Mohandas Returns to India

"It is impossible that national aspirations can be forever suppressed and equally impossible for India to remain a ‘dependency’ in an Empire to which it contributes more than half the population. Is it possible for the patriotic spirits of a people with the glorious traditions of India to be content with serfdom? No people exist that would not think itself happier under its own bad government than it might really be under the good government of an alien power." Mohandas wrote this in 1905 in Indian Opinion.
Mohandas was a very respected figure to the Indians and people began to call him Mahatma (Great Soul). Mahatma was never comfortable with all this honor. All he cared about was India and her glorious past. He care about Hinduism in its truest essence and urged the people give up their corrupt and caste-ridden way of life. Mahatma preached about equality. He once wrote, "Hinduism has sinned in giving support to Untouchability. It has degraded us and made us the outcasts of the British Empire. The crimes for which we condemn the British Government we have been guilty of ourselves towards the Untouchable brothers. It is useless to talk of Swaraj so long as we do not protect the weak and the helpless." To protect the weak and the helpless Mahatma organized strikes for the peasants against the overbearing British landlords. He had four main rules:
1) Never resort to violence.
2) Never molest non-stikers.
3) Never beg for food.
4) Never give in.
The landlords responded brutally by beating the strikers, but the peasants held still and they did not fight back. Finally, the Lieutenant-Governor investigated the problem and sided with Mahatma. The landlords were no longer allowed to exploit and terrorize the peasants and they were ordered to pay back the peasants for the taxes they took unjustly.
Mahatma also proposed a policy of swadeshi which meant ‘of the country.’ He adapted the spinning wheel and made a simple machine that could be reproduced by a peasant in order to make his own cloth. This movement was soon taken up by thousands of peasants and the cotton cloth that was made was called khadi. The wheel that symbolized Law for Buddha was used to symbolize India’s independence from commercial power. This wheel is now part of the Indian flag and it is called the chakra.
Mahatma also began promoting village education. He started this by opening six primary schools in the Champran district. The teachers were paid in accommodation and food. Since the villages were dirty and infested with diseases, he told the teachers to teach the villagers less about grammar and more about hygiene. These were the reforms that Mahatma made upon his arrival in India.