Great Soul_ Mahatma Gandhi And His Struggle With India Part 13

swadeshi: self-reliance. self-reliance.

swaraj: self-rule. self-rule.

tabligh: propagating religious observance by Muslims. propagating religious observance by Muslims.

Vande Mataram: "Hail, Mother," a nationalist cry, standing for Mother India. "Hail, Mother," a nationalist cry, standing for Mother India.

varna: one of the four main caste orders. one of the four main caste orders.

varnashrama dharma: the rules of caste. the rules of caste.

yajna: sacrifice of a religious nature. sacrifice of a religious nature.

zamindar: landowner. landowner.

GANDHI'S LIFE

A CHRONOLOGY.

1869Born October 2 in the small princely state of Porbandar, in Kathiawad region of present-day Gujarat, on the Arabian Sea.1876Family moves to Rajkot, where he attends school.1883Marries Kastur Makanji at age thirteen, after betrothal of seven years.1885Death of father, Karamchand Gandhi, called Kaba.1888Birth of eldest son, Harilal. Sails for England, studies law at Inner Temple.1891Completes studies, sails for Bombay.1892Birth of second son, Manilal. Admitted to Bombay bar.1893Sails to South Africa, arrives Durban.1894Becomes secretary of the Natal Indian Congress, opens law office in Durban. Reads Tolstoy's Kingdom of G.o.d Is Within You Kingdom of G.o.d Is Within You.1896Returns to India; brings family back to Durban.1897Birth of third son, Ramdas.1899Leads Indian Ambulance Corps in Anglo-Boer War.1900Birth of fourth son, Devadas.1901Returns with family to India intending to resettle there. Attends Indian National Congress meeting in Calcutta.1902Called back to South Africa to lead fight against discriminatory legislation, brings family.1903Opens law office in Johannesburg, launches Indian Opinion Indian Opinion, a weekly.1904Founds rural commune called the Phoenix Settlement north of Durban, inspired by Ruskin's Unto This Last Unto This Last.1906a.s.sisting in repression of Zulu uprising, raises corps of Indian stretcher bearers. Takes vow of celibacy. Addresses ma.s.s meeting of Transvaal Indians in Johannesburg, pledging resistance to Asiatic Registration Bill. Sails for London to seek redress.1907Starts first "pa.s.sive resistance" campaign. Arrested in December, tried, ordered to leave Transvaal.1908Replaces term "pa.s.sive resistance" with "satyagraha." Sentenced to two months, released in three weeks. a.s.saulted by Pathans for reversing stand on registration boycott. Encourages burning of registration certificates. Arrested at Volksrust, sentenced to two months of hard labor.1909As campaign continues, arrested again for failing to produce registration doc.u.ment. Again lobbies in London, writes Hind Swaraj Hind Swaraj on voyage back to South Africa. on voyage back to South Africa.1910Corresponds with Tolstoy, establishes Tolstoy Farm, another commune, with Hermann Kallenbach, a Jewish architect originally from East Prussia.1911Suspends campaign against discriminatory legislation on basis of pledge by General s.m.u.ts to ease the more onerous provisions.1913Abandons Tolstoy Farm, satyagraha resumed. Leads march of indentured miners from mining town of Newcastle in Natal into Transvaal in defiance of law, with 2,221 marchers. Arrested three times in three days, finally sentenced to nine months of hard labor. Strikes of indentured Indian laborers spread to sugar lands and cities. Released after less than six weeks.1914Again reaches accord with s.m.u.ts, suspends satyagraha. Leaving South Africa, sails to England, arriving as world war breaks out.1915Arrives in Bombay January 4, establishes ashram at Ahmedabad.1916Tours India, traveling third-cla.s.s.1917Campaigns on behalf of indigo farmers, Champaran region of Bihar.1918Leads campaign on behalf of Ahmedabad mill workers. Further satyagraha against taxes on farmers in Gujarat's Kheda district. Seeks unsuccessfully to recruit Indians to join army for service in Europe.1919First national satyagraha, in the form of a strike, against repressive legislation. Arrested for defying order on entering Punjab, four days before ma.s.sacre by