Table of Contents
Context: Recently, India observed Martyrs’ Day or Shaheed Diwas on January 30, to pay tribute to all the freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for the country.
- The day is marked as the death anniversary of the nation’s ‘Bapu’, Mahatma Gandhi.
- On January 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse shot Gandhiji at Birla House after evening prayer.
- 2023 marked 75 years since Mahatma Gandhi fell to an assassin’s
Lessons from Gandhiji Life
- Mahatma Gandhi always followed the path of truth and non-violence.
- Ahimsa Parmo Dharma: He adopted truth and non-violence to free the country from the slavery of the British and won.
- According to him, people of India could not be truly free without social emancipation, economic empowerment
- He stressed on shared sense of solidarity and empathy transcending multiple identities of language, religion and cultural traditions.
- Gandhiji gets the credit for transforming an idea of Indian independence among a small educated and English-speaking elite into a mass and people-centred movement.
- He gave the struggle for freedom a vernacular dimension, rooted in India’s own civilisational heritage.
- He suggested that, after India gained independence in 1947, the Congress must disbanded itself as a political party and remained a mass movement dedicated to the social and economic transformation of the people of India.
Conclusion
- As we celebrate Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, we need to ingrain Gandhian values of non-violence, inclusiveness and communal harmony, which enabled India to establish a unique democracy achieving momentous economic and social transformation through the ballot box rather than through the barrel of the gun.
Famous Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi
- Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
- Be the change that you want to see in the world.
- The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.
- Man lives freely only by his readiness to die.
- Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
- An ounce of patience is worth more than a tonne of preaching.
- “The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.”
- “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”