Mohandās Karamchand Gāndhi was born on 2 October 1869, twelve years after the rebellion by the Indian soldiers, in Porbandar, a small town on the Western coast of India. Mohan is one of the names of Shri Krushna (Krishna). Mohandās means servant (dās) of God (Mohan). He was the youngest son of Karamchand Gāndhi, prime minister of Porbandar, a small state in Gujarat, India.
Mohan’s father, Karamchand, was an experienced and able administrator (Diwan). He was a courageous, dedicated, and skillful negotiator who did not hesitate to tell the king unpleasant truths. He had sympathy for the common people and was interested in bringing people of different faiths together.
His mother, Putlibai, was very religious, fasted frequently, visited temple every day and prepared vegetarian food for the family. Mohan was very fond of her and she was equally fond of Mohan.
Mohan was an unusually shy boy. He used to run back home as soon as the school was over because he did not want to talk to anyone and was afraid other boys will make fun of him. In school, he did not show any great intelligence, talent, or outstanding skill. All elementary school children in India were required to memorize the multiplication tables. Mohan had difficulty remembering these tables. Three books that he had read as a child influenced him a lot all throughout his life. One was a story of a young man named Shravana, who carried his sick parents to fulfill their last wish to go on a pilgrimage before they died. It taught him devotion to parents. Another story was about a king called Harishchandra who always told the truth. Instead of telling a lie, he preferred to be a slave to an evil man. Mohan learnt how important it is to always tell the truth. The epic of Rāmāyana is well known to all children in India. Prince Rām gladly went to live in forest for 14 years to fulfill the promise his father had given to his stepmother. When he came back, Rām established an ideal kingdom - Rām Rājya. This was the kind of government Gāndhiji wanted to establish in India after her independence, where everyone was respected, well taken care of, and their talents utilized for the good of all.
When Mohan was in high school, he and his friends could see how the British were controlling and ruling over Indians. They felt that the English were big and strong because they ate meat. One of his friends persuaded him to eat meat to become strong so that they can fight with the British rulers and gain independence for India. He could not sleep at night after eating goat meat. He felt goats jumping around in his stomach. He had to give up this experiment in getting strong.
In his autobiography, he describes himself as a ‘coward’. He was afraid of ‘thieves, ghosts, and serpents’. This fear bothered him so much that after dark he had to have a light in his room. Shyness and fear were with him even when he started his practice of law in India. At one of the first trials, when he stood up in front of the judge to defend his client but could not utter a word.
When he was 13 years old he was married off to a 13 year old girl named Kastur . Mohan was passionately in love with her. This made him a very jealous husband. He would think about her during the school hours and at night, talk to her for hours. Mohan also thought of himself as her teacher and guardian. He expected Kastur to ask for his permission if she wanted to go out. She was equally headstrong and would deliberately go out without asking him. Such incidents would lead to angry arguments between them. A man was supposed to be strong and brave but it was Kastur who was not afraid of anyone or of going out in the dark. It was Kastur, who taught Mohan that he could not make her do anything against her wishes by force. Later in life, Mohan used this lesson in his fight against the British.
His father died in 1885 when Mohan was fifteen years old. He was an average student in high school. He went to college after finishing high school. He wanted to be a doctor and take care of sick people. Mohan had a lot of problems learning all the subjects in college and failed in all. He worked hard but could not make it. After five months, he had to give up college and go back home, as a failure. His dream of becoming a doctor was destroyed and now Mohan did not know what to do.
One of his uncles suggested that he should go to England and become a barrister. It would take only three years of study in London to get his degree and then with a British qualification his success in India would be guaranteed. A degree from London had great value in India during the British rule. This education would cost a lot of money for the Gāndhi family. His wife, Kastur, had to sell her jewelry to buy his ticket to London by boat. Selling all jewelry for a young, 18 year old wife in late nineteenth century India was a great sacrifice. Before he left for England, Mohan’s mother made him promise that he will not to eat meat, have any relationship outside of the marriage, and drink alcoholic beverages.
Mohan was 18 years old when he set sail for London to get his law degree. He was still very shy and kept to his cabin during this trip. Young Mohan was afraid of talking to strangers and did not want to look like a fool with his knowledge of English. He missed his family, the meals cooked by his mother, and familiar home surroundings. Above all, he missed his wife, Kastur .
