How long did gandhi live

Volunteers came forward to make copies of the petition and to collect signatures - all during the night. The petition received much favourable publicity in the press the following morning. The bill was however passed. Within a month the mammoth petition with ten thousand signatures was sent to Lord Ripon and a thousand copies printed for distribution. Even The Times admitted the justice of the Indian claim and for the first time the people in India came to know of the oppressive lot of their compatriots in South Africa.

He therefore enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme Court of Natal. On 25 June , at the residence of Sheth Abdulla, with Sheth Haji Muhammad, the foremost Indian leader of Natal in the chair, a meeting of Indians was held and it was resolved to offer opposition to the Franchise Bill. Here Gandhi outlined his plan of action to oppose this bill.

Gandhi played a prominent role in the planned campaign. As a talented letter-writer and meticulous planner, he was assigned the task of compiling all petitions, arranging meetings with politicians and addressing letters to newspapers. He was instrumental in the formation of the Natal Indian Congress NIC on 22 August , which marked the birth of the first permanent political organisation to strive to maintain and protect the rights of Indians in South Africa.

By Gandhi had established himself as a political leader in South Africa. In this year, he undertook a journey to India to launch a protest campaign on behalf of Indians in South Africa. It took the form of letters written to newspapers, interviews with leading nationalist leaders and a number of public meetings. His mission caused great uproar in India and consternation among British authorities in England and Natal.

Gandhi embarrassed the British Government enough to cause it to block the Franchise Bill in an unprecedented move, which resulted in anti-Indian feelings in Natal reaching dangerous new levels. While in India, an urgent telegram from the Indian community in Natal obliged him to cut short his stay.

He set sail for Durban with his wife and children on 30 November Gandhi did not realize that while he had been away from South Africa, his pamphlet of Indian grievances, known as the Green Pamphlet, had been exaggerated and distorted. When the ship reached Durban harbour, it was for held for 23 days in quarantine. News of this cowardly assault received wide publicity and Joseph Chamberlain, the British Secretary of States for the Colonies, cabled an order to Natal to prosecute all those who were responsible for the attempted lynching.

However, Gandhi refused to identify and prosecute his assailants, saying that they were misled and that he was sure that when they came to know the truth they would be sorry for what they had done. Previously he was anxious to maintain the standard of an English barrister. Now he began, to methodically reduce his wants and his expenses. He began to do his own laundry and clean out his own chamber-pots but often his guests as well.

Not satisfied with self-help, he volunteered, despite his busy practice as a lawyer and demand of public work, his free service for two hours a day at a charitable hospital. He also undertook the education at home of his two sons and a nephew.

He read books on nursing and midwifery and in fact served as midwife when his fourth and last son was born in Natal. He organized and, with the help of a Dr. Booth, trained an Indian Ambulance Corps of 1, volunteers and offered its services to the Government. In , at the end of the war, Gandhi wanted to return to India. With great difficulty he persuaded his friends to let him go and promised to return should the community need him within a year.

He reached India in time to attend the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and had the satisfaction of seeing his resolution on South Africa pass with acclamation. He was however disappointed with the congress. He felt that Indian politicians talked too much but did little. Hardly had he set up in practice in Bombay when a cablegram from the Indian community in Natal recalled him. He had given them his word that he would return if needed. Leaving his family in India he sailed again.

But the Colonial Secretary who had come to receive a gift of thirty-five million pounds from South Africa had no intention to alienate the European community.

He therefore decided to stay on in Johannesburg and enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme Court. Though he stayed on specifically to challenge White arrogance and to resist injustice, he harboured no hatred in his heart and was in fact always ready to help when they were in distress. It was this rare combination of readiness to resist wrong and capacity to love his opponent which baffled his enemies and compelled their admiration.

