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[Intro]
She fucked him
She fucked her
Why the fuck did she not fuck me?
Is it because I'm too ugly?
Maybe I'm too fat
Maybe she's not into black guys
With big cocks
Wait. What am I saying.
We're in the third grade
I don't have a big cock
Haven't even had an erection
But she made them
Get harder than Hart
Get it?
Kevin Hart?
Get Hard?
No well okay then
[Hook]
Third Grade Slut
She did it in the butt
Didn't wanna get pregnant
But she did.
That fucking slut
[Verse 1]
She fucked him
She fucked her
Why the fuck did she not fuck me?
I'm fucking pissed
Mother fucking shit.
I want her to taste my dick
Eat that shit like a slim Jim stick
Lick her cunt like a big dog
Fuck that face like a big dog?
Couldn't find nothing to rhyme that made sense
Shit can find anything that rhyme with sense
Nice little titties that haven't even formed
Cause she's only 8 and so am I
But she fucks guy that are over 25
I don't know why
I have not been fucked yet
The teacher even tried to help me fuck that
[Hook]
Third Grade Slut
She did it in the butt
Didn't wanna get pregnant
But she did.
That fucking slut
[Verse 2]
Tryna expose her clit like Berlin
Eat her ass like it's din din
Take a trip to an island
And fuck her silly with my hand
Man I'm getting hella litty
Suck on the nipple and titty
Oh wait oh no hold up girl
Shit I think I'm finna twirl
Around to that asshole
Fuck that shit till it's raw
Pull out and see my dick is gone!
Oh no!
Damn it!
My dick fell off
Into her asshole
What the fuck do I do
Man I'm such a fucking shoe
Shit shit shit shit
Welp at least got to taste the clit
Of the
[Hook]
Third Grade Slut
We did it in the butt
Didn't wanna get pregnant
But she did.
That fucking slut
[Verse 3]
This song is getting pretty long so Im gonna end it here
Losing my dick in an anus is actually one of my biggest fears
You know what I'll stop now and let you people go
Never mess with a girl who's clearly a slut ass ho
If you don't like my music.....Then kiss the tip
Fuck you you piece of shit
[Hook]
Third Grade Slut
She did it in the butt
Didn't wanna get pregnant
But she did.
That fucking slut
Third Grade Slut
We did it in the butt
Didn't wanna get pregnant
But she did.
That fucking slut
5/14/10 I attended Gadsden's Relay For Life. Very moving as I walked around with my husband who is a cancer surviver of nearly five years. If you have time, please look at all the wonderful people from Doctor's Care in Gadsden who allowed us to visit their booth
Him & Her series 241009 -04
Mallard drake (Anas platyrhynchos), alog, Teal Pond, Thomson Marsh, Kelowna, BC.
Never under estimate the power of fast moving water. I was standing here for some time watching the antics of people crossing the beach to Moturki Island. The tide was coming in and the storm waters were very unpredictable. Two guys came close to getting into serious trouble by misjudging their runs.
"Rest assured you will never be able to speak to your students in such a way as to win them to God, until you have learned to speak to God about God...
We learn to speak to God only by listening to His voice, for the art of conversing with Him can only be taught by God Himself."
- St John Baptist de La Salle, whose memorial falls on 7 April. He is patron of Christian teachers, and founded the Brothers of the Christian Schools in 17th-century France.
This stained glass window is in St Mary's church in North Stoke.
Mossman and Port Douglas.
In 1873 George Dalrymple discovered and named the Mossman River. Dalrymple had tried to set up sheep runs near what was to become Townsville in 1860. When this did not work the Government made him Commissioner of Lands in the Townsville region and he pioneered the town of Bowen. Dalrymple soon resigned and then established the town of Cardwell as a private venture. In 1873 he went on a government expedition to find a port for the Palmer River gold diggings (there were 30,000 men on the diggings almost overnight) and he sailed to the Endeavour River and the newly emerging town of Cooktown. Cooktown was established for the Palmer River diggings. This was the time when Dalrymple discovered the Daintree River and named the Mossman River. Daintree was named after Dalrymple’s friend Richard Daintree, a QLD government geologist who found gold and other deposits in northern QLD. The Mossman River was named after another of Dalrymple’s friends, Hugh Mosman (the spelling of the town was changed to avoid confusion with the suburb of the same name in Sydney) another geologists and mine explorer. Mosman was the man who named Charters Towers when he found gold there in 1872. We visit Charters Tower on Saturday.
