Mohandas gandhi brief biography of prophet

At this point, Gandhi called off the struggle, and aroundpolitical prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership. Gandhi opposed the partition of the Indian subcontinent along religious lines. Jinnah rejected Gandhi's proposal and called for Direct Action Dayon 16 Augustto press Muslims to publicly gather in cities and support his proposal for the partition of the Indian subcontinent into a Muslim state and non-Muslim state.

Thousands of Hindus and Muslims were murdered, and tens of thousands were injured in the cycle of violence in the days that followed. Archibald Wavellthe Viceroy and Governor-General of British India for three years through Februaryhad worked with Gandhi and Jinnah to find a common ground, before and after accepting Indian independence in principle.

Wavell condemned Gandhi's character and motives as well as his ideas. Wavell accused Gandhi of harbouring the single-minded idea to "overthrow British rule and influence and to establish a Hindu raj", and called Gandhi a "malignant, malevolent, exceedingly shrewd" politician. The British reluctantly agreed to grant independence to the people of the Indian subcontinent, but accepted Jinnah's proposal of partitioning the land into Pakistan and India.

Gandhi was involved in the final negotiations, but Stanley Wolpert states the "plan to carve up British India was never approved of or accepted by Gandhi". The partition was controversial and violently disputed. More than half a million were killed in religious riots as 10 million to 12 million non-Muslims Hindus and Sikhs mostly migrated from Pakistan into India, and Muslims migrated from India into Pakistan, across the newly created borders of India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan.

Gandhi spent the day of independence not celebrating the end of the British rule, but appealing for peace among his countrymen by fasting and spinning in Calcutta on 15 August The partition had gripped the Indian subcontinent with religious violence and the streets were filled with corpses. At p. There, he died about 30 minutes later as one of Gandhi's family members read verses from Hindu scriptures.

Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that; nevertheless, we will not see him again, as we have seen him for these many years, we will not run to him for advice or seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for millions and millions in this country.

Godse, a Hindu nationalist, [ ] [ ] [ ] with links to the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] made no attempt to escape; several other conspirators were soon arrested as well. The trial began on 27 May and ran for eight months before Justice Atma Charan passed his final order on 10 February The prosecution called witnesses, the defence none.

Eight men were convicted for the murder conspiracy, and others were convicted for violation of the Explosive Substances Act. Savarkar was acquitted and set free. Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were sentenced to death by hanging [ ] while the remaining six including Godse's brother, Gopal were sentenced to life imprisonment. Gandhi's death was mourned nationwide.

The engine of the vehicle was not mohandas gandhi brief biography of prophet instead, four drag-ropes held by 50 people each pulled the vehicle. Gandhi was cremated in accordance with Hindu tradition. His ashes were poured into urns which were sent across India for memorial services. InTushar Gandhi immersed the contents of one urn, found in a bank vault and reclaimed through the courts, at the Sangam at Allahabad.

On 30 Januarythe contents of another urn were immersed at Girgaum Chowpatty. Another urn is at the palace of the Aga Khan in Pune where Gandhi was held as a political prisoner from to [ ] [ ] and another in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Los Angeles. These are said to be Gandhi's last words after he was shot. Gandhi's spirituality was greatly based on his embracement of the five great vows of Jainism and Hindu Yoga philosophy, viz.

Satya truthahimsa nonviolencebrahmacharya celibacyasteya non-stealingand aparigraha non-attachment. Some writers present Gandhi as a paragon of ethical living and pacifism, while others present him as a more complex, contradictory and evolving character influenced by his culture and circumstances. Gandhi dedicated his life to discovering and pursuing truth, or Satyaand called his movement satyagrahawhich means "appeal to, insistence on, or reliance on the Truth.

It was the satyagraha formulation and step, states Dennis Dalton, that deeply resonated with beliefs and culture of his people, embedded him into the popular consciousness, transforming him quickly into Mahatma. Gandhi based Satyagraha on the Vedantic ideal of self-realisation, ahimsa nonviolencevegetarianism, and universal love. William Borman states that the key to his satyagraha is rooted in the Hindu Upanishadic texts.

