Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

FREEDOM MOVEMENT

GANDHI THE LEGEND

EARLY YEARS : 1869-93

Gandhian Era in South Africa 1893-1913

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.

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 Gokhale tells Gandhi that the Black Act would be repealed and that Gen.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.

1903 “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. : Begins reading the

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.

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.