Mahatma Gandhi shook the very core of the British Raj in India, forcing them to give us independence from colonial rule. However, he was not alone in his fight.
Kasturba married Gandhi when she was 14 years old and he was 13. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
New Delhi: Mahatma Gandhi is one of the greatest names in the history of the Indian freedom struggle, someone who changed the mode of protests in our country with Satyagraha and Ahimsa. Gandhi shook the very core of the British Raj in India, forcing them to give us independence from colonial rule. However, Gandhi was not alone in his fight. He had many prominent comrades during the freedom struggle, but there is one person whose name generally goes unnoticed. The name is Kasturba Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian political activist and independence movement activist, and the wife of Mahatma Gandhi.
The marriage with Mahatma Gandhi
Born on April 11, 1869, Kasturba married Gandhi when she was 14 years old and he was 13, in a marriage arranged by their parents. The adolescent bride spent the first few years of marriage at the house of her parents as per the custom, and away from her husband.
At the age of 17, Kasturba became pregnant but the first child had a premature birth and died in the first year itself. Later, when Mahatma Gandhi shifted base to South Africa, Kasturba and the other children followed suit.
Kasturba Gandhi and politics
It was in South Africa that Kasturba Gandhi first got involved with politics. In 1913, she participated in the protests against the deplorable conditions of Indian immigrants in South Africa. The authorities arrested her and sentenced her to hard labour. During her stay in prison in South Africa, she encouraged educated women to impart their knowledge of reading and writing to the uneducated women.
After Mahatma Gandhi came back to India, Kasturba continued to take part in civil actions and protests. Often, she used to take the spot of her husband when he was in prison. She mostly served in ashrams where she was called ‘Ba’ or ‘Mother’. In 1917, during the Champaran Satyagraha, Kasturba worked for the welfare of women. She taught women about health, hygiene, discipline, and most importantly, reading and writing. She would go on to take part in many civil disobedience campaigns and marches and she was jailed by the British Raj several times.
She took part in a non-violent protest against the British rule in Rajkot after the women asked her to and was arrested with solitary confinement for a month. She continued her fight with failing health and took part in the Quit India movement for which the British authority confined her in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. It was there that she passed away on February 22, 1944, at the age of 74.
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