British-led troops at Amritsar. Suspends campaign after subsequent outbreaks of violence.1920Indian National Congress adopts his program of "noncooperation." Declares its aim to be achievement of swaraj, or self-rule, by nonviolent means. Emerges as Congress leader as well as leader of Khilafat, Muslim movement seeking restoration of Ottoman Caliph.1921Launches ma.s.s satyagraha over Punjab killings and Khilafat, promising swaraj in a year. Campaigns for charkha, or spinning wheel, and boycott of imported cloth.1922Suspends campaign over violence at Chauri Chaura, goes on five-day fast of "penance." Charged with sedition, sentenced to six years in prison.1924Released from prison after appendicitis attack, having served two years. Goes on twenty-one-day fast to promote Hindu-Muslim unity.1926Autobiography is serialized in is serialized in Young India Young India and and Navajivan Navajivan, his English and Gujarati weeklies. Stays at ashram, ostensibly withdrawn from politics.1928Back in politics, supports call for declaration of independence if self-government is not granted within a year.1929Drafts Congress resolution for "complete independence."1930Launches nationwide campaign with Salt March, Ahmedabad to Dandi on the Arabian Sea. Jailed without trial as strikes spread nationwide.1931Released after eight months, negotiates with viceroy, Lord Irwin. Sails for England, final trip out of India, to attend Round Table Conference to chart India's const.i.tutional future; no accord reached on special voting rights for untouchables, Muslims. Calls on Mussolini in Rome.1932Arrested shortly after return to Bombay in response to his call for renewed satyagraha campaign. "Fast unto death" in Yeravda prison forces British and untouchable leader B. R. Ambedkar to relent on plan for separate electorates for untouchable representatives. Simultaneously calls for swift end to discriminatory practices. For a brief time, India seems to heed call.1933Still at Yeravda, fasts again for twenty-one days over treatment of untouchables. Released and rearrested, released again after year's second fast.1934Barnstorms across India against untouchability, calling on caste Hindus to open all temples. Target of a bomb, first attempt on life, and demonstrations by orthodox Hindus. Resigns from Congress with the express aim of devoting himself to rural development, especially on behalf of untouchables whom he seeks to rename, calling them Harijans (children of G.o.d).1936Settles at Sevagram, near Wardha, in impoverished area in center of country. New ashram rises there.1939Writes letter to Hitler, never delivered.1942Launches "Quit India" movement, demanding immediate self-rule in return for support of war effort. Arrested and imprisoned in Aga Khan Palace near Poona.1944Wife, Kasturba, dies in detention at Aga Khan Palace. Suffering from high blood pressure, Gandhi is released ten weeks later on health grounds. Begins talks with Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League. Talks break down after eighteen days.1946Partic.i.p.ates in const.i.tutional talks. Attempt made to derail train carrying him to Poona. Responding to eruption of mutual slaughter by Hindus and Muslims in Bengal, rushes to Muslim-majority area called Noakhali to plead for harmony, head off part.i.tion. Stays there four months, eventually trekking barefoot from village to village for eight weeks.1947Visits riot-torn areas of Bihar where thousands of Muslims have been killed. Speaks against part.i.tion but doesn't oppose Congress resolution in its favor. Shuns independence celebration, fasts in Calcutta for end to violence.1948Fasts in New Delhi against expulsion and killing of Muslims. Violence ebbs, but two days after he ends fast, a bomb is thrown in the garden of Birla House, where he stays and holds nightly prayer meetings. Ten days later, on January 30, he's shot to death by a Hindu extremist while walking briskly to prayer meeting.

NOTES.

EPIGRAPHS.

1"I do not know": Gandhi to his son Harilal, Oct. 31, 1918, in Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 1, p. 260.