When the Zulu rebellion broke out, he again offered his help to the Government and raised an Indian Ambulance Corps. He was happy that he and his men had to nurse the sick and dying Zulus whom the White doctors and nurses were unwilling to touch. The movement was to prevent proposed evictions of Indians in the Transvaal under British leadership.

According to Arthur Lawley, the newly appointed Lieutenant Governor Lord Alfred Milner said that Whites were to be protected against Indians in what he called a 'struggle between East and West for the inheritance of the semi-vacant territories of South Africa'.

Influenced by the Hindu religious book, the Bhagvad Gita, Gandhi wanted to purify his life by following the concepts of aparigraha non-possession and samabhava equability. The book inspired Gandhi to establish a communal living community called Phoenix Settlement just outside of Durban in June The Settlement was an experiment in communal living, a way to eliminate one's needless possessions and to live in a society with full equality.

Gandhi moved his newspaper, the Indian Opinion , established in June and its workers to the Phoenix Settlement as well as his own family a bit later. Besides a building for the press, each community member was allotted three acres of land on which to build a dwelling made of corrugated iron.

In addition to farming, all members of the community were to be trained and expected to help with the newspaper. In , believing that family life was taking away from his full potential as a public advocate, Gandhi took the vow of brahmacharya a vow of abstinence against sexual relations, even with one's own wife. This was not an easy vow for him to follow, but one that he worked diligently to keep for the rest of his life.

Thinking that one passion fed others, Gandhi decided to restrict his diet in order to remove passion from his palette. To aid him in this endeavour, Gandhi simplified his diet from strict vegetarianism to foods that were unspiced and usually uncooked, with fruits and nuts being a large portion of his food choices.

Fasting, he believed, would also help still the urges of the flesh. Rather than buy British-manufactured clothes, he began to use a portable spinning wheel to produce his own cloth. The spinning wheel soon became a symbol of Indian independence and self-reliance. Gandhi assumed the leadership of the Indian National Congress and advocated a policy of non-violence and non-cooperation to achieve home rule. After British authorities arrested Gandhi in , he pleaded guilty to three counts of sedition.

Although sentenced to a six-year imprisonment, Gandhi was released in February after appendicitis surgery. When violence between the two religious groups flared again, Gandhi began a three-week fast in the autumn of to urge unity. He remained away from active politics during much of the latter s. Wearing a homespun white shawl and sandals and carrying a walking stick, Gandhi set out from his religious retreat in Sabarmati on March 12, , with a few dozen followers.

By the time he arrived 24 days later in the coastal town of Dandi, the ranks of the marchers swelled, and Gandhi broke the law by making salt from evaporated seawater. The Salt March sparked similar protests, and mass civil disobedience swept across India. Approximately 60, Indians were jailed for breaking the Salt Acts, including Gandhi, who was imprisoned in May Still, the protests against the Salt Acts elevated Gandhi into a transcendent figure around the world. Gandhi was released from prison in January , and two months later he made an agreement with Lord Irwin to end the Salt Satyagraha in exchange for concessions that included the release of thousands of political prisoners.

The agreement, however, largely kept the Salt Acts intact. But it did give those who lived on the coasts the right to harvest salt from the sea. Hoping that the agreement would be a stepping-stone to home rule, Gandhi attended the London Round Table Conference on Indian constitutional reform in August as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The conference, however, proved fruitless. The public outcry forced the British to amend the proposal.

Gandhi played an active role in the negotiations, but he could not prevail in his hope for a unified India. Instead, the final plan called for the partition of the subcontinent along religious lines into two independent states—predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan.

Violence between Hindus and Muslims flared even before independence took effect on August 15, Afterwards, the killings multiplied.

In , he announced his decision to retire from politics and resigned from the Congress to focus on the development of village industries, Harijan service and vocational and skill-based education, and moved to Sevagram. Despite his announcement, he continued to meet British and Indian leaders, and go on fasts to draw attention to rights abuses.

