Happy Birthday Gandhi: Celebrating the International Day of Non-Violence
Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), was born 140 years ago today. Gandhi’s birthday is commemorated as a national holiday in India as Gandhi Jayanti, and is celebrated around the world as the International Day of Non-Violence. Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience to achieve equal rights for the Indian community in South Africa, and was later utilized in the fight for land rights for peasants and farmers, women’s rights, and India’s struggle for independence from the British. The use of non-violent civil disobedience has diffused across borders and has been an influential tactic in hundreds of movements worldwide, including the Black Freedom Movement in the United States. Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948, less than a year before the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. How have Gandhi’s principles of non-violence, as well as simplicity and economic self-sufficiency, influenced the ideal of human rights? Are they connected, for example, to Martin Luther King Jr.’s caution against the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism?