2"I deny being a visionary": Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 2, p. 201.

3"I am not a quick despairer": Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (hereafter (hereafter CWMG CWMG), vol. 23, p. 4.

4"For men like me": Gandhi to Nirmal k.u.mar Bose, cited in Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform, p. 272.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

1"have been trying all my life": Pyarelal, Epic Fast Epic Fast, p. 323.

2"innumerable trunks": CWMG CWMG, vol. 52, p. 399, cited in Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, p. 316.

3"He increasingly ceased": Brown, Nehru Nehru, p. 106.

4"the starving toiling millions": M. K. Gandhi, Village Swaraj Village Swaraj, p. 4.

5"the emanc.i.p.ation": Ibid., p. 6.

CHAPTER 1: PROLOGUE: AN UNWELCOME VISITOR.

1twenty-three-year-old law clerk: Gandhi had already qualified as a barrister in India, but saying he came to South Africa as a law clerk accurately describes his role in the case for which he was retained, as he himself later acknowledged: "When I went to South Africa I went only as a law clerk," he said in 1937. CWMG CWMG, vol. 60, p. 101.

2"Just as it is a mark": Meer, South African Gandhi South African Gandhi, p. 121.

3"eternal negative": Erikson, Gandhi's Truth Gandhi's Truth, p. 158.

4The Gandhi who landed: Tinker, Ordeal of Love Ordeal of Love, p. 151.

5"I believe in walking alone": Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 495.

6transgressing on the pavement: If this actually happened. T. K. Mahadevan suggests that the Indian who was pushed off the footpath may have been one C. M. Pillay, who wrote a letter to a newspaper describing an incident almost exactly like the one of which Gandhi complained. Mahadevan raises the suspicion that Gandhi read the letter and simply appropriated the experience. See Mahadevan, Year of the Phoenix Year of the Phoenix, p. 25.

7However, according to the scholar: Hunt, Gandhi and the Nonconformists Gandhi and the Nonconformists, p. 40.

8"I was tremendously attracted": From an archival interview with Millie Polak broadcast by the BBC on May 7, 2004.

9It's a theme Gandhi: Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi's Last Imprisonment Mahatma Gandhi's Last Imprisonment, p. 298.

10"Agent for the Esoteric": CWMG CWMG, vol. 1, p. 141.

11The word "coolie," after all: Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson Hobson-Jobson (London, reprint, 1985), p. 249. (London, reprint, 1985), p. 249. The Oxford English Dictionary The Oxford English Dictionary accepts this derivation, suggesting the term may have been carried to China from Gujarat in the sixteenth century by Portuguese seamen. Another possible derivation is from the Turkish word accepts this derivation, suggesting the term may have been carried to China from Gujarat in the sixteenth century by Portuguese seamen. Another possible derivation is from the Turkish word quli quli, which means laborer or porter and may have found its way into Urdu. In South Africa the term had a racial tinge and was used specifically to refer to Asians, usually Indians, as noted in the OED Supplement OED Supplement.

12"It is clear that Indian": Meer, South African Gandhi South African Gandhi, pp. 11314.

13"the Magna Charta": Ibid., pp. 1178.

14In the many thousands: CWMG CWMG, vol. 8, p. 242.

15At first he spoke only: Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience Gandhi: The South African Experience, p. 51.

16a fact of huge and obvious relevance: Bhikhu Parekh points out that it may have been easier to unite Hindus and Muslims in South Africa, for many of the traders Gandhi initially served there shared a common language and culture. See Parekh, Gandhi Gandhi, p. 9.

17When Johannesburg Muslims: CWMG CWMG, vol. 3, p. 366.

18"We are not and ought not": Ibid., p. 497, cited by Sanghavi, Agony of Arrival Agony of Arrival, p. 81.

19"Here in South Africa": CWMG CWMG, vol. 5, p. 290.

