Kasturba Gandhi

Kasturba Gandhi (born April 11, 1869, Porbandar, India—died February 22, 1944, Pune) was an Indian political activist who was a leader in the struggle for civil rights and for independence from British rule in India. She was the wife of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Kasturba Kapadia was born to Gokuladas Kapadia, a wealthy merchant, and his wife, Vrajkunwerba, in the city of Porbandar (now in Gujarat state) along the Arabian Sea coast. Her family and that of Mohandas Gandhi (who was several months younger than she) were friends, and in 1882, when she was age 13, the two were married. She went to live in the Gandhi home in Rajkot. Kasturba had received no schooling prior to her marriage, and Mohandas took it upon himself to give her an elementary education.

(Read Indira Gandhi’s 1975 Britannica essay on global underprivilege.)

A child was born to the couple in 1885 but died shortly after birth. Their first child to survive—a son, Harilal—was born in 1888, six years into their marriage. Mohandas left shortly after Harilal’s birth to study law in London (returning in 1891), while Kasturba stayed behind with the new baby. She bore three more sons: Manilal (1892), Ramdas (1897), and Devdas (1900).

Kasturba again remained in India when Mohandas went to South Africa in 1893 to practice law, but he returned for them in 1896, and the family arrived in South Africa early the next year; their last two children were born there. The Gandhi family returned to India in 1901 before deciding to move back to South Africa in 1903.

Kasturba first became involved in politics and social activism in South Africa. In 1904 she helped Mohandas and others establish the Phoenix Settlement near Durban, a cooperative village where residents shared chores and grew their own food; later the family lived there for several years. In 1913 she was arrested and sentenced to three months in prison for participating in a protest against the treatment of Indian immigrants in South Africa. The family left South Africa for the final time in July 1914, traveling to England before arriving in India in early 1915.

Kasturba began experiencing serious medical problems while in South Africa, and thereafter she often was in poor health. She was nevertheless also strong-willed and continued to participate in the increasing number of civil actions and protests across India that Mohandas and others organized. She often took her husband’s place when he was in prison. Sometimes she undertook activities against his wishes, as he was concerned for her health. Much of her time, however, was devoted to helping to manage the various ashrams (religious retreats; see ashrama) that she helped Mohandas found.

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In mid-1917, while Mohandas was working to improve the lot of indigo farmers in Champaran, Bihar, Kasturba concerned herself with the welfare of the women there. In 1922 she participated in a nonviolent civil disobedience (satyagraha) movement in Borsad, Gujarat. Although she did not take part in Mohandas’s famous Salt March in 1930, she did join in a number of civil disobedience campaigns in the early 1930s and was arrested and jailed several times.

In early 1939 she participated in nonviolent protests against the British in Rajkot, after the women in the city appealed directly to her. She was arrested and kept in solitary confinement for a month near the city, during which time her health further deteriorated. In 1942 she was arrested again prior to the Quit India Movement and was imprisoned (along with Mohandas and many other pro-independence leaders) in the Aga Khan Palace at Pune. While in prison her chronic bronchitis worsened, and she contracted pneumonia and suffered a series of heart attacks before dying in early 1944.