Cremation is the process of reducing dead bodies to basic chemical compounds in the form of gases and bone fragments. This is accomplished through burning—high temperatures, vaporization and oxidation. Cremation may serve as a funeral or postfuneral rite that is an alternative to the interment of an intact body in a casket. Cremated remains, which are not a health risk, may be buried or immured in memorial sites or cemeteries, or they may be legally retained by relatives or dispersed in a variety of ways and locations.

In many countries cremation is usually done in a crematory (or crematorium), but others may prefer different methods. An example is the common practice of open-air cremation in India and Nepal.

Modern cremation process

The cremation occurs in a crematory (or crematorium), consisting of one or more cremator furnaces or cremation retorts for the ashes. A cremator is an industrial furnace capable of generating temperatures of to ensure disintegration of the corpse. A crematorium may be part of chapel or a funeral home, or part of an independent facility or a service offered by a cemetery.

Modern cremator fuels include diesel, natural gas, propane and in some areas like Hong Kong town gas. However, coal and coke were used until the early 1960s.

Modern cremators have adjustable control systems that monitor the furnace during cremation. These systems automatically monitor the interior to tell when the cremation process is complete, after which the furnace shuts down automatically. The time required for cremation varies from body to body, and in modern furnaces may be as fast as one hour per of body weight.

A cremation furnace is not designed to cremate more than one body at a time; cremation of multiple bodies together is illegal in the US and many countries. Exceptions may be made in special cases—such as with stillborn twins, or a stillborn baby with a mother who died during childbirth. In such cases, the bodies must be cremated in the same container.

The chamber where the body is placed is called a ''retort'' and is lined with heat-resistant refractory bricks. The coffin or container is inserted (charged) into the retort as quickly as possible to avoid heat loss through the top-opening door. The container may be mounted on a charger (motorized trolley) that can quickly insert it, on a fixed or movable hopper that allows the container to slide into the cremator.

Modern cremators are computer-controlled to ensure legal and safe use. For example, the retort door cannot be opened until the cremator has reached its operating temperature, and United States federal regulations require that newly constructed cremators feature dual electrical and mechanical heat shutoff switches and door releases accessible from inside the retort. Refractory bricks are typically replaced every five years, because thermal fatigue gradually introduces fissures that reduce the insulating strength.

Some crematoria allow relatives to view the charging. This is sometimes done for religious reasons, such as in traditional Hindu and Jain funerals.

Most cremators are a standard size. Typically, larger cities have access to an oversize cremator that can handle deceased in the + range. Most large crematoria have a small cremator installed for the cremation of fetal and infant remains.

Body container

In the U.S., a body ready to be cremated must be placed in a container for cremation, which can be a simple corrugated cardboard box or a wooden casket (coffin). Most casket manufacturers provide a line of caskets specially built for cremation. Another option is a cardboard box that fits inside a wooden shell designed to look like a traditional casket. After the funeral service, the interior box is removed from the shell before cremation, permitting the shell to be reused. Funeral homes may also offer rental caskets, which are traditional caskets used only for the duration of the services, after which the body is transferred to another container for cremation. Rental caskets are sometimes designed with removable beds and liners, which are replaced after each use.

In the UK, the body is not removed from the coffin and is not placed into a container as described above. The body is cremated with the coffin, which is why all UK coffins that are to be used for cremation must be made of combustible material. The Code of Cremation Practice forbids the opening of the coffin once it has arrived at the crematorium, and rules stipulate it must be cremated within 72 hours of the funeral service. Thus, in the UK, bodies are cremated in the same coffin as they are placed in at the undertaker's although the regulations allow the use of an approved 'cover' during the funeral service. It is recommended that jewelry be removed before the coffin is sealed for this reason. After the cremation process has been completed, the remains are passed through a magnetic field to remove any metal, which will be interred elsewhere in the crematorium grounds, or increasingly, recycled. The ashes are then given to relatives or loved ones or scattered in the crematorium grounds where facilities exist.

In Germany, the process is mostly like in the UK. The body is cremated in the coffin, additionally, a piece of fireclay with a number on it is used for identifying the remains of the dead body after burning. The remains are then placed in a container called the ''ash capsule'', which will in general be placed into a cinerary urn.

In Australia, the deceased are cremated in a coffin supplied by the undertaker. Reusable or cardboard coffins are becoming popular, with several manufacturers now supplying them. If cost is an issue, a plain, particle-board coffin (known in the trade as a "chippie") will be offered. Handles (if fitted) are plastic and approved for use in a cremator. Coffins vary from natural cardboard or unfinished particle board (covered with a velvet pall if there is a service) to solid timber; most are veneered particle board.

Cremations can be "delivery only," with no preceding chapel service at the crematorium (although a church service may have been held) or preceded by a service in one of the crematorium chapels. Delivery-only allows crematoria to schedule cremations to make best use of the cremators, perhaps by holding the body overnight in a refrigerator. As a result, a lower fee is applicable. Delivery-only may be referred to in industry jargon as "west chapel service."

Burning and ashes collection

The box containing the body is placed in the retort and incinerated at a temperature of 760 to 1150 °C (1400 to 2100 °F). During the cremation process, a large part of the body (especially the organs) and other soft tissue are vaporized and oxidized by the intense heat; gases released are discharged through the exhaust system. The process usually takes 90 minutes to two hours, with larger bodies taking longer time.

Jewelry, such as wristwatches and rings, are ordinarily removed before cremation, and returned to the family. The only non-natural item ''required'' to be removed is a pacemaker, because it could explode and damage the cremator; the mercury contained in a pacemaker's batteries also poses an unacceptable risk of air pollution. In the United Kingdom, and possibly other countries, the undertaker is required to remove pacemakers prior to delivering the body to the crematorium, and sign a declaration stating that any pacemaker has been removed.

Contrary to popular belief, the cremated remains are not ashes in the usual sense. After the incineration is completed, the dry bone fragments are swept out of the retort and pulverized by a machine called a ''cremulator'' to process them into "ashes" or "cremated remains", although pulverization may also be performed by hand. This leaves the bone with a fine sand like texture and color, able to be scattered without need for mixing with any foreign matter, though the size of the grain varies depending on the cremulator used. Their weight is approximately for adult human females and for adult human males. There are various types of cremulators, including rotating devices, grinders, and older models using heavy metal balls. The grinding process typically takes about 20 minutes.

In a Japanese funeral and in Taiwan, the bones are not pulverized unless requested beforehand. When not pulverized the bones are collected by the family and stored as one might do with ashes.

The appearance of cremated remains after grinding is one of the reasons they are called ''ashes'', although a non-technical term sometimes used is "cremains", a portmanteau of "cremated" and "remains". (The Cremation Association of North America prefers that the word "cremains" not be used for referring to "human cremated remains." The reason given is that "cremains" is thought to have less connection with the deceased, whereas a loved one's "cremated remains" has a more identifiable human connection.)

After final grinding, the ashes are placed in a container, which can be anything from a simple cardboard box to a decorative urn. The default container used by most crematoriums, when nothing more expensive has been selected, is almost always a hinged snap-locking box of plastic.

An unavoidable consequence of cremation is that a tiny residue of bodily remains is left in the chamber after cremation and mixes with subsequent cremations.

Ash weight and composition

Cremated remains are mostly dry calcium phosphates with some minor minerals, such as salts of sodium and potassium. Sulfur and most carbon are driven off as oxidized gases during the process, although a relatively small amount of carbon may remain as carbonate.

The ash remaining represents very roughly 3.5% of the body's original mass (2.5% in children). Because the weight of dry bone fragments is so closely connected to skeletal mass, their weight varies greatly from person to person. Because many changes in body composition (such as fat and muscle loss or gain) do not affect the weight of cremated remains, their weight can be more closely predicted from the person's height and sex than from their simple weight.

Ashes of adults can be said to weigh from to , but the first figure is roughly the figure for women and the second for men. The mean weight of adult cremated remains in a Florida, U.S. sample was 5.3 lb (approx. 2.4 kg) for adults (range ). This was found to be distributed bimodally according to sex, with the mean being for men (range ) and for women (range ). In this sample, generally all adult cremated remains over were from males, and those under were from females.

Not all that remains is bone. There may be melted metal lumps from missed jewellery; casket furniture; dental fillings; and surgical implants, such as hip replacements. Large items such as titanium hip replacements (which tarnish but do not melt) or casket hinges are usually removed before processing, as they may damage the processor. (If they are missed at first, they must ultimately be removed before processing is complete, as items such as titanium joint replacements are far too durable to be ground). Implants may be returned to the family, but are more commonly sold as ferrous/non-ferrous scrap metal. After the remains are processed, smaller bits of metal such as tooth fillings, and rings (commonly known as ''gleanings'') are sieved out and may be later interred in common, consecrated ground in a remote area of the cemetery. They may also be sold as precious metal scrap.

Methods of keeping or disposing of the cremated remains

Cremated remains are returned to the next of kin in a rectangular plastic container, contained within a further cardboard box or velvet sack, or in an urn if the family had already purchased one. An official certificate of cremation prepared under the authority of the crematorium accompanies the remains, and if required by law, the permit for disposition of human remains, which must remain with the cremated remains.

Cremated remains can be kept in an urn, stored in a special memorial building (columbarium), buried in the ground at many locations or sprinkled on a special field, mountain, or in the sea. In addition, there are several services in which the cremated remains will be scattered in a variety of ways and locations. Some examples are via a helium balloon, through fireworks, shot from shotgun shells, or scattered from an airplane. One service sends a lipstick-tube sized sample of the cremated remains into low earth orbit, where they remain for years (but not permanently) before re-entering the atmosphere. Another company claims to turn part of the cremated remains into synthetic diamonds that can then be made into jewelry. Cremated remains may also be incorporated, with urn and cement, into part of an artificial reef, or they can also be mixed into paint and made into a portrait of the deceased. Cremated remains can be scattered in national parks in the U.S. with a special permit. They can also be scattered on private property with the owner's permission. A portion of the cremated remains may be retained in a specially designed locket known as cremation jewelry. The cremated remains may also be entombed. Most cemeteries will grant permission for burial of cremated remains in occupied cemetery plots that have already been purchased or are in use by the families disposing of the cremated remains without any additional charge or oversight.

The final disposition depends on the personal wishes of the deceased as well as their cultural and religious beliefs. Some religions will permit the cremated remains to be sprinkled or kept at home. Some religions, such as Roman Catholicism, insist on either burying or entombing the remains. Hinduism obliges the closest male relative (son, grandson, etc.) of the deceased to immerse the cremated remains in the holy river Ganges, preferably at the holy city of Triveni Sangam, Allahabad, or Varanasi or Haridwar, India. The Sikhs and Punjabi Hindus immerse the remains in Sutlej, usually at Sri Harkiratpur. In southern India, the ashes are immersed in the river Kaveri at Paschima vahini in Srirangapattana at a stretch where the river flows from east to west, depicting the life of a human being from sunrise to sunset. In Japan and Taiwan, the remaining bone fragments are given to the family and are used in a burial ritual before final interment.

Reasons for choosing cremation

Apart from religious reasons (discussed below), some people find they prefer cremation to traditional burial for personal reasons. The thought of a long, slow decomposition process is unappealing to some; many people find that they prefer cremation because it disposes of the body immediately.

Other people view cremation as a way of simplifying their funeral process. These people view a traditional burial as an unneeded complication of their funeral process, and thus choose cremation to make their services as simple as possible.

The cost factor tends to make cremation attractive. Generally speaking, cremation is cheaper than traditional burial services, especially if direct cremation is chosen, in which the body is cremated as soon as legally possible without any sort of services.

Cremated remains can be scattered or buried. Cremation plots or columbarium niches are usually cheaper than a traditional burial plot or mausoleum crypt, and require less space. Some religions, such as Roman Catholicism, require the burial or entombment of cremated remains, but burial of cremated remains may often be accomplished in the burial plot of another person, such as a family member, without any additional cost. This option is charged for in England in an Anglican church where the fee is set by the Table of Parochial Fees (£36 to incumbent and £78 to church council) a total of £114 in 2010 with a marker charged as extra. It is also very common to scatter the remains in a place which was liked by the deceased such as the sea, a river, a beach or a park, following their last will. This is generally forbidden in public places but very easy to do. Some persons choose to have a small part of their ashes (usually less than 1 part in 1000, because of cost constraints) scattered in space (known as space burial).

Environmental impact

Cremation might be preferable for environmental reasons. Burial is a known source of certain environmental contaminants, with the coffin itself being the major contaminant. Another concern is contamination from radioisotopes that have entered the body before death or burial, although cremation does not seem to be advantageous. For example, one possible source of isotopes is radiation therapy, although no accumulation of radiation occurs in the most common type of radiation therapy involving high energy photons. However, cremation has no effect on radioisotopes other than to return them to the environment more rapidly (beginning with some spread into the air).

Yet another environmental concern, of sorts, is that traditional burial takes up a great deal of space. In a traditional burial, the body is buried in a casket made from a variety of materials. In America, the casket is often placed inside a concrete vault or liner before burial in the ground. While individually this may not take much room, combined with other burials, it can over time cause serious space concerns. Many cemeteries, particularly in Japan and Europe as well as those in larger cities, have run out of permanent space. In Tokyo, for example, traditional burial plots are extremely scarce and expensive, and in London, a space crisis led Harriet Harman to propose reopening old graves for "double-decker" burials.

However, there is a body of research that indicates cremation has a significant impact on the environment as well. The emissions from crematories include nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, hydrofluoric acid (HF), hydrochloric acid (HCl) in addition to persistent organic pollutants (POP).

Religious views on cremation

Islam

Islam categorically disapproves of cremation. Islam has specific rites for the treatment of the body after death.

Indian religions

The Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism, mandate cremation. In these religions, the body is seen as an instrument to carry the soul. As an example, the Bhagavad Gita. According to Hindu philosophy the human body is a combination of five basic natural elements; namely agni (fire), jala (water), vayu (air), prithvi (earth) and akasha (space/ether). When one dies, fire (agni tattva) ceases, and that living form is sent to its original state of creation. Fire (in the form of cremation) is used to complete the fifth element.

According to Hindu traditions, the reasons for preferring to destroy the corpse by fire, over burying it into ground, is to induce a feeling of detachment into the freshly disembodied spirit, which will be helpful to encourage it into passing to "the other world" (the ultimate destination of the dead). Hindus have 16 rituals (Sanskars); i.e. A Hindu undergoes 16 rituals during his lifetime, like Naming ceremony, Thread ceremony: beginning of student life, Marriage, etc., and the last being cremation. Cremation is referred to as ''antim-samskara'', literally meaning "the last rites." At the time of the cremation or "last rites," a "Puja" (ritual worship) is performed. Hindus believe that the cremation ceremony is not just a disposal of the dead body, but the union of Atma (Soul) with the Paramatma (The universal spirit). The holy text of Rigveda, one of the oldest Hindu scriptures, has many Ruchas (also written and pronounced as Richas) (small poems) related to cremation, which state that Lord Agni (God of Fire) will purify the dead body, also known as the Parthiv. Therefore, the Parthiv is given over to him.

Open air cremations are becoming less frequent in urban areas. There are crematoriums in most major cities, which are in effect indoor electric or gas based furnaces. Most cremations take place in these indoor crematoriums.

In Hinduism, during cremation the eldest son or the adopted son or the younger brother put first fire on dead person's body. And this ritual is considered mandatory. In modern period even daughters are also encouraged for this practice.

Bodies of holy men and children, however, are buried not cremated. Certain castes and tribes who get classified as Hindus also perform burials, not cremations.

