Leo Tolstoy’s book “The Kingdom of God is Within You” inspired Gandhi to formulate his idea of ‘Satyagraha’ (passive resistance). Gandhi was not successful as a lawyer in India and he moved to South Africa.

He started the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 to fight for the rights of Indian settlers. 1908 onwards, he launched a major agitation to protest laws which among other things derecognized traditional Indian marriages. He led a great march in 1913 that served as a template for the famous Dandi march.

Gandhi established the Tolstoy ashram close to Johannesberg in 1910, to coordinate the agitation and train his supporters in Satyagraha. It was funded by his German Jew friend, Herman Kallenbach, who later became a Zionist.

Source: Livemint, “The Gandhi You Know, and the One you Don’t.”

Picture: The Wikimedia image is of Gandhi and Kasturba at Tolstoy Farm in 1912

On the lines of the Tolstoy Ashram of South Africa, Gandhi started his first Indian ashram at Kochrab in 1915. He took in a Dalit family in the ashram. This led to drying up of funds. He was then quietly supported by the industrialist Ambalal Sarabhai. Ironically, Gandhi would lead a workers agitation in Sarabhai’s mills but they remained friends. They moved their ashram to the banks of Sabarmati in Ahmedabad after two years on account of plague outbreak. This ashram became his home for many years.

In the 1930s he shifted to Sevagram near Wardha in Maharashtra. Sevagram was a model of village industries that Gandhi championed. Bajaj was intent on fighting imported clothes made from Indian raw material and collaborated with Gandhi. He even went to jail in the Quit India agitation of 1942.

Source: Livemint, “The Gandhi You Know, and the One you Don’t.”

Picture: The Wikimedia image shows Gandhi’s residence at Sevagram.

Gandhi had been imprisoned at Pune after the Quit India agitation. He undertook a 21 day fast in 1943 and many of his associates did the same. The ordeal of Gandhi affected Kasturba and she suffered two heart attacks. The British allowed her to spend her last days with her husband in jail. She is supposed to have passed away with her head on his lap. They were married for 62 years.

He said after her death, “In the current sense of the word, she was uneducated; but to my mind she was a model of true education”.

The parents of Kasturba were wealthy merchants and friends with Gandhi family. They were married at a young age. Kasturba was a strong willed person and Gandhi found it hard to convince her. But she always supported him in his ventures, taking personal care of his ashrams, being a willing volunteer of his quaint theories on diet, medicine & community living and going to jail multiple times.

Source: Prabhash Datta, India Today, “Why Mahatma Gandhi said Kasturba stood above him”

Picture: The Wikimedia image shows Gandhi and Kasturba in 1915.

Gandhi’s first Satyagraha in India took place at Champaran district in northern Bihar. He went there in April, 1917. Farmers were bound by law to plant three out of every twenty parts of their land with indigo under the Tinkathia system. Gandhi knew nothing of Champaran or indigo, so he did what was to become his future template. He visited villages, cross-examined 8,000 cultivators and recorded their statements. One of the volunteers was Rajendra Prasad who would go on to be the first President of free India.

He came to the conclusion that the ignorance of the cultivators was one of the main reasons why it was possible for the European planters to repress them. Gandhi therefore set up voluntary organizations to improve the economic and educational conditions of the people. They opened schools and also taught the people how to improve sanitation. The awakening of the people forced the government to enact a law to regulate the cultivation, giving relief to farmers. Champaran satyagraha was where Gandhi put his ideas of Swaraj into action.

Source: mkgandhi.org

Picture: India Post

Gandhi was in Calcutta trying to secure peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was on way to Noakhali, now in Bangladesh, to shield Hindus from communal violence. While stopping at Kolkata, the Muslim League leader Suhrawardy asked him to protect the Muslims of Kolkata. Gandhi agreed provided Suhrawardy helped the Hindus of Noakhali. He stayed at Hyderi Manzil in a Muslim neighbourhood, now renamed Gandhi Bhawan.

Over a span of a few weeks which included a long fast, he was able to rebuild trust and restore some semblance of peace in Bengal. Many have questioned his role whether he was soft on perpetrators of violence. But others have extolled his role.

Manu Gandhi wrote a book, “The Miracle of Calcutta.” Dominique Lapierre & Larry Collins in their book “Freedom at Midnight” called him ‘a one man border force.’ He was able to keep the peace in Bengal while a 50000 strong border force struggled to do the same in Punjab.

Source: www.firstpost.com

Picture: The Wikimedia image shows Suhrawardy fasting with Gandhi.

Ghaffar Khan, also called Baadshah Khan or Bacha Khan, was a leader of Pashtuns who live mostly in what was the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. A great pacifist like Gandhi, he is sometimes referred as the Frontier Gandhi. He raised the Khudai Khidmatgars (Servants of God) or Red Shirts, a 100,000 strong organization wedded to non violence and strict discipline. Gandhi called it a miracle as the Pashtuns were considered to have a code of revenge of violence.

