Glossary Gandhi

Adivasi: original inhabitants, indigenous people

Ahimsa:  nonviolence

Anna:  one sixteenth of Indian rupee

Ashram:  spiritual community

Bania:  third highest class in Hindu social hierarchy, Gandhi’s caste.

Bapu:  father

Bhajan:  devotional song or hymn

Bhangi Bustee: weeper colony

Baisakhi : A festival marking the beginning of a solar year.

Bhoodan:  Gift of land, associated with Vinoba’s Bhoodan movement

Bustee: colony

Brahmacharya: celibacy

Charkha: spinning-wheel

Chipko: to cling or hug,

Crore: a sum of 10,000,000

Dalits: the oppressed, ‖ formerly called the untouchables, ‖ or harijans‖ as Gandhi called them, scheduled castes, under the Indian constitution.

Darshan: to see, to pay homage

Dharma: duty, ethics, moral law

Dharana: sit-ins, a sit-down strike.

Diwan: prime-minister

Dhoti: cloth covering waist down to ankles

Durbar: royal court

Hartal: cessation of all economic activities

Harijans: children of God, a term Gandhi used for the untouchables

Jain: follower of Jainism, a sixth century BCE religion in India

Katha: story

Khadi: home-spun cloth, made famous by Gandhi

Khudai Khidmatgars: Servants of God, the nonviolent soldiers of Islam

Lathi: stave, steel-clubbed stick

Mahatma: the great soul, the title Tagore gave to Gandhi

Mandir: sacred space, a temple

Mantra: sacred formula

Metta: amity, friendship

Moksha: salvation, final goal in Hinduism

Mullah: religious leader in Islamic traditions

nai taleem: new education, holistic model aimed at the development of mind, body and spirit.

Panchayat: village council, a form of local self government in the villages

Pandal: a temporary or permanent structure made for an event

Patidars: land-owning farmers

Pranami: a syncretistic sect of Hinduism that venerates the Quran

Prarthana: prayer

Poorna swaraj: complete freedom, freedom for all

Pugri: turban

Raj: British rule in India, literal meaning is rule.

Ryot: tenant-farmer

Sabha: organization

Samadhi: memorial

Sarvodaya: welfare of all, awakening of all

Satyagraha: insistence on truth, firmness in a true cause

Satyagrahi: one who observes satyagraha

Shanti sena: peace brigade

Shramadana: gift of service or physical labour

Sthitha-prajana: the one who maintains equanimity

Swaraj: self-rule, self-government, freedom

Swadeshi: pertaining to one’s own country

Tilak: auspicious mark or symbol of devotion marked on forehead

Tinkathia: an exploitative system in which fifteen percent of the land rented by ryot had to be planted with indigo for the landlord

Vaishnava: Belonging to the sect which worships Vishnu, a Hindu God