Mohandis Gandhi (1869 – 1948)

Childhood

In the Indian town of Porbandar, overlooking the Arabian Sea, on 2 October 1869, a hero was born. His name was Mohandis Karamchand Ghandi. It was in this city that he lived in a large three storey house with the families of five of his uncles.

His early childhood was heavily influenced by his two parents. His mother was Hindu, like the rest of his family including him, but was accepting and understanding of other people’s beliefs. This was demonstrated in her acceptance that India’s other main religion besides Hindu, Islam, offered an equally acceptable way of finding God. His mother’s attitude of accepting other’s beliefs and rights would’ve influenced some of the decisions he made later on in his life.

His dad was the prime minister of the semi-independent (from Britain) state that they lived in.

Marriage

At the age of 13, he married a girl called Kasturbai in an arranged marriage. Later in his life, he became a campaigner against child marriage, mainly based on his negative experiences in the early stages of his own marriage.

Like many other men of his time did, Gandhi tried to restrict her freedom by making her stay at home to turn her into an obedient wife. However, he was forced to recognize that she had as much rights to do what she wanted as he did when she went out by herself and did what she wanted to.

Vegetarian

Being brought up as a Hindu, Gandhi followed its belief that eating meat was wrong. However, a Muslim friend of his convinced him that if he wanted to become strong like British rulers of India, he had to eat meat like they did. They secretly ate some but Gandhi became sick almost instantly. This made him feel very guilty and he never ate meat again for the rest of his life.

England

At the age of 19, Gandhi left for England to study as a lawyer. His time in England was tough as he had to get use to the different ways that they did things over there compared to India. A few of them were the use of forks and knives (he, like many other Indians ate with their fingers), how they dressed, and the lack of knowledge about vegetarianism.

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Even though most Brits hadn’t heard vegetarianism before, it was this belief by Gandhi that helped him make his first friends in England. He became a regular customer at a vegetarian restaurant and became friends with most of the other regular customers. There, he bought a book by Henry Salt called A Plea for Vegetarianism. Reading this book convinced him even more that he shouldn’t eat meat. Most of the friends he made there were members of the Vegetarian Society of England, a group in which he soon became a member of.

Return to India

After three years in England, Gandhi passed his exams to become a lawyer and left to go back to India. When he arrived back there, he discovered that his mum had died a few months ago and no one he knew was interested in the knew things that he’d discovered while in England like the different cutlery, clothes and food such as porridge.

South Africa

In 1893, he left for South Africa (at this time, it was still under the control of the British like India was) after accepting an offer to represent a Muslim Indian company in a legal dispute.

Shortly after arriving there, he experienced the injustice of South Africa’s apartheid policy. First, he was thrown off a train after refusing to move out of a first class part of a train; then he beaten up by a conductor after refusing to sit on the footboard of the stagecoach when he wanted to sit outside to smoke (he was already being forced to sit outside of the coach next to the driver). In Johannesburg, he was refused entry into the Grand National Hotel there. These events would not have made a good first impression of the country to Gandhi. However, he knew that many of the whites knew that apartheid was wrong because quite a few stood up for him when he was discriminated.

Although the reason he was in South Africa was because he was a lawyer, it didn’t stop him from helping the many Indians there who were discriminated because of their skin colour. It was here in South Africa that he became really passionate about bringing peace and equality into the minds of people including those that had the power to enforce it on other people.

Untouchables

This helped him realize that the caste system that Hindus used was very discriminatory a tried to get other people to understand this too. The caste system was how Hindu society was divided based on their jobs and socio-economic status. There were four main groups and the Untouchables who were classified below these four groups. The Untouchables were a group of people who basically lived off other peoples rubbish and worked as slaves.

Purification of Life

After his experiences in South Africa, he decided to simplify his life, even though he was rich because of his law practice. He decided to cut his own hair and do his own laundry. He then decided that this was not enough so he gave away most of his material possessions because his religion believed that having them made it harder for an individual to gain spiritual reward. However, there was still one thing that distracted him from what he thought was important in life so at the age of 37, he took up celibacy. Other factors would’ve also influenced his decision to take up celibacy. He believed that the only way for him to learn to really love his wife was to become celibate because his lust for her was often stronger than his love.

His decision to simplify his life was also influenced by his reading of the philosophy of Brahmacharva which was about spiritual and practical purity. By getting rid of his material possessions, he achieved practical purity. Spiritual purity was more about the mind, which influenced to make the decision to become celibate.

Return to India Again

In, 1914, Gandhi left South Africa for the last time to return to India. There, he stepped up his protests for India’s independence from Britain. He used many methods to do this, all of which were peaceful.

