Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India, on
October 2, 1869. Although his father was a chief minister for the maharaja of
Porbandar, the family came from the traditional caste of grocers (the name
Gandhi means grocer). His mother's religion was Jainism, a Hindu religion which
ideas of nonviolence and vegetarianism are very important. Gandhi said that he
was most influenced by his mother, whose life was an endless chain of fasts and
vows. When, in the company of boyhood friends, he secretly smoked, ate meat,
told lies, or wore Western clothing, he had an intense feeling of guilt. These
feelings forced him to make resolutions about his moral behaviour that were to
stay with him for the rest of his life. Ghandi married at the age of 13. When he
was 18, he went to London to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1891 and
for a while he was attorney in Bombay. From 1893 to 1914 he worked for an Indian
firm in South Africa. During these years Gandhi's humiliating experiences of
open, official racial discrimination and aphartheid propelled him into agitation
on behalf of the Indian community of South Africa. He started protest campaigns
and organized provocating demonstrations, but never used violence. His
philosophy was to never fight back against the atrocities, but still never
retreat. This, he said, would decrease the hate against him and his fellow
believers, and increase the respect felt towards him.
Gandhi's one aim was that everybody - hindues, muslims, sikhs, jews,
christians, black and white - could live together in peace and harmony. Under
the banner We are citizens of the empire he gathered Indians from all over South
Africa to a march for freedom. He gradually developed his techniques and tenets
of nonviolent resistance, and when he returned to India in January 1915, he was
celebrated as a national hero. He was soon asked to participate in and organize
India's fight for freedom, as he fought aphatheid in South Africa. Then he
started his journey to discover the real India, the life in the 700.000 small
villages and the countryside with all the hardworking men and women. These were
the ones he was going to represent in his fight for justice. As time passed,
more and more people got to know about Gandhi and his controversial views, and
Gandhi's popularity grew incredibly fast, something the English Vice-king and
government didn't approve of at all. Armed only with honesty and a bamboo stick,
Gandhi got through demands like a rebait on rent pay to the English land-owners,
freedom for the Indians to grow crops of their own choice and the establishment
of a part- Indian commission to hear grievances from the Indians. The Englishmen
allowed these demands without questions, just to see the back of him. But Gandhi
had greater aims. They sent Gandhi to jail several times, but they always had to
release him, because he never used or indirectly caused violence or crime. He
convinced almost everyone that nonviolence increases respect and decreases hate,
but terror-actions and violence justifies the atrocities. Now, the Englishmen
were getting afraid of this little, big man. And fright made them dangerous. In
the town of Amritsar in 1919, English soliders, armed with guns, attacked and
shot to kill hundreds of nationalist demonstrators, demonstrators who's goal
was, ironically enough, nonviolence. 1516 demonstrators were killed or wounded.
The general said that he wanted to give the Indians a lesson that would have an
impact throughout all of India. The English people and government reputiated
this terrible action and the attitude that prompted it. The massacre of Amritsar
turned Gandhi to direct political protest, and made it possible for him to
propose that maybe it was time for the Englishmen to go home for good. Within a
year he was the dominant figure in the Indian National Congress, where Gandhi
challenged the Brits: 100.000 Englishmen cannot control 350 million Indians if
these Indians won't cooperate.
