Lesson video

Hello Miss Howard here and welcome to the fourth lesson of our rhetoric and motivation unit.

Now over the previous three lessons we looked at quite a key figure within British history.

Today we're going to go further afield and look at a man who started his life in India before journeying around various parts of the world including England for his studies and then returning to India to carry out his life's work.

He was a lawyer, an anti colonial nationalist, and a political activist who employed non violent resistance to lead the most successful campaign for India's independence from British colonialism.

He in turn inspired so many people around the world.

It is of course, the iconic Mahatma Gandhi.

Now I'm going to touch more on Gandhi's life in just a moment, but I want to make sure you're prepared for the lesson before we get started.

You'll need a pen and something to write on today.

Please close out anything that might serve to distract you such as any apps or conversations if you know how to do so.

Find yourself a quiet space to work and then when you're ready press play and we'll get the lesson started for today.

So for today's lesson we're going to be exploring the incredible Mahatma Gandhi and his Quit India speech that helped lead India to independence.

In today's lesson we're going to have a look at this idea of rhetoric for motivation and peace so a little bit of a contrast to Churchill's speech around we shall fight.

Gandhi was very much focused around non violent protest and we're going to explore that in a little bit more detail so we understand the context of the speech itself.

We're going to find out a little bit more about Mahatma Gandhi as a person and his background and what he was involved in what led to this point of him making this speech.

And then we're going to have a look at the speech itself and consider how Gandhi used rhetoric to motivate the people of India, but also with a mindfulness of the conflict currently and taking place at the time.

We're going to close by thinking about how this opening of the speech, how Gandhi's opening of his speech compares with the We Shall Fight on the Beaches speech.

We're going to be coming back to our triad as ever rhetoric and considering where Gandhi makes use of ethos, logos, and pathos.

We need to ensure that obviously there is a considerable blend therefore considering and evaluating to what extent he makes use of rhetoric effectively.

We also need to understand this word today in order to consider the way that the audience might have or to what extent they felt empowered.

The word empower means to give someone the power to do something to make someone feel confident or stronger in some way.

So for example, I felt empowered after listening to the teacher speak in assembly.

I was going to put I felt empowered after Miss Howard's lesson today but I didn't want to get too ahead of myself.

So empower is to give someone the power to do something or make someone feel confident and stronger.

Before we go and have a look at Mahatma Gandhi in any more detail what I'd like to do is a little bit of a rhetoric retrieval.

What I'd like you to do is have a look at the quotations at the top and then parts at the bottom you need to write out the sentences completing the gaps using the words below.

So I've given you a quotation and then your job is to complete the sentence that analyses the quotation making use of the green bar of words at the bottom.

Pause the video and press play when you're done.

Okay so how did you get on here? So you had a quotation and then the part at the bottom analyses the quotation and spots the right rhetorical device.

First one, the speaker uses collective nouns to build a strong sense of ethos.

Ours is not a drive for power.

So he builds that idea that this is everybody's intention not just his.

The second one, this use of emotive language makes the power sounds precious and as though the people of India are empowered.

Let's have a look.

The power, when it comes, will belong to the people of India, and it will be for them to decide to whom it's placed in the entrusted.

So it makes the power sound incredibly precious doesn't it? As though it belongs to everybody and it's up to them to kind of decide who they hand it to.

It's nice.

Last one.

We must, therefore purge ourselves of hatred.

Speaking for myself, I can say that I have never felt any hatred.

So I assume the analysis is focusing on the first part here.

The use of an imperative statement here reinforces the message of the speaker.

Yeah, we must, therefore, purge ourselves of hatred.

Yeah, he's speaking directly there isn't he? He's giving a command as such.

Well done if you got three out of three there.

So in order to understand the context of the Quit India speech by Gandhi that we're going to explore we need to understand Gandhi himself as a figure within history.

Mahatma means great soul which I think is very apt for, and you'll probably agree once we explore his work, the journey that his life took.

His father served as a Chief Minister in Porbandar so he was kind of familiar with politics or why politics were so important within the operation of a country.

His father wanted him to become a lawyer whereas he initially showed an interest in being a doctor.

So meeting the wishes of his father he studied at the University of Bombay and then he travelled to London to study law.

