Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahatma—applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa,—is now used worldwide. He is also called Bapuin India. In common parlance in India he is often called Gandhiji. He is unofficially called the Father of the Nation...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth2 October 1869
CityPortbandar, India
CountryIndia
Fight if you must on the path of righteousness and God will be with you.
Can a general fight on the strength of soldiers, who, he knows, have no faith in him?
I may fight the British ruler, but I do not hate the English or their language. In fact, I appreciate their literary treasures.
I must fight unto the death the unholy attempt to impose British methods and British institutions on India.
My motto is "Unite now, today if you can; fight if you must. But in every case avoid British intervention."
A soldier fights with an irresistible strength when he has blown up his bridges and burnt his boats. Even so, it is with a soldier of ahimsa.
I am not fighting machinery as such, but the madness of thinking that machinery saves labor. Men save labor until thousands of them are without work and die of hunger on the streets. I want to secure employment and livelihood not only to part of the human race, but for all. I will not have the enrichment of a few at the expense of the community. At present the machine is helping a small minority to live on the exploitation of the masses. The motive force of this minority is not humanity or love of their kind, but greed and avarice.
Non-violence does not signify that man must not fight against the enemy, and by enemy is meant the evil which men do, not the human beings themselves.
I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too exhausted to fight, but because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption.
Had we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British.
Anything which is a hindrance to the fight of the soul is a delusion and a snare, even like the body which often does hinder you in the path of salvation.
The one condition for fighting for peace and liberty is to acquire self-restraint.
Far better than emasculation would be the bravery of those who use physical force. Far better than cowardice would be meeting one's death fighting.
Could there be a greater proof of our cowardice than fighting amongst ourselves?