Biography: Gandhi

Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi was one of the most influential and admired figures in history, especially Indian history. His childhood in India, time spent in England as well as his stay in South Africa influenced the development of his values, attitudes and the ideologies that he implemented in India in order to ensure the country’s independence from the British forces.


Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Gujarat, India, on the second of October, 1869. Gandhi was born in a town that swore it’s allegiance to the British Crown; therefore, it was allowed a degree of independence in its local affairs. His father, Karmachand Gandhi was prime minister of his town, Porbander and his mother, Putlibai, was Karmachand’s fourth wife. Neither of his parents were very well educated, however, as a result of his father’s political status his family was financially well-off and had a higher socio-economic status when compared to others who lived in the town.


Gandhi was born during the Victorian era when the British Empire was slowly reaching its pinnacle and India was “the jewel in the crown” of Queen Victoria’s empire. While having huge benefits for the British Empire, the takeover of the Mughuls, the previous rulers of the region, a majority of Indians, especially people who had a lower socio-economic status, did not feel that there was a large difference. This is because at the time, India did not have a common language, a history of democracy nor the political precedent of a better form of government/ ruling system. Indians simply felt that they had replaced a corrupt ruling system with a more efficient one.


Gandhi’s child hood was not at all indicative of the intellectual ability that would shine through in his later life. He was a mediocre student and was not interested in religion. At the age of thirteen, he married a fourteen year old girl, Kasturbai. Having to face the trials and tribulations of marriage at such a young age might explain his strong hostility towards this practice, declaring it cruel and inhumane. As Gandhi was male, he was given a much higher degree of independence and freedom than women were in this rather patriarchal society.


One of the beliefs that Gandhi espoused was the belief in religious diversity and equality. Although he was a strong believer of his Hindu faith, he was still accepting of many different religions. This could be largely due to the fact that Gandhi’s childhood home often had visitors of many different faiths and beliefs. Gandhi’s parents were both accepting of different religions and this therefore instilled this tolerance in him.


In 1885, Gandhi’s father, Karamchand, passed away and young Mohandas was the most suitable candidate to take his position as head of family. In order to make it easier for Gandhi to become a local politician, his family decided to send him to London to study law. However, Gandhi’s mother and the elders of his caste, the Modh Banias, protested against the trip as they felt a trip to Europe would indubitably lead to impurity as they did not believe Hinduism could be successfully practiced in Europe. Gandhi promised his mother that he would not succumb to “western” urges such as wine, women and meat and that he would instead say in accordance to his Hindu beliefs and customs. Gandhi was determined to go to Europe so he allowed himself to be expelled from his caste by his elders, which made him an out-caste for the remainder of his life. This show of the inflexibility of the caste system which Gandhi worked hard to eradicate in India would have been one of the things which furthur provoked his outrage and dissaproval of the system.


As a result, Gandhi sailed for England in September of 1888 at the age of nineteen. There he found himself isolated from Westerners mainly because of his inability to properly grasp the language. He also found it difficult to persist with a vegetarian diet. In order to make this task easier, Gandhi joined the “London Vegetarian Society” and eventually assumed a position as its committee member.


Gandhi worked hard to pass the bar and was enrolled as a barrister in June, 1891. After going back to his home, where he received the unfortunate news that his mother had passed away, Gandhi tried, unsuccessfully to find a job teaching law in Bombay. As a result of many setbacks such as this career-wise, Gandhi decided to go home and earn a living by writing briefs and legal documents for the politicians in his home town. This was one of the first times Gandhi was directly exposed to the petty corruption that had encumbered the British Ruling system.
Gandhi then accepted a job from a Muslim Indian Firm to travel to South Africa to advise on a lawsuit. South Africa at the time was displaying a tendency for the racism that would later manifest itself in the “apartheid policy” so Indians, although being less discriminated than black people, were still considered to be inferior to white Europeans. Gandhi found himself a victim of this racism many times during his stay in South Africa, the first of these being when he refused to give up his first class ticket on a train to a white passenger and was thus forced to wait outside on a Transvaal train station.


Gandhi returned to Bombay to collect his wife and children as it was clear to him that he would be spending a significant time of his life in South Africa. Gandhi remained in South Africa for twenty years and suffered imprisonment numerously. He was attacked and beaten by white South Africans during his return to the country from Bombay. As a result of this and the train injustice, Gandhi initiated an organized resistance against the British rule with the Indians residing in South Africa. He urged Indians to unite in spite of their religious differences and only then, he asserted, would they be able to achieve political equality. This was where he introduced the idea of a spiritual ideology, Satyagraha, which is based on non-violence as the guiding principle of his political activism.


During this time, Gandhi read for the first time John Ruskin's book Unto This Last, which maintained that the life of labour using your hands instead of machines was superior to all other ways of living. Gandhi quickly implemented the ways promoted in this book in his own life, abandoning western dress and habits and moving his family to a farm in Transvaal to lead a simpler lifestyle.