Bruce Watson states that some of these ideas are found not only in traditions within Hinduism, but also in Jainism or Buddhism, particularly those about non-violence, vegetarianism and universal love, but Gandhi's synthesis was to politicise these ideas. Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities.

Gandhi summarised his beliefs first when he said, "God is Truth. The essence of Satyagraha is "soul force" as a political means, refusing to use brute force against the oppressor, seeking to eliminate antagonisms between the oppressor and the oppressed, aiming to transform or "purify" the oppressor. It is not inaction but determined passive resistance and non-co-operation where, states Arthur Herman, "love conquers hate".

It arms the individual with moral power rather than physical power. Satyagraha is also termed a "universal force", as it essentially "makes no distinction between kinsmen and strangers, young and old, man and woman, friend and foe. Gandhi wrote: "There must be no impatience, no barbarity, no insolence, no undue pressure. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy, we cannot afford to be intolerant.

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause. This end usually implies a moral upliftment or progress of an individual or society. Therefore, non-co-operation in Satyagraha is in fact a means to secure the co-operation of the opponent consistently with truth and justice. While Gandhi's idea of satyagraha as a political means attracted a widespread following among Indians, the support was not universal.

For example, Muslim leaders such as Jinnah opposed the satyagraha idea, accused Gandhi to be reviving Hinduism through political activism, and began effort to counter Gandhi with Muslim nationalism and a demand for Muslim homeland. Although Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of nonviolence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a large scale.

Although Gandhi considered non-violence to be "infinitely superior to violence", he preferred violence to cowardice. Gandhi was a prolific writer. His signature style was simple, precise, clear and as devoid of artificialities. The book was translated into English the next year, with a copyright legend that read "No Rights Reserved". Later, Navajivan was also published in Hindi.

Gandhi also wrote letters almost every day to individuals and newspapers. Gandhi also wrote extensively on vegetarianism, diet and health, religion, social reforms, etc. Gandhi usually wrote in Gujarati, though he also revised the Hindi and English translations of his books. Gandhi's complete works were published by the Indian government under the name The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi in the s.

The writings comprise about 50, pages published in about volumes. Ina revised edition of the complete works sparked a controversy, as it contained a large number of errors and omissions. Gandhi is noted as the greatest figure of the successful Indian independence movement against the British rule. He is also hailed as the greatest figure of modern India.

The word Mahatmawhile often mistaken for Gandhi's given name in the West, is taken from the Sanskrit words maha meaning Great and atma meaning Soul. Innumerable streets, roads, and localities in India are named after Gandhi. These include M. As ofover countries have released stamps on Gandhi. Florian asteroid Gandhi was named in his honour in September Gandhi influenced important leaders and political movements.

In his early years, the former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was a follower of the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. This legacy connects him to Nelson Mandela Gandhi's life and teachings inspired many who specifically referred to Gandhi as their mentor or who mohandas gandhi brief biography of prophet their lives to spreading his ideas.

Inphysicist Albert Einstein exchanged letters with Gandhi and called him "a role model for the generations to come" in a letter writing about him. Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion.

The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of the entire civilised world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works.

We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come. Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood. Farah Omara political activist from Somalilandvisited India inwhere he met Gandhi and was influenced by Gandhi's non-violent philosophy, which he adopted in his campaign in British Somaliland.

Lanza del Vasto went to India in intending to live with Gandhi; he later returned to Europe to spread Gandhi's philosophy and founded the Community of the Ark in modelled after Gandhi's ashrams. Madeleine Slade known as "Mirabehn" was the daughter of a British admiral who spent much of her adult life in India as a devotee of Gandhi. In addition, the British musician John Lennon referred to Gandhi when discussing his views on nonviolence.

His reply was in response to the question: "Who was the one person, dead or live, that you would choose to dine with? He inspired Dr. King with his message of nonviolence. He ended up doing so much and changed the world just by the power of his ethics. Gandhi's ideas had a significant influence on 20th-century philosophy. It began with his engagement with Romain Rolland and Martin Buber.

Jean-Luc Nancy said that the French philosopher Maurice Blanchot engaged critically with Gandhi from the point of view of "European spirituality. American political scientist Gene Sharp wrote an analytical text, Gandhi as a political strategiston the significance of Gandhi's ideas, for creating nonviolent social change. Recently, in the light of climate change, Gandhi's views on technology are gaining importance in the fields of environmental philosophy and philosophy of technology.

