It features an influential Indian leader who fought for independence in a non-violent way. Hi was the prime mover of truth and non-violence principles. He is a symbol of peace and unity in India.
3. The chapter is organized into the
following major sections:
The Historical Context of Gandhi’s life
Mohandas Gandhi: Father of Indian
Independence
Gandhi’s Social and Educational Philosophy
Gandhi’s Plan for Basic education
Conclusion: An Assessment
4. The Historical Context of Gandhi’s life
British Imperialism
India was divided into British India, which was directly ruled by Great
Britain
A colonial position such as India was the source of raw materials to be
manufactured into finished products and then become the a market for
the imperial nation’s manufactured products.
The imperial relationship worked to the diplomatic, political and
economic benefit of Great Britain and to the disadvantage of the
subject colony.
Gandhi argued that British economic policy had exploited the Indian
people.
5. The Historical Context of Gandhi’s Life
Colonial Education Patterns
The Educational policy practiced by the imperial nation related directly to its rule over and governance of
the subject colony.
The British brought civil servants and educators from Great Britain to staff the upper position in the
colonial government.
To consolidate their control in the colony, the officials of the European nation typically trained a small
portion of the indigenous population for the subordinate civil service and administrative post under their
supervision.
The decision to imposed the English language and Western attitudes on educated elite in India had serious
educational consequences:
A. The education of the vast majority on the population was neglected.
B. The educated elite of English-speaking Indians tended to be separated from the main problems of Indian
life.
6. The Historical Context of Gandhi’s Life
The Caste System – was another factor that complicated educational policy in India.
7. The Historical Context of Gandhi’s Life
Language and Ethnic Diversity
India was a mosaic of races, languages, and ethnic groups.
At the time of independence, bloody religious and
communal rioting and disorders occurred that prompted
Gandhi to go on hunger strike until the religious factions laid
down their arms.
Another problem is divisiveness over language.
8. The Historical Context of Gandhi’s Life
Hinduism-the dominant religion.
According to the Hindu belief in reincarnation, a person undergoes
a series of births, death and rebirths until karma, the force
determined by a person’s action and their ethical consequences, is
freed from the appetites and desires of earthly existence.
Gandhi was willing to discipline himself, to overcome the desires
that might divert him from his goal, and to work patiently for his
cause.
Gandhi was a proponent and discipline of nonviolence.
9. MOHANDAS GHANDI: FATHER OF INDIAN
INDEPENDENCE
EARLY EDUCATION
Gandhi begin his primary education in Porbandar at the local school
where he learned Gujarati, the regional language.
Gandhi’s marriage was arranged by his and his fiancee’s parents.
In 1887 Gandhi enrolled in Sarmaldas College in Bhavnager but left
after a semester to go to England in 1888 to study law.
10. MOHANDAS GANDhI: FATHER OF INDIAN
INDEPENDENCE
The Origins of Passive Resistance in South Africa
Gandhi discovered that the white controlled South African government had
enacted restrictive policies against Indian population that severely limited their
personal freedom and economic opportunities.
Gandhi organized and led the Indian Congress, which sought to remove the
discriminatory laws against Indian population.
He developed his nonviolent passive resistance in South Africa
Gandhi formulated a plan of action for his movement to alleviate the condition
of the oppressed South African Indians.
11. MOHANDAS GANDhI: FATHER OF INDIAN
INDEPENDENCE
Constructing His Educational Philosophy
Gandhi hoped to demonstrate that a communal mutuality of interest would be
stronger than the force that traditionally had divided Indians.
He wrote” Tolstoy Farm was a family in which I occupied the place of the father, and
that I should so far as possible shoulder the responsibility for the training of the
young.”
Gandhi based his conduct of the school on his philosophy of a well-rounded
intellectual, moral and physical development of the whole person.
Gandhi believed that moral development needed a spiritual foundation.
The skill and subject-oriented phase of education took place with the general moral
climate of the school.
12. MOHANDAS GANDHI: FATHER OF INDIAN
INDEPENDENCE
Satyagraha and Nonviolence
Between 1905 and 1910, Gandhi organized the South African Indian community into a
movement to repeal the government discriminatory laws.
Satyagraha, an all-encompassing Hindi word that means awareness of the soul force or
truth, that is in each person. People use nonviolent civil disobedient, passive resistance and
non-cooperation to oppose unjust laws.
Educational implications in using satyagraha:
1. All people, universally, possess the interior moral force to resist social injustice, but needs
to be raised to consciousness
2. People using “soul power” as a moral force need to be trained to control their emotions
so that they do not meet violence with more violence.
