Mahatma Gandhi, born on October 2nd, 1869, is best known in India as a freedom fighter but the world knows him as a social reformer and politician who defeated the British Empire. For some – he was a spiritual guide, for others – he was a political mentor. However, there was another part of his life that is less known; the life of Mahatma Gandhi, a journalist. In South Africa, he became the South African correspondent for The Voice of India, a newspaper founded by Dadabhai Naoroji.
Mahatma Gandhi was a war correspondent during the second Boer war, which lasted from 1899 to 1902. In South Africa, he witnessed racial injustice, war, and violence. Those experiences shaped his perspective on journalism. At that time there were no TV or blogs and newspapers were synonymous with journalism. Gandhi said, ‘One of the objectives of a newspaper is to understand the popular feeling and give expression to it. Another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments and the third is to express fearlessly – popular defects’.You could slip those words into any modern-day editorial with no problem.
In 1903, Mahatma Gandhi started publishing his own newspaper, The Indian Opinion, and his mission was simple: Not to make money or gain fame, but to bring about change. Gandhi explained his decision to become a journalist many years later, in 1925. He said, ‘I have taken up journalism because it is an aid to what I believe to be my mission in life’. Mahatma Gandhi once said that journalism should be about service, like teaching by example and presenting under severe restraint the use of Satyagraha.
Mahatma Gandhi’s words and beliefs are nearly a century old, but thanks to his rare gift of foresight, they remain relevant today. He never published advertisements or sensationalized news because he believed in fair and honest reporting and hated advertisements. He saw newspapers not as a source of income but as a way to educate people. Nowadays, it is standard practice for newspapers to rely heavily on advertising revenue rather than subscription revenue. The result has been deplorable since the very newspaper which warns against the evil of drinking publishes advertisements praising beverages. The same paper also informs us where to buy tobacco.
Gandhi once wrote something in Young India that has remained the quintessential advice for a journalist until today. ‘To be true to my faith, I may not write in anger or malice. I may not write randomly. I may not write merely to excite passion. The reader has no idea of the restraint I have to exercise from week to week in the choice of topics and my vocabulary. It is training for me’. It is hard to disagree with the logic. His viewpoints and convictions were ironclad, however, he was never dismissive. He gave diplomacy and negotiations a fair shake no matter who he dealt with – Winston Churchill or Adolf Hitler. Gandhi actually wrote an open letter to Hitler that was never published.
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Hitler’s policies were criticized, yet he kept the door open to reform; ‘your writings and pronouncements leave no doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unworthy of human dignity. Such as your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, rape of Poland, and swallowing of Denmark. His advice to Hitler was clear, ‘It is marvelous to me that you cannot see that war is everyone’s business. If not the British, some other power will improve your method and beat you. Therefore, I appeal to you in the name of humanity to stop the war’. Time proved him right; Hitler lost the war and his life.
In today’s world, when expansionism is on the rise again, with talks of cold war and arms race, with diplomacy becoming the tool of last resort, world leaders could do well to remember the Mahatma’s words. Every October 2nd, when we remember Gandhi the freedom fighter as well as Gandhi the social reformer, let us not forget to celebrate his principles, his restraint and his patience, which may hold the key to our geopolitical troubles.
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