Time magazine named Gandhi the Man of the Year in Nelson Mandelathe leader of South Africa's struggle to eradicate racial discrimination and segregation, was a prominent non-Indian recipient. InGandhi was posthumously awarded with the World Peace Prize. Gandhi did not receive the Nobel Peace Prizealthough he was nominated five times between andincluding the first-ever nomination by the American Friends Service Committee[ ] though Gandhi made the short list only twice, in and That year, the committee chose not to award the peace prize stating that "there was no suitable living candidate", and later research shows that the possibility of awarding the prize posthumously to Gandhi was discussed and that the reference to no suitable living candidate was to Gandhi.

Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace prize, whether Nobel committee can do without Gandhi is the question. Indians widely describe Gandhi as the Father of the Nation. India, with its rapid economic modernisation and urbanisation, has rejected Gandhi's economics [ ] but accepted much of his politics and continues to revere his memory.

Reporter Jim Yardley notes that "modern India is hardly a Gandhian nation, if it ever was one. His vision of a village-dominated economy was shunted aside during his lifetime as rural romanticism, and his call for a national ethos of personal austerity and nonviolence has proved antithetical to the goals of an aspiring economic and military power.

Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is a national holiday in IndiaGandhi Jayanti. His image also appears on paper currency of all denominations issued by Reserve Bank of Indiaexcept for the one rupee note. There are three temples in India dedicated to Gandhi. Gandhi's children and grandchildren live in India and other countries. Grandson Rajmohan Gandhi is a professor in Illinois and an author of Gandhi's biography titled Mohandas[ ] while another, Tarun Gandhi, has authored several authoritative books on his grandfather.

Another grandson, Kanu Ramdas Gandhi the son of Gandhi's third son Ramdaswas found living at an old age home in Delhi despite having taught earlier in the United States. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Indian independence activist — For other uses, see Gandhi disambiguation.

New DelhiDominion of India. British Raj until Dominion of India from Leadership of the campaign for India's independence from British rule Nonviolent resistance. Kasturba Gandhi. Harilal Manilal Ramdas Devdas. Karamchand Gandhi Putlibai Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi's voice. Early life and background. Vegetarianism and committee work.

Civil rights activist in South Africa — Europeans, Indians and Africans. Struggle for Indian independence — See also: Indian independence movement. Main article: Champaran Satyagraha. Main article: Kheda Satyagraha. Main article: Khilafat Movement. Main article: Non-co-operation movement. Main article: Salt Satyagraha. Main article: Quit India Movement.

Partition and independence. See also: Indian independence movement and Partition of India. Main article: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Principles, practices, and beliefs. Main article: Practices and beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi. See also: Gandhism. Followers and international influence. Global days that celebrate Gandhi. Film, theatre, and literature.

Current impact within India. Not to be confused with the Indian political family Nehru—Gandhi family. Retrieved 24 January P Mahatma Gandhi A Chronology. Publications Division. ISBN The Floating Press. Archived from the original on 29 March Retrieved 29 March Archived from the original on 21 July Retrieved 21 July Identity and Religion: Foundations of anti-Islamism in India.

Sage Publications. Mohandas Gandhi. Infobase Publishing. The name Gandhi means "grocer", although Mohandas's father and grandfather were politicians not grocers. The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 7 October Retrieved 15 July The Ways and Power of Love: types, factors, and techniques of moral transformation. Templeton Foundation Press.

Gandhi: The Traditional Roots of Charisma. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved 19 March Responses to Questions on Hinduism. Paulist Press. Retrieved 16 August Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography. Yale University Press. John Zavos; et al. Public Hinduisms. Orissa Review January : 45— Archived from the original PDF on 1 January Retrieved 23 February The Story of My Experiments with Truth.

Archived from the original on 7 March Retrieved 20 February Gandhi, his life and message for the world. New American Library. Retrieved 4 June Gandhi Before India. Alfred A. Archived from the original on 2 July Nanda Archived from the original on 13 May Retrieved 3 June India Currents. Archived from the mohandas gandhi brief biography of prophet on 16 January Retrieved 16 January Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor.

