An ashram disbanded
July 31, 2024
Within a few months of returning to India in 1915, Gandhi founded his first ashram there. The intentional community was where he had begun the Salt March in 1930, but by 1933, its existence was in trouble. The ashram had refused to pay taxes for years, and the government had begun seizing property, so Gandhi announced it would be disbanded on July 31, 1933.
There was also an element of sacrifice to it. Gandhi was moved by “the brave suffering” of the common people in the struggle for independence, and desired to take “drastic action” in solidarity.1 He felt called to make the greatest sacrifice, so he informed the government:
I can therefore only offer that which is nearest and dearest to me and for the building of which I and many other members of the Ashram have laboured with infinite patience and care all these eighteen years. … What was once a barren plot of land has been turned by human endeavour into a fair-sized model garden colony. It will not be without a tear that we shall break up the family and its activities.2
The ashram was home to more than 100 people, about a third of them children, and was mostly self-sufficient. Arrangements were made for the moveable property—spinning wheels and stocks of khadi, cattle, and books—to be distributed to those who would protect them and put them to use. Biographer Judith Brown suggests the closing was an opportunity for a new beginning: “Almost certainly Gandhi, who had been so concerned about the ashram’s standards, wanted to start afresh with colleagues whose reliability had been proved.”3
In the meantime, where would they live? Gandhi announced a new march with thirty-odd companions, roughly half of whom were women. They would take no money with them and head south as best they could, surviving on whatever they were offered and never spending two nights in the same place. (It should be noted that this was the rainy season, so not the best traveling weather.)
This march would reiterate the main points of his constructive program: give up alcohol and foreign cloth, take up spinning, and strive for unity that included so-called “untouchables.” Those who felt the call could offer individual civil disobedience; Gandhi anticipated that he would soon be arrested.
He was correct. On the night of July 31, before the march could begin, the police came. They threw him and others in jail… but that’s another story.
When have you given up a long-term project?
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Interview to Associated Press of India, July 25, 1933) pp 29,786-7
Ibid (Letter to Home Secretary, Government of Bombay, July 26, 1933) p 29,796
Gandhi—Prisoner of Hope (Judith Brown, 1989) p. 272