Autobiography

by Mohandas Gandhi

  Bandra, the slaughter house in—prevents the author from choosing it for residence.

  Banerji, Babu Kalicharan.

  Banerji, Sir Gurudas.

  Banerji, Surendranath.

  Banker, Sjt. Shankarlal.

  Bar, the, in South Africa, the author’s reminiscences of.

  Bardoli.

  Baroda State.

  Basu, Babu Bhupendranath.

  Bayswater.

  Bearer, the author serves as.

  Becharji Swami, administers vows to the author.

  Bell’s ‘Standard Elocutionist’ awakes the author to a sense of the realities.

  Belur Math.

  Benares.

  Bengali.

  Bentham.

  Besant, Mrs..

  Bettiah.

  Bhagavat, the author hears—read.

  Bhandarkar, Dr.; the author meets; presides over the Poona meeting.

  Bhavanagar, the author joins college at.

  Bhitiharva.

  Bible, the, the author reads; dislikes the Old Testament; but is impressed by the Sermon on the Mount.

  Bihar.

  Binns, Sir Henry.

  Blavatsky, Madame.

  Boer War, the; author leads an Indian ambulance corps in

  Bombay .

  ‘Bombay Chronicle’, the.

  Booth, Dr., endorses the author’s objections to a passage in the English National Anthem; hospital opened under his charge; supports the author’s proposal of an Indian ambulance corps

  Bowring, Mr., Inspector of Police

  Bradlaugh, the author attends funeral of.

  Brahmachari.

  Brahmacharya, the author’s thoughts turned to; his strivings after; he takes the vow of; the conditions of.

  Brajkishore Prasad, Babu.

  Brelvi, Mr..

  Brighton.

  British Indian Association.

  Broach, the author presides at the Educational Conference.

  Broom.

  Bruce, Sir Charles.

  Buddha, Gautama, the author compares Jesus with

  Buller, General.

  Burdwan.

  Burns, John.

  Butler.

  CALCUTTA .

  Cama, Mr..

  Cambridge.

  Cantlie, Dr..

  Cape Comorin.

  Capetown.

  Cardinal Manning.

  Carlyle.

  Cassimbazaar, Maharaja of.

  Caste, troubles with

  Cawnpore.

  Ceylon.

  Chamberlain, Mr.; visits South Africa; gives cold shoulder to the Indian deputation

  Champaran, redress for the grievances of the peasants in

  ‘Chandrayana’ vow.

  Charaka.

  Charlestown.

  Chelmsford, Lord, Viceroy; author’s letter to.

  Chesney, Jr., Mr..

  Chhaya.

  Chhotalal.

  Chicken broth, the author refuses to give—to his son in his dangerous illness.

  Chievely Camp.

  Children, the author’s; he teaches; the author gets—to work as volunteers; their education; nursed by the author; he sees through the safe delivery of the last of them; gets them to plead with their mother to agree to return gifts of ornaments.

  Choithram, Dr..

  Chowdhari, Pandit Rambhaj Dutt.

  Chowpati.

  Christ, Jesus; the author compares—with Buddha.

  Christianity, x; the author prejudiced against; his difficulties in accepting

  Christians, the author comes in contact with; attends a convention of.

  Churchgate.

  Civil Disobedience.

  Civil Procedure Code, the.

  Coates, Mr.; the author discusses religion with; gives the author religious books; tries to break the author’s necklace of Tulasi beads; 108; witnesses the assault on the author

  Colonial-born Indian Educational Association, the author founds.

  Common law.

  Congress, at Amritsar; constitution for—framed; at Calcutta; at Nagpur.

  Congress Inquiry into Punjab Dyerism.

  Congress-League Scheme.

  ‘Coolies’, Indians named as—in South Africa.

  Corporal punishment, the author opposed to.

  Corps, Ambulance.

  Courland, s. s., the author sails on board; passes through a storm on sea: its passengers’ landing opposed by Durban whites.

  Cow protection.

  Cow with five feet.

  Crewe, Lord.

  ‘Critic, the’.

  ‘Current Thought’, the.

  Cursetji, Mr., C. M..

  Curzon, Lord, his darbar; the author’s talk with a Raja about it.

