces. For, though it is to be the naked eye which is impossible, for all the surfaces of the mother pearl is in delicate ridge and furrow, just like the surfaces of a new ploughed fields; and when the views of light comes some dashing up against the ridge surfaces, they are broken like the wave on a shining shores, and they are going backwards, so that they can cross each other and the oncoming wave; and, as in every rays of white lights are made up of waves of seven colours, and these wave differing in the length each from the other, the fairies ridges flinging them backward getting separated, and each of the rays reaching the eye by it; so that the colours of the mothers-of-pearls is really the sprays of the light wave, and it comes from arrangements of matters once again. Give that the dull, black wax on the same ridge and furrow, and the glory shall be differing in nothing from that of the shells. To apply our example: as the colour of the person belongs to one kind of person, so life belongs to some matters to be arranged and is their results, while the resulting of other arrangements is the death.\" The same lines of reasons is natural as was Appling to the existence of spirit in the man, and it was arguing that the mental activities, the domain of the spirit was dependent on body organisations. \"When the baby is born it as it is showing no signs of the life. For three brief space hungers and repletion, cold and warm are its only sensation. Slowly, the specialised senses begins to function; still more slow muscular movement, at the first aimless and refluxing, become coordinated as well as conscious directed. The same line of the natural reasons was applying to the existing of the spirit in the man, and it was arguing that the mental activities, the domains of the “spirits,” were dependent on body organisations. \"When the baby 145 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
is born it is showing no signs of the minds. For a brief spacing hunger and repletion’s, cold and warmth are its only sensations. Slowly the specialised sense begins to function; still more slow muscular movement, at the first aimless refluxing, become coordinated and is consciously directing. As the old age comes on and the body functions are decaying, the mind is decaying also, until the age passes into serenity, and body and mind are synced into second of childhood. Has the immortals of spirits decaying with the organisations, or is it dwell in the sorrows, bound by the in its 'house of clay'? If this is to be so, the spirit must be unconsciously, or else separating from the very individual whose essence is supposed to be, for the old person who does not suffer if the mind is quite but is content as a little kid. . And not only is this a constant, continuously growing and decaying of the bodies and minds to be observing, but we know that mental functioning are disorderly and suspended by various physical condition such as Alcohol, drugs, fever, mind disorders; a blow will be on the cranes that suspends its function, and the 'spirits' returning with the surgeon and his transplanting. Does the 'spirit' take on as part in the dreams? Is it the absence from the idiots, from the lunatics? Is it the guilty of man slaughtering when the madman is murdering, or does it is helpless watching its own instruments that are performing the actions at which it is shuddering? If it can only be working here through an organised, is the nature has changed in its independent lives, severed from all of with which has it was being identified? Can it, in it in the disembodied state,' have anything which was in common with the pasts? It is seen that the nonbelievers in the existing of the Souls or Spirits that was a matter of cold and calm reason as I have written in 1885: \"For many of the evidence must be preceding the beliefs. I would gladly believe in happy immortals for all of us, as I would be gladly believing that all the misery, crime as well as poverty will get disappeared in the year1885 as if it could be. . But I am not able to believe an improbability of propositions unless there are convincing evidence brought in the support of it. Immortals are the most improbable among them; there is no evidence is brought forward in its favouring. I cannot believe in it only as I wish.\"[12] Such was the philosophies by which I have lived from the year 1874 to 1886, when the first some research that will be dealt with in their proper places, and which has led me ultimately to the evidence I had made before vainly demanded, began to shake my confidences in its adequacies. Amid the outer storms and turmoil’s and conflicts, I found it satisfying my intellects, while lofty ideal of morals are fed with my emotions. I called in to myself as an Atheist, and rightly said so, for I was without Gods, and my horizons were bounded by lives on the earth; ; I have gloried in the names by then, as it was dear to my heart by now, for all the association with which it is connecting. \"Atheist is amongst of the grand titles a man can get; it is the Orders of Merits of the world hero. Most of the great discovery, most of the deep thinker