By the end of November, the strike had spread to the north and south coast of Natal and was not just confined to the mining industry. Railway workers, laundrymen, bakery workers, as well as workers in other sectors stopped working.
Numerous incidents occurred between strikers and the authorities and many were arrested. A march of striking persons took place from 6 to 13 November, meant to build consciousness and unity. The march went through the Transvaal, inviting arrest. On November 10, marchers were arrested and deported to Natal. Gandhi was arrested and sentenced to three months in prison. By the end of the year, workers began to go back to work gradually.
Events in South Africa attracted attention in India. Viceroy Harding expressed his support for the movement in a speech made on 26 November London finally communicated its displeasure with the handling of Indian affairs to the South African government. A commission was appointed to look into circumstances of the strike, but was not specifically focused on Indian grievances.
However, it was difficult to ignore issues like the 3-pound tax, immigration restrictions, and the non-recognition of Hindu and Muslim marriages, at the heart of the Satyagraha movement.
Gandhi was released unconditionally from prison on 18 December so he could prepare to testify in front of the commission. Kasturba was released on 22 December. The negotiations went slowly, but in June an agreement was reached. The Indian Relief Bill was a compromise that abolished the 3-pound tax and recognized non-Christian marriages.
Immigration laws were relaxed for educated Indians and the importation of indentured labour was to stop in However, free movement of Indians from one province to another in the Union was not permitted. She stood with her husband in receptions; they were garlanded with flowers, photographed with officials and hailed by cheerful crowds.
On 18 July , she sailed for England, before going back to India. She assisted her husband in numerous ways, and also adopted causes of her own, appealing to Indian women. Gandhi became involved in his first full-scale campaign in India in , over the condition of indigo farmers in Champaran, Bihar. The farmers were subjected to an oppressive system of land tenure highly profitable to English landowners.
Kasturba travelled to Champaran with her son Devadas to assist her husband. Kasturba tried to reach Indian women with a special message. She believed that they had to learn to be self-sufficient, by learning spinning and weaving. This way, women could lead to change within their household, and discourage the consumption of foreign products, like cloth. She also joined Gandhi during meetings when she could, sitting next to him and spinning.
This influenced other women in participating in meetings. Pictures of her spinning and weaving appeared frequently in Indian newspapers. When Gandhi inaugurated a nation-wide boycott of foreign-made goods by staging public bonfires, Kasturba insisted on burning her favourite sari.
He was sentenced to six years in prison. Following the trial, Kasturba made an appeal in Young India , published on 23 March She encouraged people to give up foreign cloth and to persuade others to do so, women to spin and produce yarn, and merchants to stop trading in foreign goods.
Kasturba with members of her family. In , an All-India Satyagraha campaign was proclaimed, the goal being independence in one year. As part of the campaign, Gandhi organised a salt march of miles, from Sabamarti ashram to the sea of Dandi. By gathering salt, the Satyagrahis broke the salt law establishing a government monopoly on the manufacture of salt. With more and more men being arrested as part of the campaign, Kasturba believed it was up to women to continue the civil disobedience campaign.
She left the running of the ashram to others and resumed her travels, urging women to take part in a new phase of civil disobedience: the picketing of government-owned liquor store. Her pleas were persuasive and liquor sales fell tremendously. Gandhi left for London in August for the Round Table Conference , meant to discuss constitutional reforms in India.
However discussions were unsuccessful and this sparked protests in India. The government took drastic steps in crushing the civil disobedience campaigns. Civil liberties were suspended and a high number of Indians were arrested in January and February Kasturba was also arrested at Sabarmati ashram, along with other women. This was her first incarceration in India, but it would not be the last. It granted separate electorates to Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and so forth, but also established a separate electorate for Untouchables.
For Gandhi, this was unacceptable because it would write caste discrimination in the constitution. By fasting, Gandhi reached his goal and the Yeravda Pact was signed on 26 September It declared that no one was to be regarded as an Untouchable.
This was a significant victory for human rights in India. Kasturba resumed her duties as soon as she was free and took up the Harijan Untouchable cause. On December , she represented her husband at the opening of an anti-Untouchability Conference in Madras. From there, she went on a tour of the region to plead for Untouchable rights. She was furthermore sent back to prison in February , presumably for disregarding a government warning to refrain from civil disobedience.
She was now regarded as much as a threat as Gandhi by British officials because of her ability to involve women. In , uprisings against arbitrary rule by local princes erupted across India. In Rajkot, protest campaigns were underway.
He would kidnap women, take them to his royal summerhouse, molest them, and release them. Kasturba urged women in Rajkot to join the protest and stand up for their rights.
She was however arrested on 3 February by the Thakore officials. The conflict reached its climax when Gandhi became involved and started a new fast. What was a regional conflict became a full-scale political crisis.
Finally, on 7 March, an agreement was reached. All prisoners were released and a political reform committee was appointed. Within a year, 23, persons were imprisoned. Furthermore, when Japan became a threat to South Asia, Britain committed India to the war without consulting Indian leaders and the population. Unless British rule ended, a mass civil disobedience campaign would be launched once again with Gandhi as a leader.
The final decision regarding this issue was supposed to be made at a meeting of the All-India Congress Committee in early August.
However, Gandhi and other leaders were arrested after the start of the proceedings. Gandhi was supposed to address a mass meeting at Shivaji Park on the evening of his arrest, and Kasturba decided to do it in his place. She delivered her address in front of an estimated , persons and was taken to prison soon after. Kasturba was imprisoned in Aga Khan palace with her husband for the last years of her life. Her health had been fragile for many years, and she died in Aga Khan palace on 22 February , after suffering from numerous heart attacks.
She was 74 years old. Bhana, S. Duphelia-Mestrie, Uma, Erikson, Erik, Gandhi, Arun. Gandhi, Arun and Gandhi Sunanda, Gandhi, M. Ba and Bapu, Ahmedabad: Navajivan Pub. Kasturba Memorial. Pyarelal, Nair, Simha, Savita, Sinha, B. Swan, Maureen, Thomson, Mark, Reddi, E. Kasturba Gandhi by Vinay Lal.
Gandhi and Kasturba with children in India In June , Kasturba became pregnant with her first child. Kasturba Gandhi and her sons Kasturba and Gandhi spent the next three years separated. The couple was born months apart, and she was 14 when they got married and Gandhi At the beginning of their relationship, this need to exercise control is said to have manifested itself in fits of jealousy. Although a child himself, he imposed upon her unreasonable restrictions, asking her to seek his permission every time she wanted to step out of the house.
As was customary at the time, she followed his mother, with whom they were then living, to the temple, only to be later censured by Gandhi, who was upset she disobeyed his orders. This obstinacy, one Gandhi regarded grudgingly for much of his life, kept Kasturba grounded in their tumultuous relationship.
Often, she did so without complaint, but always taking her time. She was slow to accept caste equality, for example. Also read: This leader forced Mahatma Gandhi to change his views on caste. She participated, and it wrecked her health too, but nothing stopped her from dedicating herself to satyagraha.
She was arrested three more times upon returning to India, including in , when the women of Rajkot asked her to protest with them against British rule. It earned her a month of solitary confinement. If Gandhi beckoned women to join the movement, it was Kasturba who gave them conviction.
They should all join in this struggle, regardless of caste or creed. Truth and nonviolence must be our watchwords. He also allowed British doctors to perform an appendectomy on him, an alien operation if ever there was one. None of this made it to the screen. In real life, Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy of India as Britain fell back before Nazi might: "This manslaughter must be stopped. You are losing; if you persist, it will only result in greater bloodshed.
Hitler is not a bad man You will give all these, but neither your soul, nor your mind. He wrote about his illiterate wife: "I simply cannot bear to look at Ba's face. The expression is often like that on the face of a meek cow and gives one the feeling as a cow occasionally does, that in her own dump manner she is saying something.
His son eventuallty attacked Gandhi in print, converted to Islam, and died an alcoholic. Grenier's article has more, and it gets wore.
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