Gender Inequality

8 Pages 1991 Words

Mohandas Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 at Porbandar on the north-west coast of India. He was the third son and the last of four children of well-to-do Hindu parents. The Gandhis belonged to the Modh Bania subdivision of the Vaisya caste, representing the trader class in the traditional Hindu caste system and were originally grocers.
Gandhi’s grandfather, father and uncle were dewan, or prime minister, to ruler of Porbandar; and his father was later prime minister of two other similar tiny states. None of these states was subject to direct British rule, and consequently old Indian customs and traditions were much more in evidence there than in most parts of British India.
Gandhi grew up in a traditional Hindu family. He inherited his father’s stubbornness, incorruptibility and practical sense and his mother’s life of religion, devotion and abstinence. Growing up Gandhi often listened to the religious discussions of his father and his friends who practiced the Muslim and Parsi religions.
Young Gandhi’s exposure to these teachings does not mean that he had developed a deep faith in religion or in ahimsa (nonviolence) at an early age. Gandhi says, “But one thing took deep root in me- the conviction that morality is the basis of things, and that truth is the substance of all morality.” He learned then the guiding principle: “Return good for evil.” And he began to make everything he did an experiment with truth.
Gandhi started school in Porbandar, where he probably attended the local Dhoolishala, or Dust school, where the school teacher taught the children how to write letters of the Gujarati alphabet in the dust on the floor. He had no difficulty in composing, along with other children, Gujarati rhymed couplets ridiculing the lame teacher, but encountered some problem in mastering the multiplication table. “My intellect must have been sluggish, and my memory raw,” says the adult Mohandas about his schoolday...