Nearby Port Douglas was established in 1877 to cart supplies to the Hodgkinson River goldfields and within a few years farmers had cleared flat land in the nearby Mossman River valley for sugar cane growing. The venture only succeeded because a cane mill was established there in 1883. The long wet season, made sugar a tricky business in the Daintree region. But with government assistance and more growers, a new cane mill was built in Mossman in 1897 with a train system to bring the sugar cane to the mill. This time the enterprise worked and the township grew especially once the train line was extended to Port Douglas in 1900. By 1902 Mossman had 4 hotels, a school, a Catholic Church, a general store and a post office. In the 1930s the town was linked to Cairns with a main road and the old port at Port Douglas declined into a tiny fishing village. Today Mossman is still a sugar growing area and the town has around 2,000 people and the road continues north through the Daintree to Cooktown. Port Douglas has had a revival since Christopher Skase built his luxury resort, the Sheraton Mirage Resort there in the mid 1980s. At that time Port Douglas only had a 100 or so residents. Today it has around 1,000 permanent residents and up to 1,000 holiday makers at peak times!
Australian Red Cedar- Toona ciliata.
Many of us at home have an antique Australian Red Cedar chest of drawers or dining chair or book case. Cedar was the most popular 19th century timber for Australian furniture and mouldings. But the environment paid dearly for our love of this furniture. The NSW forests were stripped of giant cedars first, then southern QLD. The last area remaining to be plundered was the Daintree. Timber getters flocked to the Daintree in 1873 after Dalrymple announced his explorations. Within 3 years nearly 60 ships had been fully loaded with Daintree cedar. No wonder cedar was referred to as “red gold.” It is estimated that some trees were more than 500 years old. Many reached to 60 metres tall. They were giants. But the exploitation was not efficient. Many trees were felled and then left to rot as they were too difficult to float downstream to Mossman or Port Douglas. In 1875 the QLD parliament had an enquiry into cedar felling but with no change of felling policies. By 1885 the cedars were gone. They have not revegetated in the Daintree since. However in NSW Toona ciliate has regrown in some coastal forests quite quickly. In the Australian register of giant trees only one Cedar is listed at a mere 55 metres in height. (Mountain Ashes are listed at over 90 metres tall). Cedar is commercially extinct in Australia but it is still logged in New Guinea and a very small forestry plantation on the Atherton Tablelands. Sugar cane and a bit of dairying replaced cedar felling but timber felling continued well into the 20th century. The last timber mill erected in the area was in 1924 in Daintree village.
Getting the cedars and other produce to market was always a problem for the Daintree area. There was no port although there was talk of a port for the mouth of the Daintree to be called Whitby after the town in Yorkshire where Captain Cook once lived. But nothing eventuated. During the west season Daintree village was completely isolated except for boat access. In the dry season the 30 kms from Mossman still took a full day to complete on horseback. All this changed in 1932 when a road was built from Mossman to Daintree. Once the Great Depression hit some people moved into the Daintree area near Cape Tribulation on a government group settlement scheme with 300 acre blocks. But the farmers were disappointed. After the hard work of clearing the rainforest their crops were destroyed by feral pigs. Some stayed on subsisting on tropical fruits and vegetables. So the start of white settlement in the Cape Tribulation area was in the 1930s. A coastal sailing vessel called into Cape Tribulation once a week with mail and some supplies from the mid 1930s onwards. After World War Two timber felling started in the Cape Tribulation area. Milling ran from 1948 until 1962. But the isolation protected the area from too much development. The road only reached the area in 1955.
Daintree.
