Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) was an Indian revolutionary religious leader who used his religious power for political and social reform. Although he held no governmental office, he was the prime mover in the struggle for independence of the world's second-largest nation.

Mohandas Gandhi was born on Oct. 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a seacoast town in the Kathiawar Peninsula north of Bombay. His wealthy family was of a Modh Bania subcaste of the Vaisya, or merchant, caste. He was the fourth child of Karamchand Gandhi, prime minister to the raja of three small city-states. Gandhi described his mother as a deeply religious woman who attended temple service daily. Mohandas was a small, quiet boy who disliked sports and was only an average student. At the age of 13 he was married without foreknowledge of the event to a girl of his own age, Kasturbai. The childhood ambition of Mohandas was to study medicine, but as this was considered defiling to his caste, his father prevailed on him to study law instead.

Gandhi went to England to study in September 1888. Before leaving India, he promised his mother he would abstain from eating meat, and he became a more zealous vegetarian abroad than he had been at home. In England he studied law but never became completely adjusted to the English way of life. He was called to the bar on June 10, 1891, and sailed for Bombay. He attempted unsuccessfully to practice law in Rajkot and Bombay, then for a brief period served as lawyer for the prince of Porbandar.

South Africa: The Beginning

In 1893 Gandhi accepted an offer from a firm of Moslems to represent them legally in Pretoria, capital of Transvaal in the Union of South Africa. While traveling in a first-class train compartment in Natal, Gandhi was asked by a white man to leave. He got off the train and spent the night in a train station meditating. He decided then to work to eradicate race prejudice. This cause kept him in South Africa not a year as he had anticipated but until 1914. Shortly after the train incident he called his first meeting of Indians in Pretoria and attacked racial discrimination by whites. This launched his campaign for improved legal status for Indians in South Africa, who at that time suffered the same discrimination as blacks.

In 1896 Gandhi returned to India to take his wife and sons to Africa. While in India he informed his countrymen of the plight of Indians in Africa. News of his speeches filtered back to Africa, and when Gandhi reached South Africa, an angry mob stoned and attempted to lynch him.

Spiritual Development

Gandhi began to do menial chores for unpaid boarders of the exterior castes and to encourage his wife to do the same. He decided to buy a farm in Natal and return to a simpler way of life. He began to fast. In 1906 he became celibate after having fathered four sons, and he extolled Brahmacharya (vow of celibacy) as a means of birth control and spiritual purity. He also began to live a life of voluntary poverty.

During this period Gandhi developed the concept of Satyagraha, or soul force. Gandhi wrote: "Satyagraha is not predominantly civil disobedience, but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of truth." Truth was throughout his life Gandhi's chief concern, as reflected in the subtitle of his Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Truth for Gandhi was not an abstract absolute but a principle which had to be discovered experimentally in each situation. Gandhi also developed a basic concern for the means used to achieve a goal, for he felt the means necessarily shaped the ends.

In 1907 Gandhi urged all Indians in South Africa to defy a law requiring registration and fingerprinting of all Indians. For this activity Gandhi was imprisoned for 2 months but released when he agreed to voluntary registration. During Gandhi's second stay in jail he read Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience," which left a deep impression on him. He was influenced also by his correspondence with Leo Tolstoy in 1909-1910 and by John Ruskin's Unto This Last.

Gandhi decided to create a cooperative commonwealth for civil resisters. He called it the Tolstoy Farm. By this time Gandhi had abandoned Western dress for Indian garb. Two of his final legal achievements in Africa were a law declaring Indian marriages (rather than only Christian) valid, and abolition of a tax on former indentured Indian labor. Gandhi regarded his work in South Africa as completed.

By the time Gandhi returned to India, in January 1915, he had become known as "Mahatmaji," a title given him by the poet Rabindranath Tagore. Gandhi knew how to reach the masses and insisted on their resistance and spiritual regeneration. He spoke of a new, free Indian individual. He told Indians that India's shackles were self-made. In 1914 Gandhi raised an ambulance corps of Indian students to help the British army, as he had done during the Boer War.

Disobedience and Return to Old Values

The repressive Rowlatt Acts of 1919 caused Gandhi to call a general hartal, or strike, throughout the country, but he called it off when violence occurred against Englishmen. Following the Amritsar Massacre of some 400 Indians, Gandhi responded with noncooperation with British courts, stores, and schools. The government followed with the announcement of the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms.

