E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesAt this juncture, the bubonic plague appeared in Bombay and Rajkot was inpanic. Gandhi volunteered his services to the State and joined the officialcommittee in charge of preventive measures. He stressed the need ofsupervising toilets and accepted that task himself. 'The poor people', heremarks in his memoirs, 'had no objection to their latrines being inspected and,what is more, they carried out the improvements suggested to them. But whenwe went to the houses of the upper ten, some of them even refused usadmission. It was our common experience that the latrines of*the rich weremore unclean.' Next, Gandhi urged that the committee investigate theuntouchables' quarter. Only one committee member would go with him. It wasGandhi's first visit to the slums. He had never known how outcasts lived. Hediscovered that they did not have latrines or any enclosed facilities. But theirhouses were clean.From Rajkot, Gandhi went to Bombay to arrange a public meeting on SouthAfrica. He introduced himself to the leading citizens and enlisted their support.Meanwhile he nursed his sister's husband who was ill, and later moved the dyingpatient into his own room. Gandhi always boasted of an 'aptitude for nursingwhich gradually developed into a passion.'The Bombay meeting was a tremendous success because of the sponsors andthe topic. Gandhi had a written speech but could not make himself heard in thebig hall. Somebody on the platform read it for him.At Poona, inland from Bombay, Gandhi interviewed two of the great men ofIndia: Gopal Krishna Gokhale, President of the Servants of India Society, andLokmanya Tilak, a giant intellect and towering political leader. Tilak, Gandhisaid later, was like the ocean and you could not readily launch yourself on it;Gokhale was like the Ganges in whose refreshing, holy waters one longed tobathe. He fell in love with Gokhale but did not take him as his guru. Gandhidescribed a guru in Young India of October 6, 1921, as a rare combination of'perfect purity and perfect learning'. Gokhale, as Gandhi saw him, failed tomeet those requirements. He did, however, become Gandhi's political guru, hisideal in politics.www.mkgandhi.org Page 58