Gandhi

by Read Listen Learn

Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the best-loved men in all history. Although he worked all his life for Indians, his belief in fighting against wrong without using guns, knives or bombs has changed the world. His ideas were important for Martin Luther King, for example, in his fight for Afro-American rights in the U.S. In India, he is called ‘Bapu’ and many Indians see him as the father (‘Bapu’) of their country.

Mohindas Karamchand Gandhi was born in 1869 in a western state of India, called Gujarat. He married his much-loved wife when she was fourteen and he was a year younger. Their first child died when Gandhi was fifteen. He went to London to study law although he was not a very good student at school. He promised his mother not to eat meat or drink alcohol when he was there. He passed his exams and returned to Bombay (now Mumbai) to become a lawyer but was too shy to speak in court. It was because he could not make any money as a lawyer in India that he got a job in South Africa when he was twenty-four.

Gandhi stayed twenty-one years in South Africa. It was a very important time for him because he changed his political ideas and felt racism for himself. For example, a train driver hit him and threw him off a train when he sat in first class. This was forbidden for Indians. The police arrested him when he did not stand up and give his seat on a bus to a white man, and he could not find a good hotel to stay in because they would not take non-white people. He also saw that Muslim Indians in South Africa were usually rich and Hindus were poor farmers and workers. The rich saw the poor Hindus as very different people but, for Gandhi, they were the same – they were Indians. Also, when Gandhi first arrived in South Africa, he fought for Indian people but thought that white people should make the government of South Africa. He did not believe that black South Africans could govern. Later he changed his mind.

Gandhi first had his idea that protest against wrong should never hurt others, when he was in South Africa. He organised Indians against the rule that they must carry ID cards with their names and colour on them. South African Indians burnt their cards and refused to work. The police and soldiers injured thousands of them and put them in prison. International newspapers showed pictures and wrote reports of what was happening and the law changed. Gandhi’s belief in peaceful protest worked.

In 1915, Gandhi returned to India. He was already very famous because of his fight for Indian rights in South Africa. However, he did not start protests in India before he travelled all over the country and saw how rich and poor Indians, Muslims and Hindus, high caste and low caste were living. He travelled third class in the train in those days and so it was not a comfortable trip.

After a few years, he was ready to talk about his ideas. He wanted Muslims and Hindus to live together peacefully. He was shocked by the lives that poor Indians were living and said that the country must help fight poverty. He thought women must get more rights. He also believed that the Hindu idea of ‘untouchability’ must end. This was the belief that some (usually poor) Indians were born dirty. No other Indian should have contact with them. They could not cook or touch other people’s food; they could not drink water from the same wells; they could not enter a temple to pray to the Hindu gods; and they could only do some jobs, like cleaning toilets. But, most importantly, Gandhi believed that Indians should make their own government without the British.

To fight poverty, Gandhi told all Indians to make their own clothes with Indian cotton. They should not buy British shirts and trousers. In 1930, he went on a famous 400-kilometre march to stop the British tax on salt. At the end of the march, he arrived at the sea and made salt from the sea water on the beach. These protests meant that Gandhi went to prison many, many times.

In 1921, Gandhi first made the Indian National Congress, a political party that still exists today. He tried to get Muslims to join this party as well as Hindus. At first, they did and it seemed that Gandhi could make an India where people of different religions could live together. However, Hindus and Muslims often killed each other too and Gandhi began his famous fasts. This meant that he did not eat while fighting continued. Slowly, he became weaker and weaker and people thought he was going to die. The newspapers reported on his health every day. Finally, again and again, Muslims and Hindus stopped fighting and Gandhi could eat.

In 1942, Gandhi started his last and most important protest, asking the British to ‘Quit India’. He was angry that the British government in India went to war with Nazi Germany and Japan without asking the people. He knew that the British could only stay in his country if the Indian people said they could. There were 400 million Indians and no government could control them if they did not agree. After the Second World War ended, Britain left India in 1947.

Sadly, India and Pakistan did not remain one country. Many Muslims ran away to Pakistan in the north-west and Hindus living there escaped to India. Fighting started. Trains burnt. People from the same villages attacked and killed each other because of their religions. A million people died before the killing stopped. The British did not return to the country to help stop the deaths.

Gandhi lived a simple life. He ate only fruit and vegetables and his clothes were the same as the poorest villager. He had no money. He never used violence to get what he believed was right.

After independence, Gandhi planned to travel to Pakistan. Before he could start, a Hindu fanatic shot him. He died immediately. The day was 30th January, 1948, and all India was sorry. Gandhi, the man of peace, was killed by a bullet to his chest.