Term Paper on "Gandhi His Life and Message for the World"

Term Paper 3 pages (1000 words) Sources: 0

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Gandhi

Fischer, Louis. Gandhi: His Life and Message for the world. 1954.

The author Louis Fischer attempts to present the life and thoughts of the great Indian nationalist, pacifist, and Indian spiritual leader in a way that is comprehensible to Westerners. Fischer was an American journalist who had met with Gandhi on several occasions before writing this text, after Gandhi's assassination. Fischer considered Gandhi one of the greatest men he had ever met. Over the course of the book, Fischer justifies his project of reconstructing the life of against charges that it was too intimate a look into the man's life and focused too much on biographical details. The author stresses that it is consistent with the way that Gandhi used his own personal spiritual quest during his lifetime as a kind of map or blueprint for his political project for the independence of India from British rule, and the freedom of all people, regardless of race, creed, or caste.

The book begins with the end of the man's life, with Gandhi's assassination. The first part of the text mainly deals with Gandhi's struggles in South Africa, the second section with Gandhi's involvement in the Indian independence movement and his conversion to nonviolent resistance, and the third section with the tumultuous pre-independence negotiations, partition and the end. Rather than constructing his subject as a private person, Fisher stresses that Gandhi believed in revealing himself and regarded secrecy as the enemy of freedom-not only the freedom of India but the freedom of humanity. Fisher deflates the common notion that Gandhi was perfect, and never struggled within himself, as he fought for freedom by using Gandhi's biography, and his engagement with the author on a personal level, as its own text. This also shows how the author acknowledges his own subjectivity, including his admiration for his subject.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is how Gandhi explains to Fisher how he came to accept his Indian nationality and spiritual faith. Originally, as a man born in the British Empire, he was enamored of British ways and customs. Gandhi's family came from the Indian Vaisyna caste of merchants (the word "Gandhi" means grocer in Sanskrit), and initially strove for social success by training as a lawyer and getting married. Gandhi's father died when he was young, and he struggled with his mother against some of her beliefs, including the vegetarianism that he was later to embrace. Gandhi did not regret these early struggles, saying he was glad he chose to accept vegetarianism, for example, in a mindful fashion, rather than to merely accept it as a custom. A willingness to challenge unsubstantiated beliefs and political ideology, such as the caste system, of both British and Indian nationals, was at the core of Gandhi's philosophy. Fischer suggests that such moral courage was how Gandhi was able to risk, and to dare so much, over the course of his lifetime.

The South African section of the text also shows that although Gandhi… READ MORE

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