Mahatma Gandhi arrived in India in 1915 from South Africa, after fighting for the civil rights of Indians there for about twenty years. He introduced satyagraha, perfected in South Africa, which men and women, young and old could practise. This chapter traces how Gandhi turned the national movement into a mass movement, from Champaran to Independence in 1947.
1. Evolution of Gandhi
- Born on 2 October 1869 at Porbandar, Gujarat. Father Kaba Gandhi was Diwan of Porbandar and later of Rajkot; mother Putlibai.
- Sailed to England in 1888 to study law; became a barrister in June 1891.
- Left for South Africa in April 1893 for a Gujarati firm's law-suit. At Pietermaritzburg railway station he was thrown out of a first class compartment.
- Indians in the Transvaal paid a poll tax of £ 3 and could not move outdoors after 9 p.m. without a permit.
- Influenced by Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You, Ruskin's Unto this Last and Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.
- Established the Phoenix Settlement (1905) and the Tolstoy Farm (1910) – training grounds for satyagrahis.
- Satyagraha means devotion to the truth, truth-force. By the Smuts-Gandhi Agreement the poll tax on indentured labourers was abolished.
- He regarded Gopal Krishna Gokhale as his political guru. On a journey through Tamil Nadu he decided to wear a simple dhoti.