The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi (The Robert Payne Library)

by Robert Payne

  Since the Congress would not officially be open for two days, he decided to make himself useful. At the Congress office he asked whether there was any service he could perform, to the amazed delight of a little functionary who set him to work answering the letters he was too lazy to answer himself. He was a self-important little man, who spoke in the authentic tradition of the babu. “Take that chair and begin,” he commanded. “As you see, hundreds of people come to see me. What am I to do? Am I to meet them, or am I to answer these busybodies inundating me with letters? I have no clerks to whom I can entrust this work. Most of these letters have nothing in them, but you will please look them through. Acknowledge those that are worth it, and refer to me those that need a considered reply.”

  Gandhi played his role with a straight face, happy to be in the presence of a man who claimed quite untruthfully to be one of the founding fathers of the Congress. He listened amiably when the functionary dilated at length about himself, and he fastened the functionary’s shirt-buttons, and all the time he was learning about the workings of the Congress. He met most of the leaders, and by the time the Congress opened he knew his way around the Congress as well, or better, than most of the dignitaries who attended.

  Gokhale took charge of him: the kindly, sensible, down-to-earth Gokhale, who did not talk about himself and did not need his shirt-buttons fastened. Although he was only three years older than Gandhi, he behaved like a father. He was concerned with the way Gandhi spoke, dressed, walked and ate; he wanted to know Gandhi’s opinions on every subject under the sun; and though their opinions often differed, there was an immediate bond between them. Twenty years later Gandhi wrote that he was “pure as crystal, gentle as a lamb, brave as a lion and chivalrous to a fault.” And it was Gokhale who saved the day when the question of Gandhi’s resolution “on behalf of the hundred thousand British Indians in South Africa” arose. They were rushing mechanically through the resolutions, and suddenly Sir Pherozeshah Mehta exclaimed with satisfaction that they had come to the end of them.

  “No, no, there is still the resolution on South Africa,” Gokhale cried out. “Mr. Gandhi has been waiting for a long time.”

  The resolution was read out and unanimously passed. Gandhi was then permitted to speak for five minutes on the subject. It was an opportunity he had been looking forward to for a long time. He had prepared the speech in his mind, but when he rose to face the delegates the terrible nervousness which afflicted him at times of crisis overcame him. He spoke haltingly and ineffectively. After three minutes the president rang a bell. Gandhi did not know that the bell was rung two minutes before the end of every speech, as a warning. He promptly sat down, hurt and confused, more nervous than ever. A few moments later the delegates dispersed.

  Gokhale had pity on him and invited him to stay in his house, and Gandhi accepted the invitation joyfully. As an honored guest Gandhi was introduced to all the distinguished visitors who came to the house. Gokhale had a nice way of judging character. “This is Professor Ray,” he would say. “He has a monthly salary of eight hundred rupees, keeps forty for himself and devotes the balance to public purposes. He does not want to get married.” Gandhi reveled in such men, and Gokhale was only too pleased to bring them to Gandhi’s attention.

  They had no secrets from each other, and soon their relationship was so close that Gandhi permitted himself the luxury of criticizing his mentor. When Gokhale paid a visit to one of his friends in Calcutta, he would drive in his own horse-carriage. Gandhi approved of simplicity. Would it not be cheaper, and more virtuous, to take a tramcar? Gokhale gently reminded his pupil that if he took a tramcar he would be overwhelmed with people who wanted to talk with him. He was the victim of a great deal of publicity, and therefore everyone who saw him in the street felt he had the right to importune him. “I love your simple habits,” Gokhale said. “I live as simply as I can, but some expense is almost inevitable in a man like myself.”

  Gandhi was taken aback; he fully realized the necessity of horse-carriages. But from time to time he would find excuses to lecture Gokhale on other habits. He did not take enough exercise, did not eat properly, saw too many inconsequential people. Later he would write letters, and there would usually be a sentence beginning: “If I may be permitted to observe,” and there would follow another stricture, another attempt to simplify his life. Gokhale took it all in good heart, like a saint.