Bali

Balinese Hinduism is widely divergent from the Indian Hindu orthodoxy. As such, most practices of the Indian Hindu "mainstream" are ignored and abandoned, especially regarding the use of butter. Balinese Hindu dead are generally buried for a period of time, which may exceed one month or more, so that the cremation ceremony (Ngaben) can occur on an auspicious day in the Balinese-Javanese Calendar system ("Saka"). Additionally, if the departed was a court servant, member of the court or minor noble, the cremation can be postponed up to several years to coincide with the cremation of their Prince. Balinese funerals are very expensive and the body may be interred until the family can afford it or until there is a group funeral planned by the village or family when costs will be less. The purpose of burying the corpse is for the decay process to consume the fluids of the corpse, which allows for an easier, more rapid and more complete cremation.

Christianity

In Christian countries and cultures, cremation has historically been discouraged, but now in many denominations it is accepted.

Roman Catholicism

The Roman Catholic Church's discouragement of cremation stemmed from several ideas: first, that the body, as the instrument through which the sacraments are received, is itself a sacramental, holy object; second, that as an integral part of the human person, it should be disposed of in a way that honors and reverences it, and many early practices involved with disposal of dead bodies were viewed as pagan in origin or an insult to the body; and third, that it constituted a denial of the resurrection of the body. Cremation was forbidden because it might interfere with God's ''ability'' to resurrect the body; however, this was refuted as early as Minucius Felix, in his dialogue ''Octavius''.

Cremation was, in fact, never forbidden in and of itself; even in Medieval Europe, cremation was practiced in situations where there were multitudes of corpses simultaneously present, such as after a battle, after a pestilence or famine, and where there was an imminent fear of diseases spreading from the corpses, since individual burials with digging graves would take too long and body decomposition would begin before all the corpses had been interred.

Beginning in the Middle Ages, and even more so in the 18th century and later, rationalists and classicists began to advocate cremation again as a statement denying the resurrection and/or the afterlife, although the pro-cremation movement more often than not took care to address and refute theological concerns about cremation in their works. Sentiment within the Catholic Church against cremation became hardened in the face of the association of cremation with "professed enemies of God." Rules were made against cremation, which were softened in the 1960s. The Catholic Church still officially prefers the traditional burial or entombment of the deceased, but cremation is now permitted as long as it is not done to express a refusal to believe in the resurrection of the body.

Current Catholic liturgical regulations requires that, if requested by the family of the deceased, the cremation must not take place until after the funeral Mass. This way the body may be present for the Mass so that it, symbolizing the person, may receive blessings, be the subject of prayers in which it is mentioned, and since the body's presence "better expresses the values which the Church affirms in those (funeral) rites (or Mass)." Once the Mass itself is concluded, the body could be cremated and a second service could be held at the crematorium or cemetery where the cremated remains are to be interred just as for a body burial.

Although "The Church clearly prefers and urges that the body of the deceased be present for the funeral rites,...Sometimes, however, it is not possible for the body to be present for the Funeral Mass. When ''extraordinary circumstances'' (emphasis added) make the cremation of a body the only feasible choice, pastoral sensitivity must be exercised...." In other words, cremation is discouraged and Funeral Masses with cremated remains present is not permitted in keeping with the truth of the sign in the liturgical action. This is because, ashes are the sign of the corruption of the human body, and thus inadequately represent the character of ‘sleeping’ awaiting the resurrection. Furthermore, it is the body, not the ashes, that receives liturgical honors, because through baptism it has become temple of the Spirit of God. It is of greatest interest to keep the truth of the sign, so that both the liturgical catechesis and the very celebration may be held truthfully and fruitfully. Therefore, if the body of the deceased cannot be brought to church for the celebration of the funeral mass, it is allowed to celebrate the same mass, whenever it be permitted, even if the body of the deceased is absent, according to the rules to be observed for the celebration in the presence of the body.

In 1997 the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments granted an indult to allow for "...the celebration of the Funeral Liturgy, including Mass, in the presence of the cremated remains being made less rare, although still not preferred, in the Latin Rite dioceses of the United States of America. In order for it to be allowed certain qualifications must be met. These qualifications include: 1) the cremation has not be inspired by motives contrary to Christian teaching such as respect for the body or the resurrection of the body. 2) the local "...bishop (judges) it is pastorally appropriate to celebrate the liturgy for the dead, with or without Mass, with the ashes present, taking into account the concrete circumstances in each individual case, and in harmony with the spirit and precise content of the current canonical and liturgical norms." In other words, in the USA there is no guarantee that in every case of a cremation prior to the Church service taking place will receive a Funeral Mass. This indult does not mention other rites, dioceses, or nations.

When a Funeral Liturgy is to be celebrated with the cremated remains present they must be in worthy vessel and placed on small prepared table or stand located in the space normally occupied by the coffin. The usual funeral prayers and practices are to be adapted suit the occasion, for example prayers which explicitly refer to the body present under normal circumstances would need to be changed.

Regardless of the location and Funeral Liturgy, or lack thereof, the Church still specifies requirements for the reverent disposition of ashes, normally that the ashes are to be buried or entombed in an appropriate container, such as an urn (rather than scattered or preserved in the family home). Catholic cemeteries today regularly receive cremated remains, and many have columbaria.

Protestantism

Protestant churches were much more welcoming of the use of cremation and at a much earlier date than the Catholic Church; pro-cremation sentiment was not unanimous among Protestants, however. The first crematoria in the Protestant countries were built in 1870s, and in 1908, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey—one of the most famous Anglican churches—required that remains be cremated for burial in the abbey's precincts. Scattering, or "strewing," is an acceptable practice in many Protestant denominations, and some churches have their own "garden of remembrance" on their grounds in which remains can be scattered. Other groups also support cremation. These include the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Eastern Orthodox and others who forbid cremation

On the other hand, some branches of Christianity oppose cremation, including some minority Protestant groups and Orthodox. Most notably, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches forbid cremation. Exceptions are made for circumstances where it may not be avoided (when civil authority demands it, or epidemics) or if it may be sought for good cause, but when a cremation is willfully chosen for no good cause by the one who is deceased, he or she is not permitted a funeral in the church and may also be permanently excluded from liturgical prayers for the departed. In Orthodoxy, cremation is a rejection of the dogma of the general resurrection, and as such is viewed harshly.

Other Christian denominations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in past decades had certain leaders say that cremation is discouraged but not expressly forbidden. In the 1950s, Apostle Bruce R. McConkie wrote that "only under the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances" would cremation be consistent with LDS teachings. More recent LDS publications have provided instructions for how to dress the deceased when they have received their temple endowments (and thus wear temple garments) prior to cremation for those wishing to do so, or in countries where the law requires cremation.

Jehovah's Witnesses publications have stated, "Cremation is not condemned by Jehovah. ...Something that might influence a person’s decisions in making these arrangements, however, is the way that the local community views funeral customs. Those who abide by Bible principles would certainly not want to do anything that would cause unnecessary offense to their neighbors."

Judaism

Judaism traditionally disapproved of cremation in the past (it was the traditional means of disposing the dead in the neighboring Bronze Age cultures). It has also disapproved of preservation of the dead by means of embalming and mummifying, a practice of the ancient Egyptians. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, as the Jewish cemeteries in many European towns had become crowded and were running out of space, cremation became an approved means of corpse disposal amongst the Liberal Jews. Current liberal movements like Reform Judaism still support cremation, although burial remains the preferred option.

The Orthodox Jews have maintained a stricter line on cremation, and disapprove of it as Halakha (Jewish law) forbids it. This halakhic concern is grounded in the upholding of bodily resurrection as a core belief of traditional Judaism, as opposed to other ancient trends such as the Sadduccees, who denied it. Conservative Jewish groups also oppose cremation.

Some secular Jews may reject cremation perhaps in reaction to The Holocaust, in which the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide were disposed of by cremation at the death camps. At many former Nazi death camps, mounds of ashes are present beneath a shallow layer of dirt.

In Israel there were no formal crematories until 2007 when B&L; Cremation Systems Inc. became the first crematory manufacturer to sell a retort to Israel. In August 2007, the predominantly orthodox ZAKA members in Israel were accused of burning down a secret crematorium. ZAKA spokespersons denied any involvement, but its founder, Yehuda Meshi Zahav, applauded the act of arson, calling the existence of the crematorium a "desecration of the dead" and that the crematorium was "destined to disappear in flames". Since that incident, cremation takes place in Israel without interruption, by Aley Shalechet, the first modern funeral home in Israel. .

Other

Near East

The Bahá'í Faith forbids cremation, except when required by law.

Traditionally, Zoroastrianism disavows cremation or burial to preclude pollution of fire or earth. The traditional method of corpse disposal is through ritual exposure in a "Tower of Silence", but both burial and cremation are increasingly popular alternatives. Some contemporary figures of the faith have opted for cremation. Parsi-Zoroastrian singer Freddie Mercury of the group Queen was cremated after his death.

China

Neo-Confucianism under Zhu Xi strongly discourages cremation of one's parents' corpses as unfilial.

Traditionally, Buddhist monks in China exclusively practiced cremation because other normal Chinese detest cremation, refusing to do it. But now, the atheist Communist party enforces a strict cremation policy on Han Chinese. However, exceptions are made for Hui who do not cremate their dead due to Islamic beliefs.

New religious movements

In Egyptian Reconstructionism, it is believed the Ka will be killed with cremation, but it is not forbidden. Most Neopagan traditions allow cremation.

History

Ancient

Cremation dates to at least 20,000 years ago in the archaeological record with the Mungo Lady, the remains of a partly cremated body found at Mungo Lake, Australia.

Alternative death rituals emphasizing one method of disposal of a body—inhumation (burial), cremation, and exposure—have gone through periods of preference throughout history.

In the Middle East and Europe, both burial and cremation are evident in the archaeological record in the Neolithic. Cultural groups had their own preference and prohibitions. The ancient Egyptians developed an intricate transmigration of soul theology, which prohibited cremation, and this was adopted widely among other Semitic peoples. The Babylonians, according to Herodotus, embalmed their dead. Early Persians practiced cremation, but this became prohibited during the Zoroastrian Period. Phoenicians practiced both cremation and burial. From the Cycladic civilisation in 3000 BC until the Sub-Mycenaean era in 1200–1100 B.C., Greeks practiced inhumation. Cremation appearing around the 12th century B.C. constitutes a new practice of burial and is probably an influence from Minor Asia. Until the Christian era, when the inhumation becomes again the only burial practice, both combustion and inhumation had been practiced depending on the era, and area. Romans practiced both, with cremation generally associated with military honors.

In Europe, there are traces of cremation dating to the Early Bronze Age (c. 2000 B.C.) in the Pannonian Plain and along the middle Danube. The custom becomes dominant throughout Bronze Age Europe with the Urnfield culture (from ca. 1300 B.C.). In the Iron Age, inhumation becomes again more common, but cremation persisted in the Villanovan culture and elsewhere. Homer's account of Patroclus' burial describes cremation with subsequent burial in a tumulus similar to Urnfield burials, qualifying as the earliest description of cremation rites. This is mostly an anachronism, as during Mycenaean times burial was generally preferred, and Homer may have been reflecting more common use of cremation in the period in which the Iliad was written centuries later.

Criticism of burial rites is a common aspersion in competing religions and cultures, and one is the association of cremation with fire sacrifice or human sacrifice.

Hinduism and Jainism are notable for not only allowing but prescribing cremation. Cremation in India is first attested in the Cemetery H culture (from ca. 1900 B.C.), considered the formative stage of Vedic civilization. The Rigveda contains a reference to the emerging practice, in RV 10.15.14, where the forefathers "both cremated (''agnidagdhá-'') and uncremated (''ánagnidagdha-'')" are invoked.

Cremation remained common, but not universal, in both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. According to Cicero, in Rome, inhumation was considered the more archaic rite, while the most honoured citizens were most typically cremated—especially upper classes and members of imperial families.

Christianity frowned upon cremation, both influenced by the tenets of Judaism, and in an attempt to abolish Graeco-Roman pagan rituals. By the 5th century, the practice of cremation had practically disappeared from Europe.

In early Roman Britain, cremation was usual but diminished by the fourth century. It then reappeared in the fifth and sixth centuries during the migration era, when sacrificed animals were sometimes included with the human bodies on the pyre, and the deceased were dressed in costume and with ornaments for the burning. That custom was also very widespread among the Germanic peoples of the northern continental lands from which the Anglo-Saxon migrants are supposed to have been derived, during the same period. These ashes were usually thereafter deposited in a vessel of clay or bronze in an "urn cemetery." The custom again died out with the Christian conversion among the Anglo-Saxons or Early English during the seventh century, when inhumation of the corpse became general.

In the Middle Ages

Throughout parts of Europe, cremation was forbidden by law, and even punishable by death if combined with Heathen rites. Cremation was sometimes used by authorities as part of punishment for heretics, and this did not only include burning at the stake. For example, the body of John Wycliff was exhumed years after his death and cremated, with the ashes thrown in a river, explicitly as a posthumous punishment for his denial of the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. On the other hand, mass cremations were often performed out of fear of contagious diseases, such as after a battle, pestilence, or famine. Retributory cremation continued into modern times. For example, after World War II, the bodies of the 12 men convicted of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials were not returned to their families, but were instead cremated, then disposed of at a secret location as a specific part of a legal process intended to deny their use as a location for any sort of memorial. In Japan, however, erection of a memorial building for many executed war criminals, who were also cremated, was allowed for their remains.

The modern era

In 1873, Paduan Professor Brunetti presented a cremation chamber at the Vienna Exposition. In Britain, the movement found the support of Queen Victoria's surgeon, Sir Henry Thompson, who together with colleagues founded the Cremation Society of Great Britain in 1874. The first crematoria in Europe were built in 1878 in Woking, England and Gotha, Germany, the first in North America in 1876 by Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne in Washington, Pennsylvania. The second cremation in the United States was that of Charles F. Winslow in Salt Lake City, Utah on July 31, 1877. The first cremation in Britain, that of Jeanette Pickersgill, took place on 26 March 1885 at Woking Crematorium.

Cremation was declared as legal in England and Wales when Dr. William Price was unsuccessfully prosecuted for cremating his son; formal legislation followed later with the passing of the Cremation Act of 1902 (this Act did not extend to Ireland), which imposed procedural requirements before a cremation could occur and restricted the practice to authorised places. In 1885 the first official cremation took place at Woking. Ten cremations then took place in 1886. In 1892 a crematorium opened in Manchester, followed by one in Glasgow in 1895 and one in Liverpool in 1896.

Some of the various Protestant churches came to accept cremation, with the rationale being, "God can resurrect a bowl of ashes just as conveniently as he can resurrect a bowl of dust." The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia was critical about these efforts, referring to them as a "sinister movement" and associating them with Freemasonry, although it said that "there is nothing directly opposed to any dogma of the Church in the practice of cremation." In 1963, Pope Paul VI lifted the ban on cremation, and in 1966 allowed Catholic priests to officiate at cremation ceremonies.

Australia also started to establish modern cremation movements and societies. Australians had their first purpose-built modern crematorium and chapel in the West Terrace Cemetery in the South Australian capital of Adelaide in 1901. This small building, resembling the buildings at Woking, remained largely unchanged from its 19th-century style and was in full operation until the late 1950s. The oldest operating crematorium in Australia is at Rookwood Cemetery, in Sydney. It opened in 1925.

