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Eternal India
encyclopedia
FREEDOM MOVEMENT
EARLY YEARS : 1869-93
Known as Mahatma to Indian millions,
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born
on October 2, 1869, in a well-to-do Bania
family in Porbandar in Gujarat.
The youngest of six children, he spent
his early years in a three-storey house
which his father shared with five brothers,
their children and their children’s children.
Shortly after he had turned 13 he was
married to Kasturba, who was the same age
as himself, ‘7
am inclined to pity myself I
can see no moral argument in support of
such early marriage
,” he used to say.
He passed the matriculation examina-
tion in 1887 at the Rajkot High School and
enrolled for his B.A., at the Samal Das
College in nearby Bhavnagar. An old friend
of his father (who had passed away when
Gandhi was 17) suggested that he should
proceed to England to qualify as a barrister.
He could get the Dewanship of Porbandar
for the asking. So Gandhi set sail for Eng-
land on September 4, 1888.
He returned to Bombay in 1891. He
sought a part-time job as a high-school
teacher but was rejected as he had not
graduated from an Indian university.
1893 : Gandhi set sail for South Africa to
settle a suit for a firm of Porbandar Mus-
lims.
1896 : Gandhi returns to India for a six-
month visit.
1899 : Boer war breaks out. By way of
demonstrating Indian loyalty to the Crown,
Gandhi volunteers to organise an ambu-
lance corps.
GANDHI THE LEGEND
Gandhian Era in South Africa 1893-1913
1903
: Begins reading the
“Bhagavad
Gita ”
which became the guide of his con-
duct. Words like
aparigraha
(non-posses-
sion) and
samabhava
(equability) fasci-
nated Gandhi. Gandhi took the bold step of
renouncing all his possessions.
1904
: Gandhi founds a weekly newspaper
Indian Opinion
in Durban in partnership
with two Indian journalists.
Advent of Sathyagraha
Sathyagraha
(Sathya-Truth,
agraha-
Adherence), a form of passive resistance
was a course of action devised by Gandhiji
which seeks to resist evil and oppression
by moral and spiritual force. The oppressor
is also endowed with conscience, “A
Satyagrahi bids good-bye to fear... Even if
the opponent plays him false twenty times,
the Satyagrahi is ready to trust him the
twenty-first time, for an implicit trust in
human nature is the very essence of his
creed. ”
“Once one becomes non-violent, he
had no enmity. His anger dissolves of
its own self One becomes a unit of love
and sacrifice.
”
1907
July 3 : Black Act passed. Indians in
South Africa were given thirty days to reg-
ister or face the penalties. Gandhi organ-
ises resistance.
1908
: Gandhi sentenced to three months
hard labour for violating Transvaal immi-
gration ban.
Reads for the first time in prison Henry
David Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedi-
ence in which the American philosopher had
spelt out his theory of not paying taxes to a
government he considered immoral.
Founds Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg to
house families of Satyagrahis in jail.
1912
: Ruskin's Book “
Unto this Last"
cast a magic spell on Gandhi and trans-
formed him... found his own convictions re-
flected, eg., the good of the individual is
contained in the good of all. Gokhale comes
to South Africa to investigate Indian griev-
ances. Gandhi meets him in Cape Town.
Gokhale tells Gandhi that the Black Act
would be repealed and that Gen. Smuts, the
South African Governor-General, had also
promised to lift the tax on indentured la-
bourers who became free labourers. But
Gandhi had his doubts. He was right.
Hardly had Gokhale left South Africa when
Smuts broke his promise. He told the South
African Parliament that it would not be
possible to remove the tax. At the same
time the Cape Colony Supreme Court ruled
that only Christian marriages would be rec-
ognised as legal.
1913
: Gandhi organises a march of eleven
women from Tolstoy Farm into Natal. They
proceeded to the Newcastle coal mines
where they induce the Indian coal miners to
strike. Gandhi is sentenced to a year’s
hard labour. Smuts releases Gandhi and
announces a commission to inquire into
Indian grievances. Gandhi demands that an
Indian or at least someone known to be pro-
Indian should be appointed to the commis-
sion. Smuts would not agree.
1914
: On Jan. 1. Gandhi announces a
massive protest march from Durban. But
since, by coincidence, the white employees
of the South African railways were on
strike, Gandhi cancelled the march. He
explained that it was against the principles
of Satyagraha to take advantage of an op-
ponent’s weakness. Smuts invited Gandhi
for talks which resulted in an agreement,
which culminated in the Indian Relief Act.
The tax on former identured Indian labour-
ers was abolished. Non-Christian mar-
riages were legalised. Gandhi saw the
agreement as a vindication of the principle
of racial equality and demonstration of the
power of Satyagraha. Gandhi’s work in
South Africa was over. “Return to India
within twelve months,” Gokhale had told
him on his visit in 1912. Now Gandhi was
free to obey. But before he left, he had one
thing yet to do. While in jail, he had made a
pair of sandals. He sent them as a parting
gift to General Smuts.