He really struggled with the transition from living within Indian culture and the Eastern World and the Western World.

He really struggled to adhere to the Hindu principles that he had often followed back in India.

However, as he met other people and explored the principles of other religions, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism his interest grew and he became more settled as a result.

He completed his studies, he returned to India briefly and then he went to South Africa to work for a law firm.

He spent 21 years in South Africa there and he was absolutely outraged at the racial injustice that he and others suffered as the result of the colour of their skin.

He was even thrown from a first class carriage once on a train, even though he had a ticket.

As a result he formed the Natal Indian Congress and as his fame and reputation for non violent protests spread he led the Indian National Congress with a keen view to seek political independence for India from Great Britain and the British Empire after years and years of colonisation.

A well known story is when Britain introduced the salt tax, so tax when you bought salt you would need to pay this tax.

And he famously led a 250 mile march to collect his own salt from the sea to avoid paying the tax to Britain.

During the first years of the Second World War his mission to achieve his Independence for India came to a really pivotal point.

He really didn't understand why Indian people should fight on behalf of the British war effort when at home they were being restricted by such laws by Britain.

It led to the worst instances of civil uprising through his Quit India movement.

Whilst he was very very and felt very strongly about non violence protests that wasn't the way in which it was always being enacted within India and there was a great deal of conflict at the time.

On the eve of World War Two he wrote to Hitler twice in hopes of persuading the dictator to avoid total war.

It's impossible, we have no way of knowing whether Hitler ever received those letters as no response was ever sent.

When India was was forced to assist Great Britain in the war effort, Gandhi began a small individual civil disobedience campaign which would prove to political community leaders for the cause for India to be able to leave the British Empire.

Now his thoughts were, he was quite a controversial figure.

Not everybody agreed with his beliefs or his opinions or his viewpoints or the way in which he carried out protests without any violence.

As a result he experienced six known attempted assassinations on his life with the final one being sadly successful.

On the 13th of January, 1948 he was on his way to a prayer meeting in Delhi and a Hindu activist managed to get close enough to him in the crowd to be able to shoot him three times in the chest at point blank range.

Now in order to understand this speech in it's entirety we need to understand where India was at politically at the time.

Now India had been under British trade law for hundred's of years.

So from about the early 1600's and it was also a part of the British Commonwealth so part of the British Empire from 1858 to 1947.

So at the time the Quit India movement was taking place which is why they were complaining for the freedom of India from the British Commonwealth.

You might also hear it referred to as the Crown Rule or Direct Rule.

And now the Quit India movement also known as the August movement was launched around August 1942 and it demanded an end to British rule of India.

So it was very much led with the idea that India should be entitled to its freedom.

Now undoubtedly Gandhi's use of Ahimsa which is respect for all living things and avoidance of violence towards others.

It got met with, it wasn't always relatable as I said to every single party.

But when Gandhi delivered this speech on August the 8th, 1942 he was addressing quite a large crowd at Bombay.

He spoke not to the committee, the congress committee that was there that launched the protest but he spoke to all of the Indian people.

He addressed everybody in his speech and he urged them to peacefully protest freedom and that India take what he called an orderly British withdrawal from India.

His focus was very much on carrying this act out in an orderly, nonviolent way.

And this was at a time where there was a great deal as I said of conflict between particularly Muslim parties and Hindu parties and there disagreement over what should or shouldn't happen with India at the time.

Gandhi proved to try and attempt to provide a neutral voice demanding for a non violent approach to India's withdrawal from the British Empire.

So have a go at this multiple choice question.

Mahatma Gandhi believed in.

Brilliant work if you got option number three.

Peaceful protest.

Next one, the Quit India speech made a peaceful demand for Britain to make? An orderly British withdrawal from India.

It's how Gandhi described the acquisition of Indian freedom from the British Empire.

So before we have a look at the speech itself from Mahatma Gandhi we need to explore these three key words that will feature within the opening speech.

So one I finish explaining each word in turn what I'd like you to do is pause the video write the word down if you didn't already know it and your own definition of the word.

Don't copy the definition from the screen because it's more likely that you'll remember it if you put it into your own words in a way that you understand.

So first of all, coup.