One of the first things he did was set up a community where they all abided principles in which Gandhi believed would help them become better people and lead better lives. One of them was to accept Untouchables as if they were just normal Hindus. They originally agreed to this but some walked out when Gandhi let a family of Untouchables into the community. This illustrated how difficult it was for the Hindus to themselves accept this belief that Gandhi espoused.

Protests

His main form of protest was non-cooperation and fasting. Because the various leaders of groups didn’t want him to die because it would make them look bad, his fast unto death protests were very effective. He was jailed on many occasions but he didn’t regret it and didn’t see himself as a criminal. He believed that the time that he spent alone in jail made him a better person because it gave him time to think about a number of issues,

The Salt March

The salt march was arguably his most famous protest. He did this as part of his non-cooperation protests against the British rulers. This particular protest was in protest against the salt tax introduced by British which made it legal for only the British to get salt without being taxed. He staged a 400km march which ended with him picking up a piece of salt from a beach. Many other Indians joined him in his march and many were there to see him break the law.

This prompted the British government to invite him over to England to hold talks about India becoming independent from them.

It was this protest that really introduced the world to Gandhi and he became well known right around the world, mainly because he was such a big advocate for peace and equality, which were not beliefs that many other people held at that time (World War I had just ended a few years earlier and racial and gender discrimination was the norm).

Death

In the end, he was assassinated by a Hindu extremist who thought that he’d betrayed Hindus because he was helping save the Muslim minority from the Hindu majority during riots in India. He was doing this not because he’d betrayed his faith but because he believed in peace and didn’t want them to die.

Beliefs

From a very young age, Gandhi was very honest. On one occasion, his teacher told him to cheat in a spelling test to impress visiting guests but he refused. His honesty has being evident throughout his life. He always told the truth and wasn’t afraid to let others know of his views, even if they were against the common thought at the time.

One of his ideas was that after India had become independent, that it should become an anarchy. He believed this because his definition of “self rule” was not just independence from Britain but where everyone ruled themselves and the country would contain several small self sufficient communities. This may have been influenced by the small communities that he’d set up himself in South Africa (called Tolstoy) and later in India.

During his life, Gandhi studied many different religious texts of many religions including Christianity, Muslim, Islam, Buddhism and Jewish. Even though he grew up as a Hindu, he thought that all religions were good but people had exploited them to satisfy their wants. For example, some religions such as Islam/Muslim make men more powerful than women. It is things like this that Gandhi wanted to change because it discriminated against people depending on their gender, race or socio-economic status.

Manual labour was his most fulfilling work.

Legacy

He has left a legacy for many people in future generations. Many notable leaders are among there people. Martin Luther King Jr. was one who ran his campaigns against racial discrimination on “the force of truth”, forcing people to realize that racial discrimination was wrong. They did this by planting the seed that racism is wrong in their mind, which made them have self doubt in their beliefs. A few other people that have been influenced by him are Nelson Mandela, John Lennon and Al Gore.

Impact on Religion/Culture

He also left a big impact in culture and religion. His work on trying to convince everyone that everyone was equal, no matter what their religion, colour or socioeconomic status was, forced Muslims and Hindus to recognize each other’s rights. This was particularly important to Gandhi because the Muslims and Hindus were the two main religious groups in India at the time and he believed that if they wanted independence, everyone would have to work together. In the end, the then India was split up, with the Muslims forming a new state which is now called Pakistan. The Hindus were also forced to face the reality that their treatment of the “Untouchables” was unfair.

Group’s member of:

Vegetarian Society of England

Positions/roles occupied:

• Most remembered for:
• Picking up piece of salt
• Non-violence and non-cooperation campaigns against British
• Crucial role in gaining independence for India from the British

Legacy for future generations:

• Impact on Martin Luther King Jr. who ran campaigns on “the force of truth” like Gandhi did

Impact on culture/religion:

• Forced Muslims and Hindus to be aware of each others rights
• Forced fellow Hindus to face reality of mistreatment- unfair- of “Untouchable” and caste system

Views/beliefs and what helped shape them:

• Very honest
• Vegetarian – religion?, family
• Celibacy- 37 years old – decide to simplify and purify life
• Peace – ???
• Equal rights – experienced discrimination himself in South Africa
  • Richness
  • Race
  • Religion
  • Gender
  • Believed life of manual labour was most fulfilling type of life

What circumstances made him become in work that made him a hero:

Events that affected him:

• P14
• His experience of different cultures around world etc.
  • Became understanding, accepting of other beliefs out there