  DADA Abdulla & Co., the author accepts their offer to go to South Africa to help in their suit; the author gets their case settled out of court; purchases s. s. Courland; threatened by Durban whites to send back their steamers.

  Dadabhai Naoroji; the author attends addresses by; and presents the note of introduction to.

  Dadibarjor, Dr., the ship’s doctor, dresses the author’s injuries when he was lynched in Durban.

  ‘Daily News, the’.

  ‘Daily Telegraph, the’.

  Dalal, Dr..

  Dancing, the author’s lessons in.

  Danibehn.

  Darbhanga.

  Das, Deshabandhu C. R..

  Dave, Kevalram; helps the author in his legal practice.

  Dave, Mavji, advises the author to become a barrister.

  Dawud Muhammad, Sheth.

  Dayanand, Swami.

  Deck passengers.

  Delhi.

  Desai, Mahadev.

  Desai, Mrs. Durga.

  Desai, Sjt. Gunvantrai, nurses plague patients.

  Desai, Sjt. Jivanlal.

  Desai, Sjt. Pragji.

  Desai, Sjt. Valji Govindji.

  Desai, Sjt. Yashvantprasad.

  Deshpande, Sjt. Gangadharrao.

  Deshpande, Sjt. Keshavrao.

  Dev, Dr..

  Devdas.

  Dharanidhar Prasad, Babu.

  Dhoraji.

  Dhruva, Sjt. Anandshankar.

  Dick, Miss.

  Dietetics, the author’s experiments in; milk to be avoided; difficulty of avoiding it; further experiments in; fasting the author gives up tea and resolves to finish last meal before sunset; gives up salt and pulses; gives upmilk; the author takes goat’s milk.

  Dilshad Begam.

  Disraeli.

  Doke, Rev. Joseph.

  Dudabhai.

  Durban .

  Dvivedi, Sjt. M.N..

  EDUCATION, author’s experiments in and views on.

  Edward VII, King.

  Eggs, the author’s lapse into taking; he refuses to give—to his son in his dangerous illness.

  Eiffel Tower; the author’s reflections on.

  ‘Ekadashi’.

  Elgin, Lord.

  Ellerthorpe, Mr..

  Elocution, the author’s lessons in.

  Equity.

  Escombe, Mr., the attorney of Dada Abdulla in Durban; gets the Indians to register as voters; presents the author’s application for admission as advocate takes part in anti-Indian meetings; advises the author to land at Durban at dusk; regrets the author’s injuries supports the author’s proposal of an Indian ambulance corps.

  Ethics of diet.

  Euclid.

  Europeanization, by the author, of his family.

  Evidence Act.

  Exhibition at Paris in 1890, the author visits.

  FAMINE relief in India, the author gets South African Indians to contribute to.

  Fasting, from a religious standpoint as penance in connection with the Ahmedabad mill-hands’ strike, in connection with the Rowlatt Act Satyagraha.

  Fergusson College.

  Footpaths, in the Transvaal, Indians forbidden to use; the author kicked for using.

  Fort, Bombay.

  French.


  Fulchand, Sjt..

  GABB, Miss.

  Gait, Sir Edward, the Lieutenant Governor of Bihar.

  Gallwey, Colonel.

  Gandhi Chhaganlal.

  Gandhi Karamchand, the author’s father, Diwan in Porbandar, Rajkot and Vankaner; his character; comes into conflict with the Political Agent; reading the Gita; sustains an accident; nursed by the author; his illness and death.

