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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, informally The Father of the Nation in India, undertook 18 fasts during India's freedom movement. His longest fasts lasted 21 days. Fasting was a tool used by Gandhi as part of his philosophy of Ahimsa (non-violence) as well as satyagraha. [1]
On 8 May 1933, Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a year-long campaign to help the harijan movement. [152] This campaign was not universally embraced by the Dalit community: Ambedkar and his allies felt Gandhi was being paternalistic and was undermining Dalit political rights.
Later, when the Rowlatt Act actually became law, Gandhi proposed that the entire country observe a day of prayer, fasting, and abstention from physical labor as a peaceful protest against the injustice of the oppressive law. Gandhi's plea generated an overwhelming response as millions of Indians did not go to work on 6 April 1919.
The Congress leadership was cut off from the rest of the world for over three years. Gandhi's wife Kasturba Gandhi and his personal secretary Mahadev Desai died in months and Gandhi's health was failing, despite this Gandhi went on a 21-day fast and maintained his resolve to continuous resistance. Although the British released Gandhi on account ...
Gandhi spent the day of independence not celebrating the end of the British rule, but appealing for peace among his countrymen by fasting and spinning in Calcutta on 15 August 1947. The partition had gripped the Indian subcontinent with religious violence and the streets were filled with corpses. [ 182 ]
To Gandhi, fasting was an important method of exerting mental control over base desires. In his autobiography, Gandhi analyses the need to fast to eradicate his desire for delicious, spicy food. He believed that abstention would diminish his sensual faculties, bringing the body increasingly under the mind's absolute control.
The life-size statue depicts Gandhi, known as Mahatma, meaning holy one or sage, holding a walking stick, wearing glasses, sandals, a loincloth and shawl. It weighs 5 tons, including its base.
He did not want the movement to degenerate into a contest of violence, with police and angry mobs attacking each other back and forth, victimizing civilians in between. Gandhi appealed to the Indian public for all resistance to end, went on a fast and on 12 February 1922 called off the non-cooperation movement.