Biography of Kasturba Gandhi
Kasturba Mohandas Gandhi was the wife of Mahatma Gandhi, She was born on 11 April 1869 in a district called Porbandar in Gujarat. Kasturba Gandhi’s father’s name was Gokuldas Kapadia. But most people know Kasturba Gandhi only because of Mahatma Gandhi.
Although Kasturba Gandhi had also achieved many achievements in her life, but she was the wife of Gandhi, due to which people did not pay much attention to her achievements.
In India, Mahatma Gandhi is called the father of the Nation, therefore people used to call his wife as “Ba”, it’s a Gujarati language word that means “mother*, that is, people used to call her as the mother of the nation.
Gandhi was first given the status of father of the nation by Subhash Chandra Bose.
Early Life
Most of the members of Kasturba Gandhi’s family were businessmen. Both Kasturba and Mahatma Gandhi’s father were very good friends. Therefore Mahatma Gandhi’s father got his son married to Kasturba
At that time child marriage was common, hence the marriage of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba was also done at the age of about 13 years.
Both of them used to play together just like friends, in the early years of marriage, both of them supported each other well.
Life after marriage
Because the couple was married at a young age, therefore, they both were not educated, although at the time of marriage Kasturba was not able to write her name and she did not even know the Alphabet letters.
Although Mahatma Gandhi had taught his wife to read and write in the early days, but his wife had many domestic responsibilities, due to which she could not get much education.
Mahatma Gandhi became a father for the first time in 1888, he named his boy Harilal and at the time Mahatma Gandhi’s advocacy studies were continuing in London. Because Kasturba Gandhi was pregnant so she could not go to London
Four years later, in 1892, a second son was born to Kasturba Gandhi, and Gandhi named this son Manilal.
Just four years later, in the year 1897, Kasturba Gandhi gave birth to a third son and named him Ramdas.
After becoming the mother of three children, Kasturba Gandhi was completely surrounded by responsibilities.
She went to South Africa with Mahatma Gandhi in 1897, and where she gave birth to her fourth son, in 1900 she became the mother of four children, and her fourth son was named Devdas.
Kasturba Gandhi Role in politics and movements
Although Kasturba Gandhi had many household responsibilities, but still she listened to and understood Gandhi’s teaching and always supported him, Mahatma Gandhi could not pay much attention to his family as he was busy, but his wife focused on both her children and her husband
Mahatma Gandhi started his movement from South Africa and was supported by his wife Kasturba. She used to sit on a hunger strike like her husband.
In the year 1913, Kasturba was put in jail because he had asked a lot of questions to the government there, due to which the South African government had imprisoned her for a full 3 months,
The African government felt that by doing so, Kasturba will never ask any question to the government, but after coming out of jail, she started the questioning again.
Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from Africa
In the year 1915, Mahatma Gandhi had to return India from South Africa, at that time India was a slave of the British, and the British used to oppress the Indians, that’s why Gandhi made people aware and explained the importance of education,
Kasturba Gandhi also made women aware of education, cleanliness, and health.
She becomes the Role model for Indian Women
Mahatma Gandhi had dedicated himself to the independence of India, he started meant movements such as the Quit India Movement, Champaran Satyagraha Movement, But his wife supported him during the movements
At that time there were very few aware women, one of them was Kasturba Gandhi, she tried to aware of other women, after which some women also started coming into politics. but the number of women was too small, it could be counted on fingers.
Mahatma Gandhi also wanted to bring women along for the independence of India, hence, he presented his wife as a role model, which sent a message to the society that something can be done for the country as well as taking over the domestic responsibilities.
Kasturba Gandhi Death
She supported Mahatma Gandhi in all the movements, even she went to jail. She was healthy for almost sixty years, but after that, she started falling ill.
From the year 1942 she was getting more sick and therefore she had a heart attack in January 1944, after which she died in a few days, she also wanted to see India free but she could not see it.
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