Gandhi's aims and beliefs. Flashcards
How was the word Satyagraha formed?
Gandhi created the word by joining the Sanskrit words for truth and obstinacy.
What did he use ‘Satyagraha’ to describe?
Non-violent resistance to injustice or evil.
What did Gandhi believe about people?
In order to be fully human, each person had to reach that truth within themselves.
What did Gandhi despise? and Why?
The term ‘passive resistance’ when used to talk about his methods. He disliked it as he advocated non-violent but active non-cooperation.
What was an example of Gandhi’s active non-cooperation?
Removing kids from school.
What did Gandhi believe will make people so much more happier?
He believed that freedom and happiness for India would be accompanied by dismantling the state and return to small ,self-contained, simple communities of the past.
Why was his idea of returning to small, self-contained communities un-atainable?
As cities like Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were bustling modern cities with millions of people who could not possibly return to their rural origins.
How did Gandhi successfully inherit a ‘universal appeal’?
He increasingly adopted a peasant life, while being an Indian politician. Appealing to both worlds.
What would Gandhi do to appeal to peasants?
- He discarded western clothes and started wearing a Dhoti (Traditional clothing.)
- He began eating more frugally + Vegetarian.
What name was he given by the people of India through his contemporary values and his search for truth.
The Indian masses now began to identify, and Gandhi as a person was recognised.
He was called Mahatma.
What did ‘Mahatma’ translate to?
The great soul.
Through rejecting the lifestyle of Indians in his caste, Where did he choose to live?
He lived in an Ashram - a place of dedication and discipline
(Religious exertion.)
While living in Ashrams, what did he have to abandon? (Renounce.)
Any and all sexual relationships as he strove towards purification.
What traditional Indian belief did Gandhi believe in while isolating himself in an Ashram?
He believed that the emission of semen was a loss of strength. Therefore, not engaging in it was a sign of power.
