The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi 

Chapter 1: Origins and Early Life

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in the coastal town of Porbandar, a princely state in present-day Gujarat. His family belonged to the Bania caste, traditionally associated with trade. His father, Karamchand Gandhi, served as diwan (chief minister) of Porbandar and later Rajkot; his mother, Putlibai, was deeply religious, following Vaishnavism and Jain practices. From her, Gandhi absorbed an early reverence for prayer, fasting, and moral self-discipline.

Childhood in 19th-century Gujarat was shaped by caste, religion, and tradition. Gandhi married Kasturba Makhanji in 1883, when he was just 13. Their marriage, arranged according to custom, evolved into a partnership that endured personal tensions, Gandhi’s austere experiments, and the burdens of public life. They had four sons: Harilal, Manilal, Ramdas, and Devdas. Harilal, in particular, had a troubled relationship with his father, reflecting the strains of Gandhi’s demanding ideals.

Though Gandhi was an average student, he was curious and reflective. In 1888, he sailed to London to study law at the Inner Temple. The voyage itself was an adventure — he was cautious about his mother’s religious vow not to eat meat or drink alcohol, which he upheld in London by living in vegetarian boarding houses and immersing himself in vegetarian societies. His London years broadened his horizons: he read widely, attended Christian sermons, studied the Bhagavad Gita in English translation, and cultivated habits of simplicity. He was called to the bar in 1891.

Upon returning to India, Gandhi’s legal career faltered. He found few clients, lacked oratory skills at the time, and was ill at ease in the Bombay courts. His life changed dramatically in 1893, when he accepted a one-year contract with an Indian firm in South Africa. That one-year assignment stretched to twenty-one years and transformed him from a shy lawyer into a political thinker and activist.

Chapter 2: South Africa — The Crucible of Satyagraha

In South Africa, Gandhi directly encountered racial discrimination. A defining incident occurred at Pietermaritzburg railway station, where he was thrown out of a first-class compartment despite holding a valid ticket. He also faced insults for refusing to remove his turban in a courtroom. These humiliations awakened him to the injustice of racial prejudice and the vulnerability of Indians in the British Empire.

Over two decades, Gandhi became the community leader for Indian immigrants — merchants, indentured laborers, and professionals. He founded the Natal Indian Congress (1894) to organize political activity. He also established Indian Opinion (1903), a weekly newspaper that became his platform to articulate grievances and develop his philosophy.

The most significant outcome of his South African years was the formulation of satyagraha — a method of nonviolent resistance. Beginning in 1906, when the Transvaal government required all Indians to register and carry passes, Gandhi mobilized thousands to refuse compliance. Protesters courted arrest, endured imprisonment, and accepted suffering without retaliation. Gandhi himself was jailed several times. The campaign eventually led to negotiations and partial concessions from the authorities, proving to Gandhi the efficacy of disciplined nonviolence.

South Africa also shaped his personal life. He lived simply in communal settlements such as Tolstoy Farm, named after Leo Tolstoy, whose writings deeply influenced Gandhi. These communities emphasized manual labor, shared living, and moral discipline. Gandhi experimented with vegetarianism, celibacy (brahmacharya), and self-restraint. By the time he left South Africa in 1914, he was no longer just a lawyer — he was a moral leader with an embryonic philosophy that would later change India.

Chapter 3: Philosophical and Religious Influences

Gandhi’s thought was a synthesis of East and West.

• From Hinduism, he drew upon the Bhagavad Gita’s emphasis on selfless action (nishkama karma). He interpreted the Gita not as a call to war, but as an allegory for spiritual struggle.

• Jainism reinforced his lifelong commitment to ahimsa (non-harming).

• Christianity, particularly the Sermon on the Mount, impressed him with its call to love one’s enemies.

• He admired Leo Tolstoy, who emphasized Christian non-resistance to evil and communal simplicity. Gandhi corresponded with him, and Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You left a deep mark.

• John Ruskin’s Unto This Last convinced Gandhi that the life of labor — particularly the dignity of the poorest worker — had moral superiority over industrial capitalism.

• Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience affirmed his conviction that unjust laws must be resisted peacefully.

Gandhi did not treat these influences as dogma. He described his life as a continuous “experiment with truth” — testing principles in personal and public life. For him, religion was not sectarian, but a search for truth through ethics. This pluralism became central to his idea of sarva dharma sambhava (equal respect for all religions).

Chapter 4: Satyagraha and Ahimsa

At the core of Gandhi’s politics was the conviction that means and ends are inseparable. Violence could never produce justice, because it corrupted both the victim and the perpetrator. Instead, truth (satya) had to be pursued through love and nonviolence (ahimsa).

Satyagraha, literally “truth-force” or “soul-force,” was not passive resistance but active moral struggle. It demanded courage, discipline, and a willingness to suffer rather than retaliate. Gandhi argued that suffering, borne voluntarily, could transform the oppressor’s conscience. He saw this as a “weapon of the strong”, not the weak.

Alongside resistance, Gandhi promoted the Constructive Programme — initiatives like spinning khadi, village sanitation, Hindu–Muslim unity, and uplift of the oppressed castes. Without social reform, he argued, political freedom would be hollow. Thus, satyagraha was not only about fighting the British, but about remaking Indian society itself.

Chapter 5: Gandhi in India — Major Campaigns

When Gandhi returned to India in 1915, he was welcomed as a rising leader. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a senior nationalist, became his mentor. Gandhi soon immersed himself in grassroots struggles:

• Champaran Satyagraha (1917): Indigo peasants in Bihar were forced into exploitative cultivation. Gandhi’s investigation and nonviolent mobilization secured concessions — his first success in India.

• Kheda Satyagraha (1918): Farmers in Gujarat sought tax relief after crop failure. Gandhi’s movement gained popular support and some concessions.

• Ahmedabad Mill Strike (1918): He mediated between mill workers and owners, fasting until a compromise was reached.

His fame spread after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (1919), when British troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in Amritsar. Outraged, Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–22), calling for boycott of British schools, courts, clothes, and honors. The movement mobilized millions but was abruptly called off after violent riots in Chauri Chaura. Gandhi insisted nonviolence was more important than political victory.

The Salt March (1930) marked his international fame. Defying the salt tax, Gandhi and followers walked 240 miles to the Arabian Sea, making salt illegally. This symbolic act galvanized Indians nationwide and attracted global media attention. The Civil Disobedience Movement followed, leading to Gandhi’s arrest and negotiations with the Viceroy.

During World War II, Gandhi initially opposed India’s involvement without consent. In 1942, he launched the Quit India Movement, demanding immediate independence. The British jailed Gandhi and Congress leaders for years. Though suppressed, Quit India made independence inevitable.

By 1947, the British agreed to transfer power. Gandhi, however, was heartbroken by Partition, which divided India and Pakistan along religious lines. Communal violence claimed millions of lives. Gandhi walked through riot-torn Bengal and Delhi, fasting to restore peace. His last fast in January 1948 brought temporary calm but ended days later with his assassination.

Chapter 6: Gandhi’s Personal Life

Gandhi’s public life was inseparable from his private disciplines. He wore homespun khadi, rejecting Western suits. He lived in ashrams such as Sabarmati and Sevagram, where all residents practiced simplicity, manual labor, and self-restraint.

He undertook experiments in diet (raw food, fruit, goat’s milk), practiced celibacy from age 36, and used fasting both for spiritual purification and as a political weapon. Some of these experiments — like sleeping beside young women to “test” his celibacy — remain controversial.

His marriage to Kasturba was affectionate but also fraught. She often resisted his stern experiments but supported his political work until her death in 1944. Gandhi’s relationship with his sons was troubled, especially with Harilal, who rejected his father’s asceticism and converted briefly to Islam before returning to Hinduism.

Chapter 7: Writings and Media

Gandhi was a prolific writer. His Autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927), remains a classic of spiritual introspection and political philosophy. His earlier work, Hind Swaraj (1909), critiqued modern civilization as violent, materialistic, and spiritually bankrupt. Instead, he envisioned swaraj (self-rule) as moral self-discipline and village democracy.

