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. During the ensuing Hindu-Moslem riots, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu gunman, Nathuram Godse, on 30 January 1948, 5:12 PM in Delhi, India, and died fifteen minutes later.
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, 4 September 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 10 June 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 6 November 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 by 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. During the Hindu-Moslem riots, 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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