Cambridge University Press. Archived from the original on 15 May Mahatma: Tendulkar, Mahatma; life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Archived from the original on 8 June Retrieved 11 August Gandhi — ". Archived from the original on 5 December Retrieved 26 September In Roxanne Reid ed. New History of South Africa 1st ed. The Journal of Modern African Studies.

ISSN X. JSTOR S2CID Mawenzi House Publishers Limited. Archived from the original on 17 March Retrieved 17 March Archived from the original on 9 September Retrieved 17 September Gandhi: a very short introduction. Oxford University Press. Other Places Publishing. Press Information Bureau of India — Archive. Archived PDF from the original on 28 September Retrieved 18 July Concept Publishing Company.

The Literature Network. Archived from the original on 10 November Retrieved 12 February Mathai; M. John; Siby K. Joseph eds. Meditations on Gandhi : a Ravindra Varma festschrift. New Delhi: Concept. Retrieved 8 September Univ of California Press. Retrieved 15 November Encyclopedia of Hinduism. New York: Facts On File. Retrieved 5 July Stanford University Press.

University of California Press. The Wire. Archived from the original on 25 December Retrieved 11 January Minorities and the State in Africa. Cambria Press. Archived from the original on 7 September Retrieved 7 September With this incident evolved the concept of Satyagraha. He united the Indians settled in South Africa of different communities, languages and religions, and founded Natal Indian Congress in He founded Indian Opinion, his first journal, in to promote the interests of Indians in South Africa.

Gandhiji organized a protest in against unfair Asiatic Regulation Bill of Again inhe mobilsed Indian community in South Africa against the discriminatory law requiring Asians to apply for the registration by burning official certificates of domicile at a public meeting at Johannesburg and courting jail. Into protest against the imposition of 3 Pound tax and passing immigration Bill adversely affecting the status of married women, he inspired Kasturbai and Indian women to join the struggle.

Gandhi organized a march from New Castle to Transvaal without permit and courting arrest. Gandhi had sailed to South Africa as a young inexperienced barrister in search of fortune. But he returned to India in as Mahatma. In when Gandhiji returned from South Africa he had established his ashram at Kochrab near Ahmedabad. His first Satyagraha in India was at Champaran, Bihar in for the rights of peasants on indigo plantations.

The magistrate postponed the trial and released him without bail and the case against him was withdrawn. In Champaran, he taught the poor and illiterate people the principles of Satyagraha. Gandhiji and his volunteers instructed the peasants in elementary hygiene and ran schools for their children. In Ahmedabad, there was a dispute between mill workers and mill owners.

The legitimate demands of workers were refused by mill owners. Gandhiji asked the workers to strike work, on condition that they took pledge to remain non-violent. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60, people, including Gandhi himself. 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. Inafter 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 inhundreds 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.

Just when the Indians had attained victory, and the British had formally left, he was shot at by a young Hindu fanatic, angry at a man for promoting peace and tolerance for people of all faiths. But he had already become Gandhi's right-hand man, and Millie was to find that she was also marrying into the great Gandhian experiment, one that began with his domestic arrangements.

Millie and Henry lived in the same Johannesburg house with Gandhi, his wife, and their three sons; they started each day together grinding corn for the household's bread, and they ended each day with a communal vegetarian meal. Within months the whole extended family moved to Gandhi's first large-scale communal experiment, the Phoenix Settlement outside Durban, which was to be the base for his political campaign and where his paper Indian Opinion was produced.

As Gandhi's campaign of non-violent resistance developed, he found in Millie Polak a constantly challenging conversational sparring-partner. She questioned him about the treatment of women in Indian culture, about his renunciation of sex, about his ever changing food-fads, and about the nature of his religious beliefs. To her, he was not yet the 'Mahatma': he was a difficult, witty and contradictory man; and perhaps nothing reveals more about the young Gandhi than the conversations Millie Polak recorded.

She places them in the context of communal life at Phoenix, where the dogs were expected to be vegetarian and there was endless heart-searching over whether green mambas could be killed. When the BBC decided in to record a series of interviews with people who'd known Mahatma Gandhi well, one person they turned to was a then quite elderly Englishwoman by the name of Millie Polak.

