Text 7. Mahatma gandhi

One of the great figures of the 20th century, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat, where his father was chief minister. After studying in London (1888-91) he worked as a barrister in South Africa, where the young Gandhi became politicised, rallying against the discrimination he encountered. He soon became the spokesman for the Indian community and championed equality for all.

Gandhi returned to India in 1915 with the doctrine of ahimsa (nonviolence) central to his political plans, and committed to a simple and disciplined lifestyle. He set up the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, which was innovative for its admission of Dalits (the Scheduled Caste, formerly known as Untouchables.

Within a year, Gandhi had won his first victory, defending farmers in Bihar from exploitation. This was when he first received the title ‘Mahatma’ (Great Soul) from an admirer. The passage of the discriminatory Rowlatt Acts (which allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries) through parliament in 1919 spurred him to further action and he organised a national protest. In the days that followed this hartal (strike), feelings ran high throughout the country. After the massacre of unarmed protesters in Amritsar in 1919, a deeply shocked Gandhi immediately called off the protest.

By 1920 Gandhi was a key figure in the Indian National Congress, and he coordinated a national campaign of noncooperation or satyagraha (passive resistance) to British rule, with the effect of raising nationalist feelings while earning the lasting enmity of the British. In early 1930 Gandhi captured the imagination of the country, and the world, when he led a march of several thousand followers from Ahmedabad to Dandi on the coast of Gujarat. On arrival, Gandhi ceremoniously made salt by evaporating sea water, thus publicly defying the much-hated salt tax; not for the first time, he was imprisoned. Released in 1931 to represent the Indian National Congress at the second Round Table Conference in London, he won over the hearts of the British people, but failed to gain any real concessions from the government.

Jailed again on his return to India, Gandhi immediately began a hunger strike, aimed at forcing his fellow Indians to accept the rights of the Untouchables. Gandhi’s resoluteness and the widespread apprehension throughout the country forced an agreement, but not until Gandhi was on the verge of death.

Disillusioned with politics and convinced that the Congress leaders were ignoring his guidance, he resigned from his parliamentary seat in 1934 and devoted himself to rural education. He returned spectacularly to the fray in 1942 with the Quit India campaign, in which he urged the British to leave India immediately. His actions were deemed subversive and he and most of the Congress leadership were imprisoned.

In the frantic bargaining that followed the end of WWII, Gandhi was largely excluded, and watched helplessly as plans were made to partition the country - a tragedy in his eyes. He toured the trouble spots, using his own influence to calm intercommunity tensions and promote peace.

Gandhi stood almost alone in urging tolerance and the preservation of a single India, and his work on behalf of members of all communities inevitably drew resentment from some Hindu hardliners. On his way to a prayer meeting in Delhi on 30 January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu zealot.

Historical reminders of Gandhi’s life and work can be found throughout South India: his ashram is at Sevagram in Maharashtra; the house where he stayed during many visits to Bombay (now Mumbai) and where he launched the Quit India campaign in 1942 is now a museum (Mani Bhavan); and the former palace where he was imprisoned by the British for nearly two years is in Pune, Maharashtra. There is also a fine museum devoted to Gandhi’s life in Madurai and a memorial in Kanyakumari.