During the Boer War, Gandhi organized an ambulance corps for the British army and commanded a Red Cross unit. After the war he returned to his campaign for Indian rights in South Africa and as a result 1914 saw the government of the Union of South Africa making important concessions to Gandhi's demands, including recognition of Indian marriages and abolition of the poll tax for them. As a result of this exemplary success, almost unheard of, through the implementation of Satyagraha, Gandhi felt his work in South Africa was done and promptly returned to Bombay.


Because of his success with Satyagraha, Gandhi found himself a celebrity known throughout India for his success in political activism. His return to India was greeted in extreme enthusiasm where crowds cried “Mahatma-ji” which meant great soul and was a token of their respect for him.


Gandhi spent his first year of his life in India away from a public life and travelled around the country to familiarize himself with the country. He then became involved in the nation’s politics and became the leader of the Indian nationalist movement. During that time Gandhi carried out protests against the British rule through the use of Satyagraha repeatedly. However, one of these protests turned violent and as a result the British forces used guns to overpower the protestors. The official British tally for the bloody afternoon was 379 killed and 1,137 wounded. This was one of the main reasons why politicians such as Gandhi went from moderately pushing for independence to outright rebellion. It also settled the hostile climate between the British and the Indians that would gain further animosity during the twenty five year struggle for India’s independence.


In 1920, when the British government failed to make amends for the Amritsar Massacre, Gandhi proclaimed an organized campaign of noncooperation. Indians in public office resigned, government agencies such as courts of law were boycotted, and Indian children were withdrawn from government schools. Gandhi was arrested, but the British were soon forced to release him.
Although Gandhi felt that economic independence for India was important, he felt that the need for a self ruling India was a more important course. As British Industrialists exploited the Indian villagers and left them in dire poverty, Gandhi decided to try and encourage the return to a simple lifestyle and the renewal of Indian industries.


Gandhi was imprisoned for sedation shortly after for almost two years. During this time, his efforts for a non violent approach to gaining the independence of India essentially fell apart. This is mainly because the different regions of India could not unite as they had different languages, castes and most importantly, religion. Gandhi that united Brahmins and untouchables, Hindus and Muslims in the struggle against the British as he assured them that Independence was only feasible if they all bound together and fought together.


By 1922, Gandhi had deemed that the time was right for a move from non-cooperation into outright civil disobedience. This movement was more active than the non cooperation movement and brought about a revolution of sorts. This movement aimed at bringing the British administration to a stop by withdrawing support from everything. There was agitation against land revenue, abolition of salt tax, cutting down military expenditure and levying duty on foreign cloth.


Gandhi then became president of the Indian National Congress in 1925, however, kept himself withdrawn from the public eye. During this time he worked diligently to bring about reforms in areas of Indian life and to eradicate things such as untouchability and discrimination against women. Gandhi's one last shot at the Indian Nationalist movement was the Quit India movement, following the same principle of Satyagraha.
One of the pivotal points of Gandhi’s struggle for India’s independence from Britain was the salt march to Dandi in protest of the British tax on salt. On March 12, 1930, Gandhi and approximately 78 male satyagrahis set out for the coastal village of Dandi. At Dandi, he and several followers broke the law by making their own salt in seawater. This was one of the events which lead to India finally receiving its official declaration of Independence in August 1947.

Gandhi was assassinated on the 30th of January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist named Nathuram Vinayuk Godse who came up to him in one of his nightly garden walks, and shot him with a pistol. The feeling of people, in India especially, and around the world was encapsulated in the address by Nehru: "the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere."
Gandhi united India under the one banner. He gave the nation a strong identity and unified the different religions and castes. His political teachings still have huge bearings in India where people follow his simple ways of life and promote non violent political activism. He showed that political change could be achieved without the use of violence and death which saw the implementation of Satyagraha in many situations in the world. The legacy he left behind is Gandhi’s biggest achievement because his ideals and ways of life inspired continue to inspire, people such as Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela and several other politicians who would follow his example for many years.



Bibliography

Books
E Eswaran, 1992, Gandhi, The man, India, Nilgiri Press

InternetGandhi’s Childhood and youth, 2008 [online]. [29th July 2008]. Available from World Wide Web, http://www.dadalos.org/int/vorbilder/vorbilder/gandhi/leben.htm,
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 2008, [online]. [28th July 2008]. Available from World Wide Web, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
Timeline of Gandhi’s Life, 2008, [online] [1rst August 2008]. Aviliable from World Wide Web http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/mkgtimeline.htm

Pictures
http://www.intervoiceonline.org/assets/2006/12/3/Gandhi_1.jpg
http://gvctemp01.virtualclassroom.org/rights/gandhi/saltmarch.jpg