Another issue for Gandhi was man versus machine. This was the principle behind the Khadi movement, behind Gandhi's urging that Indians spin their own clothing rather than buy British goods. Spinning would create employment during the many annual idle months for millions of Indian peasants. He cherished the ideal of economic independence for the village. He identified industrialization with materialism and felt it was a dehumanizing menace to man's growth. The individual, not economic productivity, was the central concern. Gandhi never lost his faith in the inherent goodness of human nature.

In 1921 the Congress party, a coalition of various nationalist groups, again voted for a nonviolent disobedience campaign. Gandhi had come "reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically." But freedom for India was not simply a political matter, for "the instant India is purified India becomes free, and not a moment earlier." In 1922 Gandhi was tried and sentenced to 6 years in prison, but he was released 2 years later for an emergency appendectomy. This was the last time the British government tried Gandhi.

Fasting and the Protest March

Another technique Gandhi used increasingly was the fast. He firmly believed that Hindu-Moslem unity was natural and undertook a 21-day fast to bring the two communities together. He also fasted in a strike of mill workers in Ahmedabad.

Gandhi also developed the protest march. A British law taxed all salt used by Indians, a severe hardship on the peasant. In 1930 Gandhi began a famous 24-day "salt march" to the sea. Several thousand marchers walked 241 miles to the coast, where Gandhi picked up a handful of salt in defiance of the government. This signaled a nationwide movement in which peasants produced salt illegally and Congress volunteers sold contraband salt in the cities. Nationalists gained faith that they could shrug off foreign rule. The march also made the British more aware that they were subjugating India.

Gandhi was not opposed to compromise. In 1931 he negotiated with the viceroy, Lord Irwin, a pact whereby civil disobedience was to be canceled, prisoners released, salt manufacture permitted on the coast, and Congress would attend the Second Round Table Conference in London. Gandhi attended as the only Congress representative, but Churchill refused to see him, referring to Gandhi as a "half-naked fakir."

Another cause Gandhi espoused was improving the status of "untouchables," members of the exterior castes. Gandhi called them Harijans, or children of God. On Sept. 20, 1932, Gandhi began a fast to the death for the Harijans, opposing a British plan for a separate electorate for them. In this action Gandhi confronted Harijan leader Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, who favored separate electorates as a political guarantee of improved status. As a result of Gandhi's fast, some temples were opened to exterior castes for the first time in history. Following the marriage of one of Gandhi's sons to a woman of another caste, Gandhi came to approve only intercaste marriages.

Gandhi devoted the years 1934 through 1939 to promotion of spinning, basic education, and Hindi as the national language. During these years Gandhi worked closely with Jawaharlal Nehru in the Congress Working Committee, but there were also differences between the two. Nehru and others came to view the Mahatma's ideas on economics as anachronistic. Nevertheless, Gandhi designated Nehru his successor, saying, "I know this, that when I am gone he will speak my language."

England's entry into World War II brought India in without consultation. Because Britain had made no political concessions satisfactory to nationalist leaders, Gandhi in August 1942 proposed noncooperation, and Congress passed the "Quit India" resolution. Gandhi, Nehru, and other Congress leaders were imprisoned, touching off violence throughout India. When the British attempted to place the blame on Gandhi, he fasted 3 weeks in jail. He contracted malaria in prison and was released on May 6, 1944. He had spent a total of nearly 6 years in jail.

When Gandhi emerged from prison, he sought to avert creation of a separate Moslem state of Pakistan which Muhammad Ali Jinnah was demanding. A British Cabinet mission to India in March 1946 advised against partition and proposed instead a united India with a federal parliament. In August, Viceroy Wavell authorized Nehru to form a Cabinet. Gandhi suggested that Jinnah be offered the post of prime minister or defense minister. Jinnah refused and instead declared August 16 "Direct Action Day." On that day and several days following, communal killings left 5,000 dead and 15,000 wounded in Calcutta alone. Violence spread through the country.

Aggrieved, Gandhi went to Bengal, saying, "I am not going to leave Bengal until the last embers of trouble are stamped out," but while he was in Calcutta 4,500 more were killed in Bihar. Gandhi, now 77, warned that he would fast to death unless Biharis reformed. He went to Noakhali, a heavily Moslem city in Bengal, where he said "Do or die" would be put to the test. Either Hindus and Moslems would learn to live together or he would die in the attempt. The situation there calmed, but rioting continued elsewhere.

Drive for Independence

In March 1947 the last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, arrived in India charged with taking Britain out of India by June 1948. The Congress party by this time had agreed to partition, since the only alternative appeared to be continuation of British rule.

