Description

Gandhi Guided Reading single script

Gandhi Guided Reading single script. A Play for Guided Reading or Readers Theater. A cast of 6, this play comes with a comprehensive quiz at the end (over 30 questions and answers). No scene changes – this is an indepth discussion amongst the key ” in Gandhi’ life, raising many issues for further discussion among students.

This is one of a collection of 5 plays – Unit 20 Famous People of the 20th Century:

1. Martin Luther King 2. Nelson Mandela 3. Mahatma Gandhi 4. John Lennon 5. Prominent Women (Helen Keller, Anne Frank, Marie Curie, Mother Theresa, Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana)

All these ” are in-depth discussions with accompanying comprehensive quizzes. Available for 11.99 (i.e. two for free) from UK or US Guided Reading sections of the website.

Gandhi Guided Reading single script Speakers

Mahatma Gandhi

Kasturbai (wife)

Nehru (Indian prime minister)

Lakshimi (adopted daughter, an untouchable)

Nathuram Godse (assassin)

Winston Churchill (British prime minister)

Churchill:

So you did it! After all those years of struggle, India won its independence from us Brits!

Nehru:

Yes. 1947. The year I became India’ first prime minister!

Godse:

But at what cost? Over a million dead! Was that what your ‘Satyagraha’ was really about? So much for change through non-violence!

Churchill:

Yes. What about those words of yours “There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for”?

Kasturbai:

But my husband cannot be held responsible for all those killed.

Lakshimi:

No. My father never took up arms.

Gandhi:

Quite so! Satyagraha was designed as an effective substitute for violence.

Churchill:

So why did so many of your fellow countrymen have to die?

Godse:

Hindus and Muslims! Both were losers. Shame on you for not standing by us Hindus – after all, that was your religion from birth, wasn’ it?

Gandhi:

Yes. But I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.

Godse:

That’ the trouble with you idealists! Always sitting on the fence! “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”! Pah! Another one of your visionary statements! Some of us had to live in the real world!

Lakshimi:

You’ right! Some of us did! And my world, like millions of others you choose to forget about, was made so much better by the actions of this man!

Churchill:

Actions? What, like fasting and picking up handfuls of salt on a beach?

Nehru:

Easy enough for you to sneer! You always wanted India to stay part of your great British Empire! Running our government, imposing your laws

Churchill:

And taking all India’ natural riches for ourselves! Yes, you can see why us Brits wanted to hang around!

Nehru:

So arrogant!

Lakshimi:

Yes. He might sneer at my father ‘picking up handfuls of salt on Dandi beach’. But that march in 1930 was the turning point in our struggle for ‘swaraj’ or home rule.

Kasturbai:

My husband! Such a brave man! Always prepared to go to prison for what he believed in! And that was where he ended up yet again after that Dandi March, accompanied by all those thousands.

Churchill:

Yes, they witnessed yet another of his acts of civil disobedience – that ‘satyagraha’ or truth force as it was called.

Godse:

Pah! Since when did peaceful resistance get any results?

Nehru:

Well, it did that day! It showed our people they didn’ have to go on buying salt at ridiculously high prices when they could just use their own. That sure upset British rule!

Churchill:

And over 60,000 were to find themselves in prison as a result!

Gandhi:

Along with me! I was getting used to prison by then!

Godse:

Yes, you just couldn’ stay out, could you!

Kasturbai:

Always in trouble, my husband! Even as a youth!

Gandhi:

Though you and I had to grow up far too fast!

Kasturbai:

Married at 13!

Gandhi:

Two innocent children … hurled together into the ocean of life!

Kasturbai:

But we had 4 fine sons!

Lakshimi:

And don’ forget me!

Godse:

Pah! An untouchable! Instantly forgettable in my books!

Lakshimi:

Well, luckily for me my adopted father thought otherwise! He taught me “Where there is love, there is life; hatred leads to destruction” – words of great comfort in a world where caste counts.