Early life
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born into the
Hindu
Modh family in
Porbandar, in 1869. He was the son of Karamchand
Gandhi, the
diwan (Prime Minister) of Porbandar, and
Putlibai, Karamchand's fourth wife, a Hindu of the
Pranami
Vaishnava order. Karamchand's first two wives, who
each bore him a daughter, died from unknown reasons
(rumored to be in childbirth). Living with a devout
mother and surrounded by the
Jain influences of Gujarat, Gandhi learned from an
early age the tenets of non-injury to living beings,
vegetarianism,
fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance
between members of various creeds and sects. He was born
into the
vaishya, or business,
caste.
In May 1883, at the age of 13, Gandhi was married
through his parents' arrangements to
Kasturba Makhanji (also spelled "Kasturbai" or known
as "Ba"). They had four sons:
Harilal Gandhi, born in 1888;
Manilal Gandhi, born in 1892;
Ramdas Gandhi, born in 1897; and
Devdas Gandhi, born in 1900. Gandhi was a mediocre
student in his youth at Porbandar and later
Rajkot. He barely passed the
matriculation exam for Samaldas College at
Bhavanagar, Gujarat. He was also unhappy at the college,
because his family wanted him to become a
barrister.
At the age of 18 on
September 4,
1888, Gandhi went to
University College London to train as a
barrister. His time in
London, the Imperial capital, was influenced by a
vow he had made to his mother in the presence of the
Jain monk Becharji, upon leaving India, to observe the
Hindu precepts of abstinence from meat, alcohol, and
promiscuity. Although Gandhi experimented with adopting
"English" customs — taking dancing lessons for example —
he could not stomach his landlady's mutton and cabbage.
She pointed him towards one of London's few vegetarian
restaurants. Rather than simply go along with his
mother's wishes, he read about, and intellectually
embraced
vegetarianism. He joined the
Vegetarian Society, was elected to its executive
committee, and founded a local chapter. He later
credited this with giving him valuable experience in
organizing institutions. Some of the vegetarians he met
were members of the
Theosophical Society, which had been founded in 1875
to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted
to the study of
Buddhist and Hindu
Brahmanistic literature. They encouraged Gandhi to
read the
Bhagavad Gita. Not having shown a particular
interest in religion before, he read works of and about
Hinduism,
Christianity,
Buddhism,
Islam and other religions. He returned to India
after being called to the
bar of
England and Wales by
Inner Temple, but had limited success establishing a
law practice in
Bombay. Later, after applying and being turned down
for a part-time job as a high school teacher, he ended
up returning to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting
petitions for litigants, but was forced to close down
that business as well when he ran afoul of a British
officer. In his autobiography, he describes this
incident as a kind of unsuccessful lobbying attempt on
behalf of his older brother. It was in this climate that
(in 1893) he accepted a year-long contract from an
Indian firm to a post in
Natal,
South Africa.
When back in London in 1895, he happened to meet
Colonial Secretary
Joseph Chamberlain, the
Radical-turned-ultra-Tory,
whose son
Neville became
Prime Minister in the 1930s and helped suppress
Gandhi. Chamberlain Snr. agreed that the treatment of
Indians was barbaric but appeared unwilling to push
through any legislation about this however.
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