philosopher, are the most earnest reforming, most great pioneers of progress today, have in their turns had flung at them the name of being an Atheist. It was however howled over by the graves of Copernicus; it was clamouring round the death of Bruno; it was yelled at by Vanini, Spinoza, Priestley, Voltaire and at Paine; it has become the laurel-bays of all the heroes, the halos of the martyrs; in the world history as it has meant the heroes of progress, and where the cries of 146 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Atheists are raised there were maybe we were sure that other steps is being taken in the redemptions of humanity. The saviour in the world is very often howling at as Atheist, and then worshipped as Deity. The Atheist are the vanguards of the armies of Free thinkers, on who are falling the brunt of the battles, and are those who have shivered from battles; their feet trampling down the horning that others may tread are unwind their bodies are filled up in the ditch that, by the bridges which are made, others may pass towards victory. Honouring to the pioneer of progress, honour to the vanguards of Liberty in the army, honouring to those who are improving earth had forgotten heaven, and who in their zeal’s for the men who have forgotten about the God. This poor sketching of the conception of the world, to which I have conquered in my ways at the getting out of pains, and which was are the inner centre rounds around which are my lives are revolving for 12 years, may be perhaps showing that the Atheistic Philosophy are being misjudged primarily as when it is was shown as the saviour or condemning as for being led to intellectual degradation It has been outgrown by the supernatural deity, and it is leaving us faced with Nature, open to all her purity and inspiring inspiration \"There is one form of prayer,\" it said, \"which is reasonable, and that is the deeper, silent admiring of the great ,beautiful and orderly world around us, as it was revealed in the realm of non-rationalised lives and in Humanities; as we are bowing our heads before the laws of the universe, and moulding our lives into obeying their voices, that we find a stronger, calmer peaceful stealing over our heart, a perfect getting out in the ultimate triumphs of the rights, a quiet determination in order to make our lives miserable. Before going on our own high ideals, before those living which are showing us on how the high tides have risen in the world and we are standing with hushed voices and veiled face; from them we are drawing strengths to add up and struggling to excel. The contemplating of the ideals is a true prayer; it inspires, enables and strengthens. The other parts of prayers is that work, from contemplating to the labour, from the forests to the streets. The study of the nature's laws makes us work in harmony. It then becomes a prayer for thanksgiving and admiration for everyone. People become lawful people. To the woman of my nature, filled with passions and desires for a better world, the height of humanity, a huge system of ethical behaviour that was of even more relevance the one with logic, intellect conceptions of the world and the total loss of all faiths in God only made me more assertive in the binding nature of duties and the growing importance of conduct. In the year 1874 this convictions had found voices on the pamphlet on the \"True Basis of Moralities\" and over the years of my promoting on the platforms of the NSS and no other topic was dealt so frequently in my lectures than that of human ethics growth and the duties of a person. No thought was more constant in my mind than that of the importance of moral, and it was voiced at the very beginning of my public career. Speaking about the dangers listed by older sanctions of right conduct should be cast behind and the new are firmly getting established, I wrote: \"\"It becomes the duty of every person who is fighting in the ranks of Free thoughts, and who have ventures to attack the stigmas of the Church, and in order to strike down the superstition which 147 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
is getting his mind slaved, in order to beware how his uproots sanctions of the morality that he is weak to be replaced, or how, before he is getting prepared with better one, he is removing the barrier which are not yet, however poor they may be, to some extent are checking vice and controlling crimes. That which is touching the moralities touches the heart of society; a high as well as pure moral is the blood of human nature; mistakes in the belief will be there and are of little moments; mistakes in lives which destroy the happiness, and the destruction of consequences spreading everywhere. It is, the most crucial question whether it is we, who are doing acts into take away from the world the authorities on which the belief has been based all its morals, can offer a newer and firm grounds where there may be safety to be built up the fair kind of a noble life. I then can proceed in order to analyse the revelation and intuition as the basis for moral, and discards both which I have asserted: \"The true basis of morals is utility; that is, the adaptations of our actions in order to promote the general welfare and happiness; the endeavours so as to rule our lives that we may be serve and get blessing for people.