  Gandhi Maganlal; foremost among the author’s co-workers

  Gandhi Manilal, the author’s son, his illness and recovery

  Gandhi Mohandas, the author, birth and childhood in Porbandar; goes to Rajkot at the age of truthful and shy at school; fails to take the teacher’s hint to ‘copy’; deeply impressed by plays about Shravan and Harishchandra; married at the age of thirteen; his reflections on marriage among Hindus; learns the lesson of conjugal fidelity from a pice pamphlet; a jealous husband; imposes undue restrictions on and quarrels with his wife; passionately fond of her; tries to educate her against her will; wins prizes and scholarships at the High School, Rajkot; dislikes sports and gymnastics, but forms the habit of taking long walks; fined for absence at the gymnasium; deeply pained on being suspected of lying; neglects to improve his handwriting; his study of geometry; of Samskrit; his reflections on the languages essential in Indian educational curricula; misled by a friend into taking meat as a cure for physical weakness and cowardice; gives up meat-eating as it necessitated lying to his mother; taken by the same friend to a brothel, but escaped unscathed by the grace of God; and made wrongly to suspect and persecute his wife; takes to smoking and steals coppers to purchase cigarettes; attempts suicide for want of independence; gives up smoking and stealing coppers; steals a bit of gold to clear a brother’s debt; confesses the theft to his father; nurses his father in his last illness, but lust prevents him from attending upon him during his last moments; a child is born to him and soon dies; taught to repeat Ramanama by his nurse Rambha; learns ‘Ram’ Raksha by heart; fascinated by the Tulasi Ramayana reading of Ladha Maharaj in Porbandar; hears the Bhagavat in Rajkot; and learns toleration for all religions; Christianity then an exception; reads Manusmriti and inclines towards atheism; learns to return good for evil from Shamal Bhatt’s stanza; appears for Matriculation at Ahmedabad; joins the Samaldas College, Bhavnagar; advised by Mavji Dave to become a barrister; seeks the support of Mr. Lely; overcomes his mother’s objections to his going to England by taking a vow before Becharji Swami not to touch wine, woman and meat; outcasted for foreign travel; sails for England and reaches London with Sjt. Mazmudar; taught English etiquette by Dr. Mehta; feels lonely and homesick; goes to live with a friend who reasons with him to resume meat-eating; finds out a vegetarian restaurant, reads Salt’s ‘Plea for Vegetarianism’, and is converted; the friend’s last effort to induce him to take meat; trying to become an English gentleman and taking lessons in dancing, French and elocution; gives up the attempt and becomes a serious student; keeps regular accounts and tries to economize; appears at the London Matriculation and is ploughed in Latin; further simplifies his life and cooks for himself; his experiments in dietetics; his lapse into taking eggs; his observations about the interpretation of vows; starts a vegetarian club; his unsuccessful opposition to the expulsion of Dr. Allinson from the Vegetarian Society for his advocacy of birth control; his first failures as a speaker; passes for a bachelor in a family, but soon reveals the fact of his child marriage; reads the Gita and is charmed by it; reads ‘The Light of Asia’; introduced to Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Besant; reads the former’s ‘Key to Theosophy’; reads the Old Testament with an effort; reads the New Testament and is touched by the Sermon on the Mount; reads Carlyle’s ‘Heroes’; attends Bradlaugh’s funeral; an incident strengthens his theism; moved to lust by a woman but saved by a friend’s warning; his contact with Narayan Hemchandra; visits Paris and attends the Exhibition of 1890, his appreciation of Christian devotion; his reflections on the Eiffel Tower; reads Roman and English Law; is called to the bar; meets Dadabhai Naoroji; consults Mr. Pincutt and is encouraged by his advice; returns to India; the death of his mother; meets Raychandbhai and is captivated by him; caste trouble over his foreign voyage; introduces European ways into his family; leaves Rajkot for Bombay to practise at the High Court; fails to conduct his first case; his unsuccessful attempt to get a teacher’s post; returns to Rajkot; insulted by a Political Agent; disgusted with Kathiawad politics; accepts offer to go to South Africa for a case; another child born; sails for S. Africa; taken to a house of ill fame at Zanzibar, but saved; reaches Durban; contact with Abdulla Sheth; refuses to obey magistrate’s order to take off his turban and leaves the court; describes the various classes of the Indian community in S. Africa and their condition; makes friends in Durban; studies the case; leaves