This refers to several different places. There is the town of Daintree, the River Daintree, and the Daintree Forest National Park. This National Park includes several national parks in the Daintree region which in turn form the Queensland Wet Tropics Rainforest World Heritage area. The Daintree Park is 100 kms north of Cairns and one part is known as the Cape Tribulation National Park and the other Mossman Gorge National Park. To enter the Cape Tribulation part of the Daintree National Park you have to cross the ferry at the Daintree River. We will only be cruising along the Daintree River and doing a short forest walk near the Daintree village. The Park got UNESCO Word Heritage status in 1983. It received this status because of the diversity of animals and plants in the park and because it is the last extensive lowlands wet tropical forest left in Australia. Most of our other rain forests are in the mountain ranges.
The Daintree forest is thought to be over 100 million years old. It is in a high rainfall zone of Australia and this presented great problems to early settlers. Malaria and other tropical diseases were great killers here before the 1960s and better medical treatments. Since its declaration the QLD and federal governments have been buying back private land to add to the park. Parts of the park receive about 4,000 mm of rain a year- eight times the annual rainfall of Adelaide! The park is also subject to cyclones but it has been lucky and escaped major damage. The worst cyclones to hit the park occurred in 1920 and 1934.
Animals and Plants.
The Daintree contains about 30% of Australia’s frog, reptile and marsupial species, 65% of our bat and butterfly species and over 430 species of bird. Although we are unlikely to see any, the Park is home to Tree Kangaroos, many possums, dingoes, various small marsupials, and flying foxes and other bats. The jungle associated with a lowland rain forest is a perfect habitat for many birds including the elusive Cassowary, kookaburras, kingfishers, cockatoos, pigeons of various kinds, and scrubfowl. The rarities which are seldom seen include some Bowerbirds and even one species of bird of paradise (the Riflebird). The riverside and coastal areas are home to many seabirds. The common reptile to be seen is the salt water crocodile known for their aggression and size. If you see a flash of blue against a green leaf in the rain forest it could be the famed Ulysses Butterfly. This is just one many species of butterfly in the Daintree. The one animal you might not want to see but might see is the introduced Cane Toad. It was introduced to kill off the sugar cane beetles in 1935. It came from South America. It failed to do that job but it spread rapidly as it had no natural predators. It feasts on native snakes, frogs and small animals. It has now extended across to the Northern Territory and south into NSW and cane toads number some 200 million. If ingested by other animals it poisons them. All attempts to control their breeding and spread have so far failed. They are a major environmental disaster for Australia.
The rain forest jungle provides a growing area for mighty trees which block out the sun at ground level, twisting vines and creepers and small plants and ferns near the ground. On our walk in the rain forest you will be most aware of the ground hugging species rather than the tall canopy species. But on their trunks you will see buttress roots, lichens, fungi and moss. The rotting vegetation on the forest floor encourages more moss, native orchids and some small flowering plants. But be careful as some are stinging plants and others hide rainforest leaches! At eye level you will see various palms such as the Fan Palm, the Black Palm, Coconut Palm (although this is not native) and Rattan Palms. Below them you will see the beautiful ferns- Tree Ferns, King Ferns, Ribbon Ferns, Creek Ferns and others. As this is Australia you will also see cycads with their stiff fern like fronds. Cycads bear cones like conifers and are amongst the oldest plants on earth. The Daintree has the greatest diversity of cycads anywhere in the world. These cycads and some of the big trees like the Hoop and Bunya Pine and Kauri are all living counterparts of the Jurassic-age fossils of elsewhere like Riversleigh in western QLD. You will also find banksias, macadamias, eucalypts and some of our more usual vegetation.
Another great wedding today, for another great couple, the bride grew up in Woolacombe so a proper village affair for the evening do with lots of old friends and faces saying hi.
The shot today was taken using our soon to be patent protected "uber flash", but this time using a calumet bounce umbrella. The couple had a videographer for the day and we managed to get him to film the beach shoot so keep an eye on my blog for that appearing very soon. Showed the couple this one shot before they went away on honeymoon and they loved it, showing anyone and everyone they could, think that speaks volumes about my work.