Along with Gandhi, he was the most inveterate opponent of partition. Unlike Gandhi, he survived partition by 40 years. He spent the post partition years working for the rights of Pashtuns and was viewed with suspicion by the Pakistan government. He boycotted the 1947 referendum in the province since it did not provide an option of independence or joining Afghanistan. He was twice nominated for the Nobel price for peace and was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1987.

One of his biographers J Bright wrote that he was so wedded to non violence that Gandhi should be called the ‘Indian Khan’ and not the other way round.

Source: The Print, thefrontiergandhimovie.com.

Picture: The Wikimedia image shows Ghafar Khan with Gandhi and Kasturba.

In his speech, Gandhi referred to the traditional village school system of India centred around temples and madarsas, as the beautiful tree. He contended that Indians of all classes including girls had more access to education before the advent of the British formal school system. The latter was expensive and centred around district schools and thus exclusionary.

Gandhi was challenged by Sir Phillip Hartog, VC of Dhaka University. Gandhian historian, Dharampal took up the challenge and using surveys done by the British themselves, proved the achievements of India’s traditional education. Dharampal used the “Survey of Indigenous Education on Madras Presidency (1822-26)”, “State of education in Bengal (1835-38), W Adam” & “History of Education in the Punjab since Annexation and in 1882, GW Leitner” among other sources.

Source: “The Beautiful Tree”, Dharampal

Picture: “The Beautiful Tree”, Dharampal

Patel studied law in London and became a lawyer at Ahmedabad. He was an expert bridge player. He seemed to be destined for judgeship or knighthood or both. When Patel learnt about Gandhi, he joked that “we have too many Mahatmas” and called him a “crank.”

When Gandhi came to Gujarat Club for a speech, Patel preferred to play bridge. A friend forced him to get up and listen to Gandhi. Patel, always attracted to the idea of renunciation, found his friend and mentor in the abstemious Gandhi. Patel became the most effective leader of satyagraha – Kheda (1918), Borsad (1923) & Bardoli (1928) – earning him the title of Sardar (leader).

Source: “Patel, A Life”, Rajmohan Gandhi.

Picture: The Wikimedia image is of Patel with Gandhi

It is well known that Gandhi and Subhash Bose had their differences. Gandhi did not favour Bose as Cong president and was responsible for him leaving the party. They also differed in their thinking with Bose in favour of revolutionary tactics to get freedom. Nevertheless they retained great affection for each other.

Bose asked for Gandhi’s blessings in a speech on Azad Hind Radio from Rangoon in June 1944 even as he was at war with the British. He said, “………..Nobody would be more happy than ourselves if by any chance our countrymen at home should succeed in liberating themselves through their own efforts or by any chance, the British Government accepts your `Quit India’ resolution and gives effect to it. We are, however proceeding on the assumption that neither of the above is possible and that a struggle is inevitable. Father of our Nation in this holy war for India’s liberation, we ask for your blessings and good wishes.”

Source: mkgandhi.org.

Picture: The Wikimedia picture shows Gandhi, Bose and Patel at the momentous Haripura Congress.

BHU was the brainchild of Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, a senior Congress leader. It was inaugurated by Gandhi on 4th Feb 1916 in the presence of Viceroy Hardinge, Maharaja of Darbhanga and Annie Besant. In his speech Gandhi underlined the importance of education that cultivated Indian values.

Source: mkgandhi.org

Picture: The Wikimedia image shows Madan Mohan Malviya at a function in BHU.

On 22nd September 1921, Gandhi made a momentous decision to change his attire. He decided on a simple dhoti and shawl to identify with the poor peasant who he wanted to serve. He stuck to this dress code even on his trip abroad and until his very last moment! Gandhiji’s desire to identify himself with the poor masses was not a momentary decision. He had been contemplating about it for a long time.

On two earlier occasions, he had thought of donning the common man’s clothes but it was ultimately in Madurai (Tamil Nadu) where he finally took the plunge. He remarked later that it was Madurai that gave him the necessary strength to take the decision.

Source: pib.gov.in

Picture: The Wikimedia image shows Gandhi wearing a business suit in South Africa in 1909.

Homai Vyarawalla (1913-2012) was a pioneer in more than one sense of the word. She was India’s first female photojournalist. She documented the overthrow of British colonial rule. Homai spent her earliest years in and around Bombay and studied photography at the JJ School of Art.

Her presence as a woman in a sari managing a Rolleiflex, led many to dismiss her as an amateur. This dismissal seems to have come with some benefits, however, as it granted her unhindered access to her subjects. Her photos were initially published under her husband’s name and then later under a pseudonym she invented for herself, ‘Dalda 13’. It was not long before her work gained national regard.

Source: hundredheroines.org

Picture: The Wikimedia picture shows her photograph of Gandhi’s death procession.