Women Behind Mahatma Gandhi
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WOMEN BEHIND MAHATMA GANDHI WOMEN BEHIND MAHATMA GANDHI by ELEANOR MORTON MAX REINHARDT LONDON 1 PREFACE his book really began more than a quarter of a century T ago, when one afternoon at the home of friends my husband and I heard Rabindranath Tagore in a reading of his poems, with a talk on India following. During a short conversation later, he spoke of Gandhi as a new national leader; it was the first" time that I had ever heard of him. In the years that followed I met many of Gandhi’s friends and co-workers as well as many of his adversaries, both Indian and British. When Sarojini Naidu lectured here on the India problem, as Gandhi was attacking it, I heard her and spoke with her. Later, Madeleine Slade, Miraben, came to Pendle Hill, our Quaker graduate school of religion and social studies; I heard her speak on India and met her personally, I heard Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit speak before audiences, and was present at interviews given to the press. I met Annie Besant through friends, when - as an old woman - she came on a lecture tour to America. I met Sushi la Nayyar when she was a guest at Pendle Hill and after addresses given before various groups. I met Chakravarty, Gandhi’s disciple, after his address before a Friends’ Meeting, and heard him speak before other audiences also. At the homes of friends, S. Burns Weston and Jennie May Fels, I met Ramsay MacDonald and Lord Harry Snell. When Winston Churchill lectured here shortly after the First World War, I heard him and spoke with him briefly. The public debate between his son, Randolph Churchill, and Dhan G^upal Mikurji, which was presented under the auspices of the Phila- delphia Forum, was preceded for myself by ah interview with Mr. Churchill, arranged through the aid of our friend William K. Huff, the Forum director; Dhan Goupal Mikurji was a friend of oufs. When I was in London in 1 936 , heard accounts of Gandhi’s 1931 visit from those who had been with him there. I met Muriel Lester and heard her speak a number of times. Originally, I began gathering material for a book on Gandhi and his wife. It was inevitable that it should expand, to include at least some of the other women who also have givfcn theit lives, as did Kasturbai Gandhi, to his vision. Incidentally, the reader will find that the spelling of Mrs. Gandhi’s name changes from Kasturbai to Kasturba in the latter part of the book, and will find the reason therefore. Our two friends, Har and Agda Erickson Dayal, who knew Gandhi’s work well, read to me often from Indian writings on the great Mahatma, translating aloud. Nellie Lee Bok, who spent a short time in Gandhi’s ashram, has told me how deeply her experience influenced her thinking. Many spoke of Gandhi’s wife, with her inarticulate and wholly unlettered devotion to him and his work. To name all who have provided me with material would be impossible. There have been countless personal letters, con- versations, interviews; literally thousands of clippings have been lent me as well as hundreds of magazine articles; and I have read many scores of books. Writing would have been impossible even to undertake, without these. But among those to whom I feel particularly indebted are: Anna C. Brinton, co-director of Pendle Hill, with whom the thesis of this book was discussed and who gave me valuable data obtained in her stay in India for the American Friends Service Conunittee; Clarence E. Pickett, honorary secretary of the American Friends Service Commit- tee, who helped me evaluate the place of Gandhi and his followers in India’s struggle; Horace Alexander, British Friend, long a close associate of Gandhi and of many in the ashrams, who gave me valuable information on the contemporary story of a number of Gandhi disciples, as well as a friend’s analysis of Gandhi - his character, his intellectual genius and the far greater genius he possessed as spiritual leader; Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard University, who provided me with data concerning Sevagram Ashram today; Cherian Thomas, visiting student from India, who gave me information about a number of the people in the book ; Gouri Bose, visiting student invited here by the United States Government, who told me current facts concerning the work and lives of those of Gandhi’s women disciples who are still living. To these must be -added the many visitors from India and viii : ^ England whom I have had the privilege of meeting and who have been kind enough to share their knowledge of the Mahat- ma and his life-mission as well as their knowledge of the story of the men and women who helped him achieve it. E. M. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks are due to Dr. Norman Brown, of the University of Pennsylvania ; Dr. R. li. Haynes, of Harvard University; the staff of University of Pennsylvania South Asia Library; the staff of Philadelphia Library’s Pepper Hall; the staff of the Library of Congress; the various persons who gave courteous aid at the British Museum; Havcrfbrd College Library; Philadelphia Public Library; New York Public Library; and Boston Library. To Lester Markel and Bruce Rea, of the New York Times I am profoundly indebted for many pictures of Gandhi; to American Friends’ Service for photographs of Muriel Lester and Dr. Nayyar; to the John Frederick Lewis Collection for portraits of Annie Besant and Olive Schreiner; and to the Fellowship of Reconciliation. To many friends - impossible to name because of sheer - limitations of space 1 give deep gratitude for gracious assis- tance in providing opportunities to meet and speak with many of the people in this book, among them Annie Besant, Sushila Nayyar, Madam Naidu, Madam Pandit, Miraben, Churchill, Snell, MacDonald, Mikurji, Tagore and many others - whose lives touched Gandhi’s. Without these friends, the book could not have been planned, and completed. IX CONTENTS PAGE Preface ...... vii 1 Kasturbai Nakanji . i 2 Kasturbai ..... 4 3 Kasturbai Gandhi . .11 Putlibai . 4 Gandhi . .14 5 Putlibai ..... 26 6 Annie Besant . .29 7 Putlibai and Kasturbai . *34 b A Wesleyan Mother and Kasturbai 39 Olive Sclireiner . , . 9 * 53 10 Millie Graham Polak . 64 1 1 Sonya Schlesin . -75 12 Olive Schreiner . • . .80 Kasturbai 1 3 ..... 89 14 Sarojini Naidu . -93 1 5 Gungabehn, Anasuya Sarabhai and Kasturbai . .106 16 Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru 113 17 Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru, Sarojini Naidu and Kasturbai .122 18 Muriel Lester and Madeleine Slade 128 19 Sarojini Naidu . .138 20 Sushila and Lakshmi .147 21 Sarojini Naidu • ^55 22 Miraben *159 23 Sarojini Naidu, Miraben and Kasturba 169 24 Kasturba . • * 73 XI PAGE 25 Miraben .... 180 26 Kasturba .... 186 27 Rajkumari Amrit Kaur 28 Sushila Nayyar 201 29 Kasturba .... 211 30 Miraben .... 213 31 Sushila, Miraben, Sarojini and Kasturba 219 32 Sarojini Naidu, Miraben, Sushila and Kasturba 229 33 Kasturba .... 236 34 Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit 242 35 Lady Mountbatten 250 36 Sarojini Naidu 257 Bibliography .... 262 xii 1 KASTURBAI NAKANJI n extremely small girl with satiny black hair, delicately A formed nose and immense eyes in a quite lovely, wilful face, played in the garden of a handsome house in Porbandar, the ‘ White City ’ rising straight from the Arabian Sea on the western coast of Gujarat India, on the Kathiawar Peninsula. A group of men were with the girl’s father, Gokuldas Nakanji. Member of the Bania (merchant) caste and successful Hindu businessman, he could permit himself generous hospitality. Strangers, shipping magnates, beggars and priests, all came to his house. Ill Porbandar State, fine residences customarily had charming ceilings exquisitely inlaid, teakwood walls beautifully carved, broad verandahs opening on gardens large enough for gracious living. Although there prevailed in Gujarat a partic- ularly rigid form of exclusion, with women isolated in their own quarters and not merely restricted to hiding behind screens or curtains when in the presence of men, little girls enjoyed comparative liberty until puberty or marriage. Nakanji’s daughter was given the run of house and garden. But even if she glimpsed the present visitors with her father, she could not have known why they came. They were priests and astrologers. They had come to complete details of her betrothal, in solemn traditional rites. Her name was Kasturbai. She was seven years old. Her affianced was called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and he too was seven years of age. The day and hour had been meticulously chosen, with the aid of the astrological charts of both children. Customarily, the barber or barber’s wife would suggest a match, but because the Gandhis haS once been neighbours of the Nakanjis there was no need for intermediaries. Mutual friends could attest to the perfection of Kasturbai’s little body, to her unblemished flower- 1 like skin, sweet breath, and luxuriant tresses, all obligatory female attributes. It was plain that she was destined to grow into great beauty. Two earlier betrothals made for small Mohandas had ended by the deaths of the girl infants involved, providing a fortunate opportunity for Nakanji, which he eagerly grasped. For the boy’s father was a dewan, or premier, who had first served the rajah at the petty princely court of Porbandar State, and now held the like post at Rajkot, a hundred and twenty miles away. For three generations the Gandhis, though members originally of the merchant caste, had been premiers to rulers of small Kathiawar states. Nakanji had wealth; the Gandhis possessed prestige - a commodity devoutly desired by Hindu fathers. Although axiomatically a daughter was bom as punishment for sins committed in a man’s previous incarnations, Kasturbai was given tender, doting love.