Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India (61 page)

1869   Born October 2 in the small princely state of Porbandar, in Kathiawad region of present-day Gujarat, on the Arabian Sea.

1876   Family moves to Rajkot, where he attends school.

1883   Marries Kastur Makanji at age thirteen, after betrothal of seven years.

1885   Death of father, Karamchand Gandhi, called Kaba.

1888   Birth of eldest son, Harilal. Sails for England, studies law at Inner Temple.

1891   Completes studies, sails for Bombay.

1892   Birth of second son, Manilal. Admitted to Bombay bar.

1893   Sails to South Africa, arrives
Durban.

1894   Becomes secretary of the
Natal Indian Congress, opens law office in Durban. Reads Tolstoy’s
Kingdom of God Is Within You
.

1896   Returns to India; brings family back to Durban.

1897   Birth of third son, Ramdas.

1899   Leads Indian Ambulance Corps in Anglo-Boer War.

1900   Birth of fourth son, Devadas.

1901   Returns with family to India intending to resettle there. Attends Indian National Congress meeting in Calcutta.

1902   Called back to South Africa to lead fight against discriminatory legislation, brings family.

1903   Opens law office in Johannesburg, launches
Indian Opinion
, a weekly.

1904   Founds rural commune called the Phoenix Settlement north of Durban, inspired by Ruskin’s
Unto This Last
.

1906   Assisting in repression of Zulu uprising, raises corps of Indian stretcher bearers. Takes vow of celibacy. Addresses mass meeting of Transvaal Indians in Johannesburg, pledging resistance to Asiatic Registration Bill. Sails for London to seek redress.

1907   Starts first “passive resistance” campaign. Arrested in December, tried, ordered to leave Transvaal.

1908   Replaces term “passive resistance” with “satyagraha.” Sentenced to two months, released in three weeks. Assaulted by
Pathans for reversing stand on registration boycott. Encourages burning of registration certificates. Arrested at Volksrust, sentenced to two months of hard labor.

1909   As campaign continues, arrested again for failing to produce registration document. Again lobbies in London, writes
Hind Swaraj
on voyage back to South Africa.

1910   Corresponds with Tolstoy, establishes Tolstoy Farm, another commune, with
Hermann Kallenbach, a Jewish architect originally from East Prussia.

1911   Suspends campaign against discriminatory legislation on basis of pledge by General Smuts to ease the more onerous provisions.

1913   Abandons 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.

1914   Again reaches accord with Smuts, suspends satyagraha. Leaving South Africa, sails to England, arriving as world war breaks out.

1915   Arrives in Bombay January 4, establishes ashram at Ahmedabad.

1916   Tours India, traveling third-class.

1917   Campaigns on behalf of indigo farmers, Champaran region of Bihar.

1918   Leads 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.

1919   First national satyagraha, in the form of a strike, against repressive legislation. Arrested for defying order on entering
Punjab, four days before massacre by British-led troops at Amritsar. Suspends campaign after subsequent outbreaks of violence.

1920   
Indian 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.

1921   Launches mass satyagraha over Punjab killings and Khilafat, promising swaraj in a year. Campaigns for charkha, or
spinning wheel, and boycott of imported cloth.

1922   Suspends campaign over violence at Chauri Chaura, goes on five-day fast of “penance.” Charged with sedition, sentenced to six years in prison.

1924   Released from prison after appendicitis attack, having served two years. Goes on twenty-one-day fast to promote Hindu-Muslim unity.

1926   
Autobiography
is serialized in
Young India
and
Navajivan
, his English and Gujarati weeklies. Stays at ashram, ostensibly withdrawn from politics.

1928   Back in politics, supports call for declaration of independence if self-government is not granted within a year.

1929   Drafts Congress resolution for “complete independence.”

1930   Launches nationwide campaign with Salt March, Ahmedabad to Dandi on the Arabian Sea. Jailed without trial as strikes spread nationwide.

1931   Released 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 constitutional future; no accord reached on special voting rights for untouchables, Muslims. Calls on Mussolini in Rome.

1932   Arrested 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.

1933   Still at Yeravda, fasts again for twenty-one days over treatment of untouchables. Released and rearrested, released again after year’s second fast.

1934   Barnstorms 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 God).

1936   Settles at Sevagram, near Wardha, in impoverished area in center of country. New ashram rises there.

1939   Writes letter to Hitler, never delivered.

1942   Launches “Quit India” movement, demanding immediate self-rule in return for support of war effort. Arrested and imprisoned in Aga Khan Palace near Poona.

1944   Wife, 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.

1946   Participates in constitutional 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
partition. Stays there four months, eventually trekking barefoot from village to village for eight weeks.

1947   Visits riot-torn areas of Bihar where thousands of Muslims have been killed. Speaks against partition but doesn’t oppose Congress resolution in its favor. Shuns independence celebration, fasts in Calcutta for end to violence.

1948   Fasts 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.

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

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

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

4
   “
For men like me
”: Gandhi to Nirmal Kumar Bose, cited in Parekh,
Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform
, p. 272.

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

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

3
   “
He increasingly ceased
”: Brown,
Nehru
, p. 106.

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

5
   “
the emancipation
”: Ibid., p. 6.

1
   
twenty-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
, vol. 60, p. 101.

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

3
   “
eternal negative
”: Erikson,
Gandhi’s Truth
, p. 158.

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

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

6
   
transgressing 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
, p. 25.

7
   
However, according to the scholar
: Hunt,
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.

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

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

11
   
The word “coolie,” after all
: Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell,
Hobson-Jobson
(London, reprint, 1985), p. 249.
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
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
.

12
   “
It is clear that Indian
”: Meer,
South African Gandhi
, pp. 113–14.

13
   “
the Magna Charta
”: Ibid., pp. 117–8.

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

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

16
   
a 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
, p. 9.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

24
   “
To give one’s life
”: Ibid., vol. 60, p. 38.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

34
   “
as naked as possible
”: Erikson,
Gandhi’s Truth
, p. 153.

35
   “
Mr. Gandhi’s ephemeral fame
”:
African Chronicle
, April 16, 1913.

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

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

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

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

40
   
Later, back in India
: Nirmal Kumar Bose,
Selections from Gandhi
(Ahmedabad, 1957) 2nd ed., pp. 106–7.

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

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

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

44
   “
the Natal underclasses
”: Swan,
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
, p. 207.

46
   “
A Scavenger
”: Nayar,
Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment
, p. 254.

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

48
   
most indentured laborers were low caste
: Bhana,
Indentured Indian Emigrants to Natal
, pp. 71–83.

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

50
   “
a sorry affair
”: Nirmal Kumar Bose,
My Days with Gandhi
, p. 229.

51
   
Indians lack a tragic sense
: Naipaul,
Overcrowded Barracoon
, p. 75.

52
   “
The saint has left
”: Hancock,
Smuts
, p. 345.

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