\" And I have argued for this basis, showing that the efforts after virtues were implied for the search for happiness: Virtue is the important part of all true and solid happiness. But it is, after all, the only reason that happiness should be the ultimate tests of right and wrong, if we live as we are in the rules of law. Obedience to the law is a must resulting in harmony and disobeying in not sticking to the laws. But if obeying to laws is a result in the harmonious it must also result in the happiness all through stick to laws resulting in happiness, and through obeying each living thing fulfilled to the perfection of its being, and in that perfections finding its true way of happiness.\" It seemed to me that the most important in order to be removing morality from the controversies about religion and to give it the basis of one’s own: \"As, then, the grave subjects of the existence of God is a matter of dispute, it is evidently of greater importance to the society that morality should not be brought into this battlefields, in order to stand with the different theories of the Divine natures which human thoughts are create and destroy. If we can find that morality was on a basis apart from the theology, we shall do as humanity a service which can be scarcely being overestimated.\" A study of the fact about nature and of the consequences of man in society seemed sufficient for such basis. The facilities did not tell about the almighty; they do provide to study phenomena and to reducing laws from correlation of the facts. For sure, then, we should do wise decisions to concentrate our strengths and our energy on the discoveries of what is attainable, instead of on the searching after the unknown. If we are told about that morality is consisting in the obeying to the supposed that will have opposed perfect moral being, because in so doing so we are pleasing God, then we are at once being placed in a regions where our facilities are useless to us, and where our judgments are at faults. But when we are told that we are leading noble life, as noble of life is the most desirable on by itself alone, because in doings we act in harmony with the laws of Nature, as in so doing we are spreading happiness around our paths and glad our people then, at last, motives are more attractive to which spring forward to meeting the calls, and chord that are struck in our hearts which responds to music to the touched.\" It was to the establishing of this basis that I will bend my 148 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
energy, this that was for me of supreme moments. \"In the free movement and social reforms, with its right fury against oppressing and its unconsidered notions of wider freedoms and gladder lives, it is of vitality that morals should stand on a foundation that is not shaking; that so through all political and religious revolutions in human life may grow pure and noble, may rising upwards into settling freedom, and not sinking downwards into anarchical nature. Only utility can afford us a sure base, the reasonable of which will be accepted alike by thinking students and artisan. Utility is appealing to all of us alike and sets in action motives which are found equal in all human hearts. Well shall it be for humanity that creeps and social stigmas passing away, that superstitions also vanish, and the clear lights of freedom and sciences dawning on a reformed earth but doing well only if men are drawn tighter and closer the links towards trustworthiness, honour, and the truths. Equal happening before the laws are necessity and must; liberty is the right of every person for free individuals developing will take up and glorifying the racists. But little was the worth of these priceless ornaments, little worth of liberty and equals with all of their promises for the mankind, little was worth even widening the happiness, if that happiness could be selfish, if it is rue fraternity, true brother a, that do not come to every individual, and heart in loyal services to the common need, and generous sacrifices to the common good.\" To the forwarding of this morals in growth of man, there are two things have seemed to be a necessity. First of all, an Ideal which should be able to stir the emotions and impel to actions, and a clear understanding of the source of evil and methods by which they might be draining. Into the drawing of the firestones, I threw all the passions of my nature, giving to paint the Ideals in colours which should true and fascinating, so that love and desire to realise might stirs mans to efforts. When morals are touched by emotions, there is a bait of religion, then truly was I the most religious of Atheist, finding in this dwell on and glorified of the Ideals full of satisfaction for the emotions. To meet the fascination that was exercising over hearts of men by the Man of Sorrow, I was raised by the images of man winning, man perfectly. The rights of the