In the Netherlands, the foundation of the Association for Optional Cremation in 1874 ushered in a long debate about the merits and demerits of cremation. Laws against cremation were challenged and invalidated in 1915 (two years after the construction of the first crematorium in the Netherlands), though cremation did not become legally recognised until 1955.

New Technology

The technology in crematories has improved over the years. Dr. Steve Looker owner and CEO of B&L; Cremation Systems Inc. invented a new system called the "Hot Hearth" in the early 1980s. This systems allows the hearth or the base of the machine to heat up from the hot gases running underneath the hearth. This allows the machine to maintain higher temperature which saves gas and reduces the impact on the environment. Dr. Looker also introduced many other new ideas to the cremation industry. He came up with the design for a separate remains removal door, located on the side of the unit. This enables the operator to push the remains to the rear of the chamber and remove the remains there. By doing this the heat loss is reduced in the machine and therefore saves energy. Crematories used to run on timers (some still do) and one would have to figure out the weight of the body, then figure out how long the body has to be cremated and then set multiple timers. Now there are crematories that are fully automated with PLC (Programmable logic controller) touchscreens, where the weight and the name of the deceased have to be entered before a 'start'-button is pressed.

Negative experiences with cremation in recent history

World War II

In the German concentration camps, the remains of dead inmates were disposed of using incineration in special built furnaces supplied by a number of manufacturers, with the most common being Topf and Sons. This method was considered deeply offensive in Orthodox Judaism, because Halakha, the Jewish law, forbids cremation and additionally holds that it is painful to the soul of a cremated person. This is because the soul of a recently dead person is not fully aware that they died, and they experience seeing their body burnt (this is also one of the reasons autopsies are forbidden under normal circumstances). In a normal burial, as the body decays, slowly the soul moves "farther" from it. Since then, cremation has carried an extremely negative connotation for many Jews.

The Tri-State Crematory Incident

In early 2002, 334 corpses that were supposed to have been cremated in the previous few years at the Tri-State Crematory were found intact and decaying on the crematorium's grounds in the U.S. state of Georgia, having been dumped there by the crematorium's proprietor. Many of the corpses were decayed beyond identification. Some families received "ashes" that were made of wood and concrete dust.

Operator Ray Brent Marsh had 787 criminal charges filed against him. On November 19, 2004, Marsh pleaded guilty to all charges. Marsh was sentenced to two 12-year prison sentences, one each from Georgia and Tennessee, to be served concurrently; he was also sentenced to probation for 75 years following his incarceration.

Civil suits were filed against the Marsh family as well as a number of funeral homes who shipped bodies to Tri-State; these suits were ultimately settled. The property of the Marsh family has been sold, but collection of the full $80-million judgment remains doubtful. Families have expressed the desire to return the former Tri-State crematory to a natural, parklike setting.

The Indian Ocean tsunamis

The magnitude 9.0–9.3 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake triggered a series of lethal tsunamis on December 26, 2004 that killed almost 300,000 people, making them the deadliest tsunamis in recorded history. The tsunamis killed people over an area ranging from the immediate vicinity of the quake in Indonesia, Thailand, and the northwestern coast of Malaysia, to thousands of kilometers away in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and even as far as Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania in eastern Africa.

Authorities had difficulties dealing with the large numbers of bodies, and as a result, thousands of bodies were cremated together out of fear that decaying bodies would cause disease. Many of these bodies were not identified or viewed by relatives prior to cremation. A particular point of objection was that the bodies of Westerners were kept separate from those of Asian descent, who were mostly locals. This meant that the bodies of tourists from other Asian nations, such as Japan and Korea, were mass cremated, rather than being returned to their country of origin for funeral rites.

Rates

The cremation rate varies considerably across countries with Japan reporting a 99% cremation rate while Poland reported a rate of 6.7% in 2008.

See also

Crematory

Burial

Burial at sea

Burial in space

Funeral pyre

Death

Funeral

A holocaust is a religious sacrifice that is completely consumed by fire.

Immolation (disambiguation)

Resomation

Promession

Sati (also suttee) was a Hindu funeral custom in which the dead man's widow used to immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.

Tissue digestion

Dr. William Price the eccentric Welsh physician whose prosecution confirmed the legality of cremation in England and Wales.

Jeanette Pickersgill the first person officially cremated in the United Kingdom (in 1885)

References

External links

A modern electrical crematorium in India

Cremation Association of North America homepage

Scattering Ashes Via Skydive

Crematory in Europe

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:Death customs Category:Incineration Category:Fire

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name	Johnny Cash
background	solo_singer
birth name	J. R. Cash
birth date	February 20, 1932
birth place	Kingsland, Arkansas, United States
death date	September 12, 2003
death place	Nashville, Tennessee, United States
instrument	Vocals, guitar, harmonica, mandolin
genre	Country, rock and roll, folk, gospel, blues, rockabilly
occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, actor
years active	1955–2003
label	Sun, Columbia, Mercury, American, House of Cash, Legacy Recordings
associated acts	The Tennessee Three, The Highwaymen, June Carter Cash, The Statler Brothers, The Carter Family, The Oak Ridge Boys, Area Code 615, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins
website
notable instruments	Martin Acoustic Guitars }}

John R. "Johnny" Cash (February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003), A.K.A. "The Man In Black", was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Although he is primarily remembered as a country music artist, his songs and sound spanned many other genres including rockabilly and rock and roll—especially early in his career—as well as blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal led to Cash being inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Late in his career, Cash covered songs by several rock artists.

Cash was known for his deep, distinctive bass-baritone voice; for the "boom-chicka-boom" sound of his Tennessee Three backing band; for his rebelliousness, coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor; for providing free concerts inside prison walls; and for his dark performance clothing, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black". He traditionally started his concerts by saying, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." and usually following it up with his standard "Folsom Prison Blues."

Much of Cash's music, especially that of his later career, echoed themes of sorrow, moral tribulation and redemption. His signature songs include "I Walk the Line", "Folsom Prison Blues", "Ring of Fire", "Get Rhythm" and "Man in Black". He also recorded humorous numbers, including "One Piece at a Time" and "A Boy Named Sue"; a duet with his future wife, June Carter, called "Jackson"; as well as railroad songs including "Hey, Porter" and "Rock Island Line".

Cash, a troubled but devout Christian, has been characterized as a "lens through which to view American contradictions and challenges." A Biblical scholar, he penned a Christian novel titled ''Man in White'', and he made a spoken word recording of the entire New King James Version of the New Testament. Even so, Cash declared that he was "the biggest sinner of them all", and viewed himself overall as a complicated and contradictory man. Accordingly, Cash is said to have "contained multitudes", and has been deemed "the philosopher-prince of American country music".

Personal life

Early life

Johnny Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, the fourth of seven children to Ray Cash (May 13, 1897, Kingsland, Arkansas – December 23, 1985, Hendersonville, Tennessee) and Carrie Cloveree Rivers (March 13, 1904, Rison, Arkansas – March 11, 1991, Hendersonville, Tennessee). Cash was named J. R. Cash because his parents couldn't think of a name, but the initials "J. R." When Cash enlisted in the Air Force, they wouldn't let him use initials as his name, so he started to use his legal name of John R. Cash. In 1955, when signing with Sun Records, he took Johnny Cash as his stage name.

The Cash children were, in order: Roy, Margaret Louise, Jack, J. R., Reba, Joanne and Tommy. His younger brother, Tommy Cash, also became a successful country artist.

In March 1935, when Cash was three years old, the family settled in Dyess, Arkansas. J.R. was working in cotton fields beginning at age five, singing along with his family simultaneously while working. The family farm was flooded on at least two occasions, which later inspired him to write the song "Five Feet High and Rising". His family's economic and personal struggles during the Great Depression inspired many of his songs, especially those about other people facing similar difficulties.

Cash was very close to his older brother, Jack. In May 1944, Jack was pulled into a whirling head saw in the mill where he worked and was almost cut in two. He suffered for over a week before he died on May 20, 1944, at age 15. Cash often spoke of the horrible guilt he felt over this incident. According to ''Cash: The Autobiography'', his father was away that morning, but he and his mother, and Jack himself, all had premonitions or a sense of foreboding about that day, causing his mother to urge Jack to skip work and go fishing with his brother. Jack insisted on working, as the family needed the money. On his deathbed, Jack said he had visions of heaven and angels. Decades later, Cash spoke of looking forward to meeting his brother in heaven.

Cash's early memories were dominated by gospel music and radio. Taught by his mother and a childhood friend, Cash began playing guitar and writing songs as a young boy. In high school he sang on a local radio station; decades later he released an album of traditional gospel songs, called ''My Mother's Hymn Book''. He was also significantly influenced by traditional Irish music that he heard performed weekly by Dennis Day on the Jack Benny radio program.

Cash enlisted in the United States Air Force on July 7, 1950. After basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and technical training at Brooks Air Force Base, both in San Antonio, Texas, Cash was assigned to a U.S. Air Force Security Service unit, assigned as a Morse Code Intercept Operator for Soviet Army transmissions at Landsberg, Germany "where he created his first band named The Landsberg Barbarians." He was the first radio operator to pick up the news of the death of Joseph Stalin. After he was honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant on July 3, 1954, he returned to Texas. On August 7, 1954, one month after his discharge, he married his first wife, Vivian Liberto, in San Antonio.

Marriages and family

On July 18, 1951, while in Air Force training, Cash met 17-year-old Vivian Liberto at a roller skating rink in her native San Antonio. They dated for three weeks, until Cash was deployed to Germany for a three year tour. During that time, the couple exchanged hundreds of pages of love letters. On August 7, 1954, one month after his discharge, they were married at St. Anne's Catholic church in San Antonio. The ceremony was performed by her uncle, Father Vincent Liberto. They had four daughters: Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara. Cash's drug and alcohol abuse, constant touring, and affairs with other women, and his close relationship with future wife June Carter, led Liberto to file for divorce in 1966.

In 1968, 13 years after they first met backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, Cash proposed to June Carter, an established country singer, during a live performance in London, Ontario, marrying on March 1, 1968 in Franklin, Kentucky. They had one child together, John Carter Cash (born March 3, 1970). They continued to work together and tour for 35 years, until June Carter died in 2003. Cash died just four months later. Carter co-wrote one of Cash's biggest hits, "Ring of Fire," with singer Merle Kilgore. She and Cash won two Grammy awards for their duets.

Vivian Liberto claims a different version of the origins of "Ring of Fire" in ''I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny'', stating that Cash gave Carter the credit for monetary reasons.

Heritage

Cash found out that his heritage was a British Isles mix. For example, he learned upon researching his heritage that he was of Scottish royal descent on his father's side, traced back to Malcolm I of Scotland. After meeting with now-dead laird Major Michael Crichton-Stuart of Falkland, Fife, Scotland, Johnny traced the Cash family tree to eleventh-century Fife; Cash Loch and other locations in Fife bear the name of his family.

Cash found that he also had English and Scotch-Irish ancestry. Though he learned that he did not have Native American Indian ancestry, his empathy and compassion for Native American Indians were unabated; these feelings were expressed in several of his songs, including "Apache Tears" and "The Ballad of Ira Hayes", and on his album, ''Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian''. Through his maternal grandmother, Rosanna Lee (Hurst) Rivers, Cash is distantly related to millionaire William Randolph Hearst and socialite Patty Hearst.

Friends

Cash was a long time friend of Woody Hayes (ex Ohio State Buckeyes football coach). The lyrics "I braided Twigs of Willows Made a String of Buckeye Beads" from the song Flesh and Blood was for Woody.

Career

Early career

In 1954, Cash and Vivian moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he sold appliances while studying to be a radio announcer. At night he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. Perkins and Grant were known as the Tennessee Two. Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to get a recording contract. After auditioning for Sam Phillips, singing mostly gospel songs, Phillips told him that he didn't record gospel music any longer. It was once rumored that Phillips told Cash to "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell," though in a 2002 interview Cash denied that Phillips made any such comment. Cash eventually won over the producer with new songs delivered in his early rock'a'billy style. In 1955 Cash made his first recordings at Sun, "Hey Porter" and "Cry! Cry! Cry!", which were released in late June and met with reasonable success on the country hit parade.

On December 4, 1956, Elvis Presley dropped in on studio owner Sam Phillips to pay a social visit while Carl Perkins was in the studio cutting new tracks, with Jerry Lee Lewis backing him on piano. Cash was also in the studio and the four started an impromptu jam session. Phillips left the tapes running and the recordings, almost half of which were gospel songs, survived and have since been released under the title ''Million Dollar Quartet''.

Cash's next record, "Folsom Prison Blues", made the country Top 5, and "I Walk the Line" became No. 1 on the country charts and entered the pop charts Top 20. "Home of the Blues" followed, recorded in July 1957. That same year Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album. Although he was Sun's most consistently selling and prolific artist at that time, Cash felt constrained by his contract with the small label partly due to the fact that Phillips wasn't keen on Johnny recording gospel, and he was only getting a 3% royalty as opposed to the standard rate of 5%. Presley had already left Sun, and Phillips was focusing most of his attention and promotion on Lewis. The following year Cash left the label to sign a lucrative offer with Columbia Records, where his single "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" became one of his biggest hits.

In the early 1960s, Cash toured with the Carter Family, which by this time regularly included Mother Maybelle's daughters, Anita, June and Helen. June, whom Cash would eventually marry, later recalled admiring him from afar during these tours. In the 1960s he appeared on Pete Seeger's short lived ''Rainbow Quest.''

He also acted in a 1961 film entitled ''Five Minutes to Live'', later re-released as ''Door-to-door Maniac''. He also wrote and sang the opening theme.

Outlaw image

As his career was taking off in the late 1950s, Cash started drinking heavily and became addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates. For a brief time, he shared an apartment in Nashville with Waylon Jennings, who was heavily addicted to amphetamines. Cash used the uppers to stay awake during tours. Friends joked about his "nervousness" and erratic behavior, many ignoring the warning signs of his worsening drug addiction. In a behind-the-scenes look at ''The Johnny Cash Show'', Cash claims to have "tried every drug there was to try."

Although in many ways spiraling out of control, Cash's frenetic creativity was still delivering hits. His rendition of "Ring of Fire" was a crossover hit, reaching No. 1 on the country charts and entering the Top 20 on the pop charts. The song was written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore. The song was originally performed by June's sister, but the signature mariachi-style horn arrangement was provided by Cash, who said that it had come to him in a dream.

In June 1965, his truck caught fire due to an overheated wheel bearing, triggering a forest fire that burned several hundred acres in Los Padres National Forest in California. When the judge asked Cash why he did it, Cash said, "I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead, so you can't question it." The fire destroyed , burning the foliage off three mountains and killing 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. Cash was unrepentant: "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards." The federal government sued him and was awarded $125,172 ($}} today). Cash eventually settled the case and paid $82,001. He said he was the only person ever sued by the government for starting a forest fire.

Although Cash carefully cultivated a romantic outlaw image, he never served a prison sentence. Despite landing in jail seven times for misdemeanors, each stay lasted only a single night. His most infamous run-in with the law occurred while on tour in 1965, when he was arrested October 4 by a narcotics squad in El Paso, Texas. The officers suspected that he was smuggling heroin from Mexico, but it was 688 Dexedrine capsules and 475 Equanil tablets that the singer had hidden inside his guitar case. Because they were prescription drugs rather than illegal narcotics, he received a suspended sentence. Cash was later arrested on May 11, 1965, in Starkville, Mississippi, for trespassing late at night onto private property to pick flowers. (This incident gave the spark for the song "Starkville City Jail", which he spoke about on his live ''At San Quentin'' prison album.)

