Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on the 2nd of October 1869 in Porbandar, a coastal town on the Kathiawar Peninsula, into a family that would shape his early moral compass through contradiction. His father, Karamchand, served as the chief minister of Porbandar and later Rajkot, a man of modest education who rose to power through capability rather than lineage. His mother, Putlibai, was a deeply pious woman from a Pranami Vaishnava family who fasted for days without flinching and believed that truth and love were supreme values. Yet the boy who grew up in this household was described by his sister as restless as mercury, a child who found joy in twisting dogs' ears and who haunted himself with the stories of Shravana and King Harishchandra, figures who embodied truth and sacrifice. This early duality, the pious mother and the mischievous son, set the stage for a life that would constantly wrestle with the tension between personal desire and moral duty. At age nine, he entered a local school where he studied arithmetic, history, and geography, but his true education came from the Indian classics that left an indelible impression on his mind. He would later write that these stories haunted him and that he must have acted Harishchandra to himself times without number, establishing a pattern of self-identification with truth that would define his entire existence.
The Shy Barrister Who Became A Saint
In July 1888, an 18-year-old Mohandas Gandhi sailed from Bombay to London, leaving behind a wife and a mother who feared he would compromise his religion in the West. He enrolled at the Inner Temple to become a barrister, a path that seemed impossible for a shy, tongue-tied boy who had no interest in games and whose only companions were books. In London, he joined a public speaking practice group to overcome his shyness and discovered a keen interest in the welfare of London's impoverished dockland communities. He became a member of the London Vegetarian Society, where he met influential figures like Arnold Hills, a captain of industry who bankrolled the society and later founded the football club West Ham United. Gandhi's time in London was marked by a vow to abstain from meat, alcohol, and women, a promise he made to his mother before leaving India. He was excommunicated from his caste for going to England, yet he ignored this and sailed away, determined to become a lawyer. By June 1891, at the age of 22, he was called to the bar, but his attempts to establish a law practice in India failed because he was psychologically unable to cross-examine witnesses. He returned to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but was forced to stop after running afoul of a British officer. It was in this state of professional failure that a Muslim merchant named Dada Abdullah contacted him, offering a one-year commitment in South Africa to represent a cousin in a lawsuit. This decision would change the course of history, as Gandhi spent the next 21 years in South Africa, developing the political views and ethics that would eventually lead India to independence.
On the 10th of April 1893, Gandhi arrived in South Africa, where he immediately faced discrimination due to his skin colour and heritage. He was not allowed to sit with European passengers in a stagecoach and was told to sit on the floor near the driver, then beaten when he refused. In another instance, he was kicked into a gutter for daring to walk near a house, and in a third, he was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to leave the first-class compartment. He sat in the train station, shivering all night and pondering if he should return to India or protest for his rights. Gandhi chose to protest, and this decision marked the beginning of his lifelong struggle against injustice. He began to question his people's standing in the British Empire, finding it humiliating that some people could feel honour, superiority, or pleasure in such inhumane practices. The Abdullah case that had brought him to South Africa concluded in May 1894, and the Indian community organized a farewell party for him as he prepared to return to India. The farewell party was turned into a working committee to plan the resistance to a new Natal government discriminatory proposal, leading Gandhi to extend his original period of stay in South Africa. He planned to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote, a right then proposed to be an exclusive European right. He asked Joseph Chamberlain, the British Colonial Secretary, to reconsider his position on this bill. Though unable to halt the bill's passage, Gandhi's campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, and through this organization, Gandhi moulded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force. In January 1897, when Gandhi landed in Durban, a mob of white settlers attacked him, but he refused to press charges against any member of the mob. This incident, and the many others that followed, shaped his understanding of Satyagraha, or nonviolent resistance, which he would first adopt at a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg on the 11th of September 1906.
