Gandhi - movie analysis PDF

Preview

Summary

graded 95...

Description

MGT357, Movie Analysis: Gandhi Leslie-Ann Armand

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................................................1 Gandhi’s background and life ................................................................................................................................................................. 1 Gandhi, the movie ................................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Content..........................................................................................................................................................................................................1 Gandhi’s leadership ......................................................................................................................................................................................2 Leader characteristics & traits: the perfect figurehead of the revolution............................................................................................ 2 The empowerment of a new society: which characteristics did Gandhi use to build a strong community of followers? ................ 2 The Satyagraha, or what drove Gandhi and his followers..................................................................................................................... 4 Leadership style ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Failures ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................5 Discussion ......................................................................................................................................................................................................5 Controversies ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 After Gandhi ..................................................................................................................................................................................................5

Introduction Gandhi’s background and life Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in India, which was a British territory at the time, and he became an attorney in Great Britain. Traveling to South Africa, he realized how people like him, Indian people, were treated and he became an activist fighting against the British government for equality and fairness. He earned the title of Mahatma, “great soul”, regarding his vision, accomplishments and the fact that he was preaching about respect and non-violence. After a life dedicated to fairness and equality, Gandhi was killed in 1948.

Gandhi, the movie The movie we watched was released in 1982, and recounts the main events which marked Gandhi’s life, starring, among others, Ben Kinsley, who won the Oscar of Best Actor for his performance in this movie, the model Candice Bergen and Edward Fox (who assassinates Charles de Gaulle in The Day of the Jackal!). This Indian-British movie has been nominated for eleven Oscars and won eight, as well as three Golden Globes awards, and more generally, the movie was praised in a truly significant amount of reviews. The movie synopsis is as follows: “Gandhi's character is fully explained as a man of nonviolence. Through his patience, he is able to drive the British out of the subcontinent. And the stubborn nature of Jinnah and his commitment towards Pakistan is portrayed.”1

Content Most of Gandhi’s followers were activists: effective and dynamic, seeking to improve the movement (as, for example, the old man with the white beard who wants to inform Gandhi about the fact that the British clothes and colors make Indian people poor) while being committed to the leader’s authority: indeed, Gandhi’s followers always came back to follow his non-violent rule, even when they wanted to revolt and to use violence. And those activists were the ones ready to go to meetings and to take risks. But, we can also say that a certain number of Gandhi’s followers were just participants or bystanders, simply agreeing and following the ideas of Gandhi, but not really willing to take risks for supporting the movement – there were more about going to see him when he traveled in boat or train, waving at him when the Salt march were passing their villages… Diehards were not really welcomed by Gandhi as they were too willing to use violence.

1

IMDB website, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083987/ 1

Gandhi was aware of the importance of having good followers and he took care of the relationship he had with them: in the ashram, for example, he would do the same tasks as them: cleaning, cooking, sewing… he wanted to be accessible and to prove that equality really mattered to him. Having this kind of interactions with followers helps to guarantee their loyalty and their long-term fidelity because the leader shares with them on a very intimate level. Gandhi could always rely on his number one support, his wife Kasturba, also named Ba; she went to prison with him, led the revolution when he could not, agreed to share his way of living… she was more than a follower, she was his right hand. Gandhi could also count on his close friend the Reverend Charlie Andrews, who supported him in his fight, trying to explain to his church what Gandhi was doing and why he was right, and also being a companion during some of his travels. Reverend Andrews also played the role of a messenger for Gandhi, first spraying his message but also communicating information to specific persons living far away. And then, we have Nehru, who intensely supported Gandhi, until becoming the Prime Minister of independent India. The journalists and the men in charge of the documentary were also a great support, making sure that Gandhi’s acts and movement would be in history and would also spread among the country and the rest of the world, giving more impact to them. Opponents to Gandhi’s movement were numerous: first of all, the British government, supported by the British law that Gandhi suffered; then the guards and the police, who embody the British government; and about them we can tell that they are diehards for their government, ready to die for it and wearing eyelets, completely blind and non-sensitive to the cause of fairness and equality, using every possible reason to slow the process. And then, Jinnah, a very interesting character in the movie. At first, he shares the same vision as Gandhi; but then he secedes and stops supporting Gandhi, being only interested by the Muslims’ situation and advocating a new country for them – which is the exact opposite of what Gandhi wanted.

