Gandhi leaves India
Gandhi leaves for England
Gandhi went to a college but didn't remain for a long time. He didn't like the lessons and he didn't do well. So he decided to go to England to study law. That was a difficult decision because it was against his religion to eat and drink with foreigners. Most of the leaders of his group didn't agree on his going. However, Mohandas, in 1888, set out for England leaving a wife and a child behind.
For the
first three months in England, Gandhi wasted his time and money but in an
amusing way. The young Indian tried to act like an English gentleman. He bought
new clothes and a tall hat and every morning he used to spend a lot of time
dressing and brushing his hair with care. Young Gandhi also took lessons in
dancing, French, playing a musical instrument and such arts, but he didn't do
well so he gave up all this and started to study law.
From India to South
Africa
In 1891, Gandhi returned to India. He started practicing law in Bombay but after a while he found his work very boring and he felt that this occupation is not suitable for him. However, a change occurred when he was advised to go to South Africa to work as an advisor to an Indian merchant called Abdullah Sheth. In 1893 we find the 24 years old shy lawyer in Durban, South Africa.
The 21 years he spent in South Africa were an extremely important turning point in Gandhi's life. In South Africa, Gandhi found that most of the Indians who had left India and came to Africa were considered of a low rank and were known as "coolies". Since Gandhi was one of them he was treated in the same bad way and was looked at with the same inferior eye. He experienced this feeling when he was riding a train and a man travelling in the same train discovered that Gandhi was sitting in a first-class seat. The man called the railway guard who ordered Gandhi to leave the first-class carriage. Gandhi refused saying that he had bought a first-class ticket and he intended to use it. Then a policeman came and forced Gandhi to leave the whole train. Another example, he was struck by a white man in a large public carriage because the man wanted Gandhi's place and Gandhi refused to leave it. Moreover, that place was outside the carriage, beside the driver and the man who wanted his place was the person in charge.
"We were all coolies. I was an insignificant coolie lawyer. At the time there were no coolie doctors, we had no coolie lawyers, I was the first in the field" Gandhi
These actions, and many others, were just an example of the explicit racial discrimination Indians in South Africa suffered from which propelled Gandhi to hard work to improve the way he and his people were treated. He led campaigns of protest but as a peaceful person he gradually adopted non-violent resistance known as "satyagrapha" (meaning "steadfastness in truth") and he achieved some success in securing racial justice for his people.
"Disobedience to be civil has to be
open and nonviolent."
Gandhi
After a
year he finished his work with his employer Abdullah 
Sheth
and intended to leave for India but when he knew that a law was to be issued to
take even more rights from Indians in South Africa, he decided to stay in South
Africa and work for his people's rights and he did. But after two other years,
Gandhi returned to India for several months and came back with his wife and two
children. When he was India he tried to tell his people how badly Indians were
treated in South Africa, but news of what he had done reached the white people
living in Natal and when he tried to land stones and eggs were thrown at him. He
was saved by the help of the courageous wife of the English Chief of Police who
walked with him until policemen came to his help; and her husband who held the
attention of the angry crowd while Gandhi was escaping from the back door.