  After a month with Gokhale in Calcutta, Gandhi paid a flying visit to Rangoon, where he approved of the drainage system, the wide streets, the energy and freedom of the Burmese women, and disapproved of the innumerable candles burning in the Golden Pagoda and the indolence of Burmese men. He also disapproved of the fact that the Indian and British merchants combined to exploit the Burmese. When he returned to Calcutta, he decided to make a leisurely progress across India, passing through Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and Palanpur, before making his way to Rajkot. He would travel third class and deliberately merge himself with his countrymen.

  At first Gokhale ridiculed the idea, for what can a man gain by traveling miserably across India? Finally he gave his approval, and accompanied Gandhi to the railroad station, saying that he would not have bothered to come if his friend was traveling first class, but anyone who traveled third class deserved a proper send-off. Gandhi had been wearing an immaculate pair of trousers and a full-length Parsi coat while attending the Congress, but now wore the usual dress of a Hindu. He carried a cheap canvas bag with his belongings and the metal tiffin-box filled with sweet-balls which Gokhale gave him as a farewell present.

  Gandhi never enjoyed traveling third class in India, although he rarely traveled in any other way. Third class in South Africa was usually reserved for Negroes, but it was considerably more comfortable than in India, for there were cushioned seats, sleeping accommodation, and regulations against overcrowding were enforced. In India there was always overcrowding, there was no sleeping accommodation, and cushioned seats were unheard of. Worse still, the third-class compartments were littered with refuse, betel juice, chewed tobacco, spittle, with the result that they resembled vast spittoons. Gandhi hated the noise, the shouting, the yelling, the foul language, the exactions of the officials, the appalling discomfort. “Third class passengers are treated like sheep and their comforts are sheep’s comforts,” he wrote. He felt that the only thing that could be done to improve the Indian trains was to wage an implacable war against the railroad authorities.

  Discomfort and misery were his lot throughout most of the tour. In Benares, after bathing in the Ganges, he visited the great Kashi Vish-wanath temple, sacred to the god Siva, reaching it by way of narrow, slippery lanes. The stench of great masses of rotten flowers greeted him. He had expected to be disillusioned, but could not guess at the extent of the disillusion which finally overcame him. The screaming of the shopkeepers, the swarms of flies, the pestering priests, the dirt and ugliness offended him. He offered a pie, the smallest coin existing in India, to a priest as a contribution, who cursed him and said: “This insult will take you straight to hell.”

  Gandhi knew how to deal with obstructive priests.

  “Maharaj,” he said, “whatever fate has in store for me, it does not behoove one of your class to indulge in such language. You may take this pie if you like, or you may lose that too.”

  At first the priest refused to take the pie, but later relented, saying that if he refused it, things would fare ill for the giver.

  He had wanted to receive the darshan, or sacred view, of Siva, standing in the holy place, but everything about the place was unsettling. At different times he paid two more visits to the golden temple, and each time he was revolted. In later years it was impossible for him to visit the temple, for people had become so eager to receive his darshan that he would be prevented from receiving the darshan of the god. While describing this first visit to the Vishwanath temple and remembering his later visits, Gandhi wrote one of his most memorable sentences: “The woes of Mahatmas are known to Mahatmas alone.”


  Gandhi was not yet a Mahatma; this was a term he reserved exclusively for Gokhale. He was still little known in India, and as he wandered from place to place carrying his metal tiffin-box and canvas bag worth twelve annas, he was scarcely to be distinguished from all the other wandering pilgrims.

  Before leaving Benares he paid a courtesy visit on Mrs. Annie Besant, the theosophist and brilliant advocate of Indian freedom. She was known to be convalescing from a long bout of illness. He therefore sent in his name, and when she appeared, he spoke three sentences to her and departed. He had wanted to have her darshan and to express his affection for her, and he saw no reason to waste her time.

