A

PROJECT REPORT
ON
FASTING AS PENANCE
Presented by:
Baljinder Singh
Computer Faculty

Govt. High School

Gehri Mandi, Amritsar
Fasting as Penance

BY M. K Gandhi
 A Brief Summary of
Fasting
Mahatma Gandhi as
had Penance
set up a new kind of
school at Tolstoy Farm in South Africa. He felt
that spiritual training was an essential part of
the education of the youngsters. To develop the
spirit is to build character. It means working
towards a knowledge of the spirit. The exercise
of the spirit depended on the character of the
teacher. The teacher must be spirituality upright
. Only then could he give spiritual training to his
students.
Mahatma Gandhi was against any type of
physical punishment. Once he had to deal
with an in disciplined boy. Gandhi felt very
angry with the boy. He hit the boy with a
ruler. But his hand trembled. The boy
cried and begged forgiveness. Gandhi felt
sorry for behaving in a violent manner.
Gandhi decided never to give physical
punishment to any student. He decided to
reform them through the power of spirit.
 One day, a teacher told him about the
behavior of some students. He advised
Mahatma Gandhi not to let his sons mix with
those bad boys. But Gandhi refused to do so.
He did not want to give special treatment to his
sons. He did not want to forsake the other
students. The other students were equally dear
to him. They had been entrusted to him by
their parents. Gandhi did not want to betray
the trust reposed in him.
Gandhi’s Method of spiritual training was
self penance. So when he discovered his
students committing some wrong, Gandhi
undertook penance. Once, he decided to have
only one meal a day as penance for four and a
half-months. His penance pained the guilty
students. They became aware of the pain
they caused to Gandhi ji. This realization was
the first necessary step in the moral and
spiritual training of the students.
 The theme of this lesson is to
depict
Themethat the personality
of “FASTING of a
AS PENANCE”
teacher affects the behaviour
of his students greatly. Students
learn a lot from the ways and
means of their teacher. The
teacher is responsible for moulding
their charcter. Gandhi ji narrates
his personal experience in this
matter. He was against corporal
punishment. He said that a teacher
can never bring healthy
improvements in the conduct of his
 He believed that some sort of
spiritual training should be
imparted to students in order to
build up their moral character.
Gandhi ji strongly believed if there
is true respect in the heart of the
student only then fast undertaken
by the teacher is meaningful;
otherwise it is useless. His own
motto was “Example is better than
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
XII ENGLISH READER BOOK

MBD OF GENERAL ENGLISH

MICROSOFT ENCARTA ENCYCLOPEDIA

INTERNET