Life Summary: Gandhi, Lifelong Law-Defier

After training to be a lawyer, the man who would come to be known as Gandhi ended up spending the rest of his life encouraging others to break laws in order to attain the rights they deserve. This is the timeline of how he fought against injustice and changed the lives of Indians all around the world. 

1869 – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is born to a wealthy family in Porbandar, India—a British colony. His father is a political leader. His mother is a religious woman who believes in Hinduism. He has 2 half sisters, 2 older brothers and 1 older sister. They live in a 3-storey house with servants. They are vegetarians.

Age 7 – Gandhi and his family move to the city of Rajkot. His parents arrange a marriage for him with a girl his age—Kasturbai—who is the daughter of a good friend of his father. 

Age 13 – Gandhi and Kasturbai marry. They have a big wedding. He takes a year off to learn how to be a husband. 

 Age 14 onwards – Gandhi returns to school. He and Kasturbai have a son. 

Age 18 – Gandhi completes high school. He attends college but after 1 semester returns home. He decides to study law in England instead. 

Age 19 – The leaders of the Modh Bania caste Gandhi belongs to reminds him that travelling overseas is against the caste’s rules and that he might be kicked out and become an untouchable if he goes. Gandhi goes anyway. He attends University College and becomes a member of the London Vegetarian Society.

Age 22 – He graduates and returns to India to find that his mother had died while he was away. His caste has disowned him and he has to bathe in the sacred Godavari River in order to be a part of them again. He gets a job but realises he is too shy to be a lawyer. 

Age 24 – Gandhi and his wife have another son. He gets a job as a lawyer for a merchant in South Africa and leaves his wife and sons under his brother’s care to go work there. There, he is discriminated for his race and gathers the Indian community to push for fair treatment of Indians in South Africa.

Age 25 – Despite having finished his case in South Africa, Gandhi remains there and sets up the Natal Indian Congress so that Indians can be involved in government in South Africa because they presently have limited rights. 

Age 27 onwards – He returns to India and brings his wife, sons and a nephew back to South Africa with him. He and his wife have 2 more sons. 

Age 30 – During the Boer War, Gandhi puts together an Indian ambulance corps with over 1000 volunteers to help South Africans but the Indians in South Africa continue to have limited rights. 

Age 34 – He starts a weekly journal called the Indian Opinion, writing about what is happening in the government, how to treat sickness with natural medicines and also the benefits of a vegetarian diet. 

Age 35 – He develops a philosophy of life he calls satyagraha, meaning—truth force—which includes ideas about using non-violent ways of breaking the law if the law is unfair, loving others instead of fighting them and living a simple life with very few possessions. He sets up a settlement called Phoenix Settlement for those who follow satyagraha to live together.  

Age 37 – The South African government passes a law that requires Indians to register with the government and allows police to stop Indians to prove they had been registered or search their homes. Gandhi sees hatred of Indians in this and pushes his followers to break the law. They are sent to jail but they believe it to be the honourable thing to do. 

Age 40 – Gandhi founds an even bigger settlement called Tolstoy Farm.

Age 45 – The government of South Africa finally passes the Indian Relief Act which ends the unfair taxes Indians have to pay in South Africa and allows Hindu marriages to be recognised by law at last. His work done in South Africa, Gandhi returns to India to work on allowing India to govern itself.

Age 46 – He creates a settlement similar to the ones he had created in South Africa and calls it the Satyagraha Ashram. He allows those from the untouchable caste to join this settlement, even when some of Satyagraha Ashram’s members object. 

Age 50 – The British pass the Rowlatt Acts, making it illegal for any group to organise against the government. Gandhi calls for a strike to protest against it and Indians across India refuse to go to work for one day. When the British government fire on a crowd of people who had gathered to celebrate Vaisakhi Day (a new year’s day for many Indians) and hadn’t heard about the ban on gatherings, Gandhi decides to actively fight back against British rule. 

Age 51 – Gandhi becomes leader of the Indian National Congress and encourages Indians to make and buy their own cloth instead of British ones. This becomes a national symbol for India’s independence. Gandhi leaves his settlement and family to spread the message through the rest of India wearing Indian-spun cloth and sandals. 

Age 53 – He is arrested for sedition and is sentenced to 6 years in prison. There, he reads and studies and continues to spin cloth daily. 

Age 55 – He is released 2 years early and goes right back to work, this time trying to solve the disputes between Hindus and Muslims in India. To get them to listen to each other, he begins a 3-week fast. The religious leaders agree to try to live with each other peacefully to get him to break his fast. 

Age 61 – Gandhi and some of the dwellers at his settlement begin a march from the settlement to the sea to defy the Salt Acts—which basically says all Indians have to buy salt from the British and will not be allowed to make their own using seawater. Along the way, he acquires hundreds of followers. A week later, tens of thousands of Indians living along the coastline defy the Salt Acts by making and selling their own salt. They are soon arrested and jailed and Gandhi is too. This time however, the British receive criticism from the rest of the world for doing so. In exchange for Gandhi calling off the civil-disobedience campaign, the British release all prisoners and allow Indians to make their own salt at last. 

Age 62 – Gandhi travels to London with a few supporters to speak for an independent India. Instead of putting on a suit like everybody else, he remains in his Indian cloth and sandals and makes the front page of world news. Upon returning to India however, he is arrested again for starting another non-cooperation campaign, this time against the British’s decision to keep the untouchables class separate from the rest of Indians. In prison, he refuses to eat unless the government gives up their plans for that and they eventually agree. 

Age 73 – During World War 2, he starts the “Quit India” movement telling British forces that Indians will support them in the war if they agree to leave India at the end of it. He, his wife and followers are arrested again when riots break out around India because of this campaign.

Age 75 – His wife dies from bronchitis in prison. Gandhi contracts malaria and is released early to recuperate. 

Age 76 – World War II ends. Great Britain, broke from the war, finally agrees to give India its independence. Gandhi and other Indian leaders meet to work out their new form of government. 

Age 78 – India becomes independent but Hindus and Muslims continue to clash, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process. 

Age 79 – Gandhi begins a fast to get the religious groups to stop fighting. After 5 days of fasting, the religious leaders agree again at last. A few days later, a lone Hindu extremist shoots Gandhi 3 times in the chest when he steps onto a platform to lead a prayer meeting. Gandhi dies that evening and is mourned by the prime minister of India. 

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Photographs: Public Domain. Compiler: Sy
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