How did Mahatma Gandhi seek to identify with the common people?

Mahatma Gandhi believed in simple living and high thinking. He did the following to identify himself with the common people of India:

(i) He did not behave like a professional or an intellectual. Rather he mixed with thousands of peasants, workers and artisans.

(ii) He dressed himself like the common men. He also lived like them and spoke their language. He wore simple dhoti or loin-cloth. He did not like to stand apart from the common people. He liked to mix with them, sit and talk with them.

(iii) He worked on the Charkha (spinning wheel) everyday. He also encouraged other nationalists to do the same. In fact he favoured synthesis between mental and manual labour.

(iv) He did not believe in the traditional caste system.

(v) He often spoke in the mother-tongue. 

(a) The peasants venerated Gandhiji referring to him as their “Mahatma”. They believed that he had miraculous powers.

(b) Stories abounded that those who opposed him suffered dire consequences. Rumours spread off how villagers who criticised Gandhiji found their houses falling apart and their crops failing.

(c) In some places peasants believed he had been sent by the king to redress the grievances of the farmers and has the power to overrule the local officials.

(d) In other places peasants believed that Gandhi’s power was superior to that of the English monarch and that with his arrival the British rulers would flee the district.

(e) Thus the popular perception of Gandhi was that of a saviour who would rescue them from high taxes, oppressive officials and restore dignity to and autonomy to their lives.

Gandhiji used to work on the charkha every day. He made it a symbol of nationalism because of the following reasons:

(i) Charkha symbolised manual labour. Mahatma Gandhi always believed in the dignity of labour. He liked to work with his own hands. However he considered charkha as an exquisite piece of machinery.

(ii) Gandhiji opposed machines as they enslaved human-beings. He adopted charkha as he wanted to glorify the dignity of manual labour and not of the machines and technology.

(iii) Gandhiji believed that charkha could make a man self-reliant as it added to his income.

(iv) The act of spinning at charkha (spinning wheel) enabled Gandhiji to break the boundaries of traditional caste system.

In fact Gandhiji wanted to make charkha as a symbol of nationalism. So he encouraged other nationalist leaders to spin at charkha for some time daily.

Contemporary newspapers are an important source for the study of national movement. If we want to know more about our freedom struggle, we must consult both English newspapers as well as newspapers in different Indian languages.

(i) The contemporary newspapers wrote about all the movements launched by Mahatma Gandhi.

(ii) They reported all the important activites, speeches and statements of Mahatma Gandhi.

(iii) They also presented views about what ordinary Indians thought of him.

However the newspapers must be read with care as the views expressed in them can be prejudiced.

(a) The salt laws gave the state a monopoly on the manufacture and sale of salt. This was thus one of the most disliked laws in British India.

(b) Salt was indispensable in any Indian household yet people could not make salt even for domestic use and had to by it from shops at a higher price.

(c) The salt laws deprived the people of the benefits of valuable village industry. Moreover to prevent people from having access to natural salt, tons of salt were destroyed.

(d) Destroying the extra natural salt involved national expenditure and the salt tax itself was a heavy burden on the people.

(e) Thus the salt laws were deeply unpopular and making these laws his target, Gandhi sought to mobilise a wider discontent against British rule.