Biography
Indian lawyer and civil rights champion, the spiritual and political
leader of India through her tempestuous birth of independence. Known as
Mahatma, (great soul), he began the freedom movement in 1919 with
nonviolent disobedience. India broke from England in August 1947 and
Gandhi's rank as a saint and holy man was assured in history. Gandhi was
assassinated by a Hindu gunman, Nathuram Godse, on 1/30/1948, 5:41 PM in
Delhi, India.
Gandhi's grandfather, father, and uncle had served as prime ministers
to the princes of Porbandar and other tiny Indian states, and though lower
caste, the Gandhis were middle-class, cultured, and deeply religious
Hindus. They were strictly vegetarian and the one time he tried meat, it
made him quite sick. He had his first insight into the impressive
psychological power of ahimsa, or nonviolence, with a teen-age incident in
which he stole a piece of his brother’s jewelry. When he confessed to
his father, the old man wept. "Those pearl drops of love cleansed my
heart," Gandhi later wrote, "and washed my sin away."
Small, solitary, shy and homely with a big nose and jug ears, he was
close with both parents. In the Hindu tradition, he married at 13 to a
girl of the same age. He soon became a bossy, authoritative husband to
whom Kasturbai stood up for her own rights. Sex was always a source of
guilt and conflict for Gandhi. He was in his mid-30s and the father of
five sons (one of whom died in infancy) when he vowed celibacy and it
became a continual trial. He was a great flirt and spent his life tempting
fate. A long line of secretary-nurse-companions massaged him, bathed him
and even slept with him "to keep him warm."
Gandhi was 16 when his dad died. A month short of his 19th birthday,
9/04/1888, he went to England to study law, wearing newly purchased
English-style clothes and leaving his young wife and infant son with the
family. He took a vow to not touch wine, women or meat. He suffered from
loneliness and near starvation, trying to live on bread and spinach before
he was able to find a restaurant with Indian food. Setting about to become
a refined young English dandy, he took dancing, elocution and music
lessons,. He brushed back his thick black hair but could do nothing about
his jug ears! After three months of affectation, he decided that the only
way he was going to become a gentleman would have to be from his
character, and he settled down to studying law.
Gandhi’s habits of austerity became entrenched at this time, eating
frugally and walking ten miles to school to save carfare. He was a
fanatical vegetarian but too shy to speak at the local society.
During Gandhi's second year in England, two English brothers asked him
to study the Bhagavad Gita, a part of the sacred Hindu scriptures, with
them. A long poem of some seven hundred stanzas, written several hundred
years before Christ was born, the Gita is a dialogue between the Hindu god
Krishna and Arjuna, a warrior about to go into battle. Gandhi had never
before studied the Gita, either in English, or in its original Sanskrit,
or in Gujarati, his own dialect. It glorifies action, renunciation, and
worldly detachment, and its message seared Gandhi's soul. He later called
the Gita his "dictionary of conduct" and turned to it for
"a ready solution of all my troubles and trials." At about the
same time he became absorbed with the New Testament of the Bible and the
seeds of Gandhi's philosophy of renunciation and nonviolence were thus
planted almost simultaneously by sacred Hindu and Christian texts.
Gandhi easily passed his law examinations on 6/10/1891, enrolled to
practice in the High Court on the following day, and eagerly sailed for
home on the 12th. At 21, he had learned English law but knew nothing of
the Hindu or Moslem laws of India. His homecoming was further grieved in
learning that his beloved mother had died. At home, he quarreled with his
wife and played with his son, but had no income to support his family. At
his first legal case, he was too insecure to argue the case and returned
the fee, nor did he qualify to teach school. Gandhi worked menial law case
work for his brother, reluctantly. A door unexpectedly opened with the
offer to work on a long and complex case in South Africa. He found more
than luck; he found himself, his philosophy, and his following in the next
21 years as he came into his own as a leader of the Indian community in
South Africa.