Gandhi’s leadership Leader characteristics & traits: the perfect figurehead of the revolution At first, Gandhi could seem a bit idealistic and provocative. The movie scene in the train, where he declares that he always travels first class and that he will be the first colored attorney of South America can give the impression that he is going to be a snob person, but this impression disappears after a few moments, when we understand that he is going to be very passionate about his fight and when he explains to his companions that the way their society is doing is wrong. And Gandhi becomes even more sympathetic and noble when we discover that most of “colored” people, like him, work in mines and crops; Gandhi has been very lucky, as he was able to become an attorney in Great Britain, and he could just decide to ignore the situation and go back to Great Britain where he would not suffer of it - but he does not, he is going to fight for a whole population. Also, he appears as very brave, since the beginning of the movie, with the Passes: there is way less people than what he expected, it seems clear that his action will be pointless because of the guards who would prevent any form contestation, and still, he burns his pass and accepts to be beaten, just because he wants to point out the injustice - but we have to recognize he is still provocative - or maybe bold? Plus, we can truly feel that Gandhi is very close to his Indian traditions while being a visionary person - and that is very appreciable when it comes to gain the sympathy of a population, sharing the same us and customs immediately builds a bridge between people. And he is undeniably clever - we can tell when he discusses religion, human conditions or laws - that is a great asset and most of the time, it attracts people. Moreover, he shows that he is humble, able to recognize its flaws and weaknesses, which makes him sincere and simple, characteristics that followers expect a leader to have. Let’s add he has the sense of humor. Step by step, Gandhi worked and build a strong charisma, using also the native traits he already had, to create a true leader figure.

The empowerment of a new society: which characteristics did Gandhi use to build a strong community of followers? Spokesperson, Coach & Motivator As a great leader, Gandhi was not stingy of meaningful vibrant deep speeches, for which his lawyer formation may have helped him, but he was driven by the desire to defend human dignity and social justice, two things that his people were bereaved at his time. The first step in his revolution was to be heard in order to make people know his position, his claims and his vision, and then to make them join his movement.

2

Gandhi saying in one of his speech “they may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me, then they will have my dead body, not my obedience”2 was a perfect representation of how invested he was in the cause, and it proved to the audience that he could be trusted. It was also a great showing of how ready he was to lead his followers through this commotion. He was able to demonstrate that he would always be there for his people and that he would support the cause no matter what. Also, Gandhi used a pictorial vocabulary to be sure everyone could understand but also to reinforce the strength of the insurgent feeling, and he would not hesitate to use a flowery language to show when he was upset, and to show the people he was just like them and felt the same way. And when he gave his speech “not my obedience” to protest against the Smuts law, some people in the crowd wanted to use violence - and he gently explained why this was not the good way to do it, while showing that he understood and heard them. Also, the clapping session at the end kind of reminded the endless applauses Stalin wanted - this is not a comparison between Gandhi and Stalin, just a quick note about the fact that Gandhi was truly able to unleash passions, naturally and automatically, to obtain the same result others had by using force and dissuasion. Team Builder At first, the desire of Gandhi to write a journal in order to inform and to unite the population made him really try to deeply understand the Indian population and it showed that he genuinely wanted everyone to be educated about the situation and to be able to take a stand. Gandhi was maybe the first man to hear the demands of the untouchables and other poor people, and more particularly to stand for them - he managed to gather all the oppressed persons: they were not just following him independently, they created a new community, with common values, aiming at the same goals, sharing the same way of living and the same vision. Gandhi always referred at his people saying “we”, even when they doubted of him, making them the same entity. He fought for social justice and equality, and he wanted Indians to be treated as equals, despite the caste system and the differences in religion, incomes and gender. He was the first one to overpass these differences: he was an Hindu lawyer, but he was educated about various other religions (in the train, at the beginning at the movie, he is reading about it) and he refused to see them as a barrier to people’s gathering. He declared “I am a Muslim. And a Hindu. And a Christian, and a Jew… and so are all of you.”3 Therefore, unifying this group of persons is not all he did; empowering each one of them was one of the main factors of the success of the rebellion. Indeed, he had to make them understand that the acts of each one of them matter and could make the difference, if they were able to keep united. And all these people following the same path would win. When he decided to burn the identity papers, the passes, denying equal rights in South Africa 4, he has been violently repressed, but he kept on doing what he thought was the good thing to do, to show his people that truth and justice could make a change. Strategic planner: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win.” The Salt March (March-April 1930) is the better-known example of Gandhi’s strategy in his rebellion against the British stranglehold in India. It was, of course, an act of civil disobedience, operated by tens of thousands of people who walked 240 miles. The first outcome of this march is that thousands of new people joined his movement, because it made it more tangible to them, maybe more understandable too: “[...] the people of India are untouched. Their politics are confined to bread and salt. Illiterate they may be, but they're not blind”. And the fact that the march continued despite Gandhi’s arrest, and still without violence, showed how his people trusted him and how they were convinced about his way of doing things. The goal of this manifestation was to gather Indians around the fact that the salt tax was extremely high while salt is one of the basic products Indians have to use and so this tax impacted badly the whole population. So, picking this claim theme was a really good strategic choice to increase his number of followers, attracting them with something more concrete than “social equality and dignity”. Negotiator Negotiation is a subtle and delicate art. Gandhi started by creating a strong opposition of millions of people and after the Salt March, Gandhi got to present his claims to the British administration just by himself. He goes alone and fights alone - it takes a lot of bravery, of intelligence and of confidence. Also, we can tell that even some of his “enemies”, as the judge who condemned him to six years of jail, feel sympathetic for him. And eventually, he managed to obtain India’s independence (Purna Swaraj) - just that. To put it all in a nutshell, Gandhi was not a brutal fighter, he was a collaborator ready to discuss and to make compromises, while strongly supporting what he believed was fair and accessible. “Whenever you’re confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.”