Millie Polak probably knew Gandhi as well as any European woman ever did, and this is the only known recording of her voice. It was with her pen that she revealed far more about the privileged and somewhat prickly friendship she had with him. She'd first met Gandhi in South Africa at the very end of So ran a small notice under the headline 'Congratulations' in the Durban weekly Indian Opinion on January 5th, Over the previous two years the paper had established itself as the mouthpiece of Gandhi's campaign for the rights of South Africa's Indians: and the following week it gave its readers a more detailed description of the newlyweds.

And the suburban Johannesburg home of Mr M. Gandhi was also, the young Millie Downs soon found out, to be the home in which she was to begin her married life. As she later wrote, it had been clear from the moment of her arrival in South Africa that in marrying Henry Polak she was also marrying Gandhi's cause. And Millie soon discovered that the middle class comforts of London, to which, no doubt, she'd been accustomed, had no place in the Gandhi household.

Over the next nine years, until his final departure for India inthe Polaks - both in Johannesburg and later in Durban - were to be part of an extended family that was at the very heart of Gandhi's experiments with how best to live. As he himself put it in the autobiography he published in the late '20s.

Mohandas gandhi brief biography of prophet

And Gandhi acknowledges that Millie Polak's arrival in January was a significant, and potentially fraught, moment for the household - especially, he seems to recognise, for his wife, Kasturba. Gandhi was to call his autobiography 'Experiments with Truth', and to Judith Brown - Professor of Commonwealth History at Oxford and Britain's leading authority on Gandhi's life and thought - his family life was his first great experiment, breaking with strict Hindu domestic traditions that he and his wife would have lived by ever since their arranged marriage when they'd both been thirteen years old.

Judith Brown: I think the earliest experiments are private and religious, and he doesn't become a prominent public experimenter until the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. The result is that he does get used to living with Europeans on terms of complete equality, breaking down old barriers of racism on the European side, but on the Indian side breaking down barriers of caste and ideas of purity and pollution.

He would never in his childhood have had a European staying in the house, it would have been unheard of. This household [was certainly not] easy for his wife She worried deeply about having to share her house with people who are in Hindu terms untouchable, whether they happen to be Indian Christians or foreigners. And it can only have been difficult for Kasturba Gandhi, who was still at this time illiterate, to experience her husband's close intellectual relationship with such untouchables - both male and female.

From what she wrote later, Millie Polak seemed well aware of the delicacy of the situation. Gandhi himself and Millie Polak conversed frequently, about every subject under the African sun, and in the evenings she would jot down what they had said to each other in her notebook. Nearly three decades later, inshe published a mohandas gandhi brief biography of prophet volume of reminiscences about her time as part of the Gandhi household in South Africa.

Her book, which has never been reprinted, is called simply Mr Gandhi, the Man. Not yet canonised as the Mahatma, the 'great soul'; not yet the leader of a major political movement; Gandhi is portrayed as Millie Polak found him - an exasperating, witty and contradictory man, struggling to shape daily life into what he thought it could and should be.

Millie herself, well-educated, curious, and usually self-confident, evidently felt able to challenge Gandhi about even the most sensitive things - like how he treated his wife around the house. One evening Gandhi says that he thinks women have a higher place in Eastern than in Western cultures: and Millie strongly disagrees:. And Gandhi was finally to reach one particular private ideal not long after this conversation took place - total celibacy, something he had privately agonised over for years.

There can only have been a strange tension in the household over the question of sex. On the one hand were the newly married Polaks, keen to have children as soon as possible, and on the other Gandhi, who seemingly felt able, having conquered sexual desire himself, to lecture others on how spiritually debilitating it was. One day, it seems, Millie couldn't take it any more, and challenged Gandhi on whether he had the right to talk about something he no longer practised.

Gandhi had come to think that sex was for procreation, not for pleasure. This is what he had to say on the subject in his autobiography:. We'll have to take his word for it. If Millie Polak did try to talk to Kasturba Gandhi about sex, or the lack of it, she's far too discreet to say so. But, according to Judith Brown, celibacy for Gandhi was only superficially about the renunciation of sex: it was one building block, among others, in the construction of a life-style that would make what he called the pursuit of truth possible.

