Topic: Human Values – lessons from the lives and teachings of great leaders, reformers and administrators.
8) There is a process of learning in the Gandhian act of self-suffering. Discuss.(250 words)
Directive word
Discuss- this is an all-encompassing directive which mandates us to write in detail about the key demand of the question. we also have to discuss about the related and important aspects of the question in order to bring out a complete picture of the issue in hand.
Key demand of the question
The question wants us to write in detail about the Gandhi and his acts of self- suffering and bring out how that was used by him as a tool for self learning.
Structure of the answer
Introduction– write a few introductory lines about the Gandhi and his self-suffering. E.g mention his fasts and giving up of luxuries and even clothes etc.
Body-
Discuss in points as to how those acts of self- suffering evoked self-learning. E.g
- In the Gandhian philosophy of resistance, we can find the intertwining of non-violence and exemplary suffering.
- Perhaps, self-sacrifice is the closest we come to ethical dying, in the sense that it is a principled leave-taking from life; an abandonment of one’s petty preoccupations in order to see things more clearly.
- As such, there is a process of learning in the Gandhian act of self-suffering. For Socrates, to philosophise was to learn how to die.
- In the same way, for Gandhi, the practice of non-violence began with an act of self-sacrifice and the courage of dying for truth.
- for Gandhi, there was a close link between the use of non-violence and the art of dying, in the same manner that cowardice was sharply related to the practice of violence etc.
Conclusion- based on your discussion, form a fair and a balanced conclusion on the given issue.