In the mid 1960s, Cash released a number of concept albums, including ''Ballads Of the True West'' (1965), an experimental double record mixing authentic frontier songs with Cash's spoken narration, and ''Bitter Tears'' (1964), with songs highlighting the plight of the Native Americans. His drug addiction was at its worst at this point, and his destructive behavior led to a divorce from his first wife and canceled performances.

In 1967, Cash's duet with June Carter, "Jackson", won a Grammy Award.

Johnny Cash's final arrest was in Walker County, Georgia where he was taken in after being involved in a car accident while carrying a bag of prescription pills. Cash attempted to bribe a local deputy, who turned the money down, and then spent the night in a LaFayette, Georgia jail. The singer was released after a long talk with Sheriff Ralph Jones, who warned him of his dangerous behavior and wasted potential. Johnny credited that experience for saving his life, and he later came back to LaFayette to play a benefit concert that attracted 12,000 people (the city population was less than 9,000 at the time) and raised $75,000 for the high school.

Cash curtailed his use of drugs for several years in 1968, after a spiritual epiphany in the Nickajack Cave, when he attempted to commit suicide while under the heavy influence of drugs. He descended deeper into the cave, trying to lose himself and "just die", when he passed out on the floor. He reported to be exhausted and feeling at the end of his rope when he felt God's presence in his heart and managed to struggle out of the cave (despite the exhaustion) by following a faint light and slight breeze. To him, it was his own rebirth. June, Maybelle, and Ezra Carter moved into Cash's mansion for a month to help him conquer his addiction. Cash proposed onstage to June at a concert at the London Gardens in London, Ontario, Canada on February 22, 1968; the couple married a week later (on March 1) in Franklin, Kentucky. June had agreed to marry Cash after he had "cleaned up". He rediscovered his Christian faith, taking an "altar call" in Evangel Temple, a small church in the Nashville area, pastored by Rev. Jimmie Rodgers Snow, son of country music legend Hank Snow.

According to longtime friend Marshall Grant, Cash's 1968 rebirth experience did not result in his completely stopping use of amphetamines. However, in 1970, Cash ended all drug use for a period of seven years. Grant claims that the birth of Cash's son, John Carter Cash, inspired Cash to end his dependence. Cash began using amphetamines again in 1977. By 1983, he was once again addicted, and entered the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, California for rehabilitation. Cash managed to stay off drugs for several years, but by 1989, he was dependent again and entered Nashville's Cumberland Heights Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center. In 1992, he entered the Loma Linda Behavioural Medicine Centre in Loma Linda, California for his final rehabilitation (several months later, his son followed him into this facility for treatment).

Folsom Prison Blues

Cash felt great compassion for prisoners. He began performing concerts at various prisons starting in the late 1950s. His first ever prison concert was held on January 1, 1958 at San Quentin State Prison. These performances led to a pair of highly successful live albums, ''Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison'' (1968) and ''Johnny Cash at San Quentin'' (1969).

The Folsom Prison record was introduced by a rendition of his classic "Folsom Prison Blues", while the San Quentin record included the crossover hit single "A Boy Named Sue", a Shel Silverstein-penned novelty song that reached No. 1 on the country charts and No. 2 on the U.S. Top Ten pop charts. The AM versions of the latter contained a couple of profanities which were edited out. The modern CD versions are unedited and uncensored and thus also longer than the original vinyl albums, though they still retain the audience reaction overdubs of the originals.

In addition to his performances at U.S. prisons, Cash also performed at the Österåker Prison in Sweden in 1972. The live album ''På Österåker'' ("At Österåker") was released in 1973. Between the songs, Cash can be heard speaking Swedish, which was greatly appreciated by the inmates.

"The Man in Black"

From 1969 to 1971, Cash starred in his own television show, ''The Johnny Cash Show'', on the ABC network. The Statler Brothers opened up for him in every episode; the Carter Family and rockabilly legend Carl Perkins were also part of the regular show entourage. However, Cash also enjoyed booking more contemporary performers as guests; such notables included Neil Young, Louis Armstrong, Kenny Rogers and The First Edition (who appeared a record four times on his show), James Taylor, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton (then leading Derek and the Dominos), and Bob Dylan. During the same period, he contributed the title song and other songs to the film ''Little Fauss and Big Halsey'', which starred Robert Redford, Michael J. Pollard, and Lauren Hutton. The title song, ''The Ballad of Little Fauss and Big Halsey'', was nominated for a Golden Globe award.

Cash had met with Dylan in the mid 1960s and became closer friends when they were neighbors in the late 1960s in Woodstock, New York. Cash was enthusiastic about reintroducing the reclusive Dylan to his audience. Cash sang a duet with Dylan on Dylan's country album ''Nashville Skyline'' and also wrote the album's Grammy-winning liner notes.

Another artist who received a major career boost from ''The Johnny Cash Show'' was songwriter Kris Kristofferson, who was beginning to make a name for himself as a singer/songwriter. During a live performance of Kristofferson's "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", Cash refused to change the lyrics to suit network executives, singing the song with its references to marijuana intact: "On a Sunday morning sidewalk / I'm wishin', Lord, that I was stoned."

By the early 1970s, he had crystallized his public image as "The Man in Black". He regularly performed dressed all in black, wearing a long black knee-length coat. This outfit stood in contrast to the costumes worn by most of the major country acts in his day: rhinestone suit and cowboy boots. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black", to help explain his dress code: "We're doing mighty fine I do suppose / In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes / But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."

He wore black on behalf of the poor and hungry, on behalf of "the prisoner who has long paid for his crime", and on behalf of those who have been betrayed by age or drugs. "And," Cash added, "with the Vietnam War as painful in my mind as it was in most other Americans', I wore it 'in mournin' for the lives that could have been.' ... Apart from the Vietnam War being over, I don't see much reason to change my position ... The old are still neglected, the poor are still poor, the young are still dying before their time, and we're not making many moves to make things right. There's still plenty of darkness to carry off."

He and his band had initially worn black shirts because that was the only matching color they had among their various outfits. He wore other colors on stage early in his career, but he claimed to like wearing black both on and off stage. He stated that, political reasons aside, he simply liked black as his on-stage color. To this day, the US Navy's winter blue uniform is referred to by sailors as "Johnny Cashes", as the uniform's shirt, tie, and trousers are solid black.

In the mid 1970s, Cash's popularity and number of hit songs began to decline. He made commercials for Amoco, an unpopular enterprise in an era in which oil companies made high profits while consumers suffered through high gasoline prices and shortages. However, his autobiography (the first of two), titled ''Man in Black'', was published in 1975 and sold 1.3 million copies. A second, ''Cash: The Autobiography'', appeared in 1997. His friendship with Billy Graham led to the production of a film about the life of Jesus, ''The Gospel Road'', which Cash co-wrote and narrated.

He also continued to appear on television, hosting an annual Christmas special on CBS throughout the 1970s. Later television appearances included a role in an episode of ''Columbo'' (Swan Song). He also appeared with his wife on an episode of ''Little House on the Prairie'' entitled "The Collection" and gave a performance as John Brown in the 1985 American Civil War television mini-series ''North and South''.

He was friendly with every US President starting with Richard Nixon. He was closest to Jimmy Carter, with whom he became close friends. He stated that he found all of them personally charming, noting that this was probably essential to getting oneself elected.

When invited to perform at the White House for the first time in 1970, Richard Nixon's office requested that he play "Okie from Muskogee" (a satirical Merle Haggard song about people who despised youthful drug users and war protesters) and "Welfare Cadillac" (a Guy Drake song which denies the integrity of welfare recipients). Cash declined to play either and instead selected other songs, including "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" (about a brave Native American World War II veteran who was mistreated upon his return to Arizona), and his own compositions, "What is Truth" and "Man in Black". Cash wrote that the reasons for denying Nixon's song choices were not knowing them and having fairly short notice to rehearse them, rather than any political reason. However, Cash added, even if Nixon's office had given Cash enough time to learn and rehearse the songs, their choice of pieces that conveyed "antihippie and antiblack" sentiments might have backfired.

Highwaymen

thumb|200px|From left to right Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, who formed the country music [[Supergroup (music)|supergroup, The Highwaymen]] In 1980, Cash became the Country Music Hall of Fame's youngest living inductee at age forty-eight, but during the 1980s his records failed to make a major impact on the country charts, although he continued to tour successfully. In the mid 1980s, he recorded and toured with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson as The Highwaymen, making three hit albums which were released beginning with the originally titled "Highwaymen" in 1985, followed by "Highwaymen 2" in 1990, and concluding with "Highwaymen - The Road Goes on forever" in 1995.

During that period, Cash appeared in a number of television films. In 1981, he starred in ''The Pride of Jesse Hallam'', winning fine reviews for a film that called attention to adult illiteracy. In the same year, Cash appeared as a "very special guest star" in an episode of the ''Muppet Show''. In 1983, he appeared as a heroic sheriff in ''Murder in Coweta County'', based on a real-life Georgia murder case, which co-starred Andy Griffith as his nemesis. Cash had tried for years to make the film, for which he won acclaim.

Cash relapsed into addiction after being administered painkillers for a serious abdominal injury in 1983 caused by an unusual incident in which he was kicked and wounded by an ostrich he kept on his farm.

At a hospital visit in 1988, this time to watch over Waylon Jennings (who was recovering from a heart attack), Jennings suggested that Cash have himself checked into the hospital for his own heart condition. Doctors recommended preventive heart surgery, and Cash underwent double bypass surgery in the same hospital. Both recovered, although Cash refused to use any prescription painkillers, fearing a relapse into dependency. Cash later claimed that during his operation, he had what is called a "near death experience". He said he had visions of Heaven that were so beautiful that he was angry when he woke up alive.

Cash's recording career and his general relationship with the Nashville establishment were at an all-time low in the 1980s. He realized that his record label of nearly 30 years, Columbia, was growing indifferent to him and was not properly marketing him (he was "invisible" during that time, as he said in his autobiography). Cash recorded an intentionally awful song to protest, a self-parody. "Chicken in Black" was about Cash's brain being transplanted into a chicken. Ironically, the song turned out to be a larger commercial success than any of his other recent material. Nevertheless, he was hoping to kill the relationship with the label before they did, and it was not long after "Chicken in Black" that Columbia and Cash parted ways.

In 1986, Cash returned to Sun Studios in Memphis to team up with Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins to create the album ''Class of '55''. Also in 1986, Cash published his only novel, ''Man in White'', a book about Saul and his conversion to become the Apostle Paul. He also recorded ''Johnny Cash Reads The Complete New Testament'' in 1990.

American Recordings

After Columbia Records dropped Cash from his recording contract, he had a short and unsuccessful stint with Mercury Records from 1987 to 1991 (see Johnny Cash discography).

His career was rejuvenated in the 1990s, leading to popularity with an audience not traditionally interested in country music. In 1991, he sang a version of "Man in Black" for the Christian punk band One Bad Pig's album ''I Scream Sunday''. In 1993, he sang "The Wanderer" on U2's album ''Zooropa''. Although no longer sought after by major labels, he was offered a contract with producer Rick Rubin's American Recordings label, better known for rap and hard rock.

Under Rubin's supervision, he recorded ''American Recordings'' (1994) in his living room, accompanied only by his Martin dreadnought guitar – one of many Cash played throughout his career. The album featured covers of contemporary artists selected by Rubin and had much critical and commercial success, winning a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Cash wrote that his reception at the 1994 Glastonbury Festival was one of the highlights of his career. This was the beginning of a decade of music industry accolades and commercial success. Cash teamed up with Brooks & Dunn to contribute "Folsom Prison Blues" to the AIDS benefit album ''Red Hot + Country'' produced by the Red Hot Organization. On the same album, he performed the Bob Dylan favorite "Forever Young".

Cash and his wife appeared on a number of episodes of the television series ''Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman'' starring Jane Seymour. The actress thought so highly of Cash that she later named one of her twin sons after him. He lent his voice for a cameo role in ''The Simpsons'' episode "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)," as the "Space Coyote" that guides Homer Simpson on a spiritual quest. In 1996, Cash enlisted the accompaniment of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and released ''Unchained'', which won the Best Country Album Grammy. Believing he did not explain enough of himself in his 1975 autobiography ''Man in Black'', he wrote ''Cash: The Autobiography'' in 1997.

Last years and death

In 1997, Cash was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease Shy-Drager syndrome, a form of multiple system atrophy. The diagnosis was later altered to autonomic neuropathy associated with diabetes. This illness forced Cash to curtail his touring. He was hospitalized in 1998 with severe pneumonia, which damaged his lungs. The albums ''American III: Solitary Man'' (2000) and ''American IV: The Man Comes Around'' (2002) contained Cash's response to his illness in the form of songs of a slightly more somber tone than the first two American albums. The video that was released for "Hurt", a cover of the song by Nine Inch Nails, fits Cash's view of his past and feelings of regret. The video for the song, from ''American IV'', is now generally recognized as "his epitaph," and received particular critical and popular acclaim. June Carter Cash died on May 15, 2003, at the age of 73. June had told Cash to keep working, so he continued to record, completing 60 more songs in the last four months of his life, and even performed a couple of surprise shows at the Carter Family Fold outside Bristol, Virginia. At the July 5, 2003 concert (his last public performance), before singing "Ring of Fire", Cash read a statement about his late wife that he had written shortly before taking the stage:

Cash died of complications from diabetes at approximately 2:00 a.m. CT on September 12, 2003 while hospitalized at Baptist Hospital in Nashville - less than four months after his wife. It was suggested that Johnny's health worsened due to a broken heart over June's death. He was buried next to his wife in Hendersonville Memory Gardens near his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

His stepdaughter, Rosie Nix Adams and another passenger were found dead on a bus in Montgomery County, Tennessee, on October 24, 2003. It was speculated that the deaths may have been caused by carbon monoxide from the lanterns in the bus. Adams was 45 when she died. She was buried in the Hendersonville Memory Gardens, near her mother and stepfather.

On May 24, 2005, Vivian Liberto, Cash's first wife and the mother of Rosanne Cash and three other daughters, died from surgery to remove lung cancer at the age of 71. It was her daughter Rosanne's 50th birthday.

In June 2005, his lakeside home on Caudill Drive in Hendersonville was put up for sale by his estate. In January 2006, the house was sold to Bee Gees vocalist Barry Gibb and wife Linda and titled in their Florida limited liability company for $2.3 million. The listing agent was Cash's younger brother, Tommy Cash. The home was destroyed by fire on April 10, 2007.

One of Cash's final collaborations with producer Rick Rubin, entitled ''American V: A Hundred Highways'', was released posthumously on July 4, 2006. The album debuted in the No.1 position on the ''Billboard'' Top 200 album chart for the week ending July 22, 2006.

On February 23, 2010, three days before what would have been Cash's 78th birthday, the Cash Family, Rick Rubin, and Lost Highway Records released his second posthumous record, titled ''American VI: Ain't No Grave''.

Legacy

From his early days as a pioneer of rockabilly and rock and roll in the 1950s, to his decades as an international representative of country music, to his resurgence to fame in the 1990s as a living legend and an alternative country icon, Cash influenced countless artists and left a large body of work. Upon his death, Cash was revered by the greatest popular musicians of his time. His rebellious image and often anti-authoritarian stance influenced punk rock.

Among Cash's children, his daughter Rosanne Cash (by first wife Vivian Liberto) and his son John Carter Cash (by June Carter Cash) are notable country-music musicians in their own right.

