Mohandas Gandhi - Dissident Lawyer
10 Dissidents Who Changed the World: #5
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is his name, but some call him Mahatma, which is Hindi for “great soul.” Still others refer to him as Bapu, or “father” in Gujarati.
Everybody in the world seems to know Gandhi: he’s the skinny Indian dude with wire-framed glasses who dressed in sandals and a white bed sheet. And at the same time, nobody seems to know Gandhi.
Little Gandhi
Gandhi was born in Porbandar, a small coastal town in northwest India, on October 2, 1869. His family was in the business caste — the caste consisting of merchants, artisans, and landowners. His father was head of the local government. His mom was a devout Hindu, so Gandhi learned to practice vegetarianism, fast, and exercise mutual tolerance when he was still a pipsqueak subject of the British Empire.
When he was 13, his folks arranged for Gandhi to marry Kasturbai Makhanji, also 13. The wedding took place in May 1883. Between 1888 and 1900, they had four sons.
In 1885, Gandhi’s father got sick. Although Gandhi watched after him, one night Gandhi’s uncle came over to relieve him for a while. While Gandhi took the opportunity to reacquaint carnal desire with his wife, his dad died. Gandhi felt shame for this episode for the rest of his life.
Gandhi the Lawyer
At the suggestion of a family advisor, Gandhi — who was an average student at best — decided to study to become a lawyer so he could follow in his father’s political footsteps. In 1888 he left his wife and newborn son behind to travel to India’s Imperial capital: London, England.
By all accounts, Gandhi was a shy recluse in London. The lean boy with the big ears tried to fit in by taking ballroom dancing lessons, studying French, and attempting to play the violin. But all that just didn’t work. What Gandhi did enjoy was exposure to other vegetarians, students of theosophy, the sermons of Jesus, and the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita. While enjoying being exposed, he also hit the law books pretty hard, enabling him to pass the bar in less than three years.
In 1881, Gandhi, eager to see his family again, returned home to India. But when he arrived, he discovered that his relatives, to prevent the interruption of his studies, had withheld news of his mom’s death.
After recovering from his grief, Gandhi tried to set up a law practice in Bombay. Unfortunately, he was so shy that he couldn’t cross-examine a witness. Failing at law — and now with a second son to feed — he tried unsuccessfully to get a job as a teacher. In the end, he trudged along doing mundane law work.
Finally, in 1893, Gandhi took an offer from an Indian law firm to spend a year abroad, advising on a lawsuit in Natal, South Africa.
Gandhi in South Africa
South Africa was a lot different from India. For one thing, many of the white South Africans discriminated against blacks and Indians.
After arriving in Durban, Gandhi took a train to Pretoria. But along the route, a white passenger entered Gandhi’s compartment and, seeing that Gandhi was a “colored” man, had an official order him to move to third class. Gandhi, who had a first class ticket, refused. Gandhi was thrown off the train.
While working in South Africa, Gandhi was exposed to more racial discrimination firsthand. Blessed with an outsider’s view of the situation, he decided to tell fellow Indians how bad they were being treated. His outrage finally overcame his shyness, and Gandhi made a speech to an assembly of Indians. He urged them to unite despite their religious and caste differences, and to seek the equality they deserved. In return, the Indian community anointed him their leader.
When his year was up, and the lawsuit complete, Gandhi prepared to return to India. But, during his farewell party, someone brought to his attention a legislative bill that would take away Indians’ right to vote. When he suggested resisting the bill, his friends begged Gandhi to stay and help them. He agreed to stay for a month.
One month in South Africa turned into twenty years.
Becoming Mahatma Gandhi
In 1886, Gandhi did take six months’ leave to go back to India and retrieve his family. During the trip home, and upon his return to South Africa, his celebrity began to grow in the media.
In his early thirties, with the consent of his physically frail wife, and possibly out of regret for not being with his father when he died, Gandhi gave up sex. Taking a tip from Jesus and the Bhagavad-Gita, he also renounced his possessions, including his insurance policy. He explained:
Possession seems to me to be a crime, I can only possess certain things when I know that others who also want to possess similar things are able to do so. But we know…such a thing is impossibility. Therefore, the only thing that can be possessed by all is non-possession, not to have anything whatsoever.
About this same time, Gandhi read John Ruskin’s Unto This Last. Ruskin argued that living by hand labor alone was preferable to a living sustained with machine labor.
Gandhi applied Ruskin’s beliefs by moving with family and staff to a farm in Transvaal that he called the Phoenix Settlement. He gave up Western dress and started making his own clothes using spinning wheels and handlooms. He printed his political pamphlets with a hand-wheel press. He stopped using electricity and oil-powered engines.
Gandhi Goes to Prison
In July 1907, the Transvaal government passed the Asiatic Registration Act, which required all Indians to obtain a certificate of registration which they would then be required to show police officers at any time and any place — even inside private residences.
Gandhi urged Indians to resist. Only 500 registered. For not registering himself, Gandhi went to jail for two months. When he got out, he continued to fight the Transvaal government’s attempts to make Indians second-class people. He went to jail a second time, got out, and continued the resistance.
Finally, in 1913, the Prime Minister of the Transvaal said with admiration and consternation: “You can’t put twenty thousand Indians into jail.” He negotiated a settlement with the Indians, restoring many of their lost rights. The next year, Gandhi left South Africa for good.
Gandhi lives with Untouchables
Gandhi went back to India and, in 1915, he founded the Satyagraha Ashram, a new communal settlement near his birthplace. Twenty-five people, including his family, continued their simple lifestyle there. Among the residents was a family of untouchables, India’s lowest caste.
For the rest of his life, Gandhi was an activist against the caste system. He helped poor farmers protest against undue taxation and discrimination. After becoming leader of the Indian National Congress in 1920, he led campaigns to reduce poverty, liberate women, and promote religious tolerance.
Above all, he worked to gain India’s independence from British domination. Always committed to non-violence, he led Indians to oppose the British salt tax in 1930 by marching to the sea and, illegally, making their own salt. Then in 1942, he openly called for the British to get out of India.
The Death of Gandhi
In 1948, a Hindu radical, who held Gandhi responsible for weakening India, shot Gandhi three times at point blank range during his nightly walk on the grounds of Birla House.
Gandhi’s life continues to inspire today. Many people seeking change still study and implement his method of passive resistance, which he called Satyagraha. Because he brought down a colonial empire without using a gun, Gandhi is one of my favorite 10 Dissidents Who Changed the World.
Go to the next article in this series:
Ehren Watada - Dissident Lieutenant.
Go to the previous article in this series:
Sibel Edmonds - Dissident FBI Whistleblower.
Go to the series index:
10 Dissidents Who Changed the World.
Read More: Gandhi, dissident, satyagraha, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, India, Great Britain, empire
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July 3rd, 2007 at 8:58 pm
very informative piece. if you’d like to read more about how the gita inspired gandhi, check out http://www.gitananda.org/about-gita/index.php
July 4th, 2007 at 6:52 am
“Don’t run around for happiness. It is right where you are.” Gita 6:56
Thanks for the link, Mirabai. Lots of wisdom there.