In London, his problems got worse. The clothes people wore, the food they ate, weather, customs, everything was different and foreign to young Mohan. It was quite a culture shock when he arrived in London. In the late nineteenth century, England had been ruling over India for 200 years and every Indian worth his salt wanted to dress and behave like an Englishman. Gāndhi did not know anyone to talk to or turn to for advice or support. He was desperately home sick and wanted to return home. He knew he would feel like a great fool if after spending all that of money, if he returned home without a degree. He had to stick it out in London. He had no choice.
Then Mohan came across an acquaintance who had been around in London for some time and knew how to survive. The British were looked up to by most Indians because of the political power they had in India. Whole education system in India was created to glorify the British and most Indians believed in what they learnt in schools and universities. Everything ‘Indian’ was inferior and everything ‘British’ was the best. Indian dress, culture, languages were being abandoned in favor of what was British or European. The friend told Mohan that his main goal should be to learn the ‘British’ way of life while he was in London. The way they dressed, carried themselves, their manners, their behavior, etc. This advice appealed to young Mohan very much. He decided to move in with an English family instead of living in a hotel. This way he would get a first hand experience of how the English people lived. Then he could imitate them and become as smart as them. Mohan bought expensive English suit, top hat, hired tutors to learn French, ballroom dancing, violin, and how to eat with fork and knife.
These experiments in becoming an ‘English gentleman’ lasted a few months. This life style was very expensive and Mohan was not earning any money at that time. His elder brother in India was supporting him. Mohan also realized that he would never be accepted as a true ‘English gentleman’ however much he tried to change his external appearance and life style. He was born with the looks of an Indian and raised in India with Indian culture. He also realized that he was not living according to what he believed in. The difference between his convictions and his day to day living was widening. It was an artificial life style and he was not happy about it. He decided to be true to himself and simplify his life. Mohan gave up French and dancing lessons, sold his violin, adopted simple vegetarian diet and concentrated on his studies.
After getting his law degree from London in 1891, Mohan returned to India. His mother had passed away when he was studying in London. His relatives in India did not inform him about this news because he was very close to her and this news might interfere with his studies. He was very sad to hear the news about his mother. Mohan started his legal practice in Rajkot, India. He had no knowledge of the Indian law and had great difficulty arguing cases in court. Later he tried his luck in Mumbai (Bombay) but he was tongue tied and could not speak a word in defense of his client in front of the judge. He had to ask another lawyer to take care of his client. Other lawyers started making fun of him by calling him a ‘brief-less barrister’.
Mohan was becoming desperate. In 1893, a firm in South Africa offered him a job and he took the offer. It was not a good job and he would have to leave his wife and two sons. He took the offer to run away from the miserable situation in India but there were more trials waiting for him in South Africa. There was a lot of discrimination on the basis of the color of his skin. In late nineteenth century only whites were allowed to travel by first class in South African trains. Gāndhi was traveling by train to Pretoria. He had a first class ticket but when a white man saw him sitting in the first class compartment, he was thrown out of the train at Maritzberg station. He had never felt worst humiliation in his life. It was very cold and he was all alone at the station. He spent that night pacing up and down, and thinking. He felt like going back to India. On other occasions he was also asked to sit at the feet of a white man in a coach, refused hotel room, and kicked off a sidewalk (footpath) by a policeman. All Indians in South Africa were treated very badly by the Europeans.
All these failures and humiliations made him analyze his situation. He was always running away from difficult situations but that did not help. Every time he tried to run away, he ended up facing even more difficult challenges. Instead of running away to some other place, he decided to face his problems. He immersed himself in the job at hand and tried to find the best solution for the involved parties. In the end, he was able to avoid long and expensive court case, save money for his client, remove bitterness in clients’ families, and satisfy his client and their opponents too.
Gāndhi’s work was done and he decided to go back to India. His client decided to give a farewell party in appreciation of the work he had done. On the day of the party, Gāndhi read in the news paper that the Government was taking away the right of all Indians to vote for the Legislative Assembly. Everyone at the party requested him to stay and fight for the rights of all Indians in South Africa. This was the turning point in his life. He formed a committee, wrote petitions and letters to newspapers, and organized public meetings to fight this injustice. Natal Indian Congress was created in August 1894. This became a long crusade and Gāndhi spent 21 years in South Africa before permanently returning to India in 1915.
In India, Gāndhi’s life became synonymous with the non-violent struggle for independence and will be covered in chapter on Civil Disobedience.