Key Scenes In Gandhi

There are a few key scenes in the movie “Gandhi”:

1. The scene in the train

This scene is important, as it is initiating Gandhi’s public commitment for the rights of the Indians (although it is not yet connected to a wish of an independent India, because he is still in South Africa).

2. The first public meeting

…because he is demonstrating courage; trying to achieve his goals even through physical pain.

3. The second public meeting

This scene is the first scene in which he can convince people to follow him. People accept his ideas as a basis for their struggle, which becomes focused by that.

4. The declaration of non-violence

He is taking a walk with the Christian priest and talks about his goals. It is the scene in which he says “An eye for an eye makes the world blind” the first time.

5. The tour through India

The tour through India is important, because he is trying to get a better understanding of that country, which seems “alien” to him. That proves, that his struggle for homerule is a struggle on behalf (im Interesse) of the people, not an egoistical power struggle.

6. The fast

The fast reveals Gandhi’s influence on the people, as he is able to change their minds through the danger of his death.

7. The salt march

The salt march has the strongest influence on the people and also on the British. The first time, they feel their power to be threatened.

8. The “raid” on the fabric

This is the scene, in which his followers try to get in in line, getting knocked down.

They seem to be willing to follow Gandhi even into death.

9. The argument with the future leader of Pakistan

The argument is the basis for the seperation of Pakistan and India.

10. His assassination

The assasination is the most tragic scene in the movie, because he, who is only wanting the best for all the people, is killed. The reason for the killing is the Hindu-Muslim separation (the foundation of Pakistan), which he never supported.

Questions about „Gandhi“

4. (1) What is Gandhi’s first public meeting about?
In the first meeting, he is still in South Africa. He is, with a partner, leading a demonstration and holding a speech against the duty of foreigners of carrying an ID (at least this is what I think it is). Therefore, he is burning his and the ones of the other people who organised the demo.

(2) He outlines his method of fighting the law. What is it?
It is the method of civil disobedience.

(3) What is the outcome of this meeting?
He invites the demonstrators to also burn their IDs and gets beaten up by policemen, who are monitoring (überwachen) the scene. They say that IDs are British possession and may thus not be burned. Gandhi goes on nonetheless, being beaten again for every newly burnt ID, until he passes out.

9. At the end of [the second] meeting, the audience stands. What is the meaning of this? What is the irony of the Englishmen standing?
The people stand up to demonstrate that their supporting Gandhi’s ideas. They literally “stand up for their rights” and that they “stand behind him”.
The Englishmen are only forced to stand up as the audience is beginning to chant the anthem. Being proper Englishmen, they have to stand up and put a hand on their hearts. Like that, they also seem to be supporting Gandhi, just the way the others do, but in fact, they are only under compulsion and can not act any other way. For an uninvolved member of audience, this would not become obvious, though.

14. […] Compare the dress of Gandhi to the other Indian officials. […]
In fact, the other Indian officials seem to have assimilated the British style, as they are wearing suits and seem thereby a bit stiff (which is a prejudice for English people - as a matter of fact also for Germans, but that is off-topic… ).
Gandhi however is dressed in traditional Indian clothes and has also been travelling all over the country, which he found “alien” at first.
This shows how much he feels connected to the Indian people themselves, while the other officials seem to dress so British because they are interested in becoming as powerful as those are.

19. What are Gandhi’s keys to a successful and independent India?
1. Muslim-Hindu unity
2. Annulment (Abschaffung) of untouchability
3. Civil disobedience without violence

Part 2

4. As a result of the salt march, […] Gandhi is requested to travel to England […]. What is the result of the trip?
There is none. The British wanted to speak about giving India its independence, but nothing happens in the end.

Poem

This is a poem based on the novel “Heat and Dust” by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

The New World

Not brave, but full of dirt

I dressed like them

I felt like them

Sometimes more than other men

I fell in love

But I was torn

[...]

I think of England

How long ago

[...]

I think what happend long ago

[And within me

A feeling grows

Sure of it]

We must admit

That all the things

That we do know

The heart is, where the body go’

[...]

All those pictures-

I rerfrain

Never going back again

([...] indicate that this ain’t finished ;))

