GANDHI'S CAREER

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 128, 22 January 1932, Page 2

GANDHI'S CAREER

RAISEB AND GOMBIANDED RE DCROSS UNIT IN BOER WAR. PICTURESQUE FIGURE. Mahatma Gandhi was born in 1869 in Parbandar in Western India, was married at the age of 13 to a girl still younger, and six years later sailed for England to study law. In 1891 he won his barrister's degree. He returned to India and attempted to praetise in the High Court in Bombay, but he was' a dismal failure, being too shy and retiring to address a court. In 1893 a law case took him to South Africa, where he remained as a champion of the cause of Indian labourers and traders. • During his 20 years in South Africa Gandhi rendered on 'several occasions signal serviee to the authorities. He raised and commanded a Red Cross I p" unit during the Boer War; he orga- | nised a hospital during a plague epidemic; he led a stretcher-bearing party in the Natal revolt of 1908. From then on he persisted'in his j campaign on behalf of the Indian community, and .his agitations reached | their climax with the eight-day march j across the Transvaal of Gandhi's "army" of 2000. These spectacular protests helped to bring about, the removal of abuses, and Gandhi returned j to India to find himself a national hero. , ; , : In his motherland Gandhi began another struggle, this time again st In- j dian capitalists. He explained to the i mill-workers of Ahmedabad the "conditions of a successful strike." They j | were : (1) Never to resort to violence, I (2) never to molest "blacklegs"; (3) never to depend upon alms; (4) to , remain firm, no matter how long the I strike • continued. , | In 1919 came the so-called Punjab 9 aitrocity, when a Gurka detachment | under General Dyer shot down nearly |j 400 natives at a place known as the |j Jullianwalla Bagh. Until the "Punjab atrocities, Gandhi had been loyal to Britain, but I he became an enemy of the Viceroy s I rule, and in 1920 he entered the poli- |1 tical field as a champion of Hindu- jj Moslem unity. For a time he met Sj with opposition fromi both sides, but his programme of boycott gained favour gradually. i

The campaign continued m 1921, ; and lawlessness grew out of it despite Gandhi's policy of "non-resist-ance." He was about to take the final 1 stsp, to call for "civil disobedience" j —the refusal to pay taxes, obey laws, | or perform any of the duties of citi- J zens — when the Government ordered his arrest. This was in March, 1922. In January, 1924, he was released, and for the time being he vanished from ; Indian politics. In 1929 he again reappeared, his power growing rapidly, his influence wider than ever. In 1930 he was again arrested and sent to prison, where he remained until almost the eve of the first Indian Conference. He emerged as the champion of a peaceful settlement of Im dia's problems, and for an all-India Federation, or self-government. The climax of Gandhi's career as Indian leader came with his journey to London to the second Round Table Conference as representative of the Congress.