Cash nurtured and defended artists on the fringes of what was acceptable in country music even while serving as the country music establishment's most visible symbol. At an all-star concert which aired in 1999 on TNT, a diverse group of artists paid him tribute, including Bob Dylan, Chris Isaak, Wyclef Jean, Norah Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Dom DeLuise and U2. Cash himself appeared at the end and performed for the first time in more than a year. Two tribute albums were released shortly before his death; ''Kindred Spirits'' contains works from established artists, while ''Dressed in Black'' contains works from many lesser-known artists.

In total, he wrote over 1,000 songs and released dozens of albums. A box set titled ''Unearthed'' was issued posthumously. It included four CDs of unreleased material recorded with Rubin as well as a ''Best of Cash on American'' retrospective CD.

In recognition of his lifelong support of SOS Children's Villages, his family invited friends and fans to donate to that charity in his memory. He had a personal link with the SOS village in Diessen, at the Ammersee Lake in Southern Germany, near where he was stationed as a GI, and also with the SOS village in Barrett Town, by Montego Bay, near his holiday home in Jamaica. The Johnny Cash Memorial Fund was founded.

In 1999, Cash received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, ''Rolling Stone Magazine'' ranked Cash No.31 on their list of the ''100 Greatest Artists of All Time''.

In a tribute to Cash after his death, country music singer Gary Allan included the song "Nickajack Cave (Johnny Cash's Redemption)" on his 2005 album entitled ''Tough All Over''. The song chronicles Cash hitting rock bottom and subsequently resurrecting his life and career.

The main street in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Highway 31E, is known as "Johnny Cash Parkway"; the Johnny Cash Museum is located in the town.

On November 2–4, 2007, the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival was held in Starkville, Mississippi. Starkville, where Cash was arrested over 40 years earlier and held overnight at the city jail on May 11, 1965, inspired Cash to write the song "Starkville City Jail". The festival, where he was offered a symbolic posthumous pardon, honored Cash's life and music, and was expected to become an annual event.

JC Unit One, Johnny Cash's private tour bus from 1980 until 2003, was put on exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum in 2007. The Cleveland, Ohio museum offers public tours of the bus on a seasonal basis (it is stored during the winter months and not exhibited during those times).

WWE Superstar The Undertaker has been using Cash's song "Aint No Grave" (from ''American VI: Ain't No Grave'') as his entrance theme since February 21, 2011. Independent circuit wrestlers Tyson Dux and Brodie Lee also use "God's Gonna Cut You Down" (from ''American V: A Hundred Highways'') as entrance music. Other professional wrestlers who have used Cash's songs as entrance music include Austin Aries, who used his cover of the Depeche Mode's song "Personal Jesus" (from ''American IV: The Man Comes Around''), and Necro Butcher, who used both "The Man Comes Around" and "Hurt". WWE also used "Hurt" in a special video package that was aired on Monday Night RAW in November 2005 as a tribute to Eddie Guerrero, a popular WWE Superstar who had died of heart failure while he was still contracted with the company. It is also noted that current WWE Superstar Ted DiBiase, Jr. is a huge fan of Cash, as is former WWE Diva and current TNA Knockout Mickie James.

Along with the television show "The Deadliest Catch" is using the song "Ain't No Grave" as the theme song in many of their commercials.

Portrayals

The Canada Trust company used his name and images for their Johnny Cash automatic bank machines during the late 80s and early 90s.

In 1998, country singer Mark Collie was the first to portray Cash, in the short film, ''I Still Miss Someone.''

In November of 2005, ''Walk the Line'', an Academy Award-winning biopic about Cash's life starring Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny (for which he was nominated for the 2005 Best Actor Oscar) and Reese Witherspoon as June (for which she won the 2005 Best Actress Oscar), was released in the United States on to considerable commercial success and critical acclaim. Both Phoenix and Witherspoon have won various other awards for their roles, including the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, respectively. They both performed their own vocals in the film, and Phoenix learned to play guitar for his role as Cash. Phoenix received the Grammy Award for his contributions to the soundtrack. John Carter Cash, the first child of Johnny and June, served as an executive producer on the film.

On March 12, 2006 ''Ring of Fire'', a jukebox musical of the Cash oeuvre, debuted on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, but closed due to harsh reviews and disappointing sales on April 30, 2006.

On April 11, 2010, ''Million Dollar Quartet'', a musical portraying the early Sun recording sessions involving Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, debuted on Broadway. Actor Lance Guest portrayed Cash. The musical was nominated for three awards at the 2010 Tony Awards, and won one.

Discography

: ''See Johnny Cash discography, and Johnny Cash Sun Records discography.''

Awards and honors

: ''For detailed lists of music awards, see List of Johnny Cash awards.''

Cash received multiple Country Music Association Awards, Grammys, and other awards, in categories ranging from vocal and spoken performances to album notes and videos.

In a career that spanned almost five decades, Cash was the personification of country music to many people around the world. Cash was a musician who was not tied to a single genre. He recorded songs that could be considered rock and roll, blues, rockabilly, folk, and gospel, and exerted an influence on each of those genres. Moreover, he had the unique distinction among country artists of having "crossed over" late in his career to become popular with an unexpected audience, young indie and alternative rock fans. His diversity was evidenced by his presence in three major music halls of fame: the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1980), and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1992). Only thirteen performers are in both of the last two, and only Hank Williams Sr., Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, and Bill Monroe share the honor with Cash of being in all three. However, only Cash was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the regular manner, unlike the other country members, who were inducted as "early influences." His pioneering contribution to the genre has also been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1996. Cash stated that his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, in 1980, was his greatest professional achievement. In 2001, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for best cinematography for "Hurt" and was supposed to appear, but died during the night.

In 2007, Cash was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

Further reading

Graeme Thomson ''The Resurrection of Johnny Cash: Hurt, Redemption, and American Recordings'' Jawbone Press ISBN 978-1906002367

Sources

Notes

References

D'Ambrosio, Antonino (2009). ''A Heartbeat and A Guitar: Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears''. With Original Art by Shepard Fairey and Photos by Jim Marshall. Perseus Books/Nation Books ISBN 9781568584072

Millier, Bill. (retrieved September 7, 2004). Johnny Cash Awards. JohnnyCash.com.

Streissguth, Michael. ''Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece'', Da Capo Press (2004). ISBN 0-306-81338-6.

Urbanski, Dave. ''The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash''. New York: Relevant Books. ISBN 0-9729276-7-0.

Turner, Steve. ''The Man Called Cash: The Life, Love, and Faith of an American Legend''. Nashville, W Publishing Group, 2004. (The Authorized Biography).

Published works

Cash, Johnny. ''Man in Black: His Own Story in His Own Words''. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975. ISBN 99924-31-58-X.

Cash, Johnny, with Patrick Carr. ''Cash: The Autobiography''. New York: Harper Collins, 1997. ISBN 0-06-101357-9.

Cash, Johnny, with June Carter Cash. ''Love'' liner notes. New York: Sony, 2000.

Cash, Johnny, ''The Man in White'', 1986.

External links

Johnny Cash Official Label Website

Johnny Cash Radio Webcast

Johnny Cash World - buy songs, albums, movies, books with Johnny Cash

Official Johnny Cash Lost Highway Artist Page

at the Country Music Hall of Fame

at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame

at the Hit Parade Hall of Fame

Larry King's November 26, 2002 interview With Johnny Cash on CNN

Johnny Cash: Best Photos – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Category:1932 births Category:2003 deaths Category:People from Cleveland County, Arkansas Category:Actors from Arkansas Category:American autobiographers Category:American composers Category:American country guitarists Category:American country singers Category:American country songwriters Category:American folk guitarists Category:American folk singers Category:American bass-baritones Category:American performers of Christian music Category:American Protestants Category:Country musicians from Arkansas Category:Burials in Tennessee Category:Charly Records artists Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Category:Deaths from diabetes Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Grand Ole Opry members Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Musicians from Arkansas Category:People from Sumner County, Tennessee Category:People with Parkinson's disease Category:Rockabilly Hall of Fame inductees Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:The Highwaymen (country supergroup) members Category:Sun Records artists Category:United States Air Force airmen Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients Category:People self-identifying as substance abusers Category:Grammy Legend Award Category:Million Dollar Quartet members

ar:جوني كاش az:Conni Keş bar:Johnny Cash bs:Johnny Cash bg:Джони Кеш ca:Johnny Cash cs:Johnny Cash cy:Johnny Cash da:Johnny Cash de:Johnny Cash et:Johnny Cash el:Τζόνι Κας es:Johnny Cash eo:Johnny Cash eu:Johnny Cash fa:جانی کش fo:Johnny Cash fr:Johnny Cash fy:Johnny Cash ga:Johnny Cash gd:Johnny Cash gl:Johnny Cash ko:조니 캐시 hy:Ջոնի Քեշ hi:जॉनी कैश hr:Johnny Cash id:Johnny Cash is:Johnny Cash it:Johnny Cash he:ג'וני קאש ka:ჯონი კეში sw:Johnny Cash la:Ioannes Cash lv:Džonijs Kešs lmo:Johnny Cash hu:Johnny Cash mk:Џони Кеш mr:जॉनी कॅश nl:Johnny Cash ja:ジョニー・キャッシュ no:Johnny Cash nn:Johnny Cash oc:Johnny Cash nds:Johnny Cash pl:Johnny Cash pt:Johnny Cash ro:Johnny Cash ru:Кэш, Джонни sco:Johnny Cash sq:Johnny Cash simple:Johnny Cash sk:Johnny Cash sl:Johnny Cash sr:Џони Кеш sh:Johnny Cash fi:Johnny Cash sv:Johnny Cash th:จอห์นนี แคช tr:Johnny Cash uk:Джонні Кеш vi:Johnny Cash zh:約翰尼·卡什

Birth date	October 02, 1869
Birth place	Porbandar, Kathiawar Agency, British India
Death date	January 30, 1948
Death place	New Delhi, Union of India
Death cause	Assassination by shooting
Resting place	Rajghat, New Delhi, India
Resting place coordinates
Nationality	Indian
Other names	Mahatma Gandhi, Bapu
Known for	Prominent figure of Indian independence movementPropounding the philosophy of Satyagraha and Ahimsa Advocating non-violence Pacifism
Alma mater	University College London, University of London
Religion	Hinduism
Spouse	Kasturba Gandhi
Children	HarilalManilalRamdasDevdaschild which died in infancy
Parents	Putlibai Gandhi (Mother)Karamchand Gandhi (Father)
Signature	Gandhi_signature.svg
Footnotes	}}

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement. A pioneer of ''satyagraha'', or resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience — a philosophy firmly founded upon ''ahimsa'', or total nonviolence — Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is often referred to as Mahatma (; Sanskrit: महात्मा ''mahātmā'' or "Great Soul," an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore). In India, he is also called Bapu (, ''bāpu'' or "Father") and officially honoured as the ''Father of the Nation''. His birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as ''Gandhi Jayanti'', a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers in protesting excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, but above all for achieving ''Swaraj'' — the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led Indians in protesting the British-imposed salt tax with the Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to ''Quit India'' in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, on many occasions, in both South Africa and India.

Gandhi strove to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian ''dhoti'' and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a ''charkha''. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and social protest.

Early life and background

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, a coastal town which was then part of the Bombay Presidency, British India. He was born in his ancestral home, now known as Kirti Mandir, Porbandar. His father, Karamchand Gandhi (1822–1885), who belonged to the Hindu Modh community, served as the ''diwan'' (a high official) of Porbander state, a small princely state in the Kathiawar Agency of British India. His grandfather was Uttamchand Gandhi, fondly called Utta Gandhi. His mother, Putlibai, who came from the Hindu Pranami Vaishnava community, was Karamchand's fourth wife, the first three wives having apparently died in childbirth. Growing up with a devout mother and the Jain traditions of the region, the young Mohandas absorbed early the influences that would play an important role in his adult life; these included compassion for sentient beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance among individuals of different creeds.

The Indian classics, especially the stories of Shravana and Maharaja Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood. In his autobiography, he admits that it left an indelible impression on his mind. He writes: "It haunted me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without number." Gandhi's early self-identification with Truth and Love as supreme values is traceable to these epic characters.

In May 1883, the 13-year-old Mohandas was married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Makhanji (her first name was usually shortened to "Kasturba", and affectionately to "Ba") in an arranged child marriage, according to the custom of the region. Recalling the day of their marriage, he once said, "As we didn't know much about marriage, for us it meant only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives." However, as was also the custom of the region, the adolescent bride was to spend much time at her parents' house, and away from her husband. In 1885, when Gandhi was 15, the couple's first child was born, but survived only a few days, and Gandhi's father, Karamchand Gandhi, had died earlier that year. Mohandas and Kasturba had four more children, all sons: Harilal, born in 1888; Manilal, born in 1892; Ramdas, born in 1897; and Devdas, born in 1900. At his middle school in Porbandar and high school in Rajkot, Gandhi remained an average student. He passed the matriculation exam for Samaldas College at Bhavnagar, Gujarat, with some difficulty. While there, he was unhappy, in part because his family wanted him to become a barrister. On 4 September 1888, Gandhi travelled to London, England, to study law at University College London and to get trained as a barrister. His time in London, the Imperial capital, was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother in the presence of the Jain monk Becharji, upon leaving India, to observe the Hindu precepts of abstinence from meat, alcohol, and promiscuity. Although Gandhi experimented with adopting "English" customs — taking dancing lessons for example — he could not stomach the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady, and he was always hungry until he found one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. Influenced by Salt's book, he joined the Vegetarian Society, was elected to its executive committee, and started a local Bayswater chapter. Some of the vegetarians he met were members of the Theosophical Society, which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of Buddhist and Hindu literature. They encouraged Gandhi to join them in reading the ''Bhagavad Gita'' both in translation as well as in the original. Not having shown interest in religion before, he became interested in religious thought and began to read both Hindu and Christian scriptures.

Gandhi was called to the bar on 10 June 1891. Two days later, he left London for India, where he learned that his mother had died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from him. His attempts at establishing a law practice in Bombay failed and, later, after applying and being turned down for a part-time job as a high school teacher, he ended up returning to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, a business he was forced to close when he ran foul of a British officer. In his autobiography, Gandhi refers to this incident as an unsuccessful attempt to lobby on behalf of his older brother. It was in this climate that, in April 1893, he accepted a year-long contract from Dada Abdulla & Co., an Indian firm, to a post in the Colony of Natal, South Africa, then part of the British Empire.

Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914)

In South Africa, Gandhi faced the discrimination directed at Indians. He was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to move from the first-class to a third-class coach while holding a valid first-class ticket. Travelling farther on by stagecoach, he was beaten by a driver for refusing to move to make room for a European passenger. He suffered other hardships on the journey as well, including being barred from several hotels. In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court ordered Gandhi to remove his turban, which he refused to do. These events were a turning point in Gandhi's life: they shaped his social activism and awakened him to social injustice. After witnessing racism, prejudice and injustice against Indians in South Africa, Gandhi began to question his place in society and his people's standing in the British Empire.

Gandhi extended his original period of stay in South Africa to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote. Though unable to halt the bill's passage, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, and through this organisation, he moulded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force. In January 1897, when Gandhi landed in Durban, a mob of white settlers attacked him and he escaped only through the efforts of the wife of the police superintendent. He, however, refused to press charges against any member of the mob, stating it was one of his principles not to seek redress for a personal wrong in a court of law.