Can you say it? Coup.

Again, coup.

Brilliant.

A coup is a sudden or violent seizure of power from the government achieving something or achieving something quite difficult.

Sometimes we might describe as a coup but usually we're describing the seizure of power where another group has taken over and overthrown the government and taken their power away from them.

And you've got an example sentence there.

He was thrown from power in an army coup.

The next word is covet.

Can you say it? Covet.

Again, covet.

Brilliant.

Covet is to want to own or to set your sights upon.

So to have your heart set on something.

I covet an ice cream.

I've set my heart on an ice cream.

The last one is taint.

Can you say it? Taint.

It's a trace of a bad or an unlikeable quality.

Usually we're describing maybe somebody's personality or character or alternatively in its literal form, a mark or stain.

You might describe something as tainted.

So in its figurative form, his lying was a taint upon his personality.

Okay, so let's have a look at the speech itself.

As I'm reading the speech to you what I'd like you to do is make notes on the three following things.

What is the purpose of this speech? So why is he giving the speech? And you might be able to note some things down from the background information that I've given you.

How does Gandhi build a strong sense of ethos in this opening? So how does he build the trust and how does he demonstrate that this topic is important to him to the audience, to the public.

And lastly how does he want the audience to feel as a result of listening? So how are they meant to react or respond? How are they meant to be feeling? Does he motivate them? You've got two words in here that you'll need to understand in order to understand essentially what his message is.

Ahimsa are the principles of non-violent protest.

When he's talking about Ahimsa he's talking about protesting without violence.

And Sadhana is a way of accomplishing something or having a key purpose.

So your Sadhana is your key purpose.

If you want to pause the video once I've finished reading through the first part of the speech or if you want to skip back and listen to it again by all means do so and then we'll go through some example responses to those three questions.

Ours is not a drive for power, but purely a non-violent fight for India's independence.

In a violent struggle a successful general has been often know to effect a military coup and to set up a dictatorship.

But under the Congress scheme of things essentially non-violent as it is there can be no room for dictatorship.

A non-violent soldier of freedom will covet nothing for himself.

He fights only for the freedom of his country.

The Congress is unconcerned as to who will rule when freedom is attained.

The power when it comes, will belong to the people of India.

And it will be for them to decide to whom it placed in the entrusted.

Maybe that the reigns will be placed in the hands of the Parsis for instance, as I would love to see happen.

Or they might be handed to some others whose names are not heard in the Congress today.

It will not be for you then to object, saying this community is microscopic that party did not play its due part in the freedom struggle why should they have all the power? Ever since its inception the congress has kept itself meticulously free of the communal taint.

It is ought thought always in terms of the whole nation and has acted accordingly.

I know how imperfect our Ahimsa is and how far away we are still from the ideal but in Ahimsa there is no final failure or defeat.

I have faith, therefore, that if in spite of our shortcomings, the big thing does happen it will be because god wanted to help us by crowning with success our silent unremitting Sadhana for the past 22 years.

Pause the video here, make some notes for those three questions.

Okay, don't worry too much if your notes don't look like mine, this is just what you could have had or some examples.

So if we're thinking about the purpose of the speech it's very clearly to empower the people of India to demand action from Britain, but very much in a peaceful way.

So he makes two clear purposes to the audience.

One is this kind of exit from Britain from the British Empire.

But the other, and I would say more emphasis on is the fact that he wants it carried out in a peaceful way.

He says it doesn't matter, it's not important to him who the power goes to, but it should be a decision made by the people of India and not other countries.

He uses collective nouns at the start.

Ours is not drive for power.

An anecdote of a non-violent soldier.

He said a non-violent soldier of freedom will covet nothing for himself and fights only for the freedom of his country.

And he also poses rhetorical questions as the audience.

There's a quotation, he says "That party did not play it's due part in the freedom struggle why should it have all the power?" As though he is a member of the audience.

He's anticipating what their argument might be against peaceful protest.

But this builds ethos with the audience because the audience sees him as human.

When he's talking about a non-violent soldier of freedom as an anecdote, he could be talking about himself in the fact that he's a non-violent solider of freedom.

He's not interested in gaining power for himself it's for the freedom of the country.

