"This site is for those who are interested to know about the values and principles preached and practised by 'The Father Of The Nation', Gandhiji. I have made a small effort to present before you the central principles of his faith and conduct through abstracts from The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, a book by R.K.Prabhu and U.R.Rao.
"The Filhos de Ghandy (Sons of Ghandi) were founded on February 18, 1949 by a group of dockworkers in a poor neighborhood (in the city of Salvador in the Brazilian state of Bahia) . ... The immediate inspiration for the founding of the group came from a discussion they had lamenting the situation that the country was in, as well as seeking a way to lessen the repression of Afro-Bahians during Carnaval. One of the men, Durval Marques da Silva, "Vavá Madeira", had recently seen a film on the life and death of Mahatma Ghandi, and proposed that they name themselves after his legacy, having been recently felled by an assassin's bullet in India. They also wanted a symbol that would counter the prejudiced view of the city's elite that blacks could only be violent. Some city officials worried that their anti-colonial name would be viewed as a threat to the British Empire (and therefore a threat to all the English ships that docked at their ports) and pressured them to drop it. However, the name stuck. ...
I also had the pleasure of meeting Senhor Raimundo, the group's "Ghandi". Raimundo, quite literally, looks and attempts to live as Mohandas Ghandi did. It is an amazing spectacle to witness "Ghandi" atop their truck parading through the streets during Carnaval. ...
During Carnaval, I also observed the influence that Ghandy wields in Bahia. I was in between the Pelourinho and Campo Grande on Avenida 7 de Setembro when I saw a huge fight break out during the parade. The circle widened as the people started brawling, when suddenly in stepped a filho de Ghandy. He broke up the combatants, kept them apart, said something, and then quietly left. The fight ended there."
"Gandhi's opinions were by no means uniquely Indian. They were in fact a complex blend of Hindu, but also European, philosophies and ideals. Though his roots were Hindu, there was a little of the European anarchist in Gandhi, and quite a lot of the English Victorian social reformer."
BBC rocks!
"Gandhiji set for himself two objectives. A short-term objective of political independence following the path of ahimsa and satyagraha; and a long-term objective of economic independence for India's teeming millions based on social economic, environmental, cultural and ethical considerations. The former was achieved in his life time, the latter is still a dream even after forty eight years of independence.
Gandhiji's environmentalism was based on ethical principles of nonviolence (ahimsa); truth (satya) and sticking to truth (satyagraha); shunning the use of materials obtained by illegitimate means (asteya); celibacy as population control (brahmacharya); non-coveting and amassing materials and wealth beyond one's need (aparigraha); sanitation of body, mind and surroundings (saucha); contentment (santosh); austerity (tapas); introspection (swadhyaya); and meditation for any dereliction of duty towards nature including human being (ishwar pranidhan). In this process. he controlled himself by himself, because, being a yogi, he had complete control over his body and mind. He did not preach anything that he did not practice. Other principles followed by him were: emancipation and empowerment of women and the weaker sections of the society, self-reliance (swadeshi) and self-governance (swaraja), welfare of the weakest (antodaya) and welfare of all (sarvodaya).
Today the challenge before India is to make a creative synthesis between Gandhian model of rural development and Nehruvian model of industrial development. The former is Economy of Permanence and is based on renewables of the damage close to the environment. While the latter is based on non-renewables and causes much environmental pollution and depollution is costly. Furthermore, rich have become richer, and the poor poorer."
"I am being led to my religion through Truth and Non-violence, i.e. love in the broadest sense. I often describe my religion as Religion of Truth. Of late, instead of saying God is Truth I have been saying Truth is God, in order more fully to define my Religion. I used, at one time, to know by heart the thousand names of God which a booklet in Hinduism gives in verse form and which perhaps tens of thousands recite every morning. But nowadays nothing so completely describes my God as Truth. Denial of God we have known. Denial of Truth we have not known. The most ignorant among mankind have some truth in them. We are all sparks of Truth. The sum total of these sparks is indescribable, as-yet-Unknown-Truth, which is God. "
Gandhiji was asked by editor S. Radhakrishnan
to answer a few questions on his religious beliefs for
Contemporary Indian Philosophy
,
Second Edition copyright 1952,
Muirhead Library of Philosophy
page 21