Set up for shot was a simple one. Two 580 exii and one 430exii taped together and fired into Calumet 46 silver black umbrella at full power on a VAL and fired by Cactus v4's. Shot on Canon 7d using 17-40mm f/4L @17mm f/13 1/250 sec
SUNDAYS MESSAGE “LOVE”
PLEASE READ JOHN 21:15 - 25
In this chapter Jesus asks Peter 3 times if he loved Him and Peter replied 3 times that he did, in verse 17 it says PETTER WAS GRIEVED BECAUSE HE SAID UNTO HIM THE THIRD TIME. In order to fully understand these verses you need to understand that though we have only one word for love the Greek had many different words for it. The conversation actually went like this “ Simon Peter do you agape me ? That is to say do you love Me completely, Peter replied Lord you know that I phileo you, that is to say “ I love you like a friend”. The second time Jesus ask him the same words were used, but the third time Jesus asked Simon do you phileo me? This is what Peter was grieved about, not that Jesus simply asked three time but that the third time He called him Simon Which is his old worldly name and not the new name Petra or Peter the rock He had given him months before, secondly Jesus said DO YOU PHILEO ME instead of do you agape Me. This conversation took place at a fellowship meal after Jesus had risen from the gave and it appears that Peter was some what embarrassed about the question Jesus had asked him and as a result he was grieved at what he had said to the Lord. This was before the day of Pentecost and Peter was not yet converted, the word says that we must be born again or we can not see the Kingdome of God.
This country is full of churches where the people phileo the Lord, people that call on Him when they need something but think of Him little other wise, like a selfish child that never calls just to say I love you.
The Lord is a loving father that desires loving children the same as we do, He desires to spend time with us and to bring us comfort and peace but so very often we go elsewhere for these thing. The Lord desires that we should trust Him in all our ways but again we place our thrust in so many other things. It is difficult to trust some one we don’t have a relationship with and it is hard to develop a relation ship with some one we don’t spend time with.
It is up to us whether we are a Petra or a Simon, whether we phileo the Lord Or we agape the Lord.
In these times I fell that the Lord is calling us to a agape relationship with Him, a tried and tested people, sheep that know his voice, the Bride Of Christ. God bless u-all and have a wonderful Sunday.
Pastor mike
"In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord." ~ Ephesians 2:21
MEDITATION
"The New Testament describes the church as a spiritual house or temple with each member joined together as living stones (see 1 Peter 2:5). Faith in Jesus Christ makes us into rocks or spiritual stones.
“The Holy Spirit gives us the gift of Faith to Know the Lord Jesus personally, Power to live the gospel Faithfully, and Courage to witness the Truth and Joy of the gospel to others.
“The Lord Jesus is ever ready to draw us to Himself.
“Do you seek to grow in the Knowledge and LOVE of the Lord Jesus Christ?"
PRAYER
"Lord Jesus Christ, fill me with the power of Your Holy Spirit that I may grow in the knowledge of Your great LOVE and Truth. Let Your Spirit be aflame in my heart that I may Joyfully Seek to do Your will in all things."
———-
Inspired by this song, I sang it all through the night after creating this image…
(see mage w/out the text - flic.kr/p/f9fp55)
Sometimes the disbelief of family & friends can wear you down, but NO... "We won't be shaken" by Building 429
"We will trust in you
We will not be moved
We will trust in you
And we won't be shaken"
...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDYWOH-q-RI
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Filename - In Him the whole building is joined together - DSC_5358 Church Steeple Sunset - Point Loma - NR Sh 2013
Following the Son...
Blessings,
Sharon 🌻
God's Beauty In Nature is calling us into a deeper relationship with Him...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bloggers are welcome to use my artwork with, “Image from Art4TheGlryOfGod by Sharon under Creative Commons license”, and a link back to the images you use, and please let me know in the comment section below, thank you...
Art4TheGlryOfGod Photography and Watercolor Paintings by Sharon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Faith, Hope & Love in daily Art meditations...
