If we’re going to take a year to look at Gandhi’s life and lessons, the virtue of walking is the place to start.
I’m tempted to make the case that it was really his only lifetime habit: a child begins to walk before learning other social skills and virtues. Gandhi wrote in his Autobiography about his “daily habit” of running to and from school as a boy. In high school, he enjoyed “the benefits of taking long walks in the open air.” His walks took him across three continents: as a young man attending law school, he would stroll six to ten miles a day through the streets of London. When he led a British stretcher-bearer corp in South Africa, he ended up marching up to for forty miles a day. Later, when he was living outside of Johannesburg, he would walk to his office—21 miles each way!
Part of this was frugality, avoiding the costs of public transportation, but the health benefits were just as important.
Eventually, his love for walking appeared in his political efforts. In 1913, Gandhi attempted to lead thousands of striking mine workers on a 200-mile walk. (It landed him in jail.) And in 1930, after the Indian National Congress demanded independence, Gandhi staged a 241-mile march to illegally make salt.
In the winter of 1946-47, his walks added another aspect: penance. India was on the precipice of independence, and when the fall came, no one yet knew if it would break in two. Gandhi continued to advocate for a united India, but religious violence created political pressure for a separate Muslim nation. A Muslim riot in Kolkata in August 1946 had left thousands dead in the streets, followed by Hindu reprisals in Bihar, and more violence in Noakhali. Gandhi knew that for India to remain whole, this would have to be addressed.
His party gathered in Noakhali in late December, and on January 2, 1947, Gandhi set off walking with a small group. Over the coming weeks, he would cover 116 miles through numerous villages, bringing a message of peace and unity. In return, they recieved stories of the killings and forced religious conversions that had preceded them. Only a small sampling were recorded; the distraught woman who carried her slain husband’s leg bone with her sticks with me.
Gandhi listened to everything they had to tell him, and it took a psychic toll on him. As penance for the bloodshed he felt he'd failed to prevent, he walked those 116 miles barefoot. He was 77 years old.
What has inspired you to be a better person?