He could also be talking about those people that understand and agree with his ideas and his approach.

That they be non-violent soldiers of freedom.

So let's think about how he wants the audience to respond.

Well he wants to convince the audience doesn't he? To agree with the ideas around non-violent protest.

He talks about Ahimsa, he says it's far from perfect.

But he says in Ahimsa there is no failure or defeat.

He says if you don't fight then you can't be defeated.

He makes a very clever argument there.

He also wants them to feel empowered.

He explains that they should feel in control and this is possible without violent attacks or protesting.

So he does want to, at the final part of that opening really emphasise the fact that it doesn't have to be violent in order to get the outcome that they want.

So let's have a think about how he uses rhetoric to motivate the people of India.

Or analyse this language in a little bit more detail.

First of all, in order to understand how he motivates them we need to establish what has been used.

So I'd like you to have a look at the three quotations on the screen.

And for each one I'd like you to identify the rhetorical devices being used.

Let me read them through to you.

Ours is not a drive for power, but purely a non-violent fight for India's independence.

So think about the very start this is the opening line of the speech the very start of the opening line.

What rhetorical device does he use? The second one.

A non-violent soldier of freedom will covet nothing for himself, he fights only for the freedom of his country.

And the third.

I know how imperfect our Ahimsa is and how far away we are still from the ideal, but in Ahimsa there is no final failure or defeat.

Pause the video here and identify what rhetorical devices have been used.

Now you had a few options here so don't worry if you've only got one.

I'm trying to give you several different examples here.

So in the first one we have that collective noun the use of ours.

You've also got the use of dialysis here.

So dialysis is where it's like an either-or or a between-or statement.

It provides the current situation and then a better alternative.

So he says, ours is not a drive for power.

So it's not looking for power.

But purely a non-violent fight for India's independence.

The second one you have the anecdote of the non-violent soldier which as I say could be to represent him or it could be to represent anybody in the crowd that is convinced and believes in his ideals.

And the final one you have his use of personal pronoun to build a sense of logos.

It shows that he's knowledgeable and that he's thought about the various flaws of his approach but still believes it's the best option.

So he says, I know how imperfect our Ahimsa is and you have that counter argument.

So I understand your argument if you don't agree with me and then he provides, but in Ahimsa there is no final failure or defeat, but it's still the better option.

Let's move on to how this language has been used then.

So lets think how it motivates or builds ethos with the audience.

I've given you some sentence starters there.

For each one of the quotations I want you to try and explain how it motivates the audience or how it convinces them to agree with him.

Pause the video, press play when you're done.

Okay, again don't worry too much if your wording is slightly different here or you went off in a different direction because there is plenty to say about each one of these quotations.

So lets have a look.

Opening with a collective noun makes all feel involved.

Yeah, right from the beginning he's making this a topic of importance for everybody in India when he addresses the country as a whole.

So he's bringing people together in what was an incredibly difficult time, yeah.

Then you've got using this anecdote implies that non-violent protest fights for the good of everyone.

Yes, it said what it says.

He fights only for the freedom of his country.

So this anecdote enables the audience to understand that he means that he's addressing everybody and that it would be a good outcome for all involved.

Last thing, anticipating that counter argument for peaceful protest makes the second part of the sentence more convincing.

It demonstrates to the audience that he has considered the various problems with Ahimsa but he still believes, he still maintains that it is the best option.

It demonstrates that he is knowledgeable because of the fact that he has thought about all the various issues.

And so it makes it far more convincing for the audience overall to understand okay this is somebody that's really quite knowledgeable about non-violent protest.

This is somebody that maybe we need to listen to.

Okay, so finally lets have a look at why.

Why is opening with this particular line effective? Why is this use of anecdote really good for creating a strong sense of ethos? Why would it convince people that he is trustworthy and credible? What might they be worried about? And why does he even admit Ahimsa is imperfect? If this is his approach to protest, non-violent protest why even say that is has its problems? Pause the video here and then we'll go through some examples.

Okay, so Gandhi shows that his purpose is for freedom, not power or authority.

It's really important because as we know there were repeated attempted assassinations.

Not everybody agreed with this man.

So it's really important right from the start as soon as he stands on that stage he says, I'm not in it for anything myself I just want independence for India.