Through journals like Indian Opinion, Young India, Harijan, and Navajivan, Gandhi communicated directly with the masses. He used simple Gujarati, Hindi, and English to explain policies, criticize injustice, and advocate reforms. His mastery of the press gave his movements unprecedented reach.

Chapter 8: Gandhi as a Social Reformer

Gandhi believed India’s freedom was meaningless without social reform. He campaigned against untouchability, calling the oppressed castes “Harijans” (children of God). He opened temples, wells, and schools to them, though Dalit leaders like B. R. Ambedkar criticized his approach as paternalistic.

He promoted women’s participation, encouraging them to spin khadi and join protests. Thousands of women joined marches, defied arrests, and became symbols of resistance. Yet Gandhi still held conservative views on women’s domestic roles.

His Nai Talim (Basic Education) emphasized handicrafts, self-reliance, and moral training over rote learning. He also campaigned for hygiene, sanitation, and rural uplift.

Chapter 9: Controversies and Critiques

Gandhi’s legacy is deeply contested. Critics highlight:

• Caste: Ambedkar argued Gandhi’s opposition to separate electorates for Dalits betrayed their cause. Many Dalit thinkers still regard him as conservative.

• Race: Gandhi’s early writings in South Africa sometimes disparaged Black Africans, reflecting colonial prejudices, though his later views were more inclusive.

• Modernity: His rejection of industrialization and preference for village economy seemed utopian to many contemporaries.

• Personal experiments: His celibacy tests remain ethically troubling.

• Partition: Some argue Gandhi failed to prevent communal divisions; others insist he alone tried sincerely to stop violence.

Chapter 10: Gandhi’s Global Influence

Few 20th-century leaders matched Gandhi’s global reach.

• Martin Luther King Jr. applied Gandhian methods to the American civil rights movement, seeing nonviolence as a weapon of moral transformation.

• Nelson Mandela acknowledged Gandhi’s role in shaping early South African resistance, though later ANC strategies combined nonviolence and armed struggle.

• César Chávez drew on Gandhian fasting and boycotts in the U.S. farm workers’ struggle.

• Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the “Frontier Gandhi,” led a nonviolent Pashtun movement against British rule.

• Leaders from Aung San Suu Kyi to Václav Havel cited him as an inspiration.

• Institutions like the International Day of Non-Violence (Oct 2) affirm his global significance.

Chapter 11: Gandhi’s Death and Memorialization

On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was shot by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist who blamed him for appeasing Muslims. Gandhi fell with the words “Hey Ram” on his lips. His assassination shocked the world. Over a million people joined his funeral procession in Delhi.

He was cremated at Raj Ghat, now a national memorial. His birthday is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti in India and worldwide as a day of peace and nonviolence. Statues, museums, and research centers across the globe keep his memory alive.

Chapter 12: Assessing Gandhi

Gandhi was not a flawless saint but a human being of contradictions. He was visionary in creating a new form of politics rooted in ethics, yet conservative in some social attitudes. He mobilized millions through moral authority, yet struggled to reconcile India’s communal divisions.

Nevertheless, Gandhi demonstrated that nonviolence could be a force of history. His insistence on truth, moral discipline, and social justice continues to inspire movements for peace, human rights, and ecological sustainability.

Chapter 13: Timeline Summary

• 1869: Born in Porbandar

• 1888–1891: Law studies in London

• 1893–1914: Activism in South Africa, satyagraha developed

• 1915: Returns to India

• 1917–1918: Champaran and Kheda satyagrahas

• 1920–22: Non-Cooperation Movement

• 1930: Salt March

• 1942: Quit India Movement

• 1947: Independence and Partition

• 1948: Assassinated in New Delhi

Final Reflection

Mahatma Gandhi’s life can be read as a quest to align the inner and the outer, the personal and the political. He insisted that truth and nonviolence were not merely tactics but ways of being. His influence persists in civil rights struggles, anti-colonial movements, peace activism, and debates on sustainability. His flaws and controversies remind us that saints are made of human clay, yet his enduring message — that justice must be pursued through nonviolent means — remains one of the most powerful legacies of the modern world.