Biography of Gandhi

Biography of Gandhi Written in August 2007

Alternate name: Mahatma Gandhi
Date of birth: October 2, 1869
Place of birth: Porbandar, Gujarat, British India
Date of death: January 30, 1948
Place of death: New Delhi, India
Movement: Indian independence movement
Major organizations: Indian National Congress

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a major political & spiritual leader of India & the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of Satyagraha — the resistance of tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence — which was one of the strongest driving philosophies of the Indian independence movement & inspired movements for civil rights & freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known in India & across the world as Mahatma Gandhi & as Bapu. In India, he is officially accorded the honour of Father of the Nation & October 2nd, his birthday, is commemorated each year as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday. On 15 June 2007, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution declaring October 2 to be the "International Day of Non-Violence."

As a British-educated lawyer, Gandhi first employed his ideas of peaceful civil disobedience in the Indian community's struggle for civil rights in South Africa. Upon his return to India, he organized poor farmers & labourers to protest against oppressive taxation & widespread discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for the alleviation of poverty, for the liberation of women, for brotherhood amongst differing religions & ethnicities, for an end to untouchability & caste discrimination, & for the economic self-sufficiency of the nation, but above all for Swaraj — the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led Indians in the disobedience of the salt tax on the 400 kilometre (248 miles) Dandi Salt March in 1930, & in an open call for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years on numerous occasions in both South Africa & India.

Throughout his life, Gandhi remained committed to non-violence & truth even in the most extreme situations. A student of Hindu philosophy, he lived simply, organizing an ashram that was self-sufficient in its needs. Making his own clothes — the traditional Indian dhoti & shawl woven with a charkha, he lived on a simple vegetarian diet. He used rigorous fasts, for long periods, for both self-purification & protest.

Early life
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born into the Hindu Modh family in Porbandar, in 1869. He was the son of Karamchand Gandhi, the diwan (Prime Minister) of Porbandar, & Putlibai, Karamchand's fourth wife, a Hindu of the Pranami Vaishnava order. Karamchand's first two wives, who each bore him a daughter, died from unknown reasons (rumored to be in childbirth). Living with a devout mother & surrounded by the Jain influences of Gujarat, Gandhi learned from an early age the tenets of non-injury to living beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, & mutual tolerance between members of various creeds & sects. He was born into the vaishya, or business, caste.

In May 1883, at the age of 13, Gandhi was married through his parents' arrangements to Kasturba Makhanji (also spelled "Kasturbai" or known as "Ba"). They had four sons: Harilal Gandhi, born in 1888; Manilal Gandhi, born in 1892; Ramdas Gandhi, born in 1897; & Devdas Gandhi, born in 1900. Gandhi was a mediocre student in his youth at Porbandar & later Rajkot. He barely passed the matriculation exam for Samaldas College at Bhavanagar, Gujarat. He was also unhappy at the college, because his family wanted him to become a barrister. He was also bullied as of being an Indian in a all white college, showing how bullied people are best, and bullies are just worst just like how some people are faster than others some are nicer than others and some more horrible. This brilliantly beats the arrogant bully idea that they are better, or are no worse, of course they are worse people, they harm the rest of us and oppress us, whatever they do , no matter how much good they claim to do, while we do good all the time. Gandhi proved that.

At the age of 18 on September 4, 1888, Gandhi went to University College London to train as a barrister. His time in London, the Imperial capital, was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother in the presence of the Jain monk Becharji, upon leaving India, to observe the Hindu precepts of abstinence from meat, alcohol, & promiscuity. Although Gandhi experimented with adopting "English" customs — taking dancing lessons for example — he could not stomach his landlady's mutton & cabbage. She pointed him towards one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. Rather than simply go along with his mother's wishes, he read about, & intellectually embraced vegetarianism. He joined the Vegetarian Society, was elected to its executive committee, & founded a local chapter. He later credited this with giving him valuable experience in organizing institutions. Some of the vegetarians he met were members of the Theosophical Society, which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, & which was devoted to the study of Buddhist & Hindu Brahmanistic literature. They encouraged Gandhi to read the Bhagavad Gita. Not having shown a particular interest in religion before, he read works of & about Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam & other religions. He returned to India after being called to the bar of England & Wales by Inner Temple, but had limited success establishing a law practice in Bombay. Later, after applying & being turned down for a part-time job as a high school teacher, he ended up returning to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but was forced to close down that business as well when he ran afoul of a British officer. In his autobiography, he describes this incident as a kind of unsuccessful lobbying attempt on behalf of his older brother. It was in this climate that (in 1893) he accepted a year-long contract from an Indian firm to a post in Natal, South Africa.