Gandhi’s first crusade began with this trip to South Africa, at that
time overwhelming nonwhite but ruled by the white minority. Traveling
first-class, Gandhi was dressed, as always, impeccably. On the second leg
of the trip a white passenger protested to railway officials, and as a
result, Gandhi was ordered to move to a lower-class compartment. He
refused, prompting a policeman to throw him off the train. The event left
him pondering one question, “Shall I fight for my rights or go back to
India?” and soon he had made his decision—he would not only fight for
his own rights but he would fight for the rights of all people. The
decision marked a turning point in Gandhi’s life, and the memory of his
humiliating journey stayed with him for the remainder of his life. After
arriving at his destination, he made his first public speech, urging the
local Indian population to reform themselves and band together to fight
for their rights. This eventually led to the formation of the Natal Indian
Congress.
In 1896, his wife and children joined him. His fight to help the
Indians required extensive travel, giving interviews and speeches around
the country. The Europeans grew outraged, feeling Gandhi had attacked them
outside the country. Anti-Gandhi sentiment escalated, and during one
episode, a lynch mob gathered, demanding Gandhi’s life. Natal
authorities asked him to identify his assailants so that they could be
prosecuted, a request he refused. This refusal to defend himself or
prosecute his opponents won some whites to his side, and marked one of the
first victories for his policy of nonviolence. His stated desire was to
free men politically, to restore them spiritually, and to heal them
physically, and whatever he did, he felt it wasn’t enough.
He returned to India in 1901, and was showered with farewell gifts.
Instead of profiting from them personally, he put them in a bank as a
trust fund for community needs. Before he could settle in Bombay, however,
an urgent cable arrived, prompting him to return to South Africa, where he
set up a law office in Johannesburg. In 1904, he helped found a weekly
newspaper, the Indian Opinion. During this period, a book that stated the
good of the individual is contained in the good of the group, and that the
life of the man who works with his hands is the only life worth living
profoundly influenced Gandhi. Putting this into action, he moved his
operations to a farm where the men could work the soil. He stayed in
Johannesburg where his family finally joined him.
In July 1907 Gandhi was arrested for the first time, but only spent a
brief time in jail. His second imprisonment came in August 1908, and he
served as cook for the other prisoners until his release in December of
that year. Two months later, in February 1909, he was arrested a third
time. Once he was out of prison again, he turned to his newspaper to
further his cause, and traveled to London to lobby for Indian rights.
Despite this, he saw no end to his struggle.
On 11/06/1913, at 6:30 AM, Gandhi and over 2000 of his followers began
a march against the annual tax on free laborers. While no one attacked
them, despite many threats, Gandhi was again arrested. Freed on bail the
next day, he resumed the march, only to be arrested yet again. In a repeat
of the prior day, he was freed on bail and returned to march. On November
9th, he was arrested for the third time in four days, and on the following
day, the marchers were stopped, put on trains, and shipped to Natal. On
November 11th, Gandhi was sentenced to nine months of hard labor, followed
by a second sentence that sentenced him to an additional three months.
This episode did what nothing prior had accomplished. The news of his jail
terms and the vicious treatment of the Indians raced around the world, and
money and help began to flow in.
In July 1914, Gandhi left for India, stopping in England two days after
that country entered World War I, and quickly formed an ambulance corps.
Upon his arrival in India in January 1915, he took up his fight in this
new arena, a struggle that continued right up until his death.
Fond of the simple life, eating primarily fresh fruits and nuts, Gandhi
often fasted, as he had done in his youth. He spent much time
experimenting with fasting as a form of self-restraint. He was a
self-confessed quack as far as his medical views were concerned, and fully
believed that a light diet, lots of exercise and a mud pack were all that
anyone needed to be healed. In July 1914, he developed a severe case of
pleurisy while traveling, but recovered completely. In July 1918, he
suffered from a protracted case of dysentery, and although he had
previously taken an anti-milk vow, he was convinced to drink goat’s milk
to restore his strength. While in prison in January 1914, he suffered from
acute appendicitis, which necessitated surgery. His recovery was slow, and
he was eventually released from prison on February 5th, having served less
than two years of his term.
In 1926, having grown weary, he retired to his ashram for a year of
silence. Refreshed, he toured India the following year, and expanded his
principles of nonviolence, homespun unity and equality for untouchables by
adding equality for women and abstinence from drugs and alcohol. He
suffered a slight stroke that year, but after a few months, he returned to
the battle once again. The assassination of Gandhi shook the world but
left it with a message greater than the humble man himself; the power of
peaceful protest and the reassurance that justice has its place.
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