Christian laws is like a Man of Sorrows as Jesus, with worn and wasted bodies with sad, thin lips, and curved into a Committing the sins; with teary eyes looking up to heavens as despairing of earth; bowing down and the aged with grief and pain, broken-hearted with long anguished broken spirits with unresisting non using such the ideal man of the Christian community. Beautiful with a certain pathetic beauty, telling of the long tale of earth, with the suffering of humanity, but not the models type to which men should be conforming their lives, if they are making human nature glorious. And, hence, in radiating contrasts with these, stands out in the sunshine’s and under the blue summer skies, far from graveyard and tortures of death agonies, the fair ideal Humanities of the Atheists. In form of such strong and fair, perfect in physical appearance as the Hercules of Grecian, filled with love, self-reliance powers; with lips bending firm to resist oppressions, and melting into soft curve of passions and of pities; with deep, far seeing eyes, gazing fierce into the secret of the unknown, and resting along on the beauties around them; with hands as stronger to work in the present times; with heart full of hopes which the future shall be realising; making earth happy with his labour and beautiful 149 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
with his skill, this is the Ideal Man, present in the heart of atheist. The ideal human nature of the Christianity is the human nature of the slaves, poor, meek, those who are broken-spirited, humble, submissive to the authority, by being oppressive and unjustified for the ideal humanities of the Atheist is humanity of the free men who knows that no God, who has no powers, who is relying on his own strengths, who makes his brother quarrel on his, own proud, truth, loyalty and the brave nature. One-sided view! Yes. The nature provides us with outcomes like unhappiness and greed. It was the bouncing of such a natural which was set free, rejoicing in its liberties and self-conscious strengths, and it is carried with the great powers that have given rise to the sympathetic enthusiasm of people, who are deeply conscious of their own restrictions and their own longing. It was the cry to be freed by the souls that had been found giving expressions, and as many in articulating and prison souls answering to it tirelessly, with flying off with wings that are caged. . With hot insisting that I battled for the inspiration to be drawn up from the beauty and grandeurs of which human lives was capable of. \"Can anyone explain it, 'You are taking away all beauties out of human life, hopes, the warmth, an inspirations; you give us cold duties for feeling obedience, and the law in the place of God'? All the beauty is from life Is there, then, no beauty in the idea of forming part of the great lives of the world, no beauty is in the conscious harmony with Nature, no beauties is in faithful in service, no beauty in ideals of everyone virtues? Hopes! Why am I giving more hope than certainty; if I bid you the labour for this world, it is with the knowledge that the world will repay you in thousands, as society will grow pure, freedom will be more settled, law more honoured, life be fuller and happier. What is the heaven? Heavens in the clouds! I point to the heaven attained on the earth. Warm nature! What! You serve as warm as a God who is unknown as well as invisible, in a sense the projected shadow of your own imaginations, and can only be served cold to your brother swath that you see at your side? There is no warm nature and brightening a lot of the sadness, in reforming the abuses, in establishing equal justice for rich people and the poor? You find warmth in the churches, but none in the home? Warmth in imaginative of the cloud glories of heaven, but none in creating substantial glorifications on earth?' The inspirations if you want inspirations to be feelings, to sentiment, perhaps you had better keep to your Bible and your creeds; if you want inspiration to work, go and take a walk through the East of London, or the Manchester back streets. You are motivated to feel the tender natures as you look at the injuries of Jesus, dead in Judaea long time ago, and finding no inspirations in the injuries of people, dying in the England of today? You have to shed the tears for Jesus? His passion is arousing from your sympathy, but you see no ethics in the passion of the poor. Duty is getting colder than 'filial obedience'? What do you mean by obedience? Obey your soul is the greatness of love. Then how is the duty called cold? I offer you the ideals for your homage’s: here is the Truth for the Mistress, to whose exiling you shall be devoting your intellects; here is the Freedom for your Generals, for whose triumphs you shall be fighting; here is Love for your Inspired individual, who shall be influence on your thoughts; here is Man for the Master and not in the heavens, but on the earth to whose services you shall be concentrating every faculty of your being. 150 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
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