When back in London in 1895, he happened to meet Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain, the Radical-turned-ultra-Tory, whose son Neville became Prime Minister in the 1930s & helped suppress Gandhi. Chamberlain Snr. agreed that the treatment of Indians was barbaric but appeared unwilling to push through any legislation about this however.

Gandhi's work in South Africa

)South Africa changed Gandhi dramatically, as he faced the discrimination commonly directed at blacks & Indians. One day in court at Durban, the magistrate asked him to remove his turban. Gandhi refused & stormed out of the courtroom. He was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg, after refusing to move from the first class to a third class coach while holding a valid first class ticket. Traveling further on by stagecoach, he was beaten by a driver for refusing to travel on the foot board to make room for a European passenger. He suffered other hardships on the journey as well, including being barred from many hotels. These incidents have been acknowledged by several biographers as a turning point in his life, explaining his later social activism. It was through witnessing firsthand the racism, prejudice & injustice against Indians in South Africa that Gandhi started to question his people's status, & his own place in society.

Gandhi extended his original period of stay in South Africa to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote. Though unable to halt the bill's passage, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He founded the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, & through this organization, he molded the Indian community of South Africa into a homogeneous political force. In January 1897, when Gandhi returned from a brief trip to India, a white mob attacked & tried to lynch him. In an early indication of the personal values that would shape his later campaigns, he refused to press charges against any member of the mob, stating it was one of his principles not to seek redress for a personal wrong in a court of law.

At the onset of the South African War, Gandhi argued that Indians must support the war effort in order to legitimize their claims to full citizenship, organizing a volunteer ambulance corps of 300 free Indians & 800 indentured labourers called the Indian Ambulance Corps, one of the few medical units to serve wounded black South Africans. In 1906, the Transvaal government promulgated a new Act compelling registration of the colony's Indian population. At a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg on September 11th that year, Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or non-violent protest, for the first time, calling on his fellow Indians to defy the new law & suffer the punishments for doing so, rather than resist through violent means. This plan was adopted, leading to a seven-year struggle in which thousands of Indians were jailed (including Gandhi), flogged, or even shot, for striking, refusing to register, burning their registration cards, or engaging in other forms of non-violent resistance. While the government was successful in repressing the Indian protesters, the public outcry stemming from the harsh methods employed by the South African government in the face of peaceful Indian protesters finally forced South African General Jan Christiaan Smuts to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi. Gandhi's ideas took shape & the concept of Satyagraha matured during this struggle.

Indian Independence Movement
He spoke at the conventions of the Indian National Congress, but was primarily introduced to Indian issues, politics & the Indian people by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a respected leader of the Congress Party at the time.

Champaran & Kheda Satyagraha

Gandhi's first major achievements came in 1918 with the Champaran agitation & Kheda Satyagraha, although in the latter it was indigo & other cash crops instead of the food crops necessary for their survival. Suppressed by the militias of the landlords (mostly British), they were given measly compensation, leaving them mired in extreme poverty. The villages were kept extremely dirty & unhygienic; & alcoholism, untouchability & purdah were rampant. Now in the throes of a devastating famine, the British levied an oppressive tax which they insisted on increasing. The situation was desperate. In Kheda in Gujarat, the problem was the same. Gandhi established an ashram there, organizing scores of his veteran supporters & fresh volunteers from the region. He organized a detailed study & survey of the villages, accounting for the atrocities & terrible episodes of suffering, including the general state of degenerate living. Building on the confidence of villagers, he began leading the clean-up of villages, building of schools & hospitals & encouraging the village leadership to undo & condemn many social evils, as accounted above.

But his main impact came when he was arrested by police on the charge of creating unrest & was ordered to leave the province. Hundreds of thousands of people protested & rallied outside the jail, police stations & courts demanding his release, which the court reluctantly granted. Gandhi led organized protests & strikes against the landlords, who with the guidance of the British government, signed an agreement granting the poor farmers of the region more compensation & control over farming, & cancellation of revenue hikes & its collection until the famine ended. It was during this agitation, that Gandhi was addressed by the people as Bapu (Father) & Mahatma (Great Soul). In Kheda, Sardar Patel represented the farmers in negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection & released all the prisoners. As a result, Gandhi's fame spread all over the nation.

Non-cooperation movement
Non-cooperation & peaceful resistance were Gandhi's "weapons" in the fight against injustice. In Punjab, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of civilians by British troops caused deep trauma to the nation, leading to increased public anger & acts of violence. Gandhi criticized both the actions of the British Raj & the retaliatory violence of Indians. He authored the resolution offering condolences to British civilian victims & condemning the riots, which after initial opposition in the party, was accepted following Gandhi's emotional speech advocating his principle that all violence was evil & could not be justified. But it was after the massacre & subsequent violence that Gandhi's mind focused upon obtaining complete self-government & control of all Indian government institutions, maturing soon into Swaraj or complete individual, spiritual, political independence.