The Salt That Broke An Empire
On the 12th of March 1930, Gandhi and his followers began a 240-mile march from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat, to make salt himself, with the declared intention of breaking the salt laws. This Salt March, which lasted until the 6th of April 1930, was a pivotal moment in the Indian independence movement, as it transformed Gandhi from a political leader into a folk hero and a sacred messiah-like figure in the eyes of the Indian people. The campaign succeeded in upsetting the British, who responded by imprisoning at least 60,000 people. The protest at Dharasana salt works on the 21st of May went ahead without Gandhi and was brutally suppressed, but the campaign had already achieved its goal of challenging British rule. Gandhi's ideas about winning hate with love resonated deeply with the culture and historic values of his people, and he captured the imagination of the subcontinent. He used terminology and phrases such as Rama-rajya from the Ramayana and Prahlada as a paradigmatic icon, making his ideas readily and deeply resonate with the culture of his people. The Salt March was not just a protest against a tax; it was a demonstration of the power of nonviolent resistance, a concept that had been evolving in Gandhi's mind since his time in South Africa. It was a moment when the abstract principles of Satyagraha became a tangible force that could challenge the might of the British Empire. The campaign succeeded in upsetting the British, who responded by imprisoning at least 60,000 people, but the spirit of the movement could not be contained. Gandhi's ideas about winning hate with love resonated deeply with the culture and historic values of his people, and he captured the imagination of the subcontinent.
The Fast That Stopped A War
On the 12th of January 1948, at the age of 78, Gandhi began his last hunger strike in Delhi, a fast unto death that would become his greatest political act and the prelude to his assassination. The fast was begun to stop the religious violence that had broken out in the Punjab and Bengal following the partition of India into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, and Gandhi, abstaining from the official celebration of independence, visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress. He undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence, and the last of these was begun in Delhi on the 12th of January 1948. The belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India, and among these was Nathuram Godse, a militant Hindu nationalist from Pune, western India. Godse assassinated Gandhi by firing three bullets into his chest at an interfaith prayer meeting in Delhi on the 30th of January 1948. The fast was a desperate attempt to restore peace, and it was successful in stopping the religious riots and communal violence, but it also made Gandhi a target for those who believed he was too soft on Muslims. The fast was a final act of political protest, a demonstration of the power of nonviolent resistance, and a testament to Gandhi's belief that truth and love could conquer hate. It was a fast that would end with his death, but it was a fast that would also change the course of history, as it demonstrated the power of nonviolent resistance to challenge the might of the British Empire and to stop the violence that had broken out in the Punjab and Bengal.
The Man Who Slept With Women
In the final years of his life, Gandhi conducted experiments with celibacy that would become the subject of intense controversy and criticism. He began experiments with abstinence from sex and food, and in 1906 at the age of 37, although married, he vowed to abstain from sexual relations. His experiment with abstinence went beyond sex, and extended to food, as he consulted the Jain scholar Shrimad Rajchandra, whom he fondly called Raychandbhai. Rajchandra advised him that milk stimulated sexual passion, and Gandhi began abstaining from cow's milk in 1912, and did so even when doctors advised him to consume milk. In the final year of his life, Gandhi's public experiments, as they progressed, were widely discussed and criticized by his family members and leading politicians. He asked his grandniece Manu, who was 18 years old, if she wanted to help him with his experiments to test their purity, for which she readily accepted. He also shared his bed with 18-year-old Abha, wife of his grandnephew Kanu, and would sleep with both Manu and Abha at the same time to test his celibacy. These experiments were part of his broader quest for self-realization and truth, but they also made him a target for those who believed he was too extreme in his beliefs. The experiments were a testament to Gandhi's belief that truth and love could conquer hate, but they also made him a target for those who believed he was too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims. The experiments were a final act of political protest, a demonstration of the power of nonviolent resistance, and a testament to Gandhi's belief that truth and love could conquer hate. They were a final act of political protest, a demonstration of the power of nonviolent resistance, and a testament to Gandhi's belief that truth and love could conquer hate.