Gandhi, despairing because his nation was not responding to his plea for peace and brotherhood, refused to participate in the independence celebrations on Aug. 15, 1947. On Sept. 1, 1947, after an angry Hindu mob broke into the home where he was staying in Calcutta, Gandhi began to fast, "to end only if and when sanity returns to Calcutta." Both Hindu and Moslem leaders promised that there would be no more killings, and Gandhi ended his fast.

On Jan. 13, 1948, Gandhi began his last fast in Delhi, praying for Indian unity. On January 30, as he was attending prayers, he was shot and killed by Nathuram Godse, a 35-year old editor of a Hindu Mahasabha extremist weekly in Poona.

Further Reading

Gandhi's Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (2 vols., 1927-1929) covers the period to 1921. Of the numerous biographies, D. G. Tendulkar, Mahatma (8 vols., 1951-1954; rev. ed. 1960-1963), is most voluminous and utilizes Gandhi's own writings. Other treatments include Romain Rolland, Mahatma Gandhi (trans. 1924); C. F. Andrews, ed., Mahatma Gandhi: His Own Story and Mahatma Gandhi at Work (both 1931); Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1950) and Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (1954); G. D. Birla, In the Shadow of the Mahatma: A Personal Memoir (1953); Rajendra Prasad, At the Feet of Mahatma Gandhi (1955); Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase (2 vols., 1956-1958); and Martin Lewis, ed., Gandhi: Maker of Modern India (1965). Among the more provocative recent studies are Joan V. Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (1958; rev. ed. 1965); Indira Rothermund, The Philosophy of Restraint: Mahatma Gandhi's Strategy and Indian Politics (1963); Erik H. Erikson, Gandhi's Truth: On the Origin of Militant Nonviolence (1969); and Penderel Moon, Gandhi and Modern India (1969). □

GANDHI, MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND

Widely known as Mahatma or "Great Soul," Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is considered one of history's great political pacifists. He is remembered nearly as much for his austere persona (frail, bespectacled, clad only in a draped loincloth) as his political achievements. Gandhi played a major role in leading India to independence from British rule, in 1947, following world war ii.

The quintessential nonviolent activist, Gandhi dedicated his life to political and social reform. His teachings and example were to later influence such leaders as martin luther king jr. and Nelson Mandela, who also utilized passive resistance and conversion rather than confrontation to bring about social change. Gandhi's signature marks were what he called Satyagraha (the force of truth and love) and the ancient Hindu ideal of Ahisma, or nonviolence toward all living things.

Gandhi was born in western India in 1869. Just 11 years earlier (in 1858), Britain had declared India a loyal colony. The young Gandhi completed a British-style high school education and was greatly impressed with British manners, genteel culture, and Christian beliefs. He aspired to become a barrister at law, but was prohibited from doing so by the local head of his Hindu caste in Bombay. His first act of public defiance was his decision to assume the role of an "out-caste" and leave for London to study law.

While studying in England, Gandhi first read (and was inspired by) the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu religious poem. The story of the Sermon on the Mount in the Christian New Testament stirred in him an interest in passive resistance, and he also became intrigued with the ethical basis of vegetarianism after befriending a few enthusiasts at a local restaurant. He would later use dietary fasting as a means to draw attention to social causes.

But it was an incident in 1893 that put into motion Gandhi's focused role in history. While on a legal assignment in South Africa, he was traveling on a train near Johannesburg when he was ordered to move from his first-class compartment to the "colored" car in the rear of the train. He refused. At the next station, he was thrown from the train and spent the night at the station. The experience triggered his lifelong dedication to civil rights and to the improvement of the lives of those with little political voice.

By 1906, he had taken on his first major political battle, confronting the South African government's move to fingerprint all Indians with publicized passive resistance. His efforts failed to provoke legal change, but he gained a wider following and influence.

Returning to India in 1915, Gandhi began a succession of political campaigns for independence in his homeland. He orchestrated widespread boycotts of British goods and services, and promoted peaceful noncooperation and nonviolent strikes. He is widely remembered for his 1930 defiance of the British law forbidding Indians to make their own salt. With 78 followers, he started on a march to the sea. Soon more than 60,000 supporters were arrested and jailed, but Britain was forced to negotiate with the gentle and powerful little man. Gandhi himself was arrested several times by the British, who considered him a troublemaker, and all total, spent about seven years of his life in jail.

Although his unrelenting efforts played a major role in India's independence in 1947, the victory was bittersweet for Gandhi. Britain announced not only the independence of India, but also the creation of the new Muslim state of Pakistan. With all his power and influence,

Gandhi could not undo the years of hatred between the Hindus and Muslims. On January 30, 1948, while arriving for evening prayers, he was gunned down by a Hindu fanatic who blamed the formation of Pakistan on Gandhi's tolerance for Muslims. Gandhi was 78 at his death.

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."
—Mohandas Gandhi

The legacy of Ghandi, and his call for "conversion, not coercion," spread worldwide. Passive resistance, peace marches, sitdown strikes, and silent noncooperation became common means of nonviolent activism through much of the latter twentieth century, especially influencing demonstrators during the civil rights and vietnam war eras. Governmental entities accustomed to punishing violent protesters were forced to revamp their response to demonstrations in which the only violence was coming from police or guards. The U.S. Supreme Court was inundated with cases clarifying the limitations on first amendment rights of speech and association. To this day, passive resistance remains a principal form of protestation for those seeking attention for their cause(s).

further readings

Hay, Stephen. 1989."The Making of a Late-Victorian Hindu: M. K. Gandhi in London, 1888–1891." Victorian Studies (autumn).

McGeary, Johanna. 1999. "Mohandas Gandhi." Time (December 31).

Sudo, Phil. 1997. "The Legacy of Gandhi." Scholastic Update (April 11).

Gandhi, Mohandas K. (1869–1948),Indian political and spiritual leader whose non-violent efforts to free his country from the British resulted in his imprisonment during most of the war. He passionately believed in achieving his political ends by means which went beyond passive resistance—a phrase he disliked—and he chose instead the word ‘Satyagraha’ (from Sanskrit satya, truth or love, and agraha, firmness or force) to describe the non-violent resistance practised by his followers.

Gandhi, an English-trained lawyer by profession, was born at Porbandar in Gujarat. After living in South Africa, where he began his life of fighting injustice—whether caused by racism, imperialism, or caste—he returned to India in 1915. By 1921 he controlled the policies of the Indian National Congress (see India, 3) and declared that ‘my life is dedicated to the service of India through the religion of non-violence which I believe to be the root of Hinduism’.

He was soon known to millions as Mahatma (great soul) and he gave them hope and a degree of self-respect. He adopted the dhoti (loincloth) as his usual garb, and his spinning-wheel, which he used daily, became an emblem of his belief in the importance of simplicity. Between the wars his crusade against the inherent injustices of imperial rule led to several terms of imprisonment. Though he left the Congress Party in 1934—not all its members agreed with his beliefs—he retained a controlling influence on it. In 1940 he briefly resumed its leadership before Congress, seeing an opportunity to obtain immediate independence if it supported the British, temporarily rejected his policies. However, when the negotiations failed the party again embraced him and Gandhi then organized a selective satyagraha which had resulted, by the end of 1941, in more than 23,000 arrests. But Gandhi was always pro-Allied, spoke out against the Axis, and tried to minimize any inconvenience to the British war effort.

This confrontation was halted when Japan entered the war. Gandhi fervently believed that India would remain unscathed by the conflict if only the British would relinquish power. But Congress again favoured negotiations with them and once more it abandoned Gandhi's non-violent stance. In March 1942 a mission headed by Stafford Cripps arrived in India with an offer of post-war independence. When this failed to find a solution Gandhi began his ‘quit India’ movement. However, even Nehru, one of his most faithful followers, could not stomach his assertion that if the Japanese did invade they must only be confronted by total non-co-operation not by force.

By August 1942 a full-scale civil disobedience campaign seemed imminent, Congress leaders were imprisoned, and Gandhi was interned. The communal violence which followed was blamed on him, an accusation Gandhi rejected by starting a three-week fast, his preferred form of personal protest. He just survived it and was eventually released from internment in May 1944 having spent a total of 2,089 days in Indian prisons and another 249 in South African ones. He was assassinated while attempting to halt, by fasting, the communal violence that had followed India's independence.

Gandhi was one of the most remarkable men of his age whose power over his people transcended politics, and whose saintliness and simplicity of purpose brought him the adoration of the masses and the bewildered respect of those who ruled his country.

Bibliography

Brown, J. , Gandhi. Prisoner of Hope (New Haven, 1989).
Fischer, L. , The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (London, 1951).
Gandhi, M. K. , An Autobiography. The Story of My Experiments with Truth (London, 1949).