In December 1921, Gandhi was invested with executive authority on behalf of the Indian National Congress. Under his leadership, the Congress was reorganized with a new constitution, with the goal of Swaraj. Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee. A hierarchy of committees was set up to improve discipline, transforming the party from an elite organization to one of mass national appeal. Gandhi expanded his non-violence platform to include the swadeshi policy – the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. Linked to this was his advocacy that khadi (homespun cloth) be worn by all Indians instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi exhorted Indian men & women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning khadi in support of the independence movement. This was a strategy to inculcate discipline & dedication to weed out the unwilling & ambitious, & to include women in the movement at a time when many thought that such activities were not respectable activities for women. In addition to boycotting British products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions & law courts, to resign from government employment, & to forsake British titles & honours.

"Non-cooperation" enjoyed wide-spread appeal & success, increasing excitement & participation from all strata of Indian society. Yet, just as the movement reached its apex, it ended abruptly as a result of a violent clash in the town of Chauri Chaura, Uttar Pradesh, in February 1922. Fearing that the movement was about to take a turn towards violence, & convinced that this would be the undoing of all his work, Gandhi called off the campaign of mass civil disobedience. Gandhi was arrested on March 10, 1922, tried for sedition, & sentenced to six years imprisonment. Beginning on March 18, 1922, he only served about two years of the sentence, being released in February 1924 after an operation for appendicitis.

Without Gandhi's uniting personality, the Indian National Congress began to splinter during his years in prison, splitting into two factions, one led by Chitta Ranjan Das & Motilal Nehru favouring party participation in the legislatures, & the other led by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari & Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, opposing this move. Furthermore, cooperation among Hindus & Muslims, which had been strong at the height of the non-violence campaign, was breaking down. Gandhi attempted to bridge these differences through many means, including a three-week fast in the autumn of 1924, but with limited success.

Salt Satyagraha
Gandhi stayed out of the limelight for most of the 1920s, preferring to resolve the wedge between the Swaraj Party & the Indian National Congress, & expanding initiatives against untouchability, alcoholism, ignorance & poverty. He returned to the fore in 1928. The year before, the British government had appointed a new constitutional reform commission under Sir John Simon, with not a single Indian in its ranks. The result was a boycott of the commission by Indian political parties. Gandhi pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominion status or face a new campaign of non-violence with complete independence for the country as its goal. Gandhi had not only moderated the views of younger men like Subhas Chandra Bose & Jawaharlal Nehru, who sought a demand for immediate independence, but also modified his own call to a one year wait, instead of two. The British did not respond. On December 31, 1929, the flag of India was unfurled in Lahore. January 26, 1930 was celebrated by the Indian National Congress, meeting in Lahore, as India's Independence Day. This day was commemorated by almost every other Indian organization. Making good on his word, he launched a new satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930, highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from March 12 to April 6, marching 400 kilometres (248 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself. Thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British rule; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.

The government, represented by Lord Edward Irwin, decided to negotiate with Gandhi. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed in March 1931. The British Government agreed to set all political prisoners free in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. Furthermore, Gandhi was invited to attend the Round Table Conference in London as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The conference was a disappointment to Gandhi & the nationalists, as it focused on the Indian princes & Indian minorities rather than the transfer of power. Furthermore, Lord Irwin's successor, Lord Willingdon, embarked on a new campaign of repression against the nationalists. Gandhi was again arrested, & the government attempted to destroy his influence by completely isolating him from his followers. This tactic was not successful. In 1932, through the campaigning of the Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar, the government granted untouchables separate electorates under the new constitution. In protest, Gandhi embarked on a six-day fast in September 1932, successfully forcing the government to adopt a more equitable arrangement via negotiations mediated by the Dalit cricketer turned political leader Palwankar Baloo. This was the start of a new campaign by Gandhi to improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he named Harijans, the children of God. On May 8, 1933 Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification to help the Harijan movement.

In the summer of 1934, three unsuccessful attempts were made on his life.

When the Congress Party chose to contest elections & accept power under the Federation scheme, Gandhi decided to resign from party membership. He did not disagree with the party's move, but felt that if he resigned, his popularity with Indians would cease to stifle the party's membership, that actually varied from communists, socialists, trade unionists, students, religious conservatives, to those with pro-business convictions. Gandhi also did not want to prove a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj.

