(1869–1948) the ‘father’ of India, who contributed enormously to the demise of the colonial rule in India. Having studied law in London and practised it in South Africa, he turned, on his return to India in 1915, to political activity, advocating sanātana dharma both in public and in his personal life. He accepted many formal and historical features of the Hindu tradition, such as reverence for the cow and the principle of the caste system—with modifications, particularly in that he rejected the limitations imposed on the untouchables, whom he called Harijans (children of God). He fought, without lasting success, for their integration into Hindu society. He further endorsed the doctrine of divine incarnations and also counted among avatāras the great figures of other religions, e.g. Jesus, whose Sermon on the Mount he greatly admired.
He was also influenced by the ideas of a number of Western authors, e.g. Max Müller, Tolstoy, Ruskin and Thoreau, and combined them with ideas from the BhG (which, incidentally, he first read in Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation). He was against the industrialization of India, canvassing for a return to simple rural life for the masses and for the renewal of home industries. One of his most powerful weapons in the fight for India’s freedom from colonial rule was fasting when in prison which, invariably, made the British administration give in and release him for fear that he might die in prison. He used the weapon of a ‘fast unto death’ successfully also after the independence of India and its partition in order to stop Hindu pogroms taking place against Muslims in the republic, particularly in Calcutta and Delhi, in retaliation for Muslim atrocities against Hindus in Pakistan. This stance of his was resented by Hindu extremists and he was assassinated by one of them while he was on his way to his regular evening prayer meeting on 30.1.1948. India generally acknowledges her indebtedness to him, but does not follow his ideas.
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