During its final phase in , hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from the British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax for Indians.
He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. He backed off after violence broke out—including the massacre by British-led soldiers of some Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar—but only temporarily, and by he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence. As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India.
He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain. Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Congress INC or Congress Party , Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.
After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March and tried him for sedition; he was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. In , after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London.
In , Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities.
Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II , Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort.
The young Indian struggled with the transition to Western culture. Upon returning to India in , Gandhi learned that his mother had died just weeks earlier. He struggled to gain his footing as a lawyer. In his first courtroom case, a nervous Gandhi blanked when the time came to cross-examine a witness. He immediately fled the courtroom after reimbursing his client for his legal fees. Gandhi grew up worshiping the Hindu god Vishnu and following Jainism, a morally rigorous ancient Indian religion that espoused non-violence, fasting, meditation and vegetarianism.
Living in South Africa, Gandhi continued to study world religions. He immersed himself in sacred Hindu spiritual texts and adopted a life of simplicity, austerity, fasting and celibacy that was free of material goods. After struggling to find work as a lawyer in India, Gandhi obtained a one-year contract to perform legal services in South Africa.
When Gandhi arrived in South Africa, he was quickly appalled by the discrimination and racial segregation faced by Indian immigrants at the hands of white British and Boer authorities.
Upon his first appearance in a Durban courtroom, Gandhi was asked to remove his turban. He refused and left the court instead. Refusing to move to the back of the train, Gandhi was forcibly removed and thrown off the train at a station in Pietermaritzburg. From that night forward, the small, unassuming man would grow into a giant force for civil rights. Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress in to fight discrimination. Gandhi prepared to return to India at the end of his year-long contract until he learned, at his farewell party, of a bill before the Natal Legislative Assembly that would deprive Indians of the right to vote.
Fellow immigrants convinced Gandhi to stay and lead the fight against the legislation. After a brief trip to India in late and early , Gandhi returned to South Africa with his wife and children.
Gandhi ran a thriving legal practice, and at the outbreak of the Boer War, he raised an all-Indian ambulance corps of 1, volunteers to support the British cause, arguing that if Indians expected to have full rights of citizenship in the British Empire, they also needed to shoulder their responsibilities.
After years of protests, the government imprisoned hundreds of Indians in , including Gandhi. Under pressure, the South African government accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts that included recognition of Hindu marriages and the abolition of a poll tax for Indians.
In Gandhi founded an ashram in Ahmedabad, India, that was open to all castes. This site uses cookies to deliver website functionality and analytics. If you would like to know more about the types of cookies we serve and how to change your cookie settings, please read our Cookie Notice.
By clicking the "I accept" button, you consent to the use of these cookies. But who was Mahatma Gandhi and how did he end up championing Indian independence? He was born in in the princely state of Porbandar, in modern-day Gujarat , where his father served as a government official. At the age of just 18, Gandhi sailed for London to study law, where he eventually passed the bar exam and qualified as a barrister.
But any hopes he may have had of a glorious legal career soon began to crumble. After losing his first case back home in India, he left India again, this time for South Africa. He ended up reimbursing his client and fleeing the courthouse.
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The experience would help to solidify some of the ideas he had already started to form around equality for all people. Very cleverly, Lelyveld connects this ethos to V. It is not, perhaps, so surprising that the Brahmin-like Naipaul found so much to admire in the prim ex-attorney who experienced such combined revulsion and exaltation at the sheer filth and chaos of his own version of the beloved country. This complex of odi et amo , which led Gandhi to handle the night soil of beggars and sweepers as an act of restitution, also made him suspicious of passions and repelled by those—not by any means excluding untouchables and Muslims—who seemed to exhibit them.
The strenuous manner of his fasts and mortifications and personal sexual repressions found a paradoxical counterpart in his attachment to passivity and acceptance. This book provides the evidence for both readings, depending on whether you think Gandhi was a friend of the poor or a friend of poverty, and whether or not you can notice something grotesque—even something conceited—in the notion that the meek should inherit the Earth.
Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds.
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