Chid’s change

It seems, after all we know about Chid, that he changed because his former behaviour does not fit to his momentary situation.
As Chid always tries to do the best things for himself, he now changes. There is no more need to be a Hindu ascetic, as it brings more difficulties as advantages for him at the moment.
As he seemed to have made up a religion of himself earlier and used people’s generosity for his sake, he is now in a different situation.
When he came to India, he had tried to find spiritual revelation in some way. But as his as his guru even “[stripped] him […] of his possessions including his name” (p. 27, ll. 13-15), he started living a beggar’s life – “in practice […] he found this did not work too well” (p. 27, ll.18 f.). Also in these days, he made his days easier by writing home for money if he had to and by sleeping in cheap hotels but under trees (see p. 27).
And now, as he has become ill, he is giving up and accepts that it is only the narrator who can help him. He is English after all and thus he sees that only Western standards may save his life.
He is no more able to get an advantage of his hypocrisy – it I not enough to only impress people like he could impress e.g. Inder Lal and the town’s folk, who had accepted him after he burnt his clothes and his hair.
I think Chid saw a long time ago that India was not able to give him spiritual insights. I think that was, when he told the narrator how he lives and how this came to happen. But he could keep his head above water. He did minor things that were not really conform with his “religion” that he explained people to have, because as long as he lived like that, the Indian people would accept him sooner or later, just as they did in Satipur.
That he now does not want to see or eat anything Indian might be of the feeling of strong dislike: He reached none of the targets he wanted to reach in India. His returning illness was now the straw that broke the camel’s back: He is no longer willing to play the role that he made up for himself to survive because he realized that in it, it is no longer possible to survive.
Returning to the narrators and Inder Lals home he finally admits that he is a Western man and has to live in those standards. He can not change himself. And, summing all the theses up that I wrote into my text, he does not change at all, because even at the time he had been an ascetic, he had not been entirely different from what he is now: The only difference now is that he allows his “Western behaviour” to be visible on the surface. He plunked his role and is therefore braking every up every connection from his life to his role, beginning by no more eating Indian food and stopping at becoming silent (again?).

Leaving this senseless stuff uncommented  proves the non-reading of certain persons…

The attitude towards abortions

Maji sees abortions as self-evident, as they were sometimes the only way to “save people from dishonour and suffering“ (p.129, l. 9).

Taking a look at the Indian society, it becomes obvious that Maji is talking about forced marriages. As they are naturally often no love marriages, it is possible that married people fall in love with others, what is, in the worst case, leading to an illegitimate child.

Realizing that Maji is, as mentioned above, thinking about abortions as self-evident, this seems to be a thing happening pretty often.

If the narrator would already have known about the sex of her child, this might also have been a hint to the increased number of aborted femal foetuses in modern India due to the (even though already banned) dowries. These are often very high and thus too expensive for most of the Indian families. Also, they may increase in the time of a marriage, getting the spirit of a “supplementary compensation” (Nachzahlung).

Olivia & The Suttees

I don’t think Olivia’s attitude towards the suttees shows any disloyality at all.

Her opposition against the “typical Brithish” views is founded in her boredom and the refusal of the other British people in Satipur.

What is called “infatuation” in the quote is only what all other British people in India miss: interest. She is not discussing the things under the aspects of the culture she is used to from Britain. She is disgusted by the hypocrisy of the English people she is dining with (p. 59, ll. 24-26).

Some Stuff

(a homework should be placed here soon ;))

Just wanted to say Happy Birthday to Mr. Mü and get well soon(er or later)! 

The unkempt European

The unkempt European

 This is a short biography of Morten On-Kuollu, me, and probably the last thing you will ever hear about me.
I am 30 years old and Finnish. But unfortunately, I am not in Finland, I am in India, this godforsaken hell of a country.
It is 1970 now, not quite two years after I followed my examples, the Beatles, here. I’ve come a long way till the day I got into the plane and as I think there will not be a way back home for me, I will try to shortly summarize my story.
I was born in 1940 and thus only have diminished memories on the World War. The demolition in my home town stayed in a certain extent, so I must admit I had a pretty happy and very common childhood.
With 23, I moved to England. I studied there and became a huge fan of the Beatles, who had their first number one hit just then. I can surely say that I am their greatest fan ever. From that day on, I did everything they did. I started to dress like Ringo Starr, learned to play the drum machine beside my studies.
I was working hard, sometimes with more than just one job, working also from the evenings up to the early mornings – I remember often humming “A Hard Day’s Night” – to be able to be at all of the Beatles concerts. As this got difficult, I even stopped studying in order to work more.
And so, in 1968, when the Beatles decided to go to India right after Woodstock, it was clear that I was to go with them. In November, after I had put order into my things, I headed east – only weeks after the mythology of India had been supplemented by four more (and living!) gods.
What followed then is mostly too embarrassing to tell: I fell in love with a European girl here, one of those hippies. I spent a night with her, and when I woke up, all my cash and my traveller’s cheques were gone. I had completely run out of money.
My only thought was that my gods would help me – maybe that was a rest of the hippie-spirituality I had absorbed being together with them. So I travelled across the whole country to Rikkesh, a small town at the Himalaya, where my Beatles were (at least two of them). It took me a month to get there and when I finally crossed the city limit, I realized that they were already gone.
Since then, I have been travelling around. I can’t even talk the language here, only the most rudimentary words by now. All the Europeans I talk to do not want to help me or can not, like the hippies, because they want to go deeper into the country, not out of it.
I hope this wave is over soon and its rollback will take me back to where I started…

Quotes

Quote IV.2

“Wherever the English settle, they never leave England.”

This quote was probably given by an Indian, who suffered from the culture he was forced to live in due to the British rule. On the one hand it contains the impeachment (Anklage) that the British would never assimilate to the culture of the land they are living in for the British people themselves; on the other hand it critizises the Brith government in the colonies, where the people are forced to live in a certain culture, which is not their own.

This could take effect because of something like a British  ”Manifest Destiny” or just idleness.

Happy Easter!

As I’m going to do a journey over the holidays, I use this way to wish everyone happy Easter!