A brilliant mind

IT IS TRUE that Kasturba is only seen alongside Gandhi, but she is seen a few steps behind Gandhi in the imagination, serving him and assisting him. There is no doubt about that. She did serve him. She did assist him. But then, she was far more radical and independent than people acknowledge or are even aware.

- RAJMOHAN GANDHI

People are aware of the 1919 satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act. It was a very consequential event. It led to the Jallianwala Bagh incident. It all began when Gandhi said there would be a nationwide strike, a hartal, all across India in one day. It was the first national hartal, as far as I can observe historically. There had been amazing movements before. But this was the first nationwide demonstration in March-April of 1919.

Gandhi would never have done this—or could never have done this—but for Kasturba’s role in getting him out of a very deep depression. He was physically and emotionally completely drained at the end of 1918. He was very unwell. The doctor said to him that he should take milk to have any chance of recovery. Gandhi was in a quandary. He had taken a vow not to drink milk. At this point, Kasturba said to him, ‘Look here, when you took that vow not to drink milk, you had just returned from Calcutta, where you had seen the horrible way in which cows were being treated. You had the cow in mind when you talked about milk. But you were not thinking of goat’s milk. You can take goat’s milk.’

Gandhi felt that this was a very clever suggestion. He could take goat’s milk and adhere to the letter and spirit of the vow. He accepted Kasturba’s logic, which was ingenious. It was Kasturba’s intervention that preserved Gandhi’s moral and physical fitness. From that day, he survived on goat’s milk. This was a very important role played by Kasturba in the story of India’s freedom movement. Very few people are aware of it. She was like a lawyer. He might have been a barrister-at-law, but she was a very natural lawyer.