  When he reached Rajkot, he settled down to practice law, but without confidence. The memory of past failures oppressed him; the man who spoke so boldly in Durban was tongue-tied in India. Kevalram Mavji Dave, the lawyer who was chiefly responsible for his decision to study law in England, took pity on him, insisting that he was wasting his talents in a small provincial town and would do better in Bombay. But he liked having his family around him, he was in bad health, the doctor was saying that at the very least he should have two or three months’ rest, and he was not convinced that he would make a good Bombay lawyer. He spent all the spring and half the summer in Rajkot, and in July, with the help of a remittance from friends in Natal amounting to over three thousand rupees, he took chambers in Bombay and rented a house at Girgaum in the outskirts. When he went to ask Sir Pherozeshah Mehta for his blessing, he was told that he was more deserving of a curse: he would only waste away his small savings. But Gokhale gave the blessing that Sir Pherozeshah denied, and promised all the help he could render. Kevalram Mavji Dave promised to send on all the important Kathiawar cases which passed his way. By August Gandhi was seriously thinking of spending the rest of his life as a Bombay lawyer. He wrote to a friend: “I do not despair. I rather appreciate the regular life and the struggle that Bombay imposes on one. So long, therefore, as the latter does not become unbearable, I am not likely to wish to be out of Bombay.”

  As a married man settling down to a quiet professional career, Gandhi found himself thinking about life insurance. If he died, his wife and children would be supported by his brother Laxmidas, but there was no guarantee that they would receive more than tidbits from the family table. Accordingly, when an American insurance agent came to visit him in his chambers, he was in a receptive mood. The American was handsome, smooth-tongued and convincing. He suggested that Gandhi should buy a policy that would give his family ten thousand rupees at his death. The figure seemed reasonable, and for some months Gandhi continued to pay his assessments. Later he became angry with himself for having fallen into the trap laid by the insurance agent, and he let the policy lapse. “In getting my life insured I had robbed my wife and children of their self-reliance,” he argued. “Why should they not be expected to take care of themselves? What happened to the families of the numberless poor in the world? Why should I not count myself as one of them?”

  About this time his second son Manilal, who had been through an acute attack of smallpox some years back, came down with a severe attack of typhoid. The boy was delirious at night and there were indications that he was also suffering from pneumonia. A doctor recommended eggs, chicken broth and milk, to increase the boy’s strength. Gandhi was appalled. As a vegetarian, he could not countenance either eggs or chicken broth, and he was dubious about milk. There were some things which could not be done even to preserve life, and one of those things was the taking of life. He decided to assume the role of doctor and explained exactly what he was doing to his son. Accordingly Manilal was submitted to hip baths according to the formula devised by Dr. Ludwig Kühne, a well-known German hydrotherapist, and to a three-day fast interrupted with occasional sips of orange juice mixed with water. Gandhi embarked on the experiment boldly in the firm belief that the body would heal itself, that nothing was gained by medicine or food, and that God would punish anyone who drank chicken broth. Manilal was very ill and had a temperature of 104 degrees, and there was no observable improvement in his condition. Desperate measures were needed, for the boy was fading before his eyes.

  One night while he was lying in bed with the boy, the thought struck him that he might be cured with the aid of a wet sheet pack. He jumped up, soaked a sheet in water, wrung it out, wrapped Manilal in it, and then covered him with two blankets. There was a wet towel round his head, and his young body was “burning like hot iron.” The skin was dry, and there was no perspiration.

  He had taken a risk—one of the gravest he had ever taken—and now, leaving his son in charge of Kasturbai, he walked out of the house into the dark streets with the name of Kama on his lips. “My honour is in thy keeping, O Lord, in this hour of trial,” he prayed, and returned to find Manilal perspiring freely, his temperature going down. The miracle had happened. For forty days Manilal was permitted only orange juice and diluted milk. In spite of enforced starvation he recovered his health.

  With his success in curing Manilal, Gandhi’s faith in his powers as a physician increased. Henceforth he would offer his advice freely on all diseases, for in his view they could all be cured by fasting, wet sheet packs and the recitation of the name of God. Without any medical training whatsoever, he would write articles and pamphlets on the subject of health and disease with the immense authority that comes from prolonged success. His second career as doctor and medical adviser, which he practiced to the end of his life, had begun.

  The small, damp and ill-lit house at Girgaum was perhaps responsible for Manilal’s illness. Gandhi decided he must find a better house, and spent some days searching for one in the outer suburbs. At last his eyes fell on a well-ventilated bungalow in Santa Cruz and he settled his family in it. Then every morning he would take the train from Santa Cruz to Church-gate, feeling a certain pride in the fact that he was often the only first-class passenger.

  He was neither successful nor unsuccessful in his legal career. Although he received no High Court cases, he was given a few minor cases. He had the use of the High Court library and he attended trials in the High Court, more for the pleasure of sitting by the open windows and enjoying the sea breezes than in the pursuit of knowledge. He was not the only young barrister who attended the High Court for this reason, and he was happy to follow the fashion.

  From time to time Gokhale would appear in his office, usually bringing some distinguished personage who might be useful to his professional career. A desultory, uncomplicated and not very promising career was opening up for him, and he seemed to be content. He appears to have lost touch with his friends in Durban, who thought he was in Rajkot at a time when he had been practicing law in Bombay for five months. Suddenly there came a telegram from Durban: “Barrister Gandhi, Rajkot, Committee requests fulfill promise. Remitting.” In this way he was summoned back to South Africa.

  Leaving his wife and family in the bungalow at Santa Cruz, he sailed for South Africa about the middle of November 1902. He reached Durban just in time, for important work was waiting for him.

  Phoenix

  THE WORK confronting Gandhi when he returned to South Africa was the most difficult he had ever been asked to perform. The Indian communities were in a state of panic because the rules under which they lived were being changed as a result of the British victory over the Boers. Restrictions had grown harsher, and they were especially harsh in the Transvaal. Joseph Chamberlain, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, had come to South Africa on a tour of inspection with two important aims: they were, in Gandhi’s words, “to get a gift of 35 million pounds from South Africa, and to win the hearts of Englishmen and Boers.” The gift, or rather loan, was intended to repay the British Treasury for the cost of the war, and Chamberlain was less concerned with winning the hearts of Englishmen and Boers than with arranging a conciliatory settlement. In the new South Africa emerging after the war, the Indians were regarded with the same indifference as the Kaffirs, the Zulus and the Malays who had settled in larg
e numbers in the ports. Gandhi’s task was to ensure that the Indians received fair treatment in the new order of things.

  It was an appallingly difficult task because all his arguments in favor of the Indians could be turned against him. Not long after he arrived in South Africa he met Lionel Curtis, a British official in the Transvaal, who was concerned with problems of Indian immigration. An intelligent and sympathetic man, he listened carefully to Gandhi’s pleading on the frugality, industry and patience of his countrymen, and when it was over he said: “Mr. Gandhi, you are preaching to the converted. It is not the vices of Indians that Europeans in this country fear but their virtues.”

  Gandhi’s memorials and petitions addressed to high officials always stressed the virtues of the Indians. He wrote, or helped to write a long petition to Joseph Chamberlain emphasizing that they were orderly, law-abiding and respectable, a credit to any community, but the Secretary of State could only reply in the tones of a man who is preoccupied with more important matters: “I shall do what I can, but you must try your best to placate the Europeans, if you wish to live in their midst.” Since the Europeans were in no mood to be placated, nothing was gained from the interview. Gandhi had hoped that Chamberlain would throw his weight on the side of the Indians, but there seemed to be very little likelihood that he would do so.