In 1906, the Transvaal government promulgated a new Act compelling registration of the colony's Indian population. At a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg on 11 September that year, Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of ''satyagraha'' (devotion to the truth), or non-violent protest, for the first time. He urged Indians to defy the new law and to suffer the punishments for doing so. The community adopted this plan, and during the ensuing seven-year struggle, thousands of Indians were jailed, flogged, or shot for striking, refusing to register, for burning their registration cards or engaging in other forms of non-violent resistance. The government successfully repressed the Indian protesters, but the public outcry over the harsh treatment of peaceful Indian protesters by the South African government forced South African General Jan Christiaan Smuts to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi. Gandhi's ideas took shape, and the concept of ''satyagraha'' matured during this struggle.

Accusations of Racism

Some of Gandhi's South African articles are controversial. On 7 March 1908, Gandhi wrote in the ''Indian Opinion'' of his time in a South African prison: "Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised—the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals... The kaffirs' sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness. They're loafers... a species of humanity almost unknown among the Indians." Writing on the subject of immigration in 1903, Gandhi commented: "We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do... We believe also that the white race in South Africa should be the predominating race." During his time in South Africa, Gandhi protested repeatedly about the social classification of blacks with Indians, whom he described as "undoubtedly infinitely superior to the Kaffirs". Remarks such as these have led many South Africans to accuse Gandhi of racism.

Two professors of history who specialise in South Africa, Surendra Bhana and Goolam Vahed, examined this controversy in their text, ''The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914.'' (New Delhi: Manohar, 2005). They focus in Chapter 1, "Gandhi, Africans and Indians in Colonial Natal" on the relationship between the African and Indian communities under "White rule" and policies which enforced segregation (and, they argue, led to inevitable conflict between these communities). Of this relationship, they state that, "the young Gandhi was influenced by segregationist notions prevalent in the 1890s." At the same time, they state, "Gandhi's experiences in jail seemed to make him more sensitive to their plight...the later Gandhi mellowed; he seemed much less categorical in his expression of prejudice against Africans, and much more open to seeing points of common cause. His negative views in the Johannesburg jail were reserved for hardened African prisoners rather than Africans generally." However, when plans to unveil a statue of Gandhi in Johannesburg were announced, a movement unsuccessfully tried to block it because of Gandhi's racist statements.

Role in Zulu War of 1906

In 1906, after the British introduced a new poll-tax in South Africa, Zulus killed two British officers. In response, the British declared war against the Zulu kingdom. Gandhi actively encouraged the British to recruit Indians. He argued that Indians should support the war efforts in order to legitimise their claims to full citizenship. The British, however, refused to commission Indians as army officers. Nonetheless, they accepted Gandhi's offer to let a detachment of Indians volunteer as a stretcher-bearer corps to treat wounded British soldiers. This corps was commanded by Gandhi. On 21 July 1906, Gandhi wrote in ''Indian Opinion'': "The corps had been formed at the instance of the Natal Government by way of experiment, in connection with the operations against the Natives consists of twenty three Indians". Gandhi urged the Indian population in South Africa to join the war through his columns in ''Indian Opinion'': “If the Government only realised what reserve force is being wasted, they would make use of it and give Indians the opportunity of a thorough training for actual warfare.”

In Gandhi's opinion, the Draft Ordinance of 1906 brought the status of Indians below the level of Natives. He therefore urged Indians to resist the Ordinance along the lines of ''satyagraha'' by taking the example of "Kaffirs". In his words, "Even the half-castes and kaffirs, who are less advanced than we, have resisted the government. The pass law applies to them as well, but they do not take out passes."

In 1927, Gandhi wrote of the event: "The Boer War had not brought home to me the horrors of war with anything like the vividness that the [Zulu] 'rebellion' did. This was no war but a man-hunt, not only in my opinion, but also in that of many Englishmen with whom I had occasion to talk."

Struggle for Indian Independence (1915–45)

In 1915, Gandhi returned from South Africa to live in India. He spoke at the conventions of the Indian National Congress, but was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people primarily by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a respected leader of the Congress Party at the time.

Role in World War I

In April 1918, during the latter part of World War I, the Viceroy invited Gandhi to a War Conference in Delhi Perhaps to show his support for the Empire and help his case for India's independence, Gandhi agreed to actively recruit Indians for the war effort. In contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants. In a June 1918 leaflet entitled "Appeal for Enlistment", Gandhi wrote "To bring about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them...If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army." He did, however, stipulate in a letter to the Viceroy's private secretary that he "personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe." Gandhi's war recruitment campaign brought into question his consistency on nonviolence as his friend Charlie Andrews confirms, "Personally I have never been able to reconcile this with his own conduct in other respects, and it is one of the points where I have found myself in painful disagreement." Gandhi's private secretary also acknowledges that "The question of the consistency between his creed of 'Ahimsa' (non-violence) and his recruiting campaign was raised not only then but has been discussed ever since."

Champaran and Kheda

Gandhi's first major achievements came in 1918 with the Champaran agitation and ''Kheda Satyagraha'', although in the latter it was indigo and other cash crops instead of the food crops necessary for their survival. Suppressed by the militias of the landlords (mostly British), they were given measly compensation, leaving them mired in extreme poverty. The villages were kept extremely dirty and unhygienic; and alcoholism was rampant. Now in the throes of a devastating famine, the British levied a tax which they insisted on increasing. The situation was desperate. In Kheda in Gujarat, the problem was the same. Gandhi established an ashram there, organising scores of his veteran supporters and fresh volunteers from the region. He organised a detailed study and survey of the villages, accounting for the atrocities and terrible episodes of suffering, including the general state of degenerate living. Building on the confidence of villagers, he began leading the clean-up of villages, building of schools and hospitals and encouraging the village leadership to undo and condemn many social evils such as untouchability and alcoholism.

His most important impact came when he was arrested by police on the charge of creating unrest and was ordered to leave the province. Hundreds of thousands of people protested and rallied outside the jail, police stations and courts demanding his release, which the court reluctantly granted. Gandhi led organised protests and strikes against the landlords. With the guidance of the British government, these landlords agreed to suspend revenue hikes until the famine ended and to grant the poor farmers of the region increased compensation and control over farming. It was during this agitation that Gandhi was addressed by the people as ''Bapu'' (Father) and ''Mahatma'' (Great Soul). In Kheda, Sardar Patel represented the farmers in negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection and released all the prisoners. As a result, Gandhi became well known in India.

Non-cooperation

Gandhi employed non-cooperation, non-violence and peaceful resistance as his "weapons" in the struggle against the British Raj. In Punjab, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of civilians by British troops (also known as the Amritsar Massacre) caused deep trauma to the nation, leading to increased public anger and acts of violence. Gandhi criticised both the actions of the British Raj and the retaliatory violence of Indians. He authored the resolution offering condolences to British civilian victims and condemning the riots which, after initial opposition in the party, was accepted following Gandhi's emotional speech advocating his principle that all violence was evil and could not be justified. After the massacre and subsequent violence, Gandhi began to focus on winning complete self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, maturing soon into ''Swaraj'' or complete individual, spiritual, political independence.

In December 1921, Gandhi was invested with executive authority on behalf of the Indian National Congress. Under his leadership, the Congress was reorganised with a new constitution, with the goal of ''Swaraj''. Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee. A hierarchy of committees was set up to improve discipline, transforming the party from an elite organisation to one of mass national appeal. Gandhi expanded his non-violence platform to include the ''swadeshi'' policy — the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. Linked to this was his advocacy that ''khadi'' (homespun cloth) be worn by all Indians instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi exhorted Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning ''khadi'' in support of the independence movement. Gandhi even invented a small, portable spinning wheel that could be folded into the size of a small typewriter. This was a strategy to inculcate discipline and dedication to weeding out the unwilling and ambitious and to include women in the movement at a time when many thought that such activities were not respectable activities for women. In addition to boycotting British products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions and law courts, to resign from government employment, and to forsake British titles and honours.

An example demonstrates popularity of Gandhi, importance of participation of people in the freedom movement and Gandhi's words on worth of sacrifice. While he was popularising Khadi in rural Orissa, an aged poor woman who was listening to a speech by Gandhi fought her way to where he was, touched his feet and put a one-paise copper coin in front of him. Gandhi accepted the coin and thanked her. He said to Jamnalal Bajaj about it as:

"Non-cooperation" enjoyed widespread appeal and success, increasing excitement and participation from all strata of Indian society. Yet, just as the movement reached its apex, it ended abruptly as a result of a violent clash in the town of Chauri Chaura, Uttar Pradesh, in February 1922. Fearing that the movement was about to take a turn towards violence, and convinced that this would be the undoing of all his work, Gandhi called off the campaign of mass civil disobedience. According to Andrew Roberts, this was the third time that Gandhi had called off a major campaign, "leaving in the lurch more than 15,000 supporters who were jailed for the cause". Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He began his sentence on 18 March 1922. He was released in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only 2 years.

Without Gandhi's unifying personality, the Indian National Congress began to splinter during his years in prison, splitting into two factions, one led by Chitta Ranjan Das and Motilal Nehru favouring party participation in the legislatures, and the other led by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, opposing this move. Furthermore, cooperation among Hindus and Muslims, which had been strong at the height of the non-violence campaign, was breaking down. Gandhi attempted to bridge these differences through many means, including a three-week fast in the autumn of 1924, but with limited success. This may have been due to Gandhi's "uncanny ability to irritate and frustrate" India's Muslim leadership.

Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)

Gandhi stayed out of active politics and, as such, the limelight for most of the 1920s. He focused instead on resolving the wedge between the Swaraj Party and the Indian National Congress, and expanding initiatives against untouchability, alcoholism, ignorance and poverty. He returned to the fore in 1928. In the preceding year, the British government had appointed a new constitutional reform commission under Sir John Simon, which did not include any Indian as its member. The result was a boycott of the commission by Indian political parties. Gandhi pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominion status or face a new campaign of non-cooperation with complete independence for the country as its goal. Gandhi had not only moderated the views of younger men like Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru, who sought a demand for immediate independence, but also reduced his own call to a one year wait, instead of two. The British did not respond. On 31 December 1929, the flag of India was unfurled in Lahore. 26 January 1930 was celebrated as India's Independence Day by the Indian National Congress meeting in Lahore. This day was commemorated by almost every other Indian organisation. Gandhi then launched a new satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930. This was highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from 12 March to 6 April, where he marched 388 kilometres (241 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself. Thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British hold on India; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.

The government, represented by Lord Edward Irwin, decided to negotiate with Gandhi. The Gandhi–Irwin Pact was signed in March 1931. The British Government agreed to free all political prisoners, in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. Also as a result of the pact, Gandhi was invited to attend the Round Table Conference in London as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The conference was a disappointment to Gandhi and the nationalists, because it focused on the Indian princes and Indian minorities rather than on a transfer of power. Furthermore, Lord Irwin's successor, Lord Willingdon, began a new campaign of controlling and subduing the nationalist movement. Gandhi was again arrested, and the government tried to negate his influence by completely isolating him from his followers. But this tactic failed.

In 1932, through the campaigning of the Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar, the government granted untouchables separate electorates under the new constitution. In protest, Gandhi embarked on a six-day fast in September 1932. The resulting public outcry successfully forced the government to adopt an equitable arrangement through negotiations mediated by Palwankar Baloo. This was the start of a new campaign by Gandhi to improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he named Harijans, the children of God.

On 8 May 1933, Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification to help the Harijan movement. This new campaign was not universally embraced within the Dalit community, as prominent leader B. R. Ambedkar condemned Gandhi's use of the term ''Harijans'' as saying that Dalits were socially immature, and that privileged caste Indians played a paternalistic role. Ambedkar and his allies also felt Gandhi was undermining Dalit political rights. Gandhi had also refused to support the untouchables in 1924–25 when they were campaigning for the right to pray in temples. Because of Gandhi's actions, Ambedkar described him as "devious and untrustworthy". Gandhi, although born into the Vaishya caste, insisted that he was able to speak on behalf of Dalits, despite the presence of Dalit activists such as Ambedkar.

In the summer of 1934, three unsuccessful attempts were made on Gandhi's life.

When the Congress Party chose to contest elections and accept power under the Federation scheme, Gandhi resigned from party membership. He did not disagree with the party's move, but felt that if he resigned, his popularity with Indians would cease to stifle the party's membership, which actually varied, including communists, socialists, trade unionists, students, religious conservatives, and those with pro-business convictions, and that these various voices would get a chance to make themselves heard. Gandhi also wanted to avoid being a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj.

Gandhi returned to active politics again in 1936, with the Nehru presidency and the Lucknow session of the Congress. Although Gandhi wanted a total focus on the task of winning independence and not speculation about India's future, he did not restrain the Congress from adopting socialism as its goal. Gandhi had a clash with Subhas Bose, who had been elected president in 1938. Their main points of contention were Bose's lack of commitment to democracy and lack of faith in non-violence. Bose won his second term despite Gandhi's criticism, but left the Congress when the All-India leaders resigned en masse in protest of his abandonment of the principles introduced by Gandhi.

World War II and ''Quit India''

World War II broke out in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Initially, Gandhi favoured offering "non-violent moral support" to the British effort, but other Congressional leaders were offended by the unilateral inclusion of India in the war, without consultation of the people's representatives. All Congressmen resigned from office. After long deliberations, Gandhi declared that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom, while that freedom was denied to India itself. As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, drafting a resolution calling for the British to ''Quit India''. This was Gandhi's and the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from India.

Gandhi was criticised by some Congress party members and other Indian political groups, both pro-British and anti-British. Some felt that not supporting Britain more in its struggle against Nazi Germany was unethical. Others felt that Gandhi's refusal for India to participate in the war was insufficient and more direct opposition should be taken, while Britain fought against Nazism yet continued to contradict itself by refusing to grant India Independence. ''Quit India'' became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle, with mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale. Thousands of freedom fighters were killed or injured by police gunfire, and hundreds of thousands were arrested. Gandhi and his supporters made it clear they would not support the war effort unless India were granted immediate independence. He even clarified that this time the movement would not be stopped if individual acts of violence were committed, saying that the ''"ordered anarchy"'' around him was ''"worse than real anarchy."'' He called on all Congressmen and Indians to maintain discipline via ahimsa, and ''Karo Ya Maro'' ("Do or Die") in the cause of ultimate freedom.

Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were arrested in Bombay by the British on 9 August 1942. Gandhi was held for two years in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. It was here that Gandhi suffered two terrible blows in his personal life. His 50-year old secretary Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack 6 days later and his wife Kasturba died after 18 months imprisonment on 22 February 1944; six weeks later Gandhi suffered a severe malaria attack. He was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. He came out of detention to an altered political scene – the Muslim League for example, which a few years earlier had appeared marginal, "now occupied the centre of the political stage" and the topic of Jinnah's campaign for Pakistan was a major talking point. Gandhi met Jinnah in September 1944 in Bombay but Jinnah rejected, on the grounds that it fell short of a fully independent Pakistan, his proposal of the right of Muslim provinces to opt out of substantial parts of the forthcoming political union.

Although the Quit India movement had moderate success in its objective, the ruthless suppression of the movement brought order to India by the end of 1943. At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership.

Partition of India

While the Indian National Congress and Gandhi called for the British to quit India, the Muslim League passed a resolution for them to divide and quit, in 1943. Gandhi is believed to have been opposed to the partition during independence and suggested an agreement which required the Congress and Muslim League to cooperate and attain independence under a provisional government, thereafter, the question of partition could be resolved by a plebiscite in the districts with a Muslim majority. When Jinnah called for Direct Action, on 16 August 1946, Gandhi was infuriated and visited the most riot prone areas to stop the massacres, personally. He made strong efforts to unite the Indian Hindus, Muslims and Christians and struggled for the emancipation of the "untouchables" in Hindu society.

