An arrival home
January 9, 2024
On January 9th, 1915, Mohandas Gandhi arrived home in India after nearly two decades in South Africa. When he and his wife Kasturba approached Mumbai and saw the coast, Gandhi was “filled with tears of joy.”1 It had been 1902 the last time he’d set foot on his native soil.
He and his wife had spent the last three weeks on a voyage back from London, where they were delayed for four months by the outbreak of World War One. It was Kasturba’s only visit there, and the journey back brought them through the Suez Canal. If she found its construction as “marvelous” as Gandhi had at age 18, there is no record of her impression.
The reason for returning to India by way of London was so Gandhi could connect with his political mentor, G.K. Gokhale. The war had snarled their plans, and both men were having health troubles. Gokhale had returned to India two months earlier, but they met not long after Gandhi docked.
Gokhale had asked him several times to spend an entire year in India observing, before becoming involved in local politics. Getting to know the terrain before committing your forces is sound advice for any tactician; Gandhi made the promise, and reported it to the newspapers who came to interview him. (He said he hoped to be able to carry it out.) He also emphasized that he had returned to “the dear old Motherland” with the intention of settling down and studying Indian problems for the remainder of his life.2
There were private meetings, visits with relatives, parties and public receptions held during the week they spent in Mumbai; five events are recorded in the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG). (They are a veritable Who’s Who of Indian politics, but I won’t bore you with any additional names… yet.) When they tried to give him gifts made of gold and silver, he demurred, pointing out he didn’t even have a roof over his head! His goal was service for the country, not financial reward, and requested they put the money to better use.
One reception not listed in the CWMG had over 1,000 people in the crowd. They were all women, and they were all there to honor Kasturba Gandhi. A year earlier, she had done her part in the South African struggle, serving three months in jail at hard labor. Speeches of praise were delivered, and Kasturba herself was asked to say a few words. She graciously allowed that the praise “was really due to the the Indian woman of South Africa, ‘some of whom had even died in jail.’”3
When have you had been welcomed back to a place?
Letter to Maganlal Gandhi (CWMG, p. 6737) January 11, 1915
Interview to the “Bombay Chronicle (CWMG, p. 6734) January 9, 1915
Gandhi: The Years That changed the World (1914-1948) (Ramachandra Guha, 2018) p. 13