Analyzing The Character
Through
out the long story of Gandhi's life, we tried to deduce Gandhi's characters and
suppose how his personality was like. We are mentioning the characters and the
reason we called Gandhi so.
Mahatma
was very honest; even when he was only a child he did not lie to the head of his school
and did not give him a more convincing excuse for not attending the school games. He always felt terribly guilty for his mistakes. Even as a
young man when he once stole a piece of gold from his brother at the age of
fifteen, the deed lay so heavy on his mind that he decided to admit it. He wrote
the story of what he had done and gave it to his father. He did not only confess
his guilt but asked "adequate" punishment for it. His father read the
letter and tears -which Gandhi said 'cleansed his heart and washed his sin
away'- trickled down his face. In his autobiography Gandhi wrote about that day,
" This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father.
I had thought that he would be angry, say harsh words and strike his forehead.
But he was so wonderfully peaceful, and this was due to my clean confession. A
clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when
offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of
repentance. I know that my confession made my father feel absolutely safe about
me, and increased his affection for me beyond measure."
Such
an incident also shows another side of Gandhi's character. He was courageous
enough to confess his guilt, as he was courageous enough to refuse to take off
his turban when the judge of the court in South Africa ordered him to do so. He
was courageous enough to refuse to move from his first class seat. He wanted to
know the conditions of poor peasantry. He went to them and the people crowded
around him by hundreds. The police ordered him to leave but he refused and when
he was taken to court he explained why he disobeyed the police then courageously
and very wisely asked the judge to punish him. The court did
not know what to do with him so they released
him.
In this little body, Gandhi owned incredible strength and patience. When the Untouchables joined his Ashram and the others antagonized them, Gandhi did not yield but did even a more unexpected reaction by moving a whole group to an area where Untouchables lived. Gandhi was patient enough to wait for help until it came with the help of the Moslem merchant. No question he was really patient and sacrificing to bear all the suffering and imprisonments he had gone through.
His sacrificing
character is also seen in South Africa when he gave up a financially good
position to join with the poor Indians he was working for.
Last
but not least, Gandhi's peacefully inclined character is not just obvious from
his non-violent policy
of non co-operation with the British or refusing to obey unjust laws however
calmly accepting any given punishment, but it can be traced sometime before when
he was a young lawyer in South Africa. He worked hard to solve the problems
between his employer Abdullah Sheth and the opposing merchant outside the court,
and after hard work he was finally able to do so in a friendly way.
No doubt the Mahatma (Great Soul) wouldn't have been called so without such fine and even better characters. We can never finish writing about him but this page has to find an end.
