زندگی نامه بزرگان تاریخ – ماهاتما گاندی – A Mahatma Called Gandhi-2
Episode 2:
In Durban, Mohandas noticed that Indians were treated badly because
they were not white-skinned like their British rulers.
On a cold night, while traveling by train,
Mohandas was thrown out, on to the platform, with his luggage.
He was also beaten for refusing to get down from a stagecoach.
Mohandas did not sail back on the first ship to India.
He stayed for twenty years and helped Indians fight the British.
By opposing British laws, thousands of Indians,
including Mohandas, went to jail.
Finally, the British government in South Africa,
was forced to accept Indians as equal citizens.
Mohandas returned to India, eager to serve his countrymen.
For one year, he travelled around the country and
tried to understand the problems faced by people.
He then set up as ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati.
Mohandas Gandhi fought for the people without touching weapons like guns and knives.
He helped farmers and factory workers from Champaran,
Allahabad, and Kheda to fight their British masters.
People all over the country thought he was like a saint.
They started calling him- Mahatma Gandhi.
Mahatma Gandhi led the people’s protest against unfair laws imposed by the British.
Shops across the country shut down.
People stopped going to work.
Large Bonfires were made with foreign clothes.
The spinning wheel started turning in every household.
People made their own cloth. Thousands were arrested.
But not everyone could follow Gandhi’s difficult method of fighting the British.
They started using violent means of protest.
Whenever this happened, it was Gandhi who fasted for many days,
praying for his people and for peace. Even when jailed.
Gandhi used his time to pray and spin.
Gandhi worked hard to improve the life of lower caste Indians,
who used to be called “untouchable”.
He urged Hindus and Muslims to ne united.
He taught people that cleanliness and good habits were as important as prayer.
Gandhi and his followers openly defied the British law against making salt.
He walked for 241 miles along the seacoast to Dandi and
lifted a lump of salt left by the waves on the shore.
This gave thousands of Indians the courage to defy the law and get arrested.
Though shaken, the British Government would not leave India.
So Gandhi started the “Quit India”” movement.
The whole country asked the British to leave and they did.
But their policy of sowing hatred between Muslims and Hindus broke the country in two.
India became free and Pakistan was born on August 15. 1947.
The day India became free, Gandhi was not present at the celebration in Delhi.
He was in Calcutta, trying to make peace between Hindus and Muslims.
Later, in Delhi, he fasted for many days until Hindu and
Sikh leaders came to him with a written promise that they would not harm the Muslims anymore.
As Gandhi loved all Indians like his own children,
he was often called Bapuji or Father of the Nation.
He cared deeply for Hindus and Muslims alike.
Some Hindu groups did not like this. One cold January evening,
a few months after Independence, a man called Nathuram Ghodse shot and killed Gandhi.
“Hey Ram!” Mahatma Gandhi called out, as he struggled for the last few breaths.
It’s been a long while since an ordinary child called Mohandas, became Mahatma Gandhi.
Yet, even today, when good people fight wars for justice,
they remember this man, who had made such a habit of being truthful.
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