It's really important for demonstrating that he's not out to make a gain here.

Describing the soldiers and the protestors as soldiers, so the audience is soldiers highlights there cause.

It elevates the status, not only his status of fighting for something he believes in but also as I said enlisting anybody else to come with him and join him as though he's building this non-violent army.

It's a really useful anecdote there to win the approval of the people.

And then lastly, as I said before I think the reason why he uses he highlights the imperfections of Ahimsa that fact that it's not perfect, is it demonstrates that it's still the best way.

So it also anticipates obviously what people might have been thinking, but he's saying you can't be defeated, you cannot fail if you refuse to engage in violent protesting.

If you don't engage with violent protesting if you don't carry out violent acts then you can't fail because you're a good person.

If you want to pause the video here and add to your notes or add to your responses to improve them, do so now.

Okay, so just at the end of the lesson I thought it would be really interesting to compare this with Winston Churchill's opening.

And the similarities and the differences that these two speakers may have or may not have.

So lets have a look.

Are there any similarities between these two speakers? What I'd like you to do.

I'm going to talk you through my notes for Churchill but when I'm finished what I'd like you to do is draw out this table and add your own ideas for Gandhi's speech.

So if we think about Churchill presenting the challenge at the beginning of his speech.

He presented the impossible situation that the British and French troops were experiencing at Dunkirk, he described, didn't he, the appendix of being squeezed into the appendix.

The ever narrowing ever contracting where they were cornered and it seemed like an impossible outcome.

He shared his fears didn't he? He said that he was worried that he would have to announce the worst military disaster in history.

But then he also compliments the British army.

He said that they were the root, the core, and the brain of the British Army were there that day.

So even in this moment of difficulty he acknowledges how incredible they were in his opening.

So lets think about how that compares with Gandhi and whether he does this in a similar way or a different way.

Whether he does these things.

So did he share his fears? And if so where? If not maybe why not? Does he present any difficulties or any problems? And does he compliment anybody within his speech as a whole? Now if you need to go back and re-listen the speech.

Me reading out that opening of the speech.

By all means do so before you complete your table.

Then press pause here, fill in your ideas and then we'll go through what you might have as some possible answers.

Okay, so Gandhi definitely doesn't share his fears in the opening.

Now this is because he's speaking to a far more conflicted audience.

There in disagreement with each other.

India is very unstable as a country.

So instead he shows really clear confidence with that use of collective nouns right at the start to establish a clear purpose that, you know he wants to see freedom for everybody he's not in it for his own gain.

He doesn't want any power as a result.

He's not looking to run India as a country.

He does present a difficulty of Ahimsa but he maintains that it's the most effective way to protest so he does actually present the difficulties that are encountered from Ahimsa.

He says I know that it's not perfect.

And he also compliments the congress.

You have maintained a fantastic reputation he describes them without taint.

And so he compliments them because of the fact that they've not been involved in any sort of violent protest or criminal activity during the conflict and the fights going on at the time within India itself.

So there are both similarities and differences in these two figures.

And there were, as you may have had some completely different answers don't worry too much.

But it's really about thinking about how the two figures build ethos, establish ethos, that trust and credibility with their audience in very different ways.

So it's over to you now.

I'd like your opinion.

So who was most effective at establishing ethos in the opening of their speech and why? Was it Winston Churchill in your opinion? Or Mahatma Gandhi? Pause the video here and just note down a couple of your ideas.

And that's the end of the lesson today.

Make sure you share your opinions with somebody.

Either or a teacher or a parent or carer because I bet they'd be really interested in why you think that person is more effective.

Is it Winston Churchill or Mahatma Gandhi? I really hope you've enjoyed the lesson today and that you've got a great deal out of it.

Particularly your analysis, your staged analysis.

But we'll continue to look at the rest of Mahatma Gandhi's speech next lesson.

I'd like you to do two things for today me before you finish up.

First thing is write down three things that you've learned today.

So it could be about Mahatma Gandhi it could be new vocabulary that you've taken on or something around the way in which he uses rhetoric.

And I'd also like you to complete your quiz because I'm really interested to see how much you've learned.

I'll see you next time.