2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GG_4UaCD8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWwVMPrfzZc 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNmJqRV7LOA 3

3

The Satyagraha, or what drove Gandhi and his followers It is important to see that Gandhi’s movement was not only built by a great leader - and we know that great leaders may misuse their influence to go on naughty ways - but also driven by an authentic feeling, to fight for a legit cause. The recognition of equality and being able to live in dignity are, for oppressed people at least, needs which are deeply rooted in them. And Gandhi was the voice of these fair requirements. So, he designed a way to fight that was matching these causes: the Satyagraha, or the embrace of the truth - “An eye for an eye would soon make the whole world blind”. It took him design, entrepreneur and vision skills as this way of fighting was not really existing before, and he created it in harmony with the current situation and external environment. It was about refusing to comply to the British unfair laws: “I believe noncooperation with evil is a duty and that British rule of India is evil5 ” and Gandhi strongly believed that violence was not the key. He would encourage his followers to only manifest using nonviolent civil disobedience and peace. However, it was not always a success, as we can see in the horses’ scene where he says “they won’t stop us if we lie down”6 or when the soldiers killed 1516 death with 1650 bullets at Jallianwala 7. Nevertheless, the Satyagraha principle lead to big actions, as the burning of the clothes for England Indian people were 8 wearing after his very extreme speech (he used a lot of exaggerations in that speech to make his people commit this very strong act of burning their clothes while they were poor and would have to work themselves to sew new clothes - but clothes that they would be able to wear with dignity). “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”

Leadership style The motives that can be associated to Gandhi are drive & achievement, and tenacity & resilience. Among his cognitive factors, we can recognize, from the movie, that he was a humble, authentic, optimistic and warm person, in addition to all the personality traits that we already discussed, plus he had a genuine passion for work and persons and demonstrated an incredible courage and a great sense of adaptability. About his charisma - and he becomes a very charismatic person in the movie - Gandhi would fit in the “socialized charismatic” type of charismatic leader, because he only used his power to benefit other people and let’s remember he said he hopes he’s not an ambitious person. He shaped a vision for his country and the whole Indian population, he mastered at sharing it and gaining trusting followers that he empowered; his ability to romanticize risk was incredibly strong (once again, we can refer to the speech “not my obedience”) and he definitely used unconventional strategies (nonviolence). He was - and is - an undeniable source of inspiration and he also knew that networking was a key for reaching his goals, so he did not turn down on this strategy, because he was aware of its power. He was a transformational leader - the strength and the scope of his vision demonstrate it. He educated people, gave them keys to change their life, relying on morale and religion. Also, he tried to be an example for his followers, so his lifestyle could be copied by them. He once said, “You must be the change that you wish to see in the world”. About that, most of his followers were participants, following his principles - he did not like diehards, as they may forget about the nonviolence concept. He initiated a strong structure and kept a high consideration for people. The movie opens with the scene of the mortuary parade of Gandhi, and the number of people and also the grandeur of this event is an undeniable proof of the influence Mahatma Gandhi had and of how his actions marked the world. Edward R. Murrow declares, at Gandhi funeral: “The object of this massive tribute died as he had always lived - a private man without wealth, without property, without official title or office. Mahatma Gandhi was not a commander of great armies nor ruler of vast lands. He could boast no scientific achievements or artistic gift. Yet men, governments and dignitaries from all over the world have joined hands today to pay homage to this little brown man in the loincloth who led his country to freedom. Pope Pius, the Archbishop of Canterbury, President Truman, Chiang Kai-shek, The Foreign Minister of Russia, the President of France... are among the millions here and abroad who have lamented his passing. In the words of General George C. Marshall, the American Secretary of State, "Mahatma Gandhi had become the spokesman for the conscience of mankind, a man who made humility and simple truth more powerful than empires." And Albert Einstein added, "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."” … and this is what should be memorized from the movie - Gandhi sacrificed his life, a...