On the 14^th and 15 August 1947 the Indian Independence Act was invoked and the following carnage witnessed a displacement of up to 12.5 million people in the former British Indian Empire with an estimated loss of life varying from several hundred thousand to a million. But for his teachings, the efforts of his followers, and his own presence, there would have been much more bloodshed during the partition, according to prominent Norwegian historian, Jens Arup Seip.

Stanley Wolpert's words sum up Gandhi's role and views on the partition perfectly:

Assassination

On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was shot while he was walking to a platform from which he was to address a prayer meeting. The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu nationalist with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha, who held Gandhi responsible for weakening India by insisting upon a payment to Pakistan. Godse and his co-conspirator Narayan Apte were later tried and convicted; they were executed on 15 November 1949. Gandhi's memorial (or ''Samādhi'') at Rāj Ghāt, New Delhi, bears the epigraph "Hē Ram", (Devanagari: ''हे ! राम'' or, ''He ''), which may be translated as "Oh God". These are widely believed to be Gandhi's last words after he was shot, though the veracity of this statement has been disputed. Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the nation through radio:

"Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that; nevertheless, we will not see him again, as we have seen him for these many years, we will not run to him for advice or seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for millions and millions in this country." – Jawaharlal Nehru's address to Gandhi

Gandhi's ashes were poured into urns which were sent across India for memorial services. Most were immersed at the Sangam at Allahabad on 12 February 1948, but some were secretly taken away. In 1997, Tushar Gandhi immersed the contents of one urn, found in a bank vault and reclaimed through the courts, at the Sangam at Allahabad. Some of Gandhi's ashes were scattered at the source of the Nile River near Jinja, Uganda, and a memorial plaque marks the event. On 30 January 2008, the contents of another urn were immersed at Girgaum Chowpatty by the family after a Dubai-based businessman had sent it to a Mumbai museum. Another urn has ended up in a palace of the Aga Khan in Pune (where he had been imprisoned from 1942 to 1944) and another in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Los Angeles. The family is aware that these enshrined ashes could be misused for political purposes, but does not want to have them removed because it would entail breaking the shrines.

Principles, practices and beliefs

Truth & Satyagraha

Gandhi dedicated his life to the wider purpose of discovering truth, or ''Satya''. He tried to achieve this by learning from his own mistakes and conducting experiments on himself. He called his autobiography ''The Story of My Experiments with Truth''.

Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities. Gandhi summarised his beliefs first when he said "God is Truth". He would later change this statement to "Truth is God". Thus, ''Satya'' (Truth) in Gandhi's philosophy is "God".

Gandhi's commitment to truth has been questioned by Joseph Lelyveld, who claims that Gandhi asked journalists to quote "not the words that had actually come from his mouth but a version he ­authorised after his sometimes heavy editing of the transcripts".

The essence of Satyagraha (lit. 'insistence/holding of truth') is that it seeks to eliminate antagonisms without harming the antagonists themselves and seeks to transform or “purify” it to a higher level. A euphemism sometimes used for Satyagraha is that it is a “silent force” or a “soul force” (a term also used by Martin Luther King Jr. during his famous “I Have a Dream” speech). It arms the individual with moral power rather than physical power. Satyagraha is also termed a “universal force,” as it essentially “makes no distinction between kinsmen and strangers, young and old, man and woman, friend and foe.” Gandiji wrote: “There must be no impatience, no barbarity, no insolence, no undue pressure. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy, we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.” Civil disobedience and non-cooperation as practised under Satyagraha are based on the “law of suffering”, a doctrine that ''the endurance of suffering is a means to an end''. This end usually implies a moral upliftment or progress of an individual or society. Therefore, non-cooperation in Satyagraha is in fact a means to secure the cooperation of the opponent consistently with truth and justice.

Nonviolence

Although Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of non-violence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a large scale. The concept of nonviolence (''ahimsa'') and nonresistance has a long history in Indian religious thought and has had many revivals in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Jewish and Christian contexts. Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography ''The Story of My Experiments with Truth''. He was quoted as saying:

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always."

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."

In applying these principles, Gandhi did not balk from taking them to their most logical extremes in envisioning a world where even government, police and armies were nonviolent. The quotations below are from the book "For Pacifists."

The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The science of non-violence alone can lead one to pure democracy...Power based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power derived from fear of punishment....It is a blasphemy to say non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals...The nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on non-violence...A society organised and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy.

I have conceded that even in a non-violent state a police force may be necessary...Police ranks will be composed of believers in non-violence. The people will instinctively render them every help and through mutual cooperation they will easily deal with the ever decreasing disturbances...Violent quarrels between labor and capital and strikes will be few and far between in a non-violent state because the influence of the non-violent majority will be great as to respect the principle elements in society. Similarly, there will be no room for communal disturbances....

A non-violent army acts unlike armed men, as well in times of peace as in times of disturbances. Theirs will be the duty of bringing warring communities together, carrying peace propaganda, engaging in activities that would bring and keep them in touch with every single person in their parish or division. Such an army should be ready to cope with any emergency, and in order to still the frenzy of mobs should risk their lives in numbers sufficient for that purpose. ...Satyagraha (truth-force) brigades can be organised in every village and every block of buildings in the cities. [If the non-violent society is attacked from without] there are two ways open to non-violence. To yield possession, but non-cooperate with the aggressor...prefer death to submission. The second way would be non-violent resistance by the people who have been trained in the non-violent way...The unexpected spectacle of endless rows upon rows of men and women simply dying rather than surrender to the will of an aggressor must ultimately melt him and his soldiery...A nation or group which has made non-violence its final policy cannot be subjected to slavery even by the atom bomb.... The level of non-violence in that nation, if that even happily comes to pass, will naturally have risen so high as to command universal respect.

In accordance with these views, in 1940, when invasion of the British Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British people (''Non-Violence in Peace and War''):

"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions...If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them."

In a post-war interview in 1946, he offered a view at an even further extreme:

"Hitler," Gandhi said, "killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs... It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions."

However, Gandhi realised that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he believed everyone did not possess. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it were used as a cover for cowardice:

"Gandhi guarded against attracting to his ''satyagraha'' movement those who feared to take up arms or felt themselves incapable of resistance. 'I do believe,' he wrote, 'that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.'"

"At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before. It must never be said of the Khudai Khidmatgars that once so brave, they had become or been made cowards under Badshah Khan's influence. Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in defying death and being ever ready to bare their breasts to the bullets."

Gandhi also came under some political fire for his criticism of those who attempted to achieve independence through more violent means. According to a report in the Frontline magazine, he did plead several times for the commutation of the death sentence of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev including a personal visit on 19 March 1931 and in a letter to the Viceroy on the day of their execution, pleading fervently for the commutation.

Winston Churchill said that it was "nauseating" to see Gandhi, "a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the Middle East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace. .. to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor".

He continued this argument in a number of articles reprinted in Homer Jack's ''The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings''. In the first, "Zionism and Anti-Semitism," written in 1938, Gandhi commented upon the 1930s persecution of the Jews in Germany within the context of Satyagraha. He offered non-violence as a method of combating the difficulties Jews faced in Germany, stating,

If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest Gentile German might, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in the end the rest were bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy...the calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the God-fearing, death has no terror.

Gandhi was highly criticised for these statements and responded in the article "Questions on the Jews" with "Friends have sent me two newspaper cuttings criticising my appeal to the Jews. The two critics suggest that in presenting non-violence to the Jews as a remedy against the wrong done to them, I have suggested nothing new...what I have pleaded for is renunciation of violence of the heart and consequent active exercise of the force generated by the great renunciation.

Gandhi's statements regarding Jews facing the impending Holocaust have attracted criticism from a number of commentators. Martin Buber wrote a sharply critical open letter to Gandhi on 24 February 1939. Buber asserted that the comparison between British treatment of Indian subjects and Nazi treatment of Jews was inappropriate; moreover, he noted that when Indians were the victims of persecution, Gandhi had, on occasion, supported the use of force.

Gandhi commented upon the 1930s persecution of the Jews in Germany within the context of Satyagraha. In the November 1938 article on the Nazi persecution of the Jews quoted above, he offered non-violence as a solution:

The German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province. But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both?"

Vegetarianism

As a child, Gandhi experimented with meat-eating. This was due partially to his inherent curiosity as well as his rather persuasive peer and friend Sheikh Mehtab. The idea of vegetarianism is deeply ingrained in Hindu and Jain traditions in India, and, in his native land of Gujarat, most Hindus are vegetarian and so are almost all Jains. The Gandhi family was no exception. Before leaving for his studies in London, Gandhi made a promise to his mother, Putlibai, and his uncle, Becharji Swami, that he would abstain from eating meat, taking alcohol, and engaging in promiscuity. He held fast to his promise and gained more than a diet: he gained a basis for his life-long philosophies. As Gandhi grew into adulthood, he became a strict vegetarian. He wrote the book ''The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism'' and several articles on the subject, some of which were published in the London Vegetarian Society's publication, ''The Vegetarian''. During this period, the young Gandhi became inspired by many great minds and was befriended by the chairman of the London Vegetarian Society, Dr. Josiah Oldfield.

Having also read and admired the work of Henry Stephens Salt, the young Mohandas met and often corresponded with the vegetarian campaigner. Gandhi spent much time advocating vegetarianism during and after his time in London. To Gandhi, a vegetarian diet would not only satisfy the requirements of the body, it would also serve an economic purpose as meat was, and still is, generally more expensive than grains, vegetables, and fruits. Also, many Indians of the time struggled with low income, thus vegetarianism was seen not only as a spiritual practice but also a practical one. He abstained from eating for long periods, using fasting as a form of political protest. He refused to eat until his death or his demands were met. Gandhi noted in his autobiography that vegetarianism was the beginning of his deep commitment to Brahmacharya; without total control of the palate, his success in Bramacharya would likely falter.

Gandhi also experimented with fruitarianism, stating in his autobiography, "I decided to live on a pure fruit diet, and that too composed of the cheapest fruit possible ... Raw groundnuts, bananas, dates, lemons and olive oil composed our usual diet." However, late in life he broke his discipline and started taking goat's milk on the advice of his doctor. This lapse of discipline bothered him to his dying day, and he wrote, "The memory of this action even now rankles my breast and fills me with remorse, and I am constantly thinking how to give up goat's milk." He never took dairy products obtained from cows because of his view initially that milk is not the natural diet of man, disgust for cow blowing, and, specifically, because of a vow to his late mother.

Nai Talim, Basic Education

''Nai Talim'' is a spiritual principle which states that knowledge and work are not separate. Gandhi promoted an educational curriculum with the same name based on this pedagogical principle.

It can be translated with the phrase 'Basic Education for all'. However, the concept has several layers of meaning. It developed out of Gandhi's experience with the English educational system and with colonialism in general. In that system, he saw that Indian children would be alienated and 'career-based thinking' would become dominant. In addition, it embodied a series of negative outcomes: the disdain for manual work, the development of a new elite class, and the increasing problems of industrialisation and urbanisation.

The three pillars of Gandhi's pedagogy were its focus on the ''life-long character'' of education, its ''social character'' and its form as a ''holistic process''. For Gandhi, education is 'the moral development of the person', a process that is by definition 'life-long'.

Brahmacharya, sexuality

When Gandhi was 16 his father became very ill. Being very devoted to his parents, he attended to his father at all times during his illness. However, one night, Gandhi's uncle came to relieve Gandhi for a while. Gandhi retired to his bedroom and had sex with his wife. Shortly afterward a servant came to report that Gandhi's father had just died. Gandhi felt tremendous guilt and never could forgive himself. He came to refer to this event as "double shame." The incident had significant influence in Gandhi becoming celibate at the age of 36, while still married.

This decision was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Brahmacharya — spiritual and practical purity — largely associated with celibacy and asceticism. Gandhi saw Brahmacharya as a means of becoming close with God and as a primary foundation for self-realisation. In his autobiography he tells of his battle against lustful urges and fits of jealousy with his childhood bride, Kasturba. He felt it his personal obligation to remain celibate so that he could learn to love, rather than lust. For Gandhi, Brahmacharya meant "control of the senses in thought, word and deed.".

Within a year of his chastity vow, Gandhi's newspaper, the Indian Opinion, wrote "It is the duty of every thoughtful Indian not to marry. In case he is helpless in regard to marriage, he should abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife". Gandhi also conducted sexual experiments in his ashrams. In these ashrams, boys and girls bathed together, slept in the same beds, but were punished for any sexual talk. Men and women were segregated. Gandhi also advised that husbands should not be alone with their wives, and, when they felt sexual desire, should take a cold bath.

A recent biography of Gandhi, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India by Joseph Lelyveld, has led to claims that he was "a sexual weirdo". The controversy surround's Gandhi's relationship with Hermann Kallenbach, a "German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder". Andrew Roberts for The Wall Street Journal says that Gandhi left his wife for Kallenbach in 1908. The pair continued to send letters after they were separated by Gandhi's return to India in 1914. Lelyveld has stated that the press coverage "grossly distort[s]" the overall message of the book. However, this did not prevent the government of the Indian state Gujarat, Gandhi's birth state, from banning the book.

Towards the end of his life, it became public knowledge that Gandhi had been sharing his bed for a number of years with young women. He explained that he did this for bodily warmth at night and termed his actions as "nature cure". Later in his life he started experimenting with brahmacharya in order to test his self-control. His letter to Birla in April 1945 referring to 'women or girls who have been naked with me' indicates that several women were part of his experiments. He wrote five editorials in ''Harijan'' discussing the practice of brahmacharya.

As part of these experiments, he initially slept with his women associates in the same room but at a distance. Afterwards he started to lie in the same bed with his women disciples and later took to sleeping naked alongside them. According to Gandhi active-celibacy meant perfect self-control in the presence of the opposite sex. Gandhi conducted his experiments with a number of women such as Abha, the sixteen-year-old wife of his grandnephew Kanu Gandhi. Gandhi acknowledged "that this experiment is very dangerous indeed", but thought "that it was capable of yielding great results". His nineteen-year-old grandniece, Manu Gandhi, too was part of his experiments. Gandhi had earlier written to her father, Jaisukhlal Gandhi, that Manu had started to share his bed so that he may "correct her sleeping posture". He had told a correspondent in March 1945 that "sleeping together came with my taking up of bramhacharya or even before that"; he said he had experimented with his wife "but that was not enough".

According to Gandhi's letters, some of his "experiments" included stripteases and other non-contact sexual activity. Explicit material has been found in his letters, although much of it was destroyed, with one reading "Vina's sleeping with me might be called an accident. All that can be said is that she slept close to me".

Gandhi complained of experiencing "involuntary discharges" more frequently since his return to India. He believed, however, that semen held special power, saying "one who conserves his vital fluid acquires unfailing power".

Gandhi had to take criticism for his experiments by many of his followers and opponents. His stenographer, R. P. Parasuram, resigned when he saw Gandhi sleeping naked with Manu. Gandhi insisted that he never felt aroused while he slept beside her, or with Sushila Nayar or Abha. "I am sorry" Gandhi said to Parasuram, "you are at liberty to leave me today." Nirmal Kumar Bose, leading anthropologist and close associate of Gandhi, parted company with him in April 1947 post Gandhi's tour of Noakhali, where some sort of altercation had taken place between Gandhi and Sushila in his bedroom at midnight that caused Gandhi to slap his forehead. Bose said, "there was no immorality on part of Gandhi. Moreover Gandhi tried to conquer the feeling of sex by consciously endeavouring to convert himself into a mother of those who were under his case, whether men or women". This maternal emphasis has also been pointed out by Dattatreya Balkrushna Kalelkar, a revolutionary turned disciple of Gandhi.

