September 24, 2018 • 31 mins
The Indian lawyer and activist Mohandas Gandhi was the first leader to take up the age-old doctrines of love and nonviolence and transform them into tools of political and social resistance. In doing so, he would inspire Bayard Rustin and other activists across the world. Armed only with love, humility and disobedience, Gandhi brought the most powerful empire on earth to the bargaining table — and eventually to its knees.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for
that which is right. A man dies when he refuses
to stand up for us. Yea. A man dies when
he refuses to pick up stand for that which is true. Yeah.
The great and often unsung civil rights hero Bayard Rustin
(00:24):
once said, we need in every community a group of
angelic troublemakers. We are non violent because injury to one
is injury to all. In May, a ship pulled into
(00:45):
the harbor in Durban, in the city in South Africa.
Aboard the ship was a twenty seven year old Indian
lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi. The young man was an advocate
for the rights of immigrant Indian laborers across South Africa,
and he was not popular among the nation's white citizens.
An angry mob on the docks awaited Gandhi's arrival. Gandhi's grandson,
(01:05):
a ruined Gandhi, explains it happened just by a chance.
Was that the ship on which the Gandhi family was
traveling also carried several hundred indentured labors. The mob assumed
that the Indian agitator was connected to the arriving immigrants,
so this mob thought that he's bringing all these people
(01:28):
into South Africa to increase the population and overtake the
white population. Gandhi was advised to remain aboard for his
own safety. He refused. He was attacked as soon as
he disembarked. The mob hurled stones, eggs, and bricks at it.
He was beaten and kicked. His turban was torn from
his head. The crowd intended to lynch him. Gandhi was
(01:51):
only spared when the wife of the local police superintendent
happened to pass by. She bravely shielded him with her parasol,
then held off the mob until the brew used in
bloody Gandhi was safely inside a nearby house. Gandhi was
later asked why he got off the boat. He explained
that he prayed for the courage to face the mob,
not for his own safety. Later on, the police were
(02:13):
able to arrest some of the people in the mob
and they invited Grandfather to come over and file charges
against them so that they could be tried and convicted.
And Grandfather came to the police station and he met
with these people and he told the police he said,
(02:34):
I'm not going to I don't want to charge them.
Gandhi offered his assailants only love and understanding. I believe
three of the four people who were arrested eventually became
his followers and his friends for life. In this episode
(02:54):
of The Thread, we delve into the influential life of
Mohandas Gando, the man who inspired million in South Africa
and India to challenge their oppressors and convert enemies into
friends in the world. Like in the World, Just like
(03:19):
I'm Sean Braswell. This season on The Thread, we trace
the origins of a powerful idea, non violent resistance. So far,
we followed the Reverend Martin Luther King's journey to combat
racial injustice in the United States. Then we heard about
Bayard Rustin, King's tutor in non violence. Now we turn
to the iconic figure behind Rusten and so many other
(03:40):
social movements of the past century behind us Gandhi. Before
Rustin helped shape the direction of the U s Civil
rights movement, he journeyed to India in nineteen forty nine,
shortly after Gandhi's death. There, Rustin learned firsthand about his
heroes non violent tactics from those who knew Gandhi, best
known as Mahatma or the great Ole. Gandhi was nothing
(04:01):
short of a rebel genius. He took up the age
old doctrines of love and pacifism and turned them into
tools of resistance. Gandhi, armed only with love, humility, and disobedience,
brought the most powerful empire on earth to the bargaining
table and eventually to its knees. If you're joining us
for the first time, we encourage you to go back
and begin this season's interconnected journey with episode one. Gandhi
(04:30):
was born in western India in eighteen sixty nine. He
was the fourth and last child of a politician and
a devout Hindu woman. Here's a ruined Gandhi again talking
about his famous grandfather. He had all the weaknesses that
teenagers have. He smoked cigarettes and he ate meat too,
and his family was vegetarian, and he would lie to
(04:53):
his parents. He just was not a very promising kid
in a lot of ways. This is Kit Miller, director
of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Non Violence, and
I really loved telling people that because we have this
idea that people like Gandhi are kind of coming straight
out of the egg in a certain way, and it's
(05:13):
far from the truth in his situation. Especially. Gandhi married
his wife when they were both thirteen years old. It
was an arranged marriage. Three years later, Gandhi's father unexpectedly
died and it was decided that the teenager should leave
for Great Britain in order to earn a law degree
and helped support his family. Gandhi boarded a steamer bound
for England one month before his nineteenth birthday. So Gandhi
(05:36):
went off to London. He arrived there wearing a white
suit in the wintertime and looked like an idiot. And
I think he felt like an idiot a lot in
the first especially weeks or months. There is an early
photograph of the young Gandhi taken just after his arrival
in London. He's almost unrecognizable to those who have only
seen images of him as an older man. The young
(05:57):
law student has no mustache or glasses. His thick black
hair has parted on one side. At first in London,
Gandhi was eager to fit in, to transform himself into
a Victorian gentleman. He bought a top hat in an
evening suit. He invested in French lessons, so he thought
that if he changed himself and became like the British,
(06:20):
speak their language, dressed like them, and you know, become
British in every sense except the color. That he would
be accepted more readily. And he attempted to do that,
but he found that even that didn't help. Eventually, Gandhi
began a different transformation in London. In addition to his
(06:43):
legal studies, he read sacred Hindu and other religious texts.
A British Bible salesman even persuaded Gandhi to read the
Christian Holy Book. Gandhi later claimed that Jesus's Sermon on
the Mount, including its admonition to love one's enemies, went
straight to his heart in many ways. Gandhi was a
changed man when he returned to India to practice law
in eight But he was a lousy lawyer. He was
(07:06):
so shy, didn't represent himself very well. He got one
case in in what was then called Bombay and that
didn't go very well. So there was a sense of
what am I gonna do? Gandhi was about to give up.
Then he received an offer from South Africa the help
resolve a legal dispute between two Indian businesses. He accepted
the offer and decided he would try his luck in
(07:28):
a new country. The twenty four year old Gandhi arrived
in South Africa in eighteen It was not at all
what the young lawyer was expecting. I think he was
shocked by the racial prejudice in South Africa. It was
an order of magnitude worse than anything he had encountered
in India or in England. Gandhi boarded a train early
(07:51):
on in his time in South Africa. He purchased a
first class ticket, but when a white passenger complained about
the Indian's presence in the first class compartment, two railway
officials removed him from the train. Gandhi and his suitcases
were tossed onto the platform at the next station. He
spent the night in the station alone, far from home
and freezing cold. And that's where he suffered his first
(08:14):
physical act of prejudice, when he was thrown off the
train because of the color of his skin. And that
humiliation really brought about the transformation in his life. For me,
that's one of the magic moments in Gandhi's life. Instead
of becoming indignant simply on his own behalf, he made
(08:37):
the moral leap. Sitting there that night to recognize that
his situation was just one of a countless number of
moments of prejudice and racism that was taking place, and
he decided he wanted to do something about it. But
Gandhi also realized that he didn't have the capacity to
seek justice violently, so he wanted to find no reason
(09:00):
which he could get justice without having to fight for it.
And that's how the philosophy of non violence came about,
and he began to practice that and that became his
mission in life. Gandhi's commitment to justice and non violence
led him to make an important decision. He decided to
(09:23):
stay and help the Indian community fight for its rights.
Instead of remaining in South Africa for one year to
complete his legal assignment, Gandhi stayed for twenty one years.
At first, Gandhi was a loyal subject of the British
Empire and he worked to make change within the existing system,
But he came to realize that those in power were
(09:45):
not interested in changing the nation's laws or customs. Often
they wanted to pass new ones. In nineteen o six,
the government and transvol the Province of South Africa announced
it would require all Indian men, women and children to
register or imprisonment. Gandhi had an idea for how best
to protest the new law. The first expression of non
(10:06):
violence in a political frame actually took place on September
nineteen o six. It's the other September eleven. In the
following clip from film Gandhi, the young lawyer played by
Ben Kingsley, makes his case for non violence and non cooperation.
On that day before a hall packed with Indian labors.
(10:28):
Gandhi proposed a new tactic. Whatever they do to us,
we will attack no one, kill no one, but we
will not give our fingerprints, not one of us. They
will imprison us and they will find us. They will
seize our possessions, but they cannot take away our self
(10:48):
respect if we do not give it to them. Gandhi
urged Indians not to register and to defy the new
law regardless of punishment. Rallies and protests were staged across
the country, which demonstrators burned their registration cards. I think
he began to see that people who are moral had
a duty to not obey unjust laws. Gandhi was sentenced
(11:11):
to two months in prison for his own refusal to register.
He began to move from being again like someone who
really saw himself as a middle class attorney, to being
someone who actually could best serve society by breaking the
laws when they were not just. And Gandhi's assault on
unjust laws was just beginning. A few years later, mine
(11:33):
workers in South Africa organized a strike against a new
government tax. At first, the striking miners went ahead without
Gandhi's help. Their protests turned into violent confrontations with government
forces and the strike went nowhere. Then Gandhi decided to
organize a march with over two thousand demonstrators, one that
took place over several days. He didn't let anybody show
(11:58):
any anger or frustration. It was very peaceful. Gandhi was
arrested and released on bail three times during the march.
And then something incredible happened. The British official in South Africa,
who previously used violence to stop the striking miners, asked
Gandhi to come to the negotiating table, and during that
time he confessed to Grandfather. He said, I could deal
(12:23):
with the strikers because there was so much anger and
frustration that that I could justify a violent action. But
he says, I don't know how to deal with you
because you are so compassionate and consider it towards us,
and that is the key to a non violent action.
(12:44):
We are not fighting an enemy, we are transforming a friend.
Gandhi's new friend agreed to rescind the tax and in
some of the other discriminatory laws against Indians. But Gandhi
was still learning about the power of his new non
violent philosophy, and his application of it was often imperfect.
For example, he largely turned a blind eye to the
(13:05):
suffering and discrimination being inflicted on the black South African population,
and some modern scholars accused Gandhi of prejudice towards that community.
Run Gandhi disagrees. He says that his grandfather's non violent
mission merely began with his attempt to help his fellow Indians.
So he felt that if it's difficult to convince my
own people, how am I going to go and convince
(13:29):
uh somebody else. Gandhi learned in South Africa that non
violence could be a powerful tool for social protest, but
he knew that his homeland in India was also suffering
under colonial rule, and to combat that long standing injustice
and pluck out the crown jewel of the British Empire.
It would take a resistance movement unlike any of the
(13:49):
world had ever seen. India had been under British rule
for almost half a century. By the time gone He
returned to his homeland in nineteen fourteen, a population of
over three hundred million people was governed by a mere
two thousand British civil servants and around sixty thousand soldiers.
(14:11):
Ruined Gandhi again. His success in South Africa had attracted
a lot of media attention in India, and many of
the Indian leaders felt that he could make a tremendous
contribution in India. Gandhi joined India's National Congress and, like
many supported Great Britain in World War One and the
(14:33):
hopes that the colonial power would treat India differently when
the war was over. The British did the opposite. There
were some really harsh laws that had been passed during
World War One, which the Indians hoped and expected would
be east up when the war ended, and on the contrary,
harsher laws were put in place. Among other things, the
(14:55):
new laws criminalized civil disobedience and prohibited more than ten
In Dean's gathering in a public place at any one time.
But the people were so you know, motivated by this
non violent action that in spite of that rule, more
than ten thousand of them gathered in a ground open
(15:19):
ground in the middle of the city of Umrits. That
open ground was a large six acre public garden with
walls on all sides and only five entrances. When Colonel
Reginald Dyer, the local British officer in charge, heard about
the crowd gathered there, he decided to quash the protest.
Dire later testified quote, I had made up my mind
(15:41):
I would do all the men to death. He brought
his military and surrounded the crowd of ten thousand and
opened fire on them point blank range, and within minutes
he killed more than three d and eighty six people.
Gandhi responded to the blood and violence in Amritzar by
(16:03):
encouraging Indians to boycott British goods, schools, jobs, courts, and
honors to refuse to pay their taxes. For months, Gandhi
toured the countryside in the torrid summer heat, speaking to
large crowds. He encouraged them to weave their own clothes
and to avoid British apparel. The crowds piled up shirts, coats,
pants and other clothes, which Gandhi set a fire. Gandhi's
(16:27):
non violent army in India was taking shape, but British
officials arrested Gandhi for preaching sedition in nineteen twenty two.
He was sentenced to six years in prison. Gandhi smiled
as he was led away to jail. Gandhi served only
two years of his sentence during that time. In the
(16:50):
remainder of the nineteen twenties, the British succeeded in thwarting
India's growing independence movement. They used a divide in rule policy.
They exploited the existing tensions between Hindus and Muslims in
India to consolidate their own power. A ruined Gandhi. So
they they exacerbated all of these divisions that existed in
(17:11):
society and kept people fighting within themselves and not the British.
So Gandhi also devoted himself to helping his fellow Indians
improve themselves. Kit Miller again, his attention very naturally turned
to well what kind of country will we be after
they leave um? And then also trying to get people
(17:33):
to become able to be non violent. He many times
called off campaigns if violence would break out, and he
would fast himself in penance, um using his own moral
credibility with the Indian people to try to get them
to stay nonviolent even when they were provoked. British officials
(17:54):
in India had no idea how to respond to the
unorthodox tactics being used by the quiet man in sandals
and a white loincloth. They told new administrators when they
were coming from England to India to stay away from
Gandhi because he was so compelling. Ah, he like literally,
holl Gandhi will get you, they said. Gandhi's impact on
(18:17):
his own people was even more remarkable. He was really
regarded as a saint. I mean, he didn't ask for
the honorific of Mahatma. He didn't actually like it because
he felt that it separated him from other people. He
lived ate, dressed and traveled like the poorest people in
a very poor country. When he was asked why he
(18:38):
always traveled third class, he said he smiled and said,
because there's no fourth class. Still, the man they referred
to as Bapu or father, had not delivered on any
major reforms that was about to change. Gandhi would demonstrate
the power of non violence to the world as it
had never been shown, a message that would resonate with
Bayard Ruston, Martin, Luther King, and others down corridors of
(19:00):
history to this day. Gandhi grew frustrated by the pace
of progress in India. He knew he needed something that
would break through, that would put more pressure on the
British and forced them to change course. And then he
found it. The colonizers made Indians by British salt at
(19:21):
a high price, even though Indians could make it much
cheaper themselves. Gandhi knew he had his pressure point ruined.
Gandhi again, he suddenly realized that this would be a
great way of mobilizing the entire community, because salt is
something that everybody were, the rich or poor or whatever.
(19:44):
Everybody needed salt. So he announced the launching of the
AsSalt March and the defiance of the AsSalt Law. Gandhi
and seventy eight followers set out from a village in
western India for a two hundred and forty one mile march.
They had to due south towards the sea. The British were.
(20:07):
They laughed it off. Then they didn't do anything um
to prepare for this kind of major revolution that it became,
and millions of people joined within a couple of days.
That's when the British realized, how you know, popular this was,
(20:27):
but by then it was too late for them to
do anything to stop it. Gandhi and his followers watched
for twenty four days from village to village along winding
dirt roads, the army growing in size at every stop.
Soon the eyes of the world were transfixed on Gandhi
in India, and by the time they finished up, there
were thousands of people walking along. Kit Miller. He was
(20:50):
in his late sixties by then, and he just he
could just eat up the ground walking. He was he
was just on fire. Gandhi and his followers finally reached
the country's coast in the early morning. Gandhi scooped up
a handful of mud and salt left by the ocean
in defiance of the British law. He declared, with this salt,
I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire. People.
(21:13):
Immediately after the first moment of when he grabbed the
salt from the shore people all over the country started
to follow suit, and um, you know, it was a
remarkable moment of people recognizing that they could be free.
That Salt March and and the defiance of the salt
law was the last straw on the camel's back, and
(21:38):
from that point onwards, independence was inevitable. The following year,
Gandhi traveled to England to argue for Indian independence. Fear
years at last the mystery man of India, and he's
carrying with him is pots and pans, which he declared
that the customers. When asked to speak into the sound
(22:00):
film microphone, he said, I think not. Gandhi, now aged sixty,
did agree to some interviews, though his words were fear,
if England does not grant to your demand, what force
of action will follow them? Of course, colia civil disobedience,
(22:25):
Gandhi answered, But Britain's leaders did not grant Gandhi's demands,
so he pressed on. This is Gandhi addressing a crowd
in Geneva, Switzerland, after his trip to Great Britain. I
regard my tip as a soldier, though a soldier of Pe,
the soldier of peace was greeted as a conquering hero
when he returned back to India, and he was more
(22:45):
convinced than ever that India could prevail over Britain using
love and non violence. It was just a question of
how long that would take up Next, Gandhi's dream of
independence for India was realized, but not without a steep price.
(23:16):
Gandhi returned home to India nineteen thirty one. He is
a hero beloved, but India is still under British rule.
Gandhi continued to lead his fellow Indians and acts of
civil disobedience and non violent protests throughout the nineteen thirties.
It had only a modest effect. Britain responded with more
violence and oppression. Then the Second World War intervened. Finally,
(23:38):
in the years following the war, great Britain's resolves started
to fade. It came to the table, ruined Gandhi again.
I think the you know, the massive defiance in India
against British rule, plus the tremendous losses that they suffered
(23:59):
in War War two, really broke the back of the
British and decided that, you know, it's time that they
gave India independence. August fifteenth nine, Independence Day for India.
(24:19):
In London, the flags of the new Indian Union flattered
over the headquarters of India and Pakistan. An era has ended,
a new epoch begins. The Indian subcontinent achieved its independence,
but only after its land was divided along religious lines
into Hindu controlled India and Muslim ruled Pakistan. Gandhi was
quite heartbroken with away. Independence was finally broken. Because of it,
(24:42):
the divisiveness between Hindus and Muslims um I mean, he
really went to the mat to try to avoid um
that division. Gandhi feared that partition of the Indian subcontinent
would spark widespread violence between Hindus and Muslims. He was right.
The streets filled with corpses. Decades of non violent resistance
(25:03):
were drowned in a river of blood. The possibility of
death was a constant companion for Gandhi, but he continued
on kit Miller again. He wouldn't take the security. He
just would continue in his daily habits, so very easy
target for assassination. Like he knew he was putting himself
(25:24):
at risk, but it was not his His own safety
was not his highest priority. Gandhi was on his way
to address a prayer meeting on the evening of January
when a young Hindu nationalists fired three bullets into his
chest at point blank range. Gandhi died soon after. You know,
when someone was crediting him for being non violent, he said, well,
my test of non violence will really be at the
(25:47):
end of my life. Will I be able to if
I'm killed by someone? Will I be able to die
with my prayers for their well being on my lips?
Close to a million people to send it on New
Delhi to pay homage, to go and watch as his
body was burned atop a large funeral pyre. All this
time wherever he went, I'm a Hatma's doctrine of commonal
(26:08):
peace brought hope and faith to millions in village and city.
Are luck. The news of it went all around the world,
And you think about it. You know, Gandhi never had
an army, he never had political office, he never had
any money. I think he died with like five possessions,
you know. So to think of someone who lived their
(26:29):
life in the way that he did and had such
enormous moral power, moral force, it changed the world, you know,
the way he lived changed the world. Martin Luther King
once wrote of Gandhi quote, with a little love and understanding, goodwill,
and a refusal to cooperate with an evil law, he
(26:50):
was able to break the backbone of the British Empire.
More than three nine million people achieved their freedom, and
they achieved it non violently. Gandhi became a singular figure
in the eyes of the world, but even the Mahatma
stood on the shoulders of another great man. In fact,
Gandhi's roade to non violence originated with an eccentric novelist
(27:11):
who lived more than five thousand miles away. Gandhi's interest
in non violence stemmed from a variety of people in places.
He spoke always about the women in his life as
being key people showing him non violence. Gandhi was also
influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and the teachings of Jesus.
(27:35):
But the person who really caught Gandhi's attention was the
famous Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. In the eighteen nineties, Gandhi
read The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Tolstoy's treatise
on Love and non violence. Gandhi later wrote that Tolstoi's
book quote overwhelmed me ruined Gandhi again. The idea of
(27:56):
non violence began to mature are in his mind. He
realized that there is nothing disobedient about wanting justice. Yeah,
And so he came to know about Tolstoy and had
read some of dult sty book, and so he borrowed
(28:16):
DLS toys A Passive Resistance in Night. Two years before
his death, the eighty year old Tolstoy wrote an essay
about the British occupation of India. He asked how millions
of Indians could be enslaved by so few British and
he provided the answer. The Indians were enslaving themselves through
(28:39):
their cooperation with evil. The solutions at Tolstoy was love
and non cooperation. He advised the Indians quote, do not
resist the evil doer, and no one in the world
will be able to enslave you. Tolstoy's words touched a
nerve in the young Gandhi, who was attempting to help
Indians overcome oppression in South Africa. After he accepted passive resistance,
(29:05):
he wanted to learn a little bit more about it
from Tolsto and so he started a correspondence with him,
which we went on for several years back and forth.
In those letters, Gandhi shared with Tolstoy the details of
his struggles with the British and South Africa and sought
his advice. Tolsto was thrilled to hear about the young
(29:27):
activists who was trying to turn the principles of non
violence into true political action. Just two months before Tolstoy's death,
in one of the last letters he would ever write,
he praised Gandhi's peaceful resistance in South Africa, calling it
the most weighty, practical proof that such a course of
action could work. Leo Tolstoy is perhaps best known today
(29:50):
for his novels including Warren Peace and Anna Karinina, but
his biggest legacy and gift to the world might be
his ideas on non violence. The young Gandhi embraced those
ideas and altered the course of the twentieth century, and
in turn he inspired a black activist named Bayard Rust,
who then handed the gift down to a young preacher
(30:10):
named Martin Luther King Jr. Next week, on the thread
count Leo Tolstoy, The Privileged Russian playboy who turned himself
into one of the greatest novelists of all time before
giving it all up to change the world in the world,
just like change in the world, Just like, just Like.
(30:40):
The Thread is produced by Libby Coleman, Robert Coulos, Sophia
Perpetua and me Sean braswell Chris Hoff engineered our show.
This episode features the song Be the Change by mc yogi.
To learn more about The Thread, visit Ausie dot com,
Slash the Thread all one word, and make sure to
subscribe to The Thread on apple pot casts, follow us
(31:01):
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Check us out at ausie dot com or on Twitter
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look no further than the flashback section of Ausi dot com.
That's ozy y dot Com and Christian's Rotist with James
and choose all the many past got lead into the
(31:22):
lightnessis brightness side of me until you gotta bes that
you want to see in the world. It's just like
our be the James that you want to see in
the world, just like Beat
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for
that which is right. A man dies when he refuses
to stand up for us. Yea. A man dies when
he refuses to pick up stand for that which is true. Yeah.
The great and often unsung civil rights hero Bayard Rustin
(00:24):
once said, we need in every community a group of
angelic troublemakers. We are non violent because injury to one
is injury to all. In May, a ship pulled into
(00:45):
the harbor in Durban, in the city in South Africa.
Aboard the ship was a twenty seven year old Indian
lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi. The young man was an advocate
for the rights of immigrant Indian laborers across South Africa,
and he was not popular among the nation's white citizens.
An angry mob on the docks awaited Gandhi's arrival. Gandhi's grandson,
(01:05):
a ruined Gandhi, explains it happened just by a chance.
Was that the ship on which the Gandhi family was
traveling also carried several hundred indentured labors. The mob assumed
that the Indian agitator was connected to the arriving immigrants,
so this mob thought that he's bringing all these people
(01:28):
into South Africa to increase the population and overtake the
white population. Gandhi was advised to remain aboard for his
own safety. He refused. He was attacked as soon as
he disembarked. The mob hurled stones, eggs, and bricks at it.
He was beaten and kicked. His turban was torn from
his head. The crowd intended to lynch him. Gandhi was
(01:51):
only spared when the wife of the local police superintendent
happened to pass by. She bravely shielded him with her parasol,
then held off the mob until the brew used in
bloody Gandhi was safely inside a nearby house. Gandhi was
later asked why he got off the boat. He explained
that he prayed for the courage to face the mob,
not for his own safety. Later on, the police were
(02:13):
able to arrest some of the people in the mob
and they invited Grandfather to come over and file charges
against them so that they could be tried and convicted.
And Grandfather came to the police station and he met
with these people and he told the police he said,
(02:34):
I'm not going to I don't want to charge them.
Gandhi offered his assailants only love and understanding. I believe
three of the four people who were arrested eventually became
his followers and his friends for life. In this episode
(02:54):
of The Thread, we delve into the influential life of
Mohandas Gando, the man who inspired million in South Africa
and India to challenge their oppressors and convert enemies into
friends in the world. Like in the World, Just like
(03:19):
I'm Sean Braswell. This season on The Thread, we trace
the origins of a powerful idea, non violent resistance. So far,
we followed the Reverend Martin Luther King's journey to combat
racial injustice in the United States. Then we heard about
Bayard Rustin, King's tutor in non violence. Now we turn
to the iconic figure behind Rusten and so many other
(03:40):
social movements of the past century behind us Gandhi. Before
Rustin helped shape the direction of the U s Civil
rights movement, he journeyed to India in nineteen forty nine,
shortly after Gandhi's death. There, Rustin learned firsthand about his
heroes non violent tactics from those who knew Gandhi, best
known as Mahatma or the great Ole. Gandhi was nothing
(04:01):
short of a rebel genius. He took up the age
old doctrines of love and pacifism and turned them into
tools of resistance. Gandhi, armed only with love, humility, and disobedience,
brought the most powerful empire on earth to the bargaining
table and eventually to its knees. If you're joining us
for the first time, we encourage you to go back
and begin this season's interconnected journey with episode one. Gandhi
(04:30):
was born in western India in eighteen sixty nine. He
was the fourth and last child of a politician and
a devout Hindu woman. Here's a ruined Gandhi again talking
about his famous grandfather. He had all the weaknesses that
teenagers have. He smoked cigarettes and he ate meat too,
and his family was vegetarian, and he would lie to
(04:53):
his parents. He just was not a very promising kid
in a lot of ways. This is Kit Miller, director
of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Non Violence, and
I really loved telling people that because we have this
idea that people like Gandhi are kind of coming straight
out of the egg in a certain way, and it's
(05:13):
far from the truth in his situation. Especially. Gandhi married
his wife when they were both thirteen years old. It
was an arranged marriage. Three years later, Gandhi's father unexpectedly
died and it was decided that the teenager should leave
for Great Britain in order to earn a law degree
and helped support his family. Gandhi boarded a steamer bound
for England one month before his nineteenth birthday. So Gandhi
(05:36):
went off to London. He arrived there wearing a white
suit in the wintertime and looked like an idiot. And
I think he felt like an idiot a lot in
the first especially weeks or months. There is an early
photograph of the young Gandhi taken just after his arrival
in London. He's almost unrecognizable to those who have only
seen images of him as an older man. The young
(05:57):
law student has no mustache or glasses. His thick black
hair has parted on one side. At first in London,
Gandhi was eager to fit in, to transform himself into
a Victorian gentleman. He bought a top hat in an
evening suit. He invested in French lessons, so he thought
that if he changed himself and became like the British,
(06:20):
speak their language, dressed like them, and you know, become
British in every sense except the color. That he would
be accepted more readily. And he attempted to do that,
but he found that even that didn't help. Eventually, Gandhi
began a different transformation in London. In addition to his
(06:43):
legal studies, he read sacred Hindu and other religious texts.
A British Bible salesman even persuaded Gandhi to read the
Christian Holy Book. Gandhi later claimed that Jesus's Sermon on
the Mount, including its admonition to love one's enemies, went
straight to his heart in many ways. Gandhi was a
changed man when he returned to India to practice law
in eight But he was a lousy lawyer. He was
(07:06):
so shy, didn't represent himself very well. He got one
case in in what was then called Bombay and that
didn't go very well. So there was a sense of
what am I gonna do? Gandhi was about to give up.
Then he received an offer from South Africa the help
resolve a legal dispute between two Indian businesses. He accepted
the offer and decided he would try his luck in
(07:28):
a new country. The twenty four year old Gandhi arrived
in South Africa in eighteen It was not at all
what the young lawyer was expecting. I think he was
shocked by the racial prejudice in South Africa. It was
an order of magnitude worse than anything he had encountered
in India or in England. Gandhi boarded a train early
(07:51):
on in his time in South Africa. He purchased a
first class ticket, but when a white passenger complained about
the Indian's presence in the first class compartment, two railway
officials removed him from the train. Gandhi and his suitcases
were tossed onto the platform at the next station. He
spent the night in the station alone, far from home
and freezing cold. And that's where he suffered his first
(08:14):
physical act of prejudice, when he was thrown off the
train because of the color of his skin. And that
humiliation really brought about the transformation in his life. For me,
that's one of the magic moments in Gandhi's life. Instead
of becoming indignant simply on his own behalf, he made
(08:37):
the moral leap. Sitting there that night to recognize that
his situation was just one of a countless number of
moments of prejudice and racism that was taking place, and
he decided he wanted to do something about it. But
Gandhi also realized that he didn't have the capacity to
seek justice violently, so he wanted to find no reason
(09:00):
which he could get justice without having to fight for it.
And that's how the philosophy of non violence came about,
and he began to practice that and that became his
mission in life. Gandhi's commitment to justice and non violence
led him to make an important decision. He decided to
(09:23):
stay and help the Indian community fight for its rights.
Instead of remaining in South Africa for one year to
complete his legal assignment, Gandhi stayed for twenty one years.
At first, Gandhi was a loyal subject of the British
Empire and he worked to make change within the existing system,
But he came to realize that those in power were
(09:45):
not interested in changing the nation's laws or customs. Often
they wanted to pass new ones. In nineteen o six,
the government and transvol the Province of South Africa announced
it would require all Indian men, women and children to
register or imprisonment. Gandhi had an idea for how best
to protest the new law. The first expression of non
(10:06):
violence in a political frame actually took place on September
nineteen o six. It's the other September eleven. In the
following clip from film Gandhi, the young lawyer played by
Ben Kingsley, makes his case for non violence and non cooperation.
On that day before a hall packed with Indian labors.
(10:28):
Gandhi proposed a new tactic. Whatever they do to us,
we will attack no one, kill no one, but we
will not give our fingerprints, not one of us. They
will imprison us and they will find us. They will
seize our possessions, but they cannot take away our self
(10:48):
respect if we do not give it to them. Gandhi
urged Indians not to register and to defy the new
law regardless of punishment. Rallies and protests were staged across
the country, which demonstrators burned their registration cards. I think
he began to see that people who are moral had
a duty to not obey unjust laws. Gandhi was sentenced
(11:11):
to two months in prison for his own refusal to register.
He began to move from being again like someone who
really saw himself as a middle class attorney, to being
someone who actually could best serve society by breaking the
laws when they were not just. And Gandhi's assault on
unjust laws was just beginning. A few years later, mine
(11:33):
workers in South Africa organized a strike against a new
government tax. At first, the striking miners went ahead without
Gandhi's help. Their protests turned into violent confrontations with government
forces and the strike went nowhere. Then Gandhi decided to
organize a march with over two thousand demonstrators, one that
took place over several days. He didn't let anybody show
(11:58):
any anger or frustration. It was very peaceful. Gandhi was
arrested and released on bail three times during the march.
And then something incredible happened. The British official in South Africa,
who previously used violence to stop the striking miners, asked
Gandhi to come to the negotiating table, and during that
time he confessed to Grandfather. He said, I could deal
(12:23):
with the strikers because there was so much anger and
frustration that that I could justify a violent action. But
he says, I don't know how to deal with you
because you are so compassionate and consider it towards us,
and that is the key to a non violent action.
(12:44):
We are not fighting an enemy, we are transforming a friend.
Gandhi's new friend agreed to rescind the tax and in
some of the other discriminatory laws against Indians. But Gandhi
was still learning about the power of his new non
violent philosophy, and his application of it was often imperfect.
For example, he largely turned a blind eye to the
(13:05):
suffering and discrimination being inflicted on the black South African population,
and some modern scholars accused Gandhi of prejudice towards that community.
Run Gandhi disagrees. He says that his grandfather's non violent
mission merely began with his attempt to help his fellow Indians.
So he felt that if it's difficult to convince my
own people, how am I going to go and convince
(13:29):
uh somebody else. Gandhi learned in South Africa that non
violence could be a powerful tool for social protest, but
he knew that his homeland in India was also suffering
under colonial rule, and to combat that long standing injustice
and pluck out the crown jewel of the British Empire.
It would take a resistance movement unlike any of the
(13:49):
world had ever seen. India had been under British rule
for almost half a century. By the time gone He
returned to his homeland in nineteen fourteen, a population of
over three hundred million people was governed by a mere
two thousand British civil servants and around sixty thousand soldiers.
(14:11):
Ruined Gandhi again. His success in South Africa had attracted
a lot of media attention in India, and many of
the Indian leaders felt that he could make a tremendous
contribution in India. Gandhi joined India's National Congress and, like
many supported Great Britain in World War One and the
(14:33):
hopes that the colonial power would treat India differently when
the war was over. The British did the opposite. There
were some really harsh laws that had been passed during
World War One, which the Indians hoped and expected would
be east up when the war ended, and on the contrary,
harsher laws were put in place. Among other things, the
(14:55):
new laws criminalized civil disobedience and prohibited more than ten
In Dean's gathering in a public place at any one time.
But the people were so you know, motivated by this
non violent action that in spite of that rule, more
than ten thousand of them gathered in a ground open
(15:19):
ground in the middle of the city of Umrits. That
open ground was a large six acre public garden with
walls on all sides and only five entrances. When Colonel
Reginald Dyer, the local British officer in charge, heard about
the crowd gathered there, he decided to quash the protest.
Dire later testified quote, I had made up my mind
(15:41):
I would do all the men to death. He brought
his military and surrounded the crowd of ten thousand and
opened fire on them point blank range, and within minutes
he killed more than three d and eighty six people.
Gandhi responded to the blood and violence in Amritzar by
(16:03):
encouraging Indians to boycott British goods, schools, jobs, courts, and
honors to refuse to pay their taxes. For months, Gandhi
toured the countryside in the torrid summer heat, speaking to
large crowds. He encouraged them to weave their own clothes
and to avoid British apparel. The crowds piled up shirts, coats,
pants and other clothes, which Gandhi set a fire. Gandhi's
(16:27):
non violent army in India was taking shape, but British
officials arrested Gandhi for preaching sedition in nineteen twenty two.
He was sentenced to six years in prison. Gandhi smiled
as he was led away to jail. Gandhi served only
two years of his sentence during that time. In the
(16:50):
remainder of the nineteen twenties, the British succeeded in thwarting
India's growing independence movement. They used a divide in rule policy.
They exploited the existing tensions between Hindus and Muslims in
India to consolidate their own power. A ruined Gandhi. So
they they exacerbated all of these divisions that existed in
(17:11):
society and kept people fighting within themselves and not the British.
So Gandhi also devoted himself to helping his fellow Indians
improve themselves. Kit Miller again, his attention very naturally turned
to well what kind of country will we be after
they leave um? And then also trying to get people
(17:33):
to become able to be non violent. He many times
called off campaigns if violence would break out, and he
would fast himself in penance, um using his own moral
credibility with the Indian people to try to get them
to stay nonviolent even when they were provoked. British officials
(17:54):
in India had no idea how to respond to the
unorthodox tactics being used by the quiet man in sandals
and a white loincloth. They told new administrators when they
were coming from England to India to stay away from
Gandhi because he was so compelling. Ah, he like literally,
holl Gandhi will get you, they said. Gandhi's impact on
(18:17):
his own people was even more remarkable. He was really
regarded as a saint. I mean, he didn't ask for
the honorific of Mahatma. He didn't actually like it because
he felt that it separated him from other people. He
lived ate, dressed and traveled like the poorest people in
a very poor country. When he was asked why he
(18:38):
always traveled third class, he said he smiled and said,
because there's no fourth class. Still, the man they referred
to as Bapu or father, had not delivered on any
major reforms that was about to change. Gandhi would demonstrate
the power of non violence to the world as it
had never been shown, a message that would resonate with
Bayard Ruston, Martin, Luther King, and others down corridors of
(19:00):
history to this day. Gandhi grew frustrated by the pace
of progress in India. He knew he needed something that
would break through, that would put more pressure on the
British and forced them to change course. And then he
found it. The colonizers made Indians by British salt at
(19:21):
a high price, even though Indians could make it much
cheaper themselves. Gandhi knew he had his pressure point ruined.
Gandhi again, he suddenly realized that this would be a
great way of mobilizing the entire community, because salt is
something that everybody were, the rich or poor or whatever.
(19:44):
Everybody needed salt. So he announced the launching of the
AsSalt March and the defiance of the AsSalt Law. Gandhi
and seventy eight followers set out from a village in
western India for a two hundred and forty one mile march.
They had to due south towards the sea. The British were.
(20:07):
They laughed it off. Then they didn't do anything um
to prepare for this kind of major revolution that it became,
and millions of people joined within a couple of days.
That's when the British realized, how you know, popular this was,
(20:27):
but by then it was too late for them to
do anything to stop it. Gandhi and his followers watched
for twenty four days from village to village along winding
dirt roads, the army growing in size at every stop.
Soon the eyes of the world were transfixed on Gandhi
in India, and by the time they finished up, there
were thousands of people walking along. Kit Miller. He was
(20:50):
in his late sixties by then, and he just he
could just eat up the ground walking. He was he
was just on fire. Gandhi and his followers finally reached
the country's coast in the early morning. Gandhi scooped up
a handful of mud and salt left by the ocean
in defiance of the British law. He declared, with this salt,
I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire. People.
(21:13):
Immediately after the first moment of when he grabbed the
salt from the shore people all over the country started
to follow suit, and um, you know, it was a
remarkable moment of people recognizing that they could be free.
That Salt March and and the defiance of the salt
law was the last straw on the camel's back, and
(21:38):
from that point onwards, independence was inevitable. The following year,
Gandhi traveled to England to argue for Indian independence. Fear
years at last the mystery man of India, and he's
carrying with him is pots and pans, which he declared
that the customers. When asked to speak into the sound
(22:00):
film microphone, he said, I think not. Gandhi, now aged sixty,
did agree to some interviews, though his words were fear,
if England does not grant to your demand, what force
of action will follow them? Of course, colia civil disobedience,
(22:25):
Gandhi answered, But Britain's leaders did not grant Gandhi's demands,
so he pressed on. This is Gandhi addressing a crowd
in Geneva, Switzerland, after his trip to Great Britain. I
regard my tip as a soldier, though a soldier of Pe,
the soldier of peace was greeted as a conquering hero
when he returned back to India, and he was more
(22:45):
convinced than ever that India could prevail over Britain using
love and non violence. It was just a question of
how long that would take up Next, Gandhi's dream of
independence for India was realized, but not without a steep price.
(23:16):
Gandhi returned home to India nineteen thirty one. He is
a hero beloved, but India is still under British rule.
Gandhi continued to lead his fellow Indians and acts of
civil disobedience and non violent protests throughout the nineteen thirties.
It had only a modest effect. Britain responded with more
violence and oppression. Then the Second World War intervened. Finally,
(23:38):
in the years following the war, great Britain's resolves started
to fade. It came to the table, ruined Gandhi again.
I think the you know, the massive defiance in India
against British rule, plus the tremendous losses that they suffered
(23:59):
in War War two, really broke the back of the
British and decided that, you know, it's time that they
gave India independence. August fifteenth nine, Independence Day for India.
(24:19):
In London, the flags of the new Indian Union flattered
over the headquarters of India and Pakistan. An era has ended,
a new epoch begins. The Indian subcontinent achieved its independence,
but only after its land was divided along religious lines
into Hindu controlled India and Muslim ruled Pakistan. Gandhi was
quite heartbroken with away. Independence was finally broken. Because of it,
(24:42):
the divisiveness between Hindus and Muslims um I mean, he
really went to the mat to try to avoid um
that division. Gandhi feared that partition of the Indian subcontinent
would spark widespread violence between Hindus and Muslims. He was right.
The streets filled with corpses. Decades of non violent resistance
(25:03):
were drowned in a river of blood. The possibility of
death was a constant companion for Gandhi, but he continued
on kit Miller again. He wouldn't take the security. He
just would continue in his daily habits, so very easy
target for assassination. Like he knew he was putting himself
(25:24):
at risk, but it was not his His own safety
was not his highest priority. Gandhi was on his way
to address a prayer meeting on the evening of January
when a young Hindu nationalists fired three bullets into his
chest at point blank range. Gandhi died soon after. You know,
when someone was crediting him for being non violent, he said, well,
my test of non violence will really be at the
(25:47):
end of my life. Will I be able to if
I'm killed by someone? Will I be able to die
with my prayers for their well being on my lips?
Close to a million people to send it on New
Delhi to pay homage, to go and watch as his
body was burned atop a large funeral pyre. All this
time wherever he went, I'm a Hatma's doctrine of commonal
(26:08):
peace brought hope and faith to millions in village and city.
Are luck. The news of it went all around the world,
And you think about it. You know, Gandhi never had
an army, he never had political office, he never had
any money. I think he died with like five possessions,
you know. So to think of someone who lived their
(26:29):
life in the way that he did and had such
enormous moral power, moral force, it changed the world, you know,
the way he lived changed the world. Martin Luther King
once wrote of Gandhi quote, with a little love and understanding, goodwill,
and a refusal to cooperate with an evil law, he
(26:50):
was able to break the backbone of the British Empire.
More than three nine million people achieved their freedom, and
they achieved it non violently. Gandhi became a singular figure
in the eyes of the world, but even the Mahatma
stood on the shoulders of another great man. In fact,
Gandhi's roade to non violence originated with an eccentric novelist
(27:11):
who lived more than five thousand miles away. Gandhi's interest
in non violence stemmed from a variety of people in places.
He spoke always about the women in his life as
being key people showing him non violence. Gandhi was also
influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and the teachings of Jesus.
(27:35):
But the person who really caught Gandhi's attention was the
famous Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. In the eighteen nineties, Gandhi
read The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Tolstoy's treatise
on Love and non violence. Gandhi later wrote that Tolstoi's
book quote overwhelmed me ruined Gandhi again. The idea of
(27:56):
non violence began to mature are in his mind. He
realized that there is nothing disobedient about wanting justice. Yeah,
And so he came to know about Tolstoy and had
read some of dult sty book, and so he borrowed
(28:16):
DLS toys A Passive Resistance in Night. Two years before
his death, the eighty year old Tolstoy wrote an essay
about the British occupation of India. He asked how millions
of Indians could be enslaved by so few British and
he provided the answer. The Indians were enslaving themselves through
(28:39):
their cooperation with evil. The solutions at Tolstoy was love
and non cooperation. He advised the Indians quote, do not
resist the evil doer, and no one in the world
will be able to enslave you. Tolstoy's words touched a
nerve in the young Gandhi, who was attempting to help
Indians overcome oppression in South Africa. After he accepted passive resistance,
(29:05):
he wanted to learn a little bit more about it
from Tolsto and so he started a correspondence with him,
which we went on for several years back and forth.
In those letters, Gandhi shared with Tolstoy the details of
his struggles with the British and South Africa and sought
his advice. Tolsto was thrilled to hear about the young
(29:27):
activists who was trying to turn the principles of non
violence into true political action. Just two months before Tolstoy's death,
in one of the last letters he would ever write,
he praised Gandhi's peaceful resistance in South Africa, calling it
the most weighty, practical proof that such a course of
action could work. Leo Tolstoy is perhaps best known today
(29:50):
for his novels including Warren Peace and Anna Karinina, but
his biggest legacy and gift to the world might be
his ideas on non violence. The young Gandhi embraced those
ideas and altered the course of the twentieth century, and
in turn he inspired a black activist named Bayard Rust,
who then handed the gift down to a young preacher
(30:10):
named Martin Luther King Jr. Next week, on the thread
count Leo Tolstoy, The Privileged Russian playboy who turned himself
into one of the greatest novelists of all time before
giving it all up to change the world in the world,
just like change in the world, Just like, just Like.
(30:40):
The Thread is produced by Libby Coleman, Robert Coulos, Sophia
Perpetua and me Sean braswell Chris Hoff engineered our show.
This episode features the song Be the Change by mc yogi.
To learn more about The Thread, visit Ausie dot com,
Slash the Thread all one word, and make sure to
subscribe to The Thread on apple pot casts, follow us
(31:01):
on I Heart Radio or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Check us out at ausie dot com or on Twitter
and Facebook. If you love surprising, engaging stories from history,
look no further than the flashback section of Ausi dot com.
That's ozy y dot Com and Christian's Rotist with James
and choose all the many past got lead into the
(31:22):
lightnessis brightness side of me until you gotta bes that
you want to see in the world. It's just like
our be the James that you want to see in
the world, just like Beat
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