20"The Hindu-Mahomedan problem": Ibid., vol. 9, p. 507.

21By sheer force of personality: Ibid., vol. 35, p. 385.

22"I saw nothing in it": M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 99.

23Calling on the community: CWMG CWMG, vol. 5, p. 417.

24"To give one's life": Ibid., vol. 60, p. 38.

25Speaking for a second time: Ibid., vol. 5, p. 421.

26close to endorsing that view: Brown, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope, p. 268.

27"A man who deliberately": CWMG CWMG, vol. 5, p. 420.

28Years later, upon learning: Ibid., vol. 12, p. 264.

29"criminal waste of the vital fluid": Ibid., vol. 62, p. 279.

30A nephew suggested: M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 109.

31"I did not suggest": Paxton, Sonja Schlesin Sonja Schlesin, p. 36.

32"Our ambition": Sarid and Bartolf, Hermann Kallenbach Hermann Kallenbach, p. 15.

33It also doesn't demean Doke: CWMG CWMG, vol. 9, p. 415.

34"as naked as possible": Erikson, Gandhi's Truth Gandhi's Truth, p. 153.

35"Mr. Gandhi's ephemeral fame": African Chronicle African Chronicle, April 16, 1913.

36"So far as I can judge": Nanda, Three Statesmen Three Statesmen, p. 426.

37Reminiscing, many years later: Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi's Last Imprisonment Mahatma Gandhi's Last Imprisonment, p. 380; see also Prabhudas Gandhi, My Childhood with Gandhiji My Childhood with Gandhiji, p. 142.

38The indentured Indians": Indian Opinion Indian Opinion, Oct. 15, 1913.

39"It was a bold, dangerous": Indian Opinion Indian Opinion, Oct. 22, 1913.

40Later, back in India: Nirmal k.u.mar Bose, Selections from Gandhi Selections from Gandhi (Ahmedabad, 1957) 2nd ed., pp. 1067. (Ahmedabad, 1957) 2nd ed., pp. 1067.

41"the numberless men": Pyarelal, Epic Fast Epic Fast, p. 12.

42"I know that the only thing": M. K. Gandhi, Young India Young India, March 2, 1922, cited by Paul F. Power, ed., The Meanings of Gandhi The Meanings of Gandhi (Honolulu, 1971), p. 71. (Honolulu, 1971), p. 71.

43"The poor have no fears": M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 287.

44"the Natal undercla.s.ses": Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience Gandhi: The South African Experience, p. 242. Swan cites a letter from Gandhi to Kallenbach, dated July 13, 1913, that she located in the Sarvodaya Library at the Phoenix Settlement. The library was destroyed in the factional violence described in the author's note at the beginning of this volume. As far as I have been able to discover, Swan's quotation from this important letter may be all that survives from it.

45"I believe implicitly": Rudrangshu Mukherjee, ed., Penguin Gandhi Reader Penguin Gandhi Reader, p. 207.

46"A Scavenger": Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi's Last Imprisonment Mahatma Gandhi's Last Imprisonment, p. 254.

47"The idea did occur to me": Mahadev Desai, Diary of Mahadev Desai Diary of Mahadev Desai, p. 185.

48most indentured laborers were low caste: Bhana, Indentured Indian Emigrants to Natal Indentured Indian Emigrants to Natal, pp. 7183.

49"realized my vocation": Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 338.

50"a sorry affair": Nirmal k.u.mar Bose, My Days with Gandhi My Days with Gandhi, p. 229.

51Indians lack a tragic sense: Naipaul, Overcrowded Barrac.o.o.n Overcrowded Barrac.o.o.n, p. 75.

52"The saint has left": Hanc.o.c.k, s.m.u.ts s.m.u.ts, p. 345.

53"that they have an instrument": Ibid., p. 331.

CHAPTER 2: NO-TOUCHISM.

1"the least Indian": Naipaul, Area of Darkness Area of Darkness, p. 77 [my italics].