Simplicity

Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved in public service should lead a simple life. He first displayed this principle when he gave up wearing western-style clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. When he returned to India he renounced the western lifestyle he led in South Africa, where he had enjoyed a successful legal practice.

Gandhi dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India, advocating the use of homespun cloth (''khadi''). He and his followers adopted the practice of weaving their own clothes from thread they themselves spun on a charkha, and encouraged others to do so. While Indian workers were often idle due to unemployment, they had often bought their clothing from industrial manufacturers owned by British interests. The Swadeshi movement held that if Indians made their own clothes, it would deal an economic blow to the British establishment in India. Gandhian simplicity was a sign and expression of ''swadeshi'' principles. Consequently, the ''charkha'' was later incorporated into the flag of the Indian National Congress. He subsequently wore a dhoti for the rest of his life to express the simplicity of his life.

The practice of giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes, Gandhi called "reducing himself to zero". On one occasion he returned the gifts bestowed to him from the Natals for his diligent service to the community.

Gandhi spent one day of each week in silence. He believed that abstaining from speaking brought him inner peace and made him a better listener. This influence was drawn from the Hindu principles of ''mauna'' (Sanskrit: — silence) and ''shanti'' (Sanskrit: — peace). On such days he communicated with others by writing on paper. For three and a half years, from the age of 37, Gandhi refused to read newspapers, claiming that the tumultuous state of world affairs caused him more confusion than his own inner unrest.

After reading John Ruskin's ''Unto This Last'', he decided to change his lifestyle and create a commune called ''Phoenix Settlement''.

Faith

Gandhi was born a Hindu and practised Hinduism all his life. As a common Hindu, he believed all religions to be equal, and rejected all efforts to convert him to a different faith. He was an avid theologian and read extensively about all major religions. He had the following to say about Hinduism:

Gandhi wrote a commentary on the ''Bhagavad Gita'' in Gujarati. The Gujarati manuscript was translated into English by Mahadev Desai, who provided an additional introduction and commentary. It was published with a Foreword by Gandhi in 1946.

Gandhi believed that at the core of every religion was truth and love (compassion, nonviolence and the Golden Rule). He also questioned what he saw as hypocrisy, malpractices, and dogma in all religions, including his own, and he was a tireless advocate for social reform in religion. Some of his comments on various religions are:

Later in his life, when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied, "Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew."

Gandhi met the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba aboard the S.S. Rajputana on his way to the second Round Table Conference in London in 1931, saying that he was very happy to meet Baba and asking him to break his silence.

In spite of their deep reverence to each other, Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore engaged in protracted debates more than once. These debates exemplify the philosophical differences between the two most famous Indians at the time. On 15 January 1934, an earthquake hit Bihar and caused extensive damage and loss of life. Gandhi maintained this was because of the sin committed by upper caste Hindus by not letting untouchables in their temples (Gandhi was committed to the cause of improving the fate of untouchables, referring to them as Harijans). Tagore vehemently opposed Gandhi's stance, maintaining that an earthquake can only be caused by natural forces, not moral reasons, however repugnant the practice of untouchability may be.

Gandhi took a keen interest in theosophy. He empathised with theosophy's message of "universal brotherhood and consequent toleration", as he put it in 1926.

Swaraj, Self-Rule

Gandhi was a self-described philosophical anarchist, and his vision of India meant India without an underlying government. He once said that "the ideally nonviolent state would be an ordered anarchy." While political systems are largely hierarchical, with each layer of authority from the individual to the central government have increasing levels of authority over the layer below, Gandhi believed that society should be the exact opposite, where nothing is done without the consent of anyone, down to the individual. His idea was that true self-rule in a country means that every person rules his or herself and that there is no state which enforces laws upon the people. This would be achieved over time with nonviolent conflict mediation, as power is divested from layers of hierarchical authorities, ultimately to the individual, which would come to embody the ethic of nonviolence. Rather than a system where rights are enforced by a higher authority, people are self-governed by mutual responsibilities. On returning from South Africa, when Gandhi received a letter asking for his participation in writing a world charter for human rights, he responded saying, "in my experience, it is far more important to have a charter for human duties." A free India for him meant the existence of thousands of self-sufficient small communities (an idea possibly from Tolstoy) who rule themselves without hindering others. It did not mean merely transferring a British established administrative structure into Indian hands which he said was just ''making Hindustan into Englistan''. He wanted to ultimately dissolve the Congress Party after independence and establish a system of direct democracy in India, having no faith in the British styled parliamentary system.

Literary works

Gandhi was a prolific writer. For decades he edited several newspapers including ''Harijan'' in Gujarati, in Hindi and in the English language; ''Indian Opinion'' while in South Africa and, ''Young India'', in English, and Navajivan, a Gujarati monthly, on his return to India. Later, Navajivan was also published in Hindi. In addition, he wrote letters almost every day to individuals and newspapers. However, Andrew Roberts writes that 'we cannot be certain that he really made all the pronouncements attributed to him, since, according to Mr. Lelyveld, Gandhi insisted that journalists file "not the words that had actually come from his mouth but a version he ­authorised after his sometimes heavy editing of the transcripts."'.

Gandhi also wrote several books including his autobiography, ''An Autobiography of My Experiments with Truth ((Gujarātī "સત્યના પ્રયોગો અથવા આત્મકથા"))'', of which he bought the entire first edition to make sure it was reprinted. His other autobiographies included: ''Satyagraha in South Africa'' about his struggle there, ''Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule'', a political pamphlet, and a paraphrase in Gujarati of John Ruskin's ''Unto This Last''. This last essay can be considered his programme on economics. He also wrote extensively on vegetarianism, diet and health, religion, social reforms, etc. Gandhi usually wrote in Gujarati, though he also revised the Hindi and English translations of his books.

Gandhi's complete works were published by the Indian government under the name ''The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi'' in the 1960s. The writings comprise about 50,000 pages published in about a hundred volumes. In 2000, a revised edition of the complete works sparked a controversy, as Gandhian followers argue that the government incorporated the changes for political purposes. The Indian government later withdrew the revised edition.

Legacy and depictions in popular culture

The word ''Mahatma'', while often mistaken for Gandhi's given name in the West, is taken from the Sanskrit words ''maha'' (meaning ''Great'') and ''atma'' (meaning ''Soul''). Rabindranath Tagore is said to have accorded the title to Gandhi. In his autobiography, Gandhi nevertheless explains that he never valued the title, and was often pained by it.

Followers and international influence

Gandhi influenced important leaders and political movements. Leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States, including Martin Luther King and James Lawson, drew from the writings of Gandhi in the development of their own theories about non-violence. Anti-apartheid activist and former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was inspired by Gandhi. Others include Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Steve Biko, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Benigno Aquino, Jr. (the Philippine opposition leader during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and father of current Philippine president Benigno Aquino III).

"Christ gave us the goals and Mahatma Gandhi the tactics." – Martin Luther King Jr, 1955

In his early years, the former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was a follower of the non-violent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. Bhana and Vahed commented on these events as "Gandhi inspired succeeding generations of South African activists seeking to end White rule. This legacy connects him to Nelson Mandela...in a sense Mandela completed what Gandhi started."

Gandhi's life and teachings inspired many who specifically referred to Gandhi as their mentor or who dedicated their lives to spreading Gandhi's ideas. In Europe, Romain Rolland was the first to discuss Gandhi in his 1924 book ''Mahatma Gandhi,'' and Brazilian anarchist and feminist Maria Lacerda de Moura wrote about Gandhi in her work on pacifism. In 1931, notable European physicist Albert Einstein exchanged written letters with Gandhi, and called him "a role model for the generations to come" in a later writing about him. Lanza del Vasto went to India in 1936 intending to live with Gandhi; he later returned to Europe to spread Gandhi's philosophy and founded the Community of the Ark in 1948 (modelled after Gandhi's ashrams). Madeleine Slade (known as "Mirabehn") was the daughter of a British admiral who spent much of her adult life in India as a devotee of Gandhi.

In addition, the British musician John Lennon referred to Gandhi when discussing his views on non-violence. At the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2007, former U.S. Vice-President and environmentalist Al Gore spoke of Gandhi's influence on him.

President of the United States Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of the Parliament of India said that:

"I am mindful that I might not be standing before you today, as President of the United States, had it not been for Gandhi and the message he shared with America and the world." – Barack Obama in an address to a Joint Session of the Parliament of India, 2010

Obama at the Wakefield High School speech in Sept 2009, said that his biggest inspiration came from Mahatma Gandhi. His reply was in response to the question 'Who was the one person, dead or live, that you would choose to dine with?'. He continued that "He's somebody I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. King with his message of nonviolence. He ended up doing so much and changed the world just by the power of his ethics."

The Mahatma Gandhi District in Houston, Texas, United States, an ethnic Indian enclave, is named after Gandhi. The district officially received its named on 16 January 2010 when the City of Houston held a naming ceremony.

Global holidays

On 15 June 2007, it was announced that the "United Nations General Assembly" has "unanimously adopted" a resolution declaring 2 October as "the International Day of Non-Violence." 30 January of every year is observed the School Day of Non-violence and Peace in schools of many countries. In countries with a Southern Hemisphere school calendar, it can be observed on 30 March.

Awards

''Time'' magazine named Gandhi the Man of the Year in 1930. Gandhi was also the runner-up to Albert Einstein as "Person of the Century" at the end of 1999. Einstein said of Gandhi:

Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion. The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of the entire civilized world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works. We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come.

''Time Magazine'' named The 14th Dalai Lama, Lech Wałęsa, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Aung San Suu Kyi, Benigno Aquino, Jr., Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela as ''Children of Gandhi'' and his spiritual heirs to non-violence. The Government of India awards the annual Gandhi Peace Prize to distinguished social workers, world leaders and citizens. Nelson Mandela, the leader of South Africa's struggle to eradicate racial discrimination and segregation, is a prominent non-Indian recipient. In 2011, ''Time'' magazine named Gandhi as one of the top 25 political icons of all time.

Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace Prize, although he was nominated five times between 1937 and 1948, including the first-ever nomination by the American Friends Service Committee, though he made the short list only twice, in 1937 and 1947. Decades later, the Nobel Committee publicly declared its regret for the omission, and admitted to deeply divided nationalistic opinion denying the award. Gandhi was nominated in 1948 but was assassinated before nominations closed. That year, the committee chose not to award the peace prize stating that "there was no suitable living candidate" and later research shows that the possibility of awarding the prize posthumously to Gandhi was discussed and that the reference to no suitable living candidate was to Gandhi. When the 14th Dalai Lama was awarded the Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi."

Film and literature

Mahatma Gandhi has been portrayed in film, literature, and in the theatre. Ben Kingsley portrayed Gandhi in the 1982 film ''Gandhi'', which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Gandhi is also a central theme in the 2006 Bollywood film ''Lage Raho Munna Bhai.'' The 2007 film, ''Gandhi, My Father'' explores the relationship between Gandhi and his son Harilal. The 1996 film, ''The Making of the Mahatma'', documents Gandhi's time in South Africa.

Several biographers have undertaken the task of describing Gandhi's life. Among them are: D. G. Tendulkar with his ''Mahatma. Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi'' in eight volumes, and Pyarelal and Sushila Nayar with their ''Mahatma Gandhi'' in 10 volumes. There is also another documentary, titled Mahatma: Life of Gandhi, 1869–1948, which is 14 chapters and 6 hours long.

In April 2010, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India by Joseph Lelyveld was released. It contains controversial claims that Gandhi was "a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist—one who was often downright cruel to those around him." Lelyveld has stated that the press coverage "grossly distort[s]" the overall message of the book. However, this did not prevent the government of the Indian state Gujarat, Gandhi's birth state, from banning the book.

Current impact within India

Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is a national holiday in India, Gandhi Jayanti. India observes 30 January the day of his assassination, as Martyr's Day, to commemorate those who gave up their lives in service of the Indian nation. There are two temples in India dedicated to Gandhi. One is located at Sambalpur in Odisha and the other at Nidaghatta village near Kadur in Chikmagalur district of Karnataka. Gandhi also appears on every Indian Rupee note.

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

Bhana, Surendra and Goolam Vahed. ''The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914.'' New Delhi: Manohar, 2005.

Bondurant, Joan V. ''Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict''. Princeton UP, 1988 ISBN 0-691-02281-X

Chernus, Ira. ''American Nonviolence: The History of an Idea'', chapter 7. ISBN 1-57075-547-7

Chadha, Yogesh. ''Gandhi: A Life.'' ISBN 0-471-35062-1

Dalton, Dennis (ed). ''Mahatma Gandhi: Selected Political Writings''. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1996. ISBN 0-87220-330-1

Easwaran, Eknath. ''Gandhi the Man''. ISBN 978-1586380557 ebook: ISBN 978-1586380670

Fischer, Louis. ''The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas''. Vintage: New York, 2002. (reprint edition) ISBN 1-4000-3050-1

Fischer, Louis. ''The Life of Mahatma Gandhi''. Harper & Row, New York, 1950. ISBB 0-06-091038-0 (1983 pbk.)

Gandhi, M.K. Satyagraha in South Africa

Gandhi, M.K. ''The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings''. Homer Jack (ed.) Grove Press, New York, 1956.

Gandhi, Mahatma. ''The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.'' New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1994.

Gandhi, Rajmohan. ''Patel: A Life''. Navajivan Publishing House, 1990 ISBN 81-7229-138-8

Grenier, Richard. ''The Gandhi Nobody Knows''. Commentary, March 1983

Gordon, Haim. ''A Rejection of Spiritual Imperialism: Reflections on Buber's Letter to Gandhi.'' ''Journal of Ecumenical Studies'', 22 June 1999.

Hunt, James D. ''Gandhi in London''. New Delhi: Promilla & Co., Publishers, 1978.

Mann, Bernhard, ''The Pedagogical and Political Concepts of Mahatma Gandhi and Paulo Freire.'' In: Claußen, B. (Ed.) International Studies in Political Socialization and Education. Bd. 8. Hamburg 1996. ISBN 3-926952-97-0

Rühe, Peter. ''Gandhi: A Photo biography.'' ISBN 0-7148-9279-3

Sharp, Gene. ''Gandhi as a Political Strategist, with Essays on Ethics and Politics''. Boston: Extending Horizon Books, 1979.

Singh, Col. G. B. ''Gandhi Behind the Mask of Divinity''. Prometheus Books, 2004. ISBN 978-1573929981

Singh, Col. G. B. and Watson, Dr. Tim ''Gandhi Under Cross Examination'', Sovereign Star Publishing, 2008. ISBN 0981499201

Sofri, Gianni. ''Gandhi and India: A Century in Focus.'' (1995) ISBN 1-900624-12-5

External links

Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography

Gandhi's biography from Stanford's King Encyclopedia

Gandhi Smriti — Government of India website

Mahatma Gandhi News Research and Media service

Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya Gandhi Museum & Library

Gandhi Book Centre

Works by Mahatma Gandhi

When Gandhi was an honoured guest in Sri Lanka

Mahatma Gandhi, the Missing Laureate from the ''Nobel Prize'' official website

The Biography Channel:

''All Men are Brothers'', book of selected quotations and excerpts from Gandhi's writings, compiled by Krishna Kripalani (given away by the copyright holder, UNESCO)

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