He was in and out of prison throughout the s, and toured Orissa on foot, talking of the need to abolish untouchability. Tolstoy confirmed that passive resistance was crucial not just for Indians but for the world. Industrialist and textile merchant Ambalal Sarabhai supported Gandhi financially on his return from South Africa. Most Congress leaders were arrested, and jailed till the end of the war. Strikes continued and thousands were jailed. Desai and his wife Durgabehn joined Gandhi in , and worked closely with him, translating his work and doing every task Gandhi asked him to.

In , Kasturba also had a heart attack and died in the palace. The iconic image of Gandhi is of him spinning, serene yet focused. The charkha, or spinning wheel, was at the intersection of his ideas of self-sufficiency, swadeshi, dignity of labour and freedom. Spinning and reviving traditional craft and methods would make villages self-sufficient, he believed.

A prolific writer and journal keeper, Gandhi was the editor of the Gujarati paper Navajivan, the English paper Young India and the weekly Harijan, which he started in It was rare to see an edition without an article by him, a practice he started when he published Indian Opinion in South Africa. He did most of his writing on trains and covered everything from the benefits of giving up milk to the need for better sanitation to economic development.

Ambedkar differed, the latter believing villages were held back by caste hierarchies. Gandhi felt each village had to function as a separate panchayat, independent of its neighbours, yet interdependent for larger needs.

That he cleaned toilets to advocate dignity of labour is well known. Gandhi wrote extensively on the lack of sanitation, and the filth in third-class railway carriages. He had strong ideas about eliminating mosquito breeding sites—probably because he had malaria thrice, and linked equality with elimination of diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis that bred stigma. Today, this advocacy of hygiene has been repurposed into a political tool.

He sought an end to capitalism and inequality but was pragmatic enough to understand the power and necessity of funding an initiative as massive and audacious as freedom. Birla, set up the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry Ficci in in an effort to unite Indian businessmen against imperialists. Thakurdas was respected both in London and British Indian circles as well as within the Congress, giving him a unique position to negotiate.

In the run-up to independence, Gandhi travelled to Bihar, Bengal and Punjab to maintain peace. Communal tensions flared often, and after the brutal Calcutta Killings and Noakhali riots in , he spent months in Bengal. Two days before independence, Gandhi reached Calcutta and met young people from the Hindu and Muslim communities. On 15 August , they took out rallies together and raised the flag.

It came to be known as the Miracle of Calcutta. Where did the congratulations come from? Would it not be more appropriate to say condolences? He did not give permission to publish the letters, messages and telegrams he received.

To avoid compulsory games at school, Gandhi took long walks. He discovered the benefits in London where he walked to cut expenses. After independence, Gandhi spent much of his time praying, fasting and discussing duties of citizens. He founded the Bajaj group in the s. The call to boycott foreign goods resonated—he saw as exploitative the British practice of importing cheap material made from Indian cotton, and selling it to Indians at exorbitant prices.

On 13 January , Gandhi began what would be his last fast in public life; the aim was communal harmony. It may burst forth any day", he said, and began. As he weakened over the next five days, political and religious leaders became anxious. Finally, on 18 January, after all communities assured him of holding the peace, Gandhi broke his fast with orange juice given by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He was After the cremation at Raj Ghat in Delhi, a special train with five third-class carriages took the ashes to Allahabad for immersion.

The train stopped at 11 stations en route, where hundreds of thousands met it to pay tribute. Upon returning to India in mid, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.

Gandhi was appalled by the discrimination he experienced as an Indian immigrant in South Africa. When a European magistrate in Durban asked him to take off his turban, he refused and left the courtroom. On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten up by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give up his seat for a European passenger. In , after the Transvaal government passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian population, Gandhi led a campaign of civil disobedience that would last for the next eight years.

During its final phase in , hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from the British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax for Indians.

He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. He backed off after violence broke out—including the massacre by British-led soldiers of some Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar—but only temporarily, and by he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence. As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India.

He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain.