Millie small biography of gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, western India in 1869. He studied law in London, and became a lawyer in South Africa. There, he became active in challenging racial discrimination, including leading a campaign against the requirement that Indians must carry identity cards. On his return to India, he was already a well-known figure, receiving the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal for Public Service in India in 1915. He went on to play an active role in the Indian nationalist movement, capturing the popular imagination and working for independence from British rule. Gandhi is best remembered today for his advocacy of non-violent resistance, or satyagraha (‘holding onto truth’), and his efforts to unify those of all classes and religions in its practise.

Like many leaders of the Ethical movement, Gandhi drew on a variety of religious and secular texts and teachings in developing his philosophy. His expansion of non-violence into a political philosophy drew on the ancient Indian ideal of ahimsa (non-injury, or doing no harm), which Gandhi described as ‘the first article of my faith’ and ‘the last article of my creed’. Though applied in the case of passive, but firm, resistance to oppression and injustice, non-violence was viewed by Gandhi as a philosophy which should permeate every aspect of life:

The very first step in nonviolence is that we cultivate in our daily life, as between ourselves, truthfulness, humility, tolerance, loving kindness.

- By Prabha Ravi Shankar*

Abstract

South Africa was the crucible that forged Gandhi's identity as a political activist. it was an important prelude to his return to his motherland in 1915 where he dominated the national movement for more than two decades. Amongst the early and closest friends of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa, now largely forgotten, were an English couple named Henry Polak and Millie Polak. Henry zoos a radical English Jew, Millie was a Christian feminist. Polak was Gandhi's closest political aide and fellow-seeker. Even after their return to England in 1916, the Polaks continued to take much interest in India's future and kept a close association with Gandhi until the latter's death in 1948. Despite his yeomen services to India and close relationship with Gandhi, there is no in-depth study on Gandhi and Polak. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap.

Amongst THE EARLY European associates of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa, Henry Solomon Leon Polak, an English Jew, attained prominence as his closest political aide and fellow-seeker. He was born in 1882 at Dover in England to an English-Jewish family and was educated in Britain where he qualified for the graduate examination of the London University and later in Switzerland where he studied Commerce. He arrived in South Africa in early 1903 at the age of twenty-two to seek health and better fortune. He was a lover of justice, a vegetarian with an abiding interest in the writings of Leo Tolstoy and John Ruskin and led a simple life. The South African society comprised at the end of the nineteenth, a majority of whites and a vast majority of Indians, Malays, Chinese, Jews and natives. Racialism was the single most defining factor in the South African politics - a parliamentary democracy for its white resident and a white oligarchy for all others, Polak was engaged as an assistant editor with the Transvaal Critic, a weekly publication, dealing mainly with Transv

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi arrived in South Africa 24 May 1893 to attend to a legal matter of Dada Abdullah Jhaveri. Dada Abdullah, whohailed from Porbandar, knew of M.K. Gandhi and hiredhim, as he apart from being a London trained lawyer also spoke Gujarati. This was a perfect fit for the Durban based merchantkeen to resolve a family commercial dispute.

Within weeks of Mahatma Gandhi’s arrival in Durban, he was asked to travel to Pretoria to settle the dispute. On 7 June 1893, he was thrown off the First Class compartment of a Pretoria bound train in Pietermaritzburg. The young lawyer spent the night in the Waiting Hall on the deserted railway station. The humiliation that he went through convinced him to take on a greater call to fight for the rights of Indians in South Africa. He soon mobilised Indians in Durban and in 1894 the Natal Indian Congress was born to look into the question voting rights for Indians. After three years of stay and struggle in the country, Mahatma Gandhi return to India in 1896. But the same year, on the request of the Natal Indian Congress, he returned to Durban. This time he came with his family.On the arrival of his ship in Durban Harbour, there was a massive protest by the white communitywho would not allow him to disembark.His ship was kept in quarantine for about three weeks and when he was finally allowed to come ashore he was attached by a mob and brutally beaten. His trusted friend and supporter ParsiRustomji came to his safety.

Mahatma Gandhi founded an Ambulance Corps of around 1100 volunteers in support of the British in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. He thought that support for the British would translate into better conditions for Indians in Transvaal and South Africa in general. His hopes, however, were belied. He returned to India in 1902 briefly and met with Indian leaders and mobilised support for the welfare of Indians in South Africa. He returned to South Africa in 1902 and the following year founded

Mohandas 'Mahatma' Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi has come to be known as the Father of India and a beacon of light in the last decades of British colonial rule, promoting non-violence, justice and harmony between people of all faiths.

Born in 1869 in Porbandar on the Western coast of India and raised by Hindu parents, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi found many opportunities in his youth to meet people of all faiths. He had many Christian and Muslim friends, as well as being heavily influenced by Jainism in his youth. Gandhi probably took the religious principle of 'Ahimsa' (doing no harm) from his Jain neighbours, and from it developed his own famous principle of Satyagraha (truth force) later on in his life.

Gandhi hoped to win people over by changing their hearts and minds, and advocated non-violence in all things. He himself remained a committed Hindu throughout his life, but was critical of all faiths and what he saw as the hypocrisy of organised religion.

Even as a young child his morals were tested when an inspector of schools came to visit during a spelling test. Noticing an incorrect spelling, his teacher motioned for him to copy his neighbour's spelling but he stoutly refused to do so. And after being told that the power to the British colonial rule was their meat-eating diet, Gandhi secretly began to eat meat. He soon gave up however, as he felt ashamed of deceiving his strictly vegetarian family.

At 19 years old, after barely passing his matriculation exam, he eagerly took the opportunity to travel to Britain to become a barrister. In Britain, he met with Theosophical Society members, who encouraged him to look more closely at Hindu texts and especially the Bhagavad Gita, which he later described as a comfort to him. In doing so, he developed a greater appreciation for Hinduism, and also began to look more closely at other religions, being particularly influenced by Jesus's Sermon on the