for Pretoria; pushed out of the train at Maritzburg; assaulted by a leader of a stage-coach; reaches Johannesburg and is refused admission to a hotel; further hardships on the way; reaches Pretoria; meets Mr. Baker; his Christian contacts and study of Christianity; makes his first public speech at a meeting of Indians; meets the British Agent; gets from Dr. Krause a pass to be out of doors at all hours; kicked by President Kruger’s sentry for using the foot-path; learns the practice of law; gets Dada Abdulla’s case settled out of court; attends a Christian Convention; his difficulties in accepting Christianity; overwhelmed by Tolstoy’s ‘The Kingdom of God is within you’; prepares to return home but is detained to help the Indians to fight against a disfranchising bill; the struggle against the bill; settles in Natal; admitted as advocate of the Supreme Court in spite of opposition; founds the Natal Indian Congress and the Colonial-born Indian Educational Association; writes two pamphlets; helps Balasundaram; unsuccessful opposition to the £3 tax; his comparative study of religions; playfully induces a child to dislike meat and is therefore warned off by the mother; disillusioned about a wicked companion whom he expels; sails for home and reads Urdu and Tamil on the voyage; reaches Calcutta; meets Mr. Chesney of the ‘Pioneer’; writes the Green Pamphlet in Rajkot; serves on the sanitary committee; his loyalty to the British Constitution; meets Ranade, Tyebji, Pherozeshah and Wacha; his passion for nursing; his speech at the Bombay meeting; meets Pestonji Padshah; meets Tilak, Gokhale and Bhandarkar and addresses meeting in Poona; and in Madras; meets Surendranath; and Saunders of the ‘Englishman’; suddenly recalled to Africa; sails on board s. s. Courland with family; determines dress etc. for family; a storm at sea; his and fellow-passengers’ landing opposed by whites but permitted at last; lynched in Durban; but declines to prosecute assailants; unsuccessful struggle against two anti-Indian bills in Natal Assembly; his reflections on managing public bodies with permanent funds; the education of his children; treats a leper and serves in a hospital; nurses his children; sees through the safe delivery of his last baby; Raychandbhai turns his thoughts to Brahmacharya; his strivings after selfcontrol; his views on the importance of vows; takes the Brahmacharya vow; the conditions of Brahmacharya; does his own washing and haircutting; leads an Indian ambulance corps in the Boer War; his efforts at sanitary reform; gets the Indian settlers to contribute for famine relief in India; makes a public trust of gifts made to him; returns to India and attends the Indian National Congress at Calcutta in 1901, does scavenger’s work there; works as Ghosal Babu’s clerk and bearer; his experience of Congress Subjects Committee; his resolution on Indian grievances in S. Africa passed in the Congress; his talk with a Raja about Curzon’s darbar; his reflections on Rajas bedecked like women; stays with Gokhale; meets Dr. P. C. Ray; meets Kalicharan Banerji; visits the Kali temple; his reflections on animal sacrifice; his unsuccessful attempts at meeting Devendranath Tagore and Viv-ckanand; meets Sister Nivedita; visits Burma; leaves Calcutta and travels third class; his reflections on the hardships and unpleasant habits of third class passengers; reaches Benares; at the Kashi Vishvanath temple and is disappointed; waits upon Mrs. Besant; practises law in Rajkot; his experience of the inconsiderateness of an English official; goes to Bombay for practice
; the illness of his son Manilal; his refusal to give Manilal chicken-broth; Manilal’s recovery; called again to South Africa; sails for South Africa with Maganlal Gandhi and other youths; encounters difficulty in going from Natal to the Transvaal; excluded from the Indian deputation by the Asiatic Department; decides to remain in the Transvaal in order to fight the Asiatic Department; enrolled in the Transvaal Supreme Court; his views on life insurance, comes in contact with Theosophists; reads Hindu religious books including the Bhagavad Gita with them; tries to learn the Gita by heart during morning ablutions; the Gita becomes an infallible guide of conduct for him; surrenders his insurance policy and determines to devote himself entirely to service of humanity; his renunciation hurts his brother who however comes round at last; helps a vegetarian restaurant in Johannesburg; lends money to the restaurant and loses it; warned by a friend against such ventures; his experiments in earth and water treatment; believes that man’s diet should consist of fruit and nuts, but obliged to take milk as he could not otherwise rebuild a shattered constitution; confident that restraint in diet essential to a seeker; gets corrupt officers to