Ghandis Ethics Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Ghandis Ethics - Research Paper Example He then went to South Africa to help with a court case. In South Africa, Gandhi became part of campaigns to end injustices against his countrymen and women in the region, who were discriminated against both by the colonial masters and by the Boers, the first Dutch inhabitants of the southern African region. Although his stay in South Africa was expected to last for a year, he eventually remained in the country until 1914 with his family. Gandhi is credited with the founding of the Natal Indian Congress, an organization which laboured to improve the welfare of Indians. He led an Indian medical force that fought alongside the British troops in the Boer War (1899-1901), which resulted in the British control over the remaining autonomous Boer regions (Dutta, 2010). After the conflict, his image as a trusted leader grew. Gandhi became insistent on his individual values and ethics, observing sexual abstinence, rejecting modern equipment, and expanding a "soul- force† or Satyagraha (S udhir, 2012). The main idea was peaceful resistance, usually referred to as â€Å"civil-disobedience† that he led his followers to embark on to the force the white minority rule in South Africa into submission. The group’s readiness to withstand punishment and incarceration earned him great admiration from oppressed groups in South Africa and in his native country India. His efforts eventually earned his people freedom from the rulers. By the time Gandhi departed from South Africa in 1914 for India, he had cut a niche for himself as a â€Å"saint†: people referred to him as a "Mahatma" meaning "great soul" (Dutta, 2010). Dutta (2010) has noted that at this juncture, Gandhi’s support for the British Empire was still intact, but when the white regime trampled on Indian civil freedoms in the aftermath of World War I, Gandhi embarked on nonviolent protests to reclaim it. The Amritsar Massacre, in which colonial forces killed peaceful Indian masses protesting against unfair rule, sent a chilling message to Gandhi and his native Indians on the urgency to pursue independence, and in the beginning of 1920s he organized extensive crusades of civil disobedience that brought government business in the expansive Indian region to a stand-still. The administration responded by jailing him for two years until 1924 (Dutta, 2010; Sudhir, 2012). After his freedom, Gandhi abandoned political struggle for some time and instead preferred to visit different parts of the country, interacting with peasants. Six years later, Gandhi voiced the strongest quest yet, for the country’s independence through his â€Å"Declaration of Independence of India.† He then followed it with the Salt March in mass protests against the Empire’s control of salt. The Gandhi’s move sparked-off cases of civil insubordination across India, prompting the colonial masters to convene a Round-Table meeting with Gandhi in London to discuss the issues. Althou gh Gandhi was treated to a warm reception in London, the main agenda of the Conference was unfavourable to him; discussions about how India would handle its Muslim minority groups made Gandhi to adopt a low-profile on public policy debates for the second time (Dutta, 2010). Sudhir (2012) has noted that Gandhi’s efforts were attributed to the subsequent major step toward India’