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My name is Michall Hussein. Gandhi touched my life and those of hundreds of millions. He was the Indian messiah who brought the British Empire to its knees. the activist who taught the world a new way to make history. He was the visionary who called for a world without racial or religious discrimination. The martyr who in 1948 at the age of 79 fell to an assassin's bullet. Internationally, Gandhi is revered as the father of nonviolent struggle. But I was brought up with a rather different picture of Gandhi. My family were Muslims in India at the time of independence. They didn't feel that he
was a leader for them or understood the fears they had about an independent India dominated by Hindus. In the end, they were among the millions who left for the new state of Pakistan. We think we know this story of the visionary in traditional dress, but what of the gentleman barrista? We know of Gandhi the vegetarian, but what of the Gandhi who craved meat? We know the pacifist, but what of the Gandhi who put his faith in jihad? I want to discover for myself the real Gandhi, the man behind the Mahatma, the human being behind the contradictions.
This is a man who in the final years of his life said that people weren't listening to him anymore, preferring to just take his picture instead. I'd like to find out more about what he was saying and whether we should be listening to him today. Mumbai. I a chaotically modern westernized city at the sharp end of India's thrusting economy whose urban English-speaking middle classes seem increasingly comfortable with the new international religion consumerism. What would Gandhi have made of all this? I wonder. Is there still room for his spiritual non-materialistic nonviolent message in modernday Mumbai?
It's a piece of history that, you know, we are very proud of. Uh, and that's where it ends. I want to be rich. You know, I want to make money. I want to be successful. And I don't know whether Gandhi stood for that. And yet, wherever you go in this city, it seems Gandhi is looking down on you. From statues, pictures, banknotes, streets, and buildings bearing his name. India seems to have a bit of a lovehate relationship with its ursw leader. To find out about the Indian prophet who preached truth and nonviolence. I'm heading northwest to Porbandha in the state of Gujarat where Mahandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October the 2nd 1869.
He was born in an India very different to today, a country wholly subservient to the British Empire. And the thriving fishing port of Poor Bander was no exception. Gandhi's birthplace still exists. A surprise to discover that the future leader of India's masses was born into a fairly well-off middleclass family. His father a senior civil servant working for the government was in this room exactly at this place wearing the swastika that Gandhi was born. That's the exact spot that Mahatma Gandhi was born in. And um it was in this room that his extraordinary life began. In these beautiful rooms, there's no real clue that they witnessed the
formative years of India's preeminent spiritual and political leader. It's only when you step into the courtyard of the rather overblown adjoining Gandhi memorial that the importance of these early years is pulled into sharper focus. specifically in the two words engraved in the marble beneath his portrait. They are a himsa which means nonviolence and satya which means truth. A himsa underpins Hinduism's vegetarian philosophy as in nonviolence towards animals. But it's also central to another Indian faith, Janism. The Jane monks he would have seen on the streets of Poor Bander wore masks over their faces to avoid inhaling and harming even the tiniest creature. I met up with a local Jane
monk who told me that his commitment to nonviolence is based on the right of all beings to exist equally and the commitment even extends to the equal rights of all religions. It was Gandhi's mother herself drawn to Janism who first exposed her son to the idea of nonviolence as the road to spiritual and social equality. Satya or truth is another Gandhian principle a seed also planted in his early years. Gandhi himself records seeing a traveling production of Haris Chandra, the story of the truthful king who refuses to deviate from the path of truth.
But he pays a heavy price. He has to leave his kingdom and his palaces. Worse still, he loses his wife and son. For his steadfastness, the gods offer the king a place in heaven with his family and all his subjects. Gandhi writes in his autobiography that the play affected him deeply. The idea of truth as the path to eternal salvation would stay with him for life. Gandhi's legacy in his hometown is obvious. In recognition of its most famous son, the whole state of Gujarat is vegetarian and alcohol-free. Though for some locals, even that's not enough. atma and I've been asking why he does this and he
says in not only in memory of Gandhi G but also so people in poor band and all over the world will remember him as a young school boy there was no hint of the future holy man or freedom fighter His horizon was limited like that of most boys of his age. But I do wonder if Gandhi would have become quite as remarkable a man without the spirit of adventure you breathe in a port like Poor Bander. Gandhi would have watched ships come and go from here throughout his childhood. He would have wondered what goods they were bringing in and wondered where the outgoing ships were destined for. He was a child of a port city. the sea would
have been in his blood. And as a young boy looking out on these waters, he must have thought about what lay beyond them and thought about the travels that he might undertake in his own life. For the moment, adventure was put on hold as education took center stage and a new element in Gandhi's makeup took shape. His spirit of rebellion. Gandhi moved with his family here to Rajkot where his father was state prime minister and in 1880 at the age of 11 he passed the entrance exam into this high school where he was to be educated in English. He was an average student but he admits in his own writing that he was easily distracted in his early teens. The main reason seems to have been his marriage
at the age of 13. Her name was Casturba, a neighbor's daughter from back in Porbander. It wasn't unusual for boys to be married so young. But Gandhi seems to have become incredibly jealous, wondering what his wife was getting up to while he was stuck at school. But what interests me is Gandhi's defiant attitude towards authority and convention. He admits to drinking, stealing, and surprisingly eating meat. He thought that the vegetarian diet of his fellow countrymen had made them feeble and that meat eating was the only way to oust the ruling Brits. Why don't we?
He had already. According to Ushakant Manad, who looks after the Gandhi house here in Rajkot, this was typical of the boy. You know, in his early days, he was a very bad boy. As I said, he had taken meat. He had taken wine. He had taken womanizing, he had taken stolen gold from his father's pocket. All these vices were there in while he was living here. That's not to say the teenage Gandhi didn't have a conscience. Far from it. His vow to always tell the truth compelled him to confess his crimes to his father, who he records wept silently. And there were more signs that Gandhi
was a rebel with a conscience. In his last years of high school, his father fell seriously ill. Gandhi kept a dutiful vigil at his bedside. rooms of the family. But one night, Mahandas crept from his ailing father's room to make love to his pregnant wife. His father died during his absence. It made a tremendous impression which he later recorded in his autobiography. I felt deeply ashamed and miserable. I ran to my father's room. and I saw that if animal passion had not blinded me, he would have died in my arms. He was 16 years old. A few months later, the baby that Kasurba was carrying died within a few days of its birth. Gandhi viewed it as divine retribution for deserting his father in the moment of his death.
The incident colored his view of sex, of his wife, even of his own imperfection. But all that lay in the distant future, Gandhi had yet to break out of Rajkot. 2 years after the death of his father and the 18-year-old Gandhi was to leave school and launch himself into the world. He felt claustrophobic at home. He wanted an escape. An awkward child looking for a place to fit in. A family friend provided it. He suggested that Gandhi should go to England to train to be a lawyer. Here was the chance to learn the nuts and bolts of empire, the chance to play the British at their own game. His mother was reluctant to let him go. She
turned to her religion for guidance. She gave him a necklace of beads made from the sacred tulsi tree. Wearing the necklace would protect him while he was away. She then asked a Jane monk to witness three promises she wanted her son to make. He administered the oath and I vowed not to touch wine, woman and meat. This done, my mother gave her permission. At last, Gandhi was able to leave Rajkot for Bombay. But before sailing, the aspiring lawyer had one more hurdle to overcome. He was called before the elders of his cast, the merchant class, who denied him permission to travel abroad. And if he insisted on crossing the dark waters to England, he would be
pronounced an outcast from his faith. Gandhi went anyway. He left Bombay on the 4th of September 1888, a month before his 19th birthday. The Indian Messiah in waiting had chosen his personal advancement over his religion. He crossed these dark waters an outcast. But against all his expectations, London would awaken in the young Gandhi a spiritual spark that his own country could not. As he approached Tilbury docks, there were no regrets, only ambition. as he stepped ashore in his crisp white linen suit. The height of that ambition was to experience England and to transform himself into an English gentleman. He was ready to soak up what
London had to offer. He was a rather shy young man. Um, but he portrayed himself therefore very much as a young Englishman. He dressed in court dress of the day with very western clothes. This is the place where Gandhi became a lawyer, London's inner temple. I was shown around by its sub treasurer, Patrick Madams. British system of common law. You couldn't practice law at the time anywhere in the British Empire unless you were attached to one of the ins of court in London. You can see his arrival here in 18 uh uh8. You can see the 6th of November and was admitted to the inn for a fee uh to cover his threeear study of £140 11 shillings and 5. One of the reasons
he chose to come to the inner temple was that our fees were higher than the other ins and so therefore he concluded it must be better. So he thought that was a very good thing. He thought that was a very good reason indeed. His time at the inner temple was to leave an indelible mark on Gandhi not just because of his studies but because of what he ate. So this is the dining hall and he would have had to have his dinners here to fulfill the requirement. It was a requirement to be called to the bar that you have 24 dinners a year. He was here for three years, so that's 72 dinners.
It couldn't have been easy for him though with being a vegetarian. Well, it wasn't because he'd given this undertaking to his mother that he would abstain from alcohol and he would abstain from meat. And I think there was a general feeling in mid Victorian polluted London that you couldn't survive without alcohol and meat. In fact, Gandhi was in real danger of wasting away. He lived on boiled cabbage in the temple dining rooms and bread and jam in his lodgings. He was not a vegetarian by conviction, but he had made a promise to his mother. And on such little things, history turns. For the decision to keep this promise was of great consequence.
It began the transformation from Victorian gentleman to reformer. It reconnected him to Gujarat and it gave those childhood notions of nonviolence and truth a new purpose. You might think that a foreign student in late Victorian London might have found it difficult to locate a vegetarian hostelry. But looking at this map, in fact, there were several places catering to Gandhi's specific dietary requirements. His discovery of these vegetarian establishments no doubt did him the power of good. But their real significance was in Gandhi's political awakening. For at the time, vegetarian restaurants were at the heart of London's lively and fashionable world
of reform. Tristram, hello. I'm Michelle. Tristramm Stewart is the author of a history of vegetarianism. This was really interesting to me that there were several vegetarian restaurants in this area at the time that he lived. The records suggest that there were up to 34 in London in the 1880s. It's still regarded as fairly cranky and extreme, but there is a body of political reformers who are involved in the vegetarian movement. They see it as a key, in fact, to reforming human nature and human behavior. They regarded eating meat and eating blood as the way in which violence and aggression enters the human body and influences the behavior. So if everyone becomes a vegetarian, you
automatically start to have a more gentle society. That's absolutely right. That was something that he picked up in London from these radical social reforming contemporaries. And those ideas became so central to the way that we think of him today. One has to wonder how his thinking would have been had he not encountered this scene in London. Well, precisely. We know that before he came to London, he was actually convinced that eating meat was a key to making Indians strong and that was the way of kicking out the British. The exact reverse becomes the case. By the time he's left London, he's convinced that vegetarianism is the key and nonviolence is the technique that he is going to use to boot the British out of India.
Gandhi got much more out of London than he'd bargained for. He now understood vegetarianism in a social, political, and ethical context, and how closely related it was to a himsa, nonviolence. But London had yet more to offer. It was here that Gandhi gained a new deeper understanding of the childhood notion of satya truth. It came from an unexpected religious source. Gandhi became an active member of the vegetarian society contributing articles to its magazine. This introduced him to the great and the good of London society where he was exposed to the leading reformers and the new religious ideas of the day.
In Gandhi's old stomping ground in West London, I met Katherine Tedri, an authority on his defining influences. She told me about a movement attracting much attention in Gandhi's London, the Theosophical Society and its founder one Madame Blavvatzki. She thought that all the religions of the world um were essentially different versions of one fundamental underlying religion like the perennial religion, the perennial philosophy and all that struck a chord with Gandhi did it. He's very attracted by the idea because um he could see um that Hinduism was being taken seriously. It began to make him think about the idea of religions cross- fertilizing each other.
