INDIANS RECOGNISE GANDHIJI AS THE MAHATMA AS SOON AS HE LANDS IN INDIA
Indians in South Africa formally bestowed the epithet of “Deshabhakta Mahatma” on Gandhiji when he left that country for India, his karma-bhumi, as he called it in one of his farewell speeches. And, Indians in India recognised and began acknowledging the Mahatma in him almost immediately after he landed here.
Gandhiji had left Cape Town on July 18, hoping to soon reach India after a brief stay in England. By the time he reached London on August 4, World War I had broken out. His efforts to organise an Indian Ambulance Corps and indifferent health delayed his return by four and a half months. He finally returned to India on July 9, 1915. Tendulkar, one of the earlies chroniclers of Gandhiji, describes the momentous landing thus:
“The Indian leaders did not wait for him to land but met him on the steamer upon its arrival, and his landing took place, by permission of the authorities, at the Apollo Bunder—an honour shared with Royalty, by Viceroys and India’s most distinguished sons. He was met on board by a deputation consisting of Narottam Morarji Gokuldas, J. B. Petit, B. G. Horniman and others. At the quay he was received by hundreds of people.” (D. G. Tendulkar, Mahatma, Vol. I, 1951, p.193)
A public reception to welcome Gandhiji was held on July 12 at the palatial house of Jehangir Petit. Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, one of the founders of Indian National Congress who was elected its President four times, presided over the event. According to Tendulkar, more than 600 of the elite of Bombay had accepted the invitation and another two hundred had reached without invitation.
Gandhiji felt out of place in the opulent surroundings of his first public reception in India. In his reply to the welcome speeches, he expressed his discomfort saying that “he had felt that he would be more at home in his own Motherland than he used to be in South Africa, among his own countrymen. But during the three days that they had passed in Bombay, they had felt—and he thought he was voicing the feelings of his wife too—that they had been much more at home among those indentured Indians, who were the truest heroes of India. They felt that they were indeed in strange company here in Bombay, …” (CWMG 13.5-6)
Within days of his arrival, he began going around the country, travelling in third class railway compartments along with the ordinary people of India. He went to many parts. Everywhere, tumultuous welcome was offered to him and, at the formal receptions, he was often addressed as “Mahatma”. The first available record of his being called the “Mahatma” after his arrival in India is of a public meeting held on January 21, 1915 at Jetpur in his native Suarashtra, about 30 kilometres from Junagarh. Tendulkar in his chronicle provides a facsimile of this address, which we reproduce below. The address in Gujarati begins with “Shriman Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Barrister-at-Law”.
Dhananjay Keer, another biographer of Mahatma Gandhi, records that Gandhiji was again addressed as “Jagat Vandaneeya Mahatma” on January 27 at Gondal, 30 km northeast of Jetpur. Replying to the address, Gandhiji said that he was conscious of the obligation that the ruler of Gondal, Thakore Sahib, had laid him under, he was not worthy of the epithets that had been applied to him, but wished to continue the struggle to become so worthy and tendered all that praise at the feet of Sri Krishna. (CWMG 12.15-16)
In April, Gandhiji went to Gurukul Kangri on the way to Hardwar, where he met Mahatma Munshi Ram, the founder of the Gurukul, and developed a lasting friendship with him. It is generally believed that it was at Gurukul Kangri that he was first addressed as “Mahatma” in the public meeting held on April 8. It is also said that the title was bestowed on him by Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore on March 6, 1915, when Gandhiji was with him at Santiniketan for a few days.
Whoever may be formally credited for addressing Gandhiji as Mahatma for the first time, it was the Indian people in South Africa who spontaneous called him thus while he was leaving for India, and the Indians everywhere began to address him in this manner soon after he arrived in India and began to move around amongst them.
