October is Black History Month, so every day during October I will be posting up an introduction to an historical person of colour with a place in the history of the United Kingdom.
Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi (1869 – 1948) was of course born in India, and died in India, but studied in London so is included in my month’s roll-call due to his connection with Britain. My blog, my rules.
A lawyer who led the successful campaign for India’s independence from British rule, Gandhi inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The title Mahātmā is Sanskrit for ‘great-souled’ or ‘venerable’, and was first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa.
Born and raised in a Hindu family in Gujarat, Gandhi trained in law at the Inner Temple in London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in 1891. Unsuccessful in his attempts to set up a law practice in India, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit – and stayed for 21 years. He raised a family there, and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. (The composer Philip Glass wrote an opera about this period in Gandhi’s life, called Satyagraha, which I saw in London a couple of years ago.)
In 1915, aged 45, Gandhi returned to India, where he organised peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Gandhi became leader of the Indian National Congress in 1921, and led nationwide campaigns on poverty, women’s rights, religious and ethnic amity, ending ‘untouchability’, and achieving Swaraj or self-rule.
The same year Gandhi started to wear the Indian loincloth or short dhoti and shawl as a mark of identification with India’s rural poor. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community, ate simple vegetarian food, and undertook long fasts as a means of self-purification and political protest. He led the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930 in protest against British salt taxes, and called for the British to ‘Quit India’ in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, on many occasions, in both South Africa and India.
Gandhi had a vision of an independent and pluralistic India, but in 1947, Britain granted independence but partitioned its Indian empire into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. Displaced people made their way to their new lands amid outbreaks of religious violence – one of the worst mass migrations in history, with over a million deaths. Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace and undertaking several fasts to the point of death to stop the violence.
In 1948 Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist.
Gandhi’s birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence. Gandhi is commonly considered the Father of the Nation in India.
More about Mahatma Gandhi at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi