Chapter 4
The Self-Remade Man: Gandhi's Inner Revolution
In South Africa, Gandhi wore European suits, stiff collars, and highly polished shoes. He rented an English villa in an aristocratic beach area and earned the equivalent of $25,000-$30,000 annually from his legal work. Yet beneath this Europeanized exterior, a profound transformation was underway.
Gandhi had a violent temperament; his later mahatma calmness was the product of long training in controlling his temper. He did not easily become a serene-minded yogi. Recognizing his deficiencies, he made a conscious effort to overcome himself, to change and restrain his negative impulses. He transformed into another person-a remarkable case of second birth during a single lifetime.
This transformation began with material renunciation. In 1901, when presented with jewels including a gold necklace for Kasturbai, he spent a sleepless night tormented by the choice between security and freedom through renunciation. Finally, he decided to give up the jewels despite his wife's protests, using them to create a fund benefiting South African Indians.
Around this time, Gandhi met British vegetarian Henry S.L. Polak, who lent him John Ruskin's book "Unto This Last." Gandhi sat up all night reading it, declaring, "That book marked the turning point of my life." He immediately established a community on 100 acres near Phoenix, Natal, transferring there the offices of his weekly magazine Indian Opinion. The community became an experiment in simple living, with everyone helping to print the magazine and cultivate mango and orange trees.
The problem of austerity and self-control increasingly preoccupied Gandhi's mind. He began fasting whenever the occasion arose and subsisted on frugal meals of nuts and fruits without spices or seasoning. He embarked on a lifelong search for a diet that would both sustain physical life while lifting the soul above material concerns.
In 1906, during marches from village to village during the Zulu uprising, Gandhi spent long periods in introspection and finally decided to abstain forever from sexual relations. Kasturbai agreed without protest. Gandhi remained celibate from age thirty-seven until his death in 1948. This decision reflected his complex relationship with sexuality, partly influenced by guilt over being with his wife when his father died.
Brahmacharya (celibacy) became for Gandhi not just sexual restriction but a comprehensive spiritual discipline. "It means control of all senses, at all times, everywhere, in thought, words and action," he wrote. "Perfect brahmacharis are perfectly devoid of sin. They are therefore close to God. They are like God." This was his aspiration-the final stage in self-transformation.
In renunciation, Gandhi found not loss but liberation. Rising above material concerns freed him to work more decisively for his ideals. Renunciation also offered a direct advantage: people trusted him more. Once Indians became completely convinced of his selflessness, they surrounded him with unbridled devotion. Such was Gandhi's reward.
Chapter 5
Soul-Force: The Birth of Satyagraha
"Men say I am a saint losing myself in politics," Gandhi once observed. "The fact is I am a politician trying my hardest to be a saint." This statement captures the inseparable nature of his politics and religion. His politics were moral; his religion was active in the world's struggles.
As this politician-turned-saint or saint-turned-politician, Gandhi developed his unprecedented weapon: satyagraha. Satya means truth, the equivalent of love. Agraha means firmness or force. Satyagraha therefore translates as soul-force-"the vindication of truth not by inflicting suffering on the opponent, but on one's own self."
Satyagraha faced its first test when the Transvaal government published a law requiring all Indians over eight to submit to official registration and fingerprinting. Gandhi told a crowd of 3,000 people that this law constituted an affront to them and to India. He asked them to pledge to defy the ordinance and go to jail, or if necessary, to death. He warned that the struggle would be long but declared that "as long as there exists even a handful of men faithful to their oath, there can be only one end to the struggle; and that end is victory."
When the Asiatic Registration Act passed in 1907, Gandhi led Indians in refusing registration and was sentenced to two months in prison. An emissary from General Smuts approached with a proposal to repeal the law if Indians would register voluntarily. Gandhi accepted, but Smuts later refused to keep his promise. In response, over 2,000 Indians gathered at the Hamidia Mosque in Johannesburg and threw their registration certificates into a burning cauldron.
Gandhi's law office became the headquarters of the satyagraha movement. He chose Indians to peacefully attempt to enter the Transvaal despite the immigration ban. All were detained and imprisoned, including Gandhi himself. In prison, he became the cook for seventy-five compatriots, performed hard labor, and volunteered to clean toilets. "The true path to happiness," he wrote, "is to go to prison and there endure sufferings and privations in the interest of one's own country and religion."
The prisoner's soul, he discovered, was free. In this, Gandhi echoed Henry David Thoreau, whose essay "Civil Disobedience" left a deep impression on him. Like Thoreau, Gandhi believed in the capacity of a resolute moral minority to correct the evils of the majority. "I know this well," wrote Thoreau, "that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name-if ten honest men only-were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America."
After years of struggle, Gandhi's satyagraha movement achieved victory in 1914 with the Indian Relief Act. Though only a compromise, it represented a vindication of the principle of racial equality. Before sailing for England, Gandhi sent General Smuts a gift of sandals he had made in prison. Smuts wore these sandals until 1939, when he returned them to Gandhi saying: "I have worn these sandals for many summers since that time, though I feel I am not worthy to stand in the shoes of so great a man." Gandhi had not won a victory over Smuts; he had won Smuts himself.
Chapter 6
The Mahatma Returns: Finding India's Heart
In India, Gandhi's spiritual qualities were quickly recognized. Crowds shouted "Mahatmaji, Mahatmaji!" The title of mahatma (great soul) was bestowed upon him by Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore. Though they revered each other, the two men were profoundly different: Gandhi was frugal; Tagore, lavish. Gandhi, the emaciated ascetic; Tagore, with thick white hair and great white beard, a rich intellectual aristocrat.
Gandhi wanted a new Indian man today, not just a free India tomorrow. Village improvement became his First Freedom. Over eighty percent of India's population lived in villages-poor, illiterate, sick, discouraged. Gandhi desired a psychological metamorphosis giving India inner freedom first, then inevitably, outer freedom.
In 1916, Indians began to hear the voice of a small, courageous man who loved the poor and defended them before the rich. Gandhi established his ashram first in Kochrab, then permanently in Sabarmati, across the Sabarmati River from Ahmedabad. There, rooting himself in the sand, soil, and soul of India's people, he gained full vigor. The ashram consisted of low, white-painted huts amid a garden of leafy trees. Some of the independence movement's most active leaders began their political careers at the Mahatma's feet in Sabarmati.
Gandhi restored India's confidence. Previous great men who dreamed of national regeneration were like luminous planets in a remote firmament-brilliant stars casting light on a few satellites. Gandhi was firmly planted on earth. He received sustenance from the people who walked upon it and, in turn, gave them fruit. He was of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Chapter 7
The Struggle Against British Rule: Blood and Sacrifice
From 1858 to 1947, British governance remained foreign occupation. The English were in India but never of India. Their mere presence constituted humiliation. Imperialism is government of another people, by another people, for another people-a perpetual insult based on the premise that outsiders have the right to govern insiders who cannot govern themselves.
By the early 20th century, an Indian middle class had formed, and many Indians enriched in industry and commerce wanted economic space. Japan's victory over Russia in 1904-1905 stimulated Indian nationalist opposition to England. Torn between political wisdom and domination desire, the English yielded as much apparent power as circumstances required, and as little substance as conditions allowed.
Gandhi's first deliberate action against British imperialism came after World War I when wartime restrictions were extended through the Rowlatt Acts. Calling this legislation "unjust, subversive of the principle of liberty and destructive of the individual's elementary rights," Gandhi campaigned against it. He organized a hartal-a complete suspension of economic activity-which was an enormous success. However, he underestimated Indians' tendency toward violence. In large cities, the hartal was accompanied by arson, cutting telegraph wires, and physical attacks on English people.
The worst violence occurred in Amritsar, where Brigadier-General Reginald E.H. Dyer ordered troops to fire on an unarmed crowd gathered at Jallianwalla Bagh on April 13, 1919. Approximately 379 people were killed and about 1,137 wounded. Dyer later testified that he wanted to produce "a sufficient moral effect, not only in the minds of those present, but more particularly throughout the Punjab."
Gandhi responded to the Amritsar massacre with a political directive: non-cooperation. Boycott of British goods, honors, courts, schools, and work. In December 1920, the annual Congress convention voted against collaboration with the British. Gandhi promised that if India's non-cooperation remained non-violent, self-government would be achieved within a year.
For seven months, Gandhi traveled through rural areas, moving in overcrowded trains and speaking to assemblies of over a hundred thousand people. His journey had all the attributes of a religious revival. When listeners applauded his call to reject foreign clothes, he asked them to remove all foreign-made items and pile them before him. As flames consumed these imported goods, he begged everyone to start spinning and weaving their own clothes.
The year passed without the promised self-government. Many nationalists advised open rebellion. "If India adopts the doctrine of the sword," Gandhi replied, "she may gain a momentary victory, but then India will cease to be the pride of my heart." His repulsion to violence was adamantine.
Gandhi initiated a civil disobedience campaign in Bardoli, near Bombay, where he could personally supervise the experiment. The campaign had barely begun when he received news of an atrocity in Chauri Chaura, where a crowd had burned twenty-two policemen alive. Gandhi immediately suspended all disobedience efforts nationwide, declaring: "Let the opponent glory in our humiliation or so-called defeat. It is better to be charged with cowardice and weakness than to be guilty of breaking our oath and sinning against God."
Having revoked civil disobedience and forbidden hostility to the State, Gandhi was arrested on March 10, 1922. The charges were preaching sedition in three published articles. In court, he declared: "I am here to invite and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen." Judge Bromfield sentenced him to six years in prison, acknowledging that Gandhi stood "in a category different from that of any person I have ever tried or am likely to try."
Chapter 8
The Weapon of Fasting: Transforming Hearts Through Sacrifice
Gandhi's fasts were a process of communication when words failed. "Evidently, nothing I say or write can bring the two communities closer together," he declared during Hindu-Muslim tensions. His fasts were directed at his own people, presuming a cord of sympathy between them. "I can fast for my father to cure him of a vice, but not to get an inheritance from him."
The most dramatic example came in 1932 when Gandhi undertook a "fast unto death" over the issue of untouchability. An orthodox Hindu must not touch an untouchable, nor anything touched by an untouchable. Untouchables inhabited the worst sections of slums and were forbidden from using wells. When the British government announced plans to establish separate electorates for untouchables, Gandhi protested, seeing this as deepening divisions within Hindu society.
As news of the fast spread throughout India, those who could read told those who couldn't: "The Mahatma is fasting because we Hindus close our temples to untouchables and treat them badly." During the fast week, famous temples like Kalighat in Calcutta and Ram Mandir in Benares opened their doors to untouchables for the first time in thousands of years. In Delhi, caste Hindus and harijans (Gandhi's term for untouchables, meaning "children of God") publicly fraternized in the streets. Roads and streets opened to harijans. Many villages allowed untouchables to use common water wells.
The "Epic Fast" permanently improved conditions for harijans; it broke a chain stretching back into antiquity that had enslaved tens of millions. Some links remain, but the fast transformed anti-untouchable discrimination from religious duty into moral sin, and inscribed a declaration of harijan rights into life itself.
Gandhi's personal life reflected his evolving views. Though he had initially favored the caste system, he completely recanted in words and deeds. When his youngest son Devadas fell in love with Lakshmi, a Brahmin girl, Gandhi initially objected to marriage between people of different castes. However, he eventually agreed to their union after a five-year waiting period. In subsequent years, Gandhi refused to attend any wedding that wasn't between couples of different castes.
Chapter 9
The Final Battle: Partition and Independence
As independence approached, Gandhi faced his greatest challenge: preventing India's partition. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, president of the Muslim League, would only accept the division of India. "We could settle the Indian problem in ten minutes," he declared, "if Mr. Gandhi said: 'I agree that Pakistan should exist.'" But Gandhi would never say this. He considered the "vivisection" of India a "blasphemy."
When Lord Mountbatten arrived as the last British viceroy in March 1947, he found "this terrible pendulum of massacre in an ever-widening swing." Though personally convinced that keeping India united was the right solution, Mountbatten found Jinnah adamantly opposed and Congress leaders weary of obstruction. When told Congress provisionally agreed to partition, Jinnah was elated. After much argument, he accepted partition with divided provinces.
Gandhi told Mountbatten, "The Congress is with me today," but Gandhi replied, "But India is with me today." Though Gandhi's statement merely expressed hope, it revealed the tragic reality: Congress ministers had grown tired and accepted partition without fully anticipating its catastrophic consequences. Gandhi opposed division on principle, giving him energy to fight while younger leaders were "tired and short-sighted."
When India gained independence on August 15, 1947, Gandhi announced: "I cannot participate in the celebrations." He was in Calcutta, fighting riots. He fasted and prayed that day, his heart heavy and spirit sad. Though the world he built lay partially in ruins around him, at nearly seventy-eight, he still made plans for the future.
The human migration that followed partition was unprecedented in world history. Fifteen million desperate people traveled hundreds of miles from their homes toward discomfort, disease, and death. Millions of Hindus and Sikhs fled eastward from Pakistan-controlled Punjab toward Delhi, while millions of Muslims fled westward from India. Entire families walked dusty roads for weeks, with disease decimating the migrating hordes.
In this city of madmen and the dead, Gandhi spread his gospel of love and peace. He confronted boiling passions with cold reason, telling Muslims to stay, warning Hindus and Sikhs against harassment, and asking weapons-bearers to surrender their arms. He crisscrossed Delhi daily, rushing to areas where blood-thirsty mobs gathered. The enraged human sea parted when he passed through with his smiling face and hands joined in blessing.
Chapter 10
The Ultimate Victory: A Life Given for Peace
In January 1948, Gandhi undertook his final fast, directed at "the conscience of all"-Hindus and Muslims alike. Despite physical suffering, he remained serene, affirming that "death is a friend that brings liberation." On the sixth day, a hundred religious representatives presented a peace pact guaranteeing protection to Muslims. Gandhi ended the fast after verifying their sincerity, celebrating with interfaith prayers and orange juice.
On January 30, 1948, after mediating a dispute between Nehru and Patel, Gandhi arrived ten minutes late to prayers. Climbing the steps to the platform, he was greeted by faithful bowing at his feet while he, smiling, joined his palms in greeting and blessing. Nathuram Godse, positioned in the front row, bowed in reverence and, pushing aside Gandhi's grandniece Manu, fired three shots at close range. "Oh, God!" Gandhi murmured before falling dead.
His legacy is courage, his lesson truth, his weapon love. His life is his monument. He now belongs to humanity.
Louis Fischer, who knew Gandhi personally and wrote this biography, captured the essence of the man who transformed a nation and inspired the world: Gandhi knew nothing about killing, but he had found the secret of a happy and useful life. He was a nuclear pygmy and a moral giant. He rejected the atom, having accepted Christ's Sermon on the Mount. He was Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Jew. Perhaps that is why it was a Hindu who became "spokesman for humanity's conscience." Since he always listened to the imperatives of his own conscience, he could speak for and to the conscience of others.