The people of India not only addressed him as “Mahatma”, they also treated him in the manner of a venerable pious person. The chronology of his first few months in India records several instances when the people insisted on yoking themselves to the vehicle in which he was carried in procession. It is recorded to have happened first on January 17, when he arrived in his native town of Rajkot, just a week after landing in India. It happens again on February 1 in Ahmedabad, in Calcutta on March 12, in Rangoon on March 17 and in Madras on April 19. The chronology mentions that at Ahmedabad, the people insisted on drawing the motor-car in which he was being taken. He refused and began walking.
A report of April 19, 1915 in the Hindu of Madras, graphically describes how the large number of young students who had gathered on the railway station to receive him unyoked the horse and pulled the carriage all the way to his place of stay in the old George Town part of the city:
“Mr. and Mrs. M. K. Gandhi arrived in Madras last Saturday evening from Hardwar by Delhi Express… A little disappointment was in store for the people, however. When the train arrived, they searched all the first and second class compartments, but in vain, and they were inclined to think that Mr. Gandhi and Mrs. Gandhi had not come. But a guard told them that Mr. and Mrs. Gandhi had come by that train and they were in a compartment at the end of the train. A long search discovered Mr. and Mrs. Gandhi sitting in a third class compartment. Mr. Gandhi looked thin and emaciated, a loose shirt soiled by four days of continuous travel covered his body and a pair of trousers similar in appearance covered his legs. There was a rush to that compartment and the crowd was such that about a dozen policemen who had been there found themselves powerless to manage the crowd and had to leave it to shift as best it could. …Shouts of “Long live Mr. and Mrs. Gandhi” and “Bande Mataram” rang from the crowd. Mr. Gandhi bowed to them in acknowledgement and was conducted to the carriage. The students who had gathered in large numbers unyoked the horse and volunteered to drag the carriage. The carriage was taken, dragged by students, to the premises of Messrs Natesan & Co., Sunkurama Chetty Street, Mr. Gandhi being cheered all along the way, Mr. sand Mrs. Gandhi standing in the carriage and with hand cooped [sic] acknowledging the greetings.” (The Hindu, 19-4-1915)
The scene of young men enthusiastically and worshipfully pulling the carriages of gods during various temple-festivals can be often seen on the streets of Madras even today. The custom of pulling the carriages of gods and of venerable pious people was perhaps common all across India in the early twentieth century.
Gandhiji stayed for three weeks, from 17th April to 8th May in Madras at the home of G. A. Natesan, a liberal politician, scholar and publisher, who had been in contact with Gandhiji since 1896. He published many of his works including an edition of Hind Swaraj in 1921. Gandhiji had developed a special affection for South India during his South African campaigns, which were joined and led by many highly committed, selfless and self-sacrificing Tamil Satyagrahis. Tendulkar records that during the three weeks of his stay with Natesan: “Gandhi travelled widely in South India. He went out of his way to see two widows whose husbands had been shot during the South African struggle. In Madras Presidency Gandhi felt inwardly he was with his former colleagues in South Africa.” (p.206)
In the first few months of his arrival in India, Gandhiji not only came to be addressed and treated as the Mahatma by the people, he also took vows that bound him to great austerity. In Natesan’s house, he refused to lie on cots placed in his room and both he and Kasturba chose to sleep on the floor. On February 20, 1915, when he learnt about the death of Gokhale, whom he had adopted as his political guru, he took a vow to go barefoot for one year. And in Hardwar on April 10, he took an extreme vow. He records in his diary for that day: “Vow to have in India only five articles of food during 24 hours, and that before sunset. Water not included in five articles. Cardamom, etc., included. Groundnut and its oil to count as one article.” (CWMG: 13.164)
It is the custom for ordinary disciplined Indians to give up the use of some article when they visit a tirtha like Haridwar. Gandhiji’s companion on that day, Raojibhai vowed to abstain from milk and milk-products. But the extreme vow that Gandhiji took could be sustained for a life-time only by the Mahatma that he had become already, before reaching India.
Such was the tapas and discipline of the Mahatma. The fame of such great souls spreads and the world pays respect to them spontaneously. Their life and work give rise to great literature and great cinema, it is never the other way round.
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