3. Education that brings soul power to consciousness and trains people to use it
nonviolently prepares them to participate in the movement for social justice.
13. MOHANDAS GANDhI: FATHER OF INDIAN
INDEPENDENCE
Gandhi’s Strategy to Achieve India’s Independence
1915-1920, Gandhi helped organize local satyagraha campaign against specific injustice.
For the next 20 yrs., Gandhi was the leading voice calling for an independent India. He device a
multifaceted strategy against British rule. He needed to unite the ethnic, language and religious
groups that divided India into contentious factions.
Gandhi needed to enlist those who would become the leaders of an independent India to follow his
policies of nonviolence and revitalization of village life.
Gandhi campaign to persuade the British to voluntarily leave the subcontinent by calling for an all-
India satyagraha, a campaign of massive civil disobedient accompanied by cessation of work and
transportation.
January 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by Vinayak Godse, a fanatical Hindu nationalist.
14. GANDHI’S SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
PHILOSOPHY
Spirituality in Education
The spiritual perspective , also found in philosophical idealism, stresses the importance of the
inner self, the spiritual essence or force, at the heart of human nature. In this view, the universe
is the creation and the manifestation of God, a supreme spiritual presence.
In Hindu cosmology, the purpose of human existence is to be reabsorbed into God and to end
the tribulations of life. The Hindu view was rather that of becoming part of God and being
absorbed within the divinity itself.
The Hindu concept of reincarnation- successive births and deaths in either higher or lower
orders depending on one’s spiritual performance in the previous existence- emphasizes the
sacredness of all life.
15. GANDHI’S SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
PHILOSOPHY
Personal Integration in Community
According to Gandhi, the education that brought this
development about involved the harmonious cultivation of
the heart, or will; the mind, or intellect ; and the body. For
him man is either mere intellect, nor the gross animal body,
nor the heart or the soul alone. A proper and harmonious
combination of all the three is required for the making of
the whole man.
16. GANDHI’S SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
PHILOSOPHY
Service Education
Gandhi a spiritual and moral leader, become involved in politics and education to remedy the
immoral conditions that violated the spiritual dignity of a person. His philosophy stressing
personal development through social service, rested on a uniquely spiritual based.
Gandhi stated that all social, political, and religious activities need to be guided by the ultimate
aim of the vision of God.
Gandhi emphasis on community service anticipated the contemporary trend in America
education for the inclusion of service-oriented education enables students to be involved and
engage in constructive projects in their local community.
17. GANDHI’S SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
PHILOSOPHY
Postcolonialism
Gandhi constructed for an independent India anticipated
contemporary postcolonial theory. He constructed a theory of
education for freedom that in instructive for American educators
who seek to balance the cultivation of a common national identity in
their students with respect for multicultural diversity.
Gandhi developed an economic theory that he hoped would
revitalize the Indian economy.
18. GANDHI’S PLAN FOR BASIC EDUCATION
Need for Postcolonial Education
Gandhi was depressed and challenged by the ignorance, illiteracy,
and poverty that he found in India’s villages. He recognized that the
British improved colonial system of education, separated from the
day-to-day life of the common people, had created a cultural chasm
between the educated elite and the undereducated, often illiterate
masses.
In his educational philosophy, Gandhi defined education as the all-
round drawing out of the best in a child and man-body, mind and
spirit.
19. GANDHI’S PLAN FOR BASIC EDUCATION
Craft-Centered Education
Gandhi’s plan of basic education made primary schooling compulsory for all children
between the ages of 7 and 14.
The craft used in the particular school was to be one of the major occupation found in India.
Instruction in other skills and subjects was to be correlated with the particular craft. Gandhi
believed that the items the children made could be sold to make the school self-supporting.
In 1937, an all-India conference of education met at Wardha to consider Gandhi’s
educational proposals.
1. Free and compulsory education should be provided for seven years throughout India
2. The language of instruction at the primary level should be the child’s mother tongue, the
vernacular spoken in his or her home.
3. The entire educational process should be craft centered and instruction should be
integrally related to the central craft taught in the school.
20. CONCLUSION
Gandhi was a moral force, a spiritual leader rather than a political figure.
In his historical period , Gandhi stands out as a leader against imperialism.
Gandhi’s plan for the reconstruction of India with its basic education component was a theory
od national development.
In India of My Dreams, Gandhi describes national development that would begin at the
grassroots level.
Finally, as an educational theorist, Gandhi is significant for the relationship that he made
between education and social change. His theory of education that would develop the well-
rounded person intellectually, morally and physically was similar to Pestalozzi’s method of
education that emphasized training the senses through object lessons in homelike educational
environment.