And while her sexual life was obviously something that Millie Polak could keep secret from Gandhi, her dietary one wasn't. As far as possible the extended family ate together in the evenings and, from what she says, dining chez Gandhi was a constant laboratory of denial. And Gandhi, Millie Polak soon had to accept, wanted a broader canvas on which to work out his theories.

Only four months after she'd arrived in South Africa, she was told the household was moving, to become part of a larger social experiment at a place called Phoenix mohandas gandhi brief biography of prophet outside Durban. The Phoenix settlement was destroyed in ethnic violence during the s. Today there's still a wonderful mixture of exotic vegetation in Phoenix: the camel-foot, the people tree, mangoes, the Indian temple tree and Indian mynah birds, brought across because they could talk so well.

That anything other than its exotic vegetation remains of Gandhi's communal settlement at Phoenix is largely the work of Durban-based architect Rodney Harber. Gandhi's own house, called Sarvadoya, and all the other original buildings were razed to the ground in a frenzy of anti-Indian violence in during the dark years at the tail-end of apartheid.

It was important for his home city, Rodney Harber felt, that Phoenix lived up to its name and rose again. Though it took fourteen years of patient negotiation with the people who'd occupied the site, Rodney Harber was finally able to re-build Gandhi's house. Gandhi had acquired the land at Phoenix because in he'd spent a sleepless night on a train from Johannesburg to Durban reading a book that Henry Polak had given him.

The book was John Ruskin's moral and aesthetic critique of industrial capitalism Unto This Lastand it convinced Gandhi that the trappings of western materialism were indeed traps. He brought his extended family here to experiment with living as simply as possible. But Millie Polak, for one, didn't much like what she saw. It's now densely built over with small houses as far as one can see, but a hundred years ago this was virgin territory.

The original settlers here lived under canvas while they constructed simple corrugated iron shacks, and each household was given a small plot for growing vegetables. Phoenix was described at the time as "a hundred acres of fruit trees and snakes", and what to do with the resident mambas was a constant problem for a community in which all life was held to be sacred.

But Phoenix wasn't just about a group of like-minded people experimenting with living together as simply as possible. They also had a political job to do: and everyone in the community, male and female, adults and children, were expected to pull their weight to bring out the weekly edition of the newspaper Indian Opinion. Gandhi himself wrote a large part of each issue of the paper, and its columns show perhaps more clearly than anything else the particular mix of the personal, the religious and the political that became his unique public stance.

The focus, naturally, was on the struggle against anti-Indian discrimination in both Natal and the Transvaal, and on how it was being viewed in Britain and in India. But public wrongs, Gandhi had come to argue, could only be effectively resisted by those who lived rightly: so amidst the political detail readers would find admonishing editorials about such things as tobacco:.

The paper instructed its readers on 'the importance of the admission of fresh air into bedrooms'; and, more worryingly from a public-health point of view, on how to deal with cholera and typhoid:. If western scientific medicine was one thing Gandhi railed against, another was religious intolerance: and he used the pages of Indian Opinion to enlighten his readers about faiths other than their own.

Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Theosophists were all given space. And for Millie Polak, as the political situation impinged more and more on the life of the community, what we would now call inter-faith gatherings in the Gandhis' living-room at Phoenix became ever more important:. And one of the very first things Millie Polak had asked Gandhi about after her arrival in South Africa was why he kept a picture of Jesus on the wall above his desk.

Gandhi, of course, was to work tirelessly to expose and undermine the Hindu caste system. But while in South Africa he had to accept that Millie Polak wasn't going to keep quiet about those aspects of Indian culture she found offensive. Towards the end of their time together at Phoenix a middle-aged follower of Gandhi returned to the settlement from a trip to India bringing with him a newly-acquired child bride.

And Millie Polak couldn't resist a particularly difficult request Gandhi made of her just before he finally left South Africa to return to India in She was anxious, after more than eight years away, to get back to England with her husband and the two young sons they now had. But Gandhi needed people he could trust to stay and continue his work at Phoenix; and when he asked the Polaks, they agreed.

So it would have been with a heavy heart that Millie travelled down to the Cape to say goodbye to the brilliantly strange Indian man with whom she had shared so much over the previous years. Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience.

Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated.