MR GANDHI’S HEALTH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21955, 17 May 1933, Page 7

MR GANDHI’S HEALTH

IMPROVEMENT REPORTED NAUSEA LEAVES HIM (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) CALCUTTA, May 15. Mr Gandhi is reported to be in excellent condition. Since he has taken Vichy water the nausea has left him. Frail in body but strong in mind, fasting now possibly to death for the sake of an ideal, strong with the strength of his own beliefs and unshakcable convictions. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Indian Nationalist leader, is a man who has exerted an enormous influence among his people, and one who has for years been a centre of civil disobedience and disturbances. He is 62 years of age. The latter portion of his life has contained several terms of imprisonment for seditious utterances, and a series of fasts for political purposes, designed to force the baud of the Government. Mr Gandhi was born at Porbunder, a little seaport town on the coast of Kathiawar, in 1869. The family was an important one. His father had been Prime Minister of the State, and this office had been made hereditary for some generations past. His mother was a devout Hindu, possessing a deep religious faith.

The turning point in the early days of Mohandas Gandhi came when he was able to go to England to finish his education and obtain a full training in the law. The change was an extreme one. Mr Gandhi suffered greatly from solitude. His life was lived with an asceticism and simplicity that strengthened his moral character as the years wont by. On his return to India, he began to practise at the Bar in Bombay and Kathiawar. For several years, in India, he was a comparative failure in professional life, largely because of conscientious scruples. Then he was invited to go to South Africa to undertake a lawsuit on behalf of a Mohammedan client. He was admitted to the Bar in South Africa, remaining in that country because he felt that his fellow-countrymen there were suffering hardships which he should share.

While in Johannesburg, he made frequent appearances in the court presided over by Mr H. A. Young, S.M., now senior magistrate in Christchurch. He appeared for Indians mostly, and in deportation cases. At one time he had an income of over £3OOO a year. For 20 years Mr Gandhi was the champion of 15,000 of his countrymen in South Africa. He organised a passive resistance campaign, and suffered imprisonment. In April, 1914, legislation appeared which removed the chief grievances of the Indians. In December of that year Mr Gandhi returned to India and opened a “ retreat.” In the midst of his worldly prosperity, he had decided at last to abandon everything, and give himself up to a life of poverty in which he could practise ascetic self-control and entire non-violence in all his actions. Presently he began to come into political prominence. In 1920, he reached the great dividing line of career. After repeated failures to obtain clear signs of repentance for what he considered to be the wrongs done to his country at Amritsar, and for the breaking of promises made to the Indian Mussulmans in the Great War, he declared that he could not continue, as leader of the Nationalist organisation, to co-oper-ate with the British Government. Becoming the ruling spirit in the campaign for “ Swaraj ” —home rule —he organised an active non-co-operation movement. This anti-British campaign included refusal of political and economic cooperation with the authorities, refusal to pay taxes, to serve in the army, to hold public office, or to buy British goods. In 1922, he prepared to replace non-co-operation with a scheme for mass disobedience. He preached pacifism and nonresistance. But he could not always restrain his adherents from violence, and the upshot of the movement was his arrest. In March, 1922, Mr Gandhi was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. He was released in February, 1924. Early in 1920 he prepared to withdraw from public life for a year, but within six months was forced to break silence to deny the truth of a suggestion that if he were Emperor of India he would exclude Europeans. He then declared his policy, which was made up of disarmament, maintenance of friendly relationships with the frontier tribes the imposition of a tariff on foreign cloth, the introduction of prohibition, and the better treatment of the “ Untouchables and other outcasts. In 1926 he attended the National Congress, and in 1928, re-entered politics. On January 1, 1929, under the spell of his activities and persuasiveness, -he Congress adopted his scheme for mass organisation, the prohibition of liquor, and the boycott of foreign cloth. In March he incited a mob in Calcutta to make a bonfire of foreign cloth, and riots followed. At the close of the year, the National Congress passed Mr Gandhis motion demanding complete independence, a boycott of the legislatures, and the start of a widespread campaign of civil disobedience. Mr Gandhi sent to Lord Irwin, then the Viceroy, an ultimatum threatening the start of a further civil disobedience campaign. This was designed to be « measure of protest against the failure of the British Government to grant dominion status to India. . . Acting on an old authority giving power for any person to be arrested without judicial trial for State reasons, particularly for the preservation of the p eaco of the country, the Government had Mr Gandhi arrested and imprisoned a wain in May, 1930. He was released in January of the following year He attended the Round Table Confeience in London, where comment was aroused by his refusal to wear any other than the scantiest of native clothing. Last year, Mr Gandhi undertook another of his political fasts, in an effort to induce the Government to change policy decisions. . The latest fast, which began at noon Inst Monday, is, according to Gandhi’s announcement, without political significance. He is undertaking the ordeal solely to forward the removal of “ untouciiability,” a cause to which he proposes to devote the rest of his life. He has been released by the Government from Yeravda Gaol, where he had been for 16 months, so that he may be nursed privately during his fast, in which he is now showing signs of grave weakness. He could have secured his release at any time by renouncing the latest of the civil movements which he has fostered.