be prosecuted; his views on ‘Ahimsa’; treats clerks as members of the family; makes his wife clean an untouchable clerk’s pot, and is enraged with her for her reluctance; writes as the spirit prompts him; receives English friends as members of the family; his friendly relations with Miss Dick; with Miss Schlesin; starts ‘Indian Opinion’; and is trained in self-restraint therethrough; gives legal advice to the Johannesburg Indians in land acquisition cases; nurses plague patients; puts plague patients under the earth treatment; meets Mr. Albert West; induces him to take charge of the ‘Indian Opinion’ press; meets Mr. Polak; his credulity; deeply impressed by Ruskin’s ‘Unto this Last’; cures his son’s broken arm by earth treatment; acts as the best man at Polak’s wedding; grinds flour and prepares bread at home; teaches his sons scavenging and nursing, but neglects their literary education; insists upon talking to his children in Gujarati; forms an Indian Ambulance Corps during the Zulu ‘rebellion’; his views on the importance of ‘Brahmacharya’; takes the vow of ‘Brahmacharya’ for life; his further experiments in dietetics; cures his wife by hydropathic treatment; gives up salt and pulses in order to support his wife in carrying out her resolve; gives up milk; takes to fruit diet; takes to fasting; teaches children in Tolstoy Farm; does not believe in text-books; his views on spiritual training; opposed to corporal punishment; the problem of bad boys; fasts as a penance for the lapse of his pupils; leaves South Africa for England; forms an Indian Volunteer Corps at the beginning of the Great War; defends his participation in the War; offers a miniature Satyagraha in connection with the Indian Volunteer Corps; asked by Gokhale to take milk for health but respectfully declines; suffers from pleurisy; leaves England for India; the voyage home; his reminiscences of the bar in South Africa; never takes false cases or coaches witnesses; admission of error against client’s interest; asks magistrate to dismiss the case of his client who was subsequently discovered to have brought him a false case; his clients become co-workers; saves Parsi Rustomji from a bad scrape; makes a Gujarati speech where others spoke in English; meets Lord Willingdon; with Gokhale in Poona; gets the Viramgam Customs Cordon removed; his experiences of travelling third class; decides not to join the Servants of India Society; attends the Kumbha Mela; does scavenging there; troubled by ‘darshan’ seekers; limits himself to five articles of diet; meets Shraddhanandji; how he discarded his ‘shikha’ and sacred thread; decides to re-grow the ‘shikha’; at Lakshman Jhula; founds the Satyagraha Ashram, in Ahmedabad; admits untouchables to the Satyagraha Ashram; receives much needed monetary help from an unexpected quarter; gets indentured emigration abolished; troubled by C. I. D.; obtains redress for Champaran peasants; disobeys order to leave Champaran; case against him withdrawn; conducts an inquiry in Champaran; opens village schools there, and tries to improve village sanitation, and provide medical relief; appointed by Government member of Inquiry Committee which found in favour of the ryots; leads mill-hands’ strike in Ahmedabad; removes Satyagraha Ashram to Sabarmati; fasts in connection with mill-hands’ strike participates in the War Conference; his interest in Hindu Muslim unity and the Khilafat; his letter to the Viceroy in connection with War Conference; conducts a recruiting campaign; his serious illness; benefited by Kelkar’s treatment; agrees to take goat’s milk; offers Satyagraha against the Rowlatt Bills; meets Rajagopalachari; calls upon the country to observe a hartal and fast as protest against the Rowlatt Act; sells proscribed literature; administers the Swadeshi vow; prevented from going to Delhi and brought to Bombay; goes to Ahmedabad where riots had taken place, and addresses meeting; suspends Satyagraha; his ‘Himalayan miscalculation; takes up the editorship of ‘Young India’; and of ‘Navajivan’; visits the Punjab; works on and drafts report of Congress Inquiry Committee as regards the Punjab disturbances; opposes the mixing-up of cow-protection with the Khilafat; opposes the boycott of British goods; hits upon non-co-operation; attends the Amritsar Congress and gets passed a resolution accepting the Montford reforms; collects a fund for the Jalianwala Bagh Memorial; frames constitution for the Congress; his search for the spinning wheel; adopts Khadi for his dress; his conversation with a mill-owner about Swadeshi; moves non-co-operation resolution at the Gujarat Political Conference; gets passed the non-co-operation resolution at the Calcutta special Congress; gets non-co-operation resolution and drafted constitution passed at the Nagpur Congress; bids farewell to the reader.