Potato sack being carried to the prayer in Sewagram Ashram!

As a child in Sewagram ashram, I have vivid memories of being carried on my father’s shoulders, for the Morning Prayer at 4:00 am from our house to the Prarthana bhoomi; situated in front of the Bapu kuti. Father used to sing in his booming voice on the way to the  morning and evening prayers, walking briskly, carrying his sack of potato sometimes or a sack of jiggery some other time. I would sing all religious prayers along with elders  and learnt them by heart, reciting Sanskrit shlokas effortlessly. The serene ambiance, the rustling leaves and Bapu’s eternal presence used to be mesmerizing and the morning and evening prayers used to end with Ramdhun. I continue to do so even today, in the morning and evening, and it immediately connects me back to the Prarthana boomi, as if mystically, and I find myself transported back in time, my heart filled with peace.      

In the Prarthana bhoomi in Sewagram Ashram during my recent visit

For Gandhiji, education, life and spirituality were interconnected domains. Education is the process where the teacher and the taught learn from each other and together.  Life too needs to be nourished and cared for. Spirituality is not about seeking personal salvation through meditation. Spirituality is being one with the people and moving forward with them. Gandhiji’s ashrams were such places, where Gandhi and the ashramites nourished each other. Perhaps the most important community activity in the ashrams were the prayer meetings, held every morning and evening. The practice of congregational meetings began in Phoenix settlement in South Africa. Earlier settlers met for the evening meeting which was concluded with the singing of bhajans. The practice was gradually transformed to prayers.
Kaka Saheb Kalelkar selected the verses for the morning and evening prayers at the Sabarmati Ashram. Later, on Gandhiji’s request, famous music teacher and exponent Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar sent his disciple Narayan Moreshwar Khare to the ashram. This worshiper of the divine sound, naadabrahman brought classical singing of the bhajans to the Sabarmati ashram. The time of the morning prayer was  fixed between 4:10 am or 4:20 am, depending up on the season. The ashrmaites were required to wake up at 4 am; this practice continues in Sewagram Ashram even today. Peasants and cowherds of India wake up early. Gandhiji believed that a seeker of truth or a servant of the poor should wake up before the peasants. It was decided that the prayers should be offered under the open sky. The community prayers were offered in the lap of nature - on the banks of Sabarmati , under the Neem tree or in the prarthana bhoomi under the Peepul tree in Sewagram. Here there were no idols or images. But the individuals were not prohibited from worshiping images or idols for their personal prayers.

Gandhiji during the Prarthana in Sewagram Ashram

Narayan Desai, who spent twenty one years with Gandhiji, says in his book My life is My Message that he has not known Gandhiji missing the morning or evening prayer ever. The verses dealing with the qualities of a detached, selfless person, given in the second discourse of the Gita forms the main part of the evening prayers. Gandhiji considered these as the essential qualities of a satyagrahi. Later bhajans and dhuns were added to the prayer. Some years later Buddhist, Islamic and Christian prayers were incorporated in the evening prayers making them representatives of all religions. Gandhiji used to say that ultimately all the religions point to the same truth. Therefore, me must all study the essence of all the religions in an attitude of humble reverence and have  a feeling of friendliness towards the practitioners of all the different religions.
Prayer is often understood as an act of seeking. Gandhiji considered that communion with God, worship, company of men of religion, being in touch with the self and the purification of the self were true forms of prayer. Communion with nature and the Creator were the objects of prayer for him.
He said “I have never lost my peace. That peace, I tell you, comes from prayer. I am not a man of learning, but I humbly claim to be a man of prayer.’’

 

Dandi March: 12th March- 6th April, 1930

This day, 84 years ago began the Dandi March. This is the story of its evolution, based on the writing of Narayan Desai, from the book My Life is my Message.

He had decided that there should be more experiments in non-violence as the country witnessed sporadic incidences of violence between 1927-1930. Mahatma Gandhi believed that if one could lengthen the line of non-violence, then the line of violence would automatically become shorter even without being actively erased.

Once he was given the leadership of the Congress at Lahore, the country was excited for the Civil Disobedience movement. Assembled journalists were eager to know what strategy he would be adopting next. Gandhi told them that as soon as God helped him comprehend, he would make the announcement. They accused him of being a wily person, who wanted to spring a surprise on the government.  Gandhi said, ‘I know no trick other than truth”. He told this even to Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, who had also asked him the manner in which he was going to do that.  

He then wrote a letter to Lord Irwin, the Viceroy with 11 points to take some action to convince them if their intention was to give India the dominion status. He said only if they take some of these steps, it will convince them that they were really inclined to give India their independence. The fourth point was about salt. He received no response and was told that the Viceroy did not want to meet Gandhi to which he said that when I asked for rotis, they gave me stones in return.  And thus he announced that he would be breaking the salt-tax law (It was a tax on the food that people ate, on the agriculture that they did, the cattle they owned, and most cruelly it was a tax on the poorest of the poor. The production cost of twenty kilos of salt was about 10 pie, while the tax on it was 20 annas, that is 2400%. Then there was the Salt Act which gave wide ranging powers of seizure, detention, search and arrest to the salt revenue officer. By taking it on, Gandhiji had made injustice to the poor central to the struggle for freedom)  by going on a 24 day 240 mile (390 km) march  to the sea shore in Dandi, a small village on the coast of Saurashtra.   

On the night between 11^th and 12^th March, the whole of the Sabarmati Ashram was awake as they were sure Gandhi would be arrested before the march began; the only person sleeping was Mohandas Gandhi. Why worry about what is going to happen the next day? Let me sleep now, he said and so he slept.

At 6 am on the 12^th, Kasturba applied tilak to three generations together and bade farewell to her husband Mohandas Gandhi, her son, Manilal Gandhi and her grandson, Kantilal Harilal Gandhi, then to the other 76 marchers. Then the march began with  'Vaishnava jan to’ and the Ramdhun, ‘raghupati raghava rajaram’! The march was a way of awakening the people. Pilgrims were not new for the people of India. For thousands of years the country had seen her great men go on pilgrims. 

Gandhi and his band of marchers reached the shores of Dandi at 7:30 pm on April 5^th and on the morning of April 6^th as he bent down to lift a fistful of sand he broke the salt-tax law. Haridas Majumdar, his young associate from his days in South Africa, wanted a message for a friend in New York. Gandhiji wrote his now world famous message: ‘I want world sympathy in this battle of Right against Might.’