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Crónica Gai1
Crónica Gai1
Crónica Gai1
FILE
2348541
TEACHER
SENA
2022
MAHATMA GANDHI (1860-1948)
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in the coastal city of Porbandar,
located in the far northwest of India, in the Gujarat region. Such a region was then a mosaic of tiny
principalities, whose rulers had absolute power over the lives of their subjects. His father,
Karamchand Gandhi, was the prime minister of Porbandar and belonged to the Banya caste,
merchants of proverbial cunning and skill in trade. His mother, called Putlibai, came from the sect of
the Pranamis, who mixed Hinduism with the teachings of the Koran.
Gandhi's mother was a deeply religious and austere woman who divided her time between the
temple and caring for her family, in addition to practicing frequent fasts. In the spiritual formation of
Mohandas, who felt boundless love for his parents, in addition to the adoration of the goddess
Vishnu that the family professed, a series of cultures and amalgamated creeds concurred: the
Hindu, the Muslim and the Jain. The latter had a special influence on his philosophy: the Jains
practiced non-violence not only with animals and human beings, but even with plants, microbes,
A typical example of belated genius, Gandhi was a quiet, withdrawn, and academically
unremarkable adolescent who passed through the schools of Rajkot inconspicuous. At the age of
thirteen, following Hindu custom, he was married to a girl his own age named Kasturbai, to whom
he had been engaged since the age of six without knowing it. The young husband fell passionately
in love with the girl, and to make love to her he left his dying father's bed the very night he died. The
event left an indelible feeling of guilt in Gandhi, who would later declare himself against child
Although he was the architect of the independence of India (1947), Mahatma Gandhi is rarely
evoked for that achievement. In the first place, because the most inspiring thing about him does not
lie so much in that end as in the means, that is, in his almost three decades of perseverance in
peaceful activism based on non-violence and the strength of convictions. And secondly, because its
goals were always much broader, encompassing the abolition of castes, social justice, the
transformation of economic structures and harmony between religions, designs that converged on
the ideal of a profound ethical renewal and spiritual of the human being.