Gandhi returned to the head in 1936, with the Nehru presidency & the Lucknow session of the Congress. Although Gandhi desired a total focus on the task of winning independence & not speculation about India's future, he did not restrain the Congress from adopting socialism as its goal. Gandhi had a clash with Subhas Bose, who had been elected to the presidency in 1938. Gandhi's main points of contention with Bose were his lack of commitment to democracy, & lack of faith in non-violence. Bose won his second term despite Gandhi's criticism, but left the Congress when the All-India leaders resigned en masse in protest against his abandonment of the principles introduced by Gandhi.

Quit India Movement
World War II broke out in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Initially, Gandhi had favored offering "non-violent moral support" to the British effort, but other Congressional leaders were offended by the unilateral inclusion of India into the war, without consultation of the people's representatives. All Congressmen elected to resign from office en masse. After lengthy deliberations, Gandhi declared that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom, while that freedom was denied to India itself. As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, drafting a resolution calling for the British to Quit India. This was Gandhi's & the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from Indian shores.

Gandhi was criticized by some Congress party members & other Indian political groups, both pro-British & anti-British. Some felt that opposing Britain in its life or death struggle was immoral, & others felt that Gandhi wasn't doing enough. Quit India became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle, with mass arrests & violence on an unprecedented scale. Thousands of freedom fighters were killed or injured by police gunfire, & hundreds of thousands were arrested. Gandhi & his supporters made it clear they would not support the war effort unless India were granted immediate independence. He even clarified that this time the movement would not be stopped if individual acts of violence were committed, saying that the "ordered anarchy" around him was "worse than real anarchy." He called on all Congressmen & Indians to maintain discipline via ahimsa, & Karo Ya Maro ("Do or Die") in the cause of ultimate freedom.

Gandhi & the entire Congress Working Committee were arrested in Bombay by the British on August 9, 1942. Gandhi was held for two years in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. It was here that Gandhi suffered two terrible blows in his personal life. His 42-year old secretary Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack 6 days later & his wife Kasturba died after 18 months imprisonment in February 1944; six weeks later Gandhi suffered a severe malaria attack. He was released before the end of the war on May 6, 1944 because of his failing health & necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison & enrage the nation. Although the Quit India movement had moderate success in its objective, the ruthless suppression of the movement brought order to India by the end of 1943. At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, & around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership.

Freedom & partition of India

Gandhi advised the Congress to reject the proposals the British Cabinet Mission offered in 1946, as he was deeply suspicious of the grouping proposed for Muslim-majority states — Gandhi viewed this as a precursor to partition. However, this became one of the few times the Congress broke from Gandhi's advice (though not his leadership), as Nehru & Patel knew that if the Congress did not approve the plan, the control of government would pass to the Muslim League. Between 1946 & 1948 , over 5,000 people were killed in violence. Gandhi was vehemently opposed to any plan that partitioned India into two separate countries. An overwhelming majority of Muslims living in India, side by side with Hindus & Sikhs, were in favour of Partition. Additionally Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, commanded widespread support in West Punjab, Sindh, NWFP & East Bengal. The partition plan was approved by the Congress leadership as the only way to prevent a wide-scale Hindu-Muslim civil war. Congress leaders knew that Gandhi would viscerally oppose partition, & it was impossible for the Congress to go ahead without his agreement, for Gandhi's support in the party & throughout India was strong. Gandhi's closest colleagues had accepted partition as the best way out, & Sardar Patel endeavoured to convince Gandhi that it was the only way to avoid civil war. A devastated Gandhi gave his assent.

On the day of the transfer of power, Gandhi did not celebrate independence with the rest of India, but was alone in Calcutta, mourning the partition & working to end the violence. After India's independence, Gandhi focused on Hindu-Muslim peace & unity. He conducted extensive dialogue with Muslim & Hindu community leaders, working to cool passions in northern India, as well as in Bengal. Despite the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, he was troubled when the Government decided to deny Pakistan the Rs. 55 crores due as per agreements made by the Partition Council. Leaders like Sardar Patel feared that Pakistan would use the money to bankroll the war against India. Gandhi was also devastated when demands resurged for all Muslims to be deported to Pakistan, & when Muslim & Hindu leaders expressed frustration & an inability to come to terms with one another. He launched his last fast-unto-death in Delhi, asking that all communal violence be ended once & for all, & that the payment of Rs. 55 crores be made to Pakistan. Gandhi feared that instability & insecurity in Pakistan would increase their anger against India, & violence would spread across the borders. He further feared that Hindus & Muslims would renew their enmity & precipitate into an open civil war. After emotional debates with his life-long colleagues, Gandhi refused to budge, & the Government rescinded its policy & made the payment to Pakistan. Hindu, Muslim & Sikh community leaders, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh & Hindu Mahasabha assured him that they would renounce violence & call for peace. Gandhi thus broke his fast by sipping orange juice.

Part 2 of this Article on Gandhi

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