I think Madame Blavski uh took ideas from Christianity as well as Hinduism. She took ideas from all over the place but particularly from Christianity and Hinduism. And Gandhi began to see how you might express religious ideas in different ways. As with vegetarianism, Gandhi was rediscovering his own heritage through western eyes. It stimulated a thirst for spiritual knowledge for ultimate truth. And it was here that he read two seinal texts from Christian and Hindu scripture. The sermon on the mount and the Bhagavad Gita. He does say in his autobiography that both these famous texts are about the same thing. They're about renunciation as the route to liberation. And I think the idea of renunciation as
a route to salvation was absolutely key in understanding both his uh religious development and his political tactics. My young mind tried to unify the teachings of the Gita and the sermon on the mount. That renunciation with the highest form of religion appealed to me greatly. In his own writings, Gandhi appears to dismiss his student days as a preface, a time before his life really began. But there were seeds sewn here in London that were to have a major impact on his thinking and his actions in later life. After his three years in London, Gandhi is called to the bar. The young man from Porband is a gentleman barristister. And yet he's so much more. He's also an idealist who begins to glimpse his
destiny as a force for good. A destiny that nearly slipped through his fingers on his return home. Gandhi arrived back in India in July 1891, aged 22, fired up with ideas of bringing about the spiritual and political transformation of his homeland. But his optimism and joy at his homecoming was short-lived. As soon as his ship docked in Bombay, he received the news of his mother's death. His brothers told him of her dying wish that he should be admitted back into his cast. He went on a pilgrimage to bathe in holy waters to wipe away the stain of having crossed the dark waters.
He returned to Rajkot to face the cast elders. But Gandhi was told he would always be an outcast. It was a blow to his hopes of reintegration. And professionally, there was bad news, too. His brother had become embroiled in some shady dealings, and Gandhi undertook to plead his case before the British political agent. Armed with his knowledge of the English rule of law, Gandhi the barristister must have felt confident. But the meeting was a disaster. The agent quickly warned the newly qualified lawyer off the subject, but Gandhi did not take the hint. He was asked to leave, but persisted until a servant was called to forcibly remove him. It was total humiliation both politically and professionally.
The incident compounded his isolation. He now stood very little chance of plying his trade in his hometown. So when an offer came from a law firm in South Africa, a position little above that of a clock, he had no option. He had to take it. And that decision changed the course of his life. So once again Gandhi was leaving India. He would have had plenty of time to reflect on the long voyage. But unlike the last time he left when he was full of hope and ambition about going to England, this time he was leaving after experiencing both loss and failure at home. It was a real low point. It was unclear how he was ever going to resuscitate his legal career and no sign of the potential of this young man who
would one day be known all over the world. Gandhi was 24. He sailed into Durban Harbor, an outcast, a failure rejected by both his religion and his chosen profession. But he was to leave South Africa 21 years later with an international reputation big enough to return to India as its savior. It would be a remarkable turnaround. But I want to find out how because by all accounts Gandhi's start in South Africa couldn't have been worse. He stepped onto the docks in Durban, having again put some thought to his dress. A European style frock coat and a turban of his own design. His English gentleman's wings had been clipped. It had made him think. A young lawyer
trained and refined in London, but definitely perhaps even defiantly Indian. South Africa today boasts the largest Indian community outside of Asia. Many are descended from workers who came here as virtual slaves on the sugar plantations, railways, and coal mines servicing the British Empire. Others came from merchant families who made their living from the trade between the two continents. Gandhi's new employer was one such merchant. His name was Dada Abdullah. He hired the young lawyer to help on a disputed business claim.
Soon after his arrival, he brought Gandhi here to Durban Magistrate's Court. His first experience of the South African legal system was not particularly encouraging. He was asked by the presiding magistrate to remove his turban. He refused. I'm trying to imagine what was going through Gandhi's head on this crucial day, the very first time that he ever appeared in the Durban courthouse. There was a huge amount at stake for him. This was a lastditch attempt to resuscitate his legal career. When he walked in, he had chosen to adopt a very obvious symbol of his Indian identity. But the judge told him it was not appropriate. And rather than defer to the authority of that judge in this courtroom, he decided to take a
stand. Perhaps he was offended. Perhaps he was angry. But in his reaction, there was the sign of something we hadn't seen before in his life. An almost steelely selfbelief. The Turban incident was Gandhi's first recorded experience of color prejudice South African style, but it was far from being his last. Dada Abdullah impressed with Gandhi's stance against the colonial authorities sent him to represent his dispute in person. The journey was a turning point.
He boarded a train in Durban heading north into the bore dominated Transfal Republic and its capital Ptoria. As he sat in his first class carriage soaking up the spectacular landscapes, he must have thought he'd finally arrived. How wrong he was. People in his carriage began to stare and then complain to the train staff. Gandhi produced a valid first class ticket and made loud protestations. It was to no avail. He was asked to move into a thirdass carriage and when he refused, he was forcibly thrown off the train. To add insult to injury, he spent a freezing night in the waiting room here at Peter Merittsburg station. He wrote
in his autobiography, "I began to think of my duty. Should I fight for my rights or go back to India? Or should I go on to Pritoria without minding the insults and return to India after finishing the case?" The waiting room is now a place of pilgrimage. David Genghan from the Gandhi Memorial Committee explained why. What do you feel when you're sitting in this room? Yeah, it's uh you can't help but feel moved at what transpired here and u I tell the story so many times but I you still get a lump in your throat when you kind of relate this. It was right here in this waiting room where he
contemplated whether he should be going back to India or stay and suffer this kind of indignity. He realized that what he experienced was perhaps a temporary thing because he was a visitor, but certainly people of his origin suffered this kind of uh treatment on a daily basis. And so there was a birthing that happened here in this room. I should try if possible to root out the disease of color prejudice and suffer hardships in the process. As a direct result of the racial abuse at Peter Marittsburg, Gandhi had found a cause. A cause that stirred up those boyhood beliefs in truth and equality. A cause to which he could dedicate his knowledge of religion and the law. A cause that was to occupy him for the next 21 years.
Within a week of arriving in Ptoria, he was planning to set up a trade union of Indian merchants. But Gandhi could never be just a politician or an activist. If London had directed him towards the twin goals of social and religious reform, it was Ptoria that showed him how to achieve them. It was here that he realized the deeply spiritual nature of his calling, one that would inform everything he set his mind to. Fatima is a renowned anti-apartate activist whose life's work has been the fight against injustice and oppression. She's written extensively about Gandhi's life in South Africa and I asked her why for him politics on its own wasn't enough.
I think in himself he was born with a sense of inner divinity. Are you saying that he thought he was divine? No. He was too humble all his life to ever think of him of himself as divine. But the central content of the human was the soul and the soul was divine. Do you think that he thought he was special that he was destined for something? He came to that realization particularly at the Marsburg station when he was kicked off the train and when he sat there in that cold night thinking was that the moment that set him on the path to being the Mahatma? I think so. Gandhi was never simply a political being. The fight had to be divine. It had to be moral.
Gandhi was ready to take his place in South African politics, but not just as a lawyer and campaigner for the rights of his fellow Indians. He was entering the fry as their moral leader. This is a picture of the young Gandhi that hints at the future great soul and savior of India. Then an opportunity presented itself to realize his destiny on a national scale. It was a battle that was to occupy him for his remaining time in Africa. A battle that would define him in the eyes of the world as the charismatic leader whose distinctive and decisive weapon was nonviolence.
The battle headquarters was to be Johannesburg. The battle that presented itself was the Black Act of 1906. The act required all Asians over the age of 8 to carry ID cards, including fingerprints of all 10 digits. It was a deliberate attack on their dignity and their rights. As Gandhi pointed out, fingerprinting was only used for identifying criminals. Gandhi had no doubts that the black act had to be resisted. The question was how? This was the question that would finally give birth, shape, and form to his trademark, nonviolent civil disobedience. And the answers came flooding in from his past.
Satya and Aimsa, the twin mantras of his childhood. These ideas came together to create one of the most original and potent forms of political struggle in history. He named his approach Satya Graha. Satya truth. Graa force. Truth force. Only nonviolent resistance would generate enough divine power, enough truth to defeat the oppressor. Only one agonizing question remained for Gandhi. How far should he should everyone go for nonviolence? Now at the age of 37, a new controversial but decisive religious idea entered the mix.
It came from Islam through Gandhi's mainly Muslim merchant allies. Fatamir thinks that it's at this point in Johannesburg that Satyagraha is fully and truly born. He learned a great deal about Islam here. And you know it is interesting but if you trace the foundation of satyagraha you'll find that it is actually influenced by jihad. I think followers of Gandhi today might be intrigued and perhaps upset even that you would link Satya Graa with jihad which is such a controversial term. Absolutely correct. They are upset. But the meaning of jihad is that you feel so strongly about something that you will commit to it to the extent of dying for it. So this is the literal
feeling in jihad. Better to die than submit to such a law. But how to die? What should we dare to do so that there would be nothing before us except a choice between victory or death? Energized by jihad, Gandhi organized, galvanized and inspired his merchant friends to put Satya Graa fullcale passive resistance to the test. On the 11th of September 1906, a pledge to defy the Black Act was taken in Johannesburg. At the heart of it was a solemn oath to go to jail rather than submit to such a law. The tactic worked like a dream. The act required all Indians to register by the end of November 1907. When the date arrived, only 545 out of a possible 7,000 had done so. As
he expected, by the end of January 1908, Gandhi and another 2,000 people had been thrown into jail. Success was in sight, but somehow Gandhi managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The harsh conditions in Johannesburg's infamous Fort Prison soon began to weaken the resolve of the merchants. The colonial secretary of the transfmutz sent an emissary here to negotiate with Gandhi. They agreed to a compromise, register voluntarily and then smuts would repeal the black act. Gandhi's supporters naturally wondered why they'd gone to jail if they now had to register anyway.
It was a humiliating climbown. Gandhi's career as a political leader was nearly over before it had truly begun. When he was released from jail, an outraged member of his own community attacked him with an iron bar. Gandhi nearly lost his life. But a friend, a fellow inmate from Fort Prison, threw himself over Gandhi, taking the blows himself. The friend was Tambi Naidu. Tambi didn't just save Gandhi's life. He was also to save his reputation and relaunch Gandhi's campaign. Part of the fort is now a Gandhi museum. My guide Prima Naidu is a celebrated activist who was himself incarcerated here. He is Tambi's grandson.
Something that Gandhi also did in PMA explained how his grandfather told Gandhi to broaden his campaign beyond the merchant class. the working-class people. Not only did they have numbers on their side, uh, but they also brought with them a kind of militancy to a pass of resistance movement. Not militancy in the sense that they took up arms or something, but people who weren't afraid to go to jail. It was often said that people from the workingclass community had nothing to lose but their chains and so they joined the movement in huge numbers. How important was it to Gandhi's success that his following widened in this way?
Uh well I think it had a huge impact on his stature. You know when Mandela on his first trip to uh to India they said to the Indian officials that you gave us Gandhi and we gave you a Mahatma and I think that was a real the creating of a Mahatma was in South Africa. In 1913, Gandhi announced the resumption of Satya Graha, a strike against a punitive tax. The merchants didn't respond to his call, but Gandhi had the laboring Indian poor to call on now.
The strike had an immediate economic impact. It began in the coal mines of Natal and spread quickly to the railways and sugar estates. But Gandhi, the master tactician, could also see the political impact of the strike. You see, many Indian laborers lived in compounds provided by their employers. If they went on strike, they lost their home. Gandhi's plan was to flood the roads of Natal with people. He then promised to house the homeless workers and their families on a farm across the border between Natal and Transfal.
This was illegal. The border crossings would inevitably provoke mass arrests. The jails would be swamped. More visibility, more publicity, more pressure on the authorities. Charles Town on the Natal side of the border with the Transval. It was from here on the 6th of November 1913 at 6:30 a.m. and with the world's press watching that Gandhi led 2,221 men, women, and children across the border. The response was brutal. Gandhi was arrested and sentenced to 9 months imprisonment. The marchers were deported back to Natal, but the strike spread. Soon the papers were full of reports of Indians incarcerated in mine shafts and other brutalities.
The media outcry turned Gandhi into an international figure of some standing while fatally weakening Smutz and the government. They had to cave in. The divisive tax was repealed. Gandhi had won. The timid boy from poor Bandar was on the threshold of realizing his destiny. What a huge achievement this represented. Satya Graha had gone from being a passive idealistic niche idea to one of immense power. Gandhi had managed to mobilize thousands of people to unite them under his leadership in pursuit of a common cause. And for him it was to mean recognition far beyond the borders of South Africa. When Gandhi returned to Durban, he was treated as a hero. But his mind was
already elsewhere. He had accepted and fulfilled his destiny on South African soil. Now India was calling him home. On July the 18th, 1914, he set sail secure in the knowledge as he told his supporters that a new force had arisen in the world. The force of truth. A new force had arisen in the world and its name was Mahandas Karamchand Gandhi. As Smarts commented when the future Mahatma finally left for India, the saint has left our shores. I sincerely hope forever. On the next stage of my journey, I travel to India where I discover that within 10 years of his return, Gandhi is a spent force. So, how did he become the father of the nation?