X ~ www.twitter.com/Art4ThGlryOfGod
Flickr (complete portfolio) ~ www.Flickr.com/4ThGlryOfGod
Purchase images on (Giclée canvas, metal prints, throw pillows, tote bags, cards, etc.) Let me know if an image has not been uploaded…
Fine Art America ~ fineartamerica.com/profiles/sharon-soberon
Redbubble ~ www.Redbubble.com/people/Art4ThGlryOfGod
Pixoto (awards) ~ www.pixoto.com/4thegloryofgod/awards
Music Videos (from my Art Photography) ~
www.youtube.com/user/4ThGlryOfGod
#prints available upon request
I saw him standing at the curb as I passed through the highrise canyons of Toronto’s financial district. Something about his relaxed stance and friendly expression caught my attention as I walked by. He didn’t seem in a hurry and I thought he would make a good street portrait. I checked the colonnade of the highrise across the sidewalk from him and saw that it would provide suitable light and a decent background so I doubled back and introduced myself. He listened with friendly interest to my invitation to participate in The Human Family project and said he was fine with it. We shook hands. Meet Brian.
Confirming that he wasn’t pressed for time, I showed him the location I had in mind as we crossed the sidewalk and positioned him for some photos. I asked him if he would mind removing his glasses because of my poor history with reflections blocking eyes and Brian didn’t mind removing them. He was so patient as I zeroed in on camera settings and worked around some people on smoke break in the background that I proposed we try a few with glasses to give me some practice at overcoming reflections. I took my time and asked him to tip his face a bit downward and although the reflections didn’t disappear completely, they were nicely minimized.
Photos taken I said I would like to find out a bit about him for the story part of the project. Brian is 62 and is from Toronto. He is “mostly” retired, explaining that his friend provides a transportation service for rather high-end businessmen. When his friend has a surplus of requests and can’t handle them all, he calls on Brian to drive some customers. Brian was waiting for a customer who was in a meeting in the building when I approached him. His previous job had been in sports. He was a boxer. “I got injured, though, and continued my career as a trainer.” We chatted a bit about injury in sports and Brian pointed out that football and hockey are contact sports which also carry the risk of injury. All in all, it seems Brian had a good career and I didn’t see any signs of regret.
I pointed out that he looks to be in very good shape and I wondered if he still works out regularly. He told me he just has a very active lifestyle. He does a lot of bicycle riding. I commented that I’m also a recreational cyclist but currently unable to ride but am doing a good deal of walking – mostly with a camera in my hand. Brian was more interested in me and my photography than many subjects are. He wanted to know the reason I requested him to look into the camera and I explained it creates stronger contact between me and my subjects. He told me he has a collection of good Nikon gear which was given him in lieu of a debt payment, but doesn’t really know how to use it. I suggested online photography courses, Meetup groups, and the Board of Education’s continuing education (adult) courses. As we parted, Brian offered a warm handshake and wished me every success with my photography project.
It was good meeting you Brian. Thanks for the chat and for participating in my photography project.
This is my 344th submission to The Human Family group on Flickr.
You can view more street portraits and stories by visiting The Human Family.
I first saw him swimming and diving...I thought it was a duck because of his size. Then he had a big fish in his beak.
When he was on the pole he made me laugh because of the gimmicks he did.
He stretched his feathers and stayed like this for minutes.
He turned his head sometimes to people's direction as if he wanted to say "Look at me".
But I think he just wanted to dry his feathers.
Made in 1915 by British born, German trained, Melbourne stained glass artist William Montgomery, it is the second window by him, to be installed in the north nave, the others being St. Mark (1913) and William Major Olive Memorial (1916).
Saint Stephen, is traditionally venerated as the first martyr of Christianity. He was, according to the Acts of the Apostles, a deacon in the early church at Jerusalem who aroused the enmity of members of various synagogues by his teachings. Accused of blasphemy, at his trial, he made a long speech denouncing the Jewish authorities who were sitting in judgment on him and was then stoned to death. His martyrdom was witnessed by Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who would later become a follower of Jesus and known as Paul the Apostle. The window depicts Saint Stephen beautifully arrayed in a red orarion, the distinguishing vestment of a deacon. In his right hand he holds the frond of a palm, symbolising his martyrdom. In the crook of his left arm he holds a Gospel Book, weighed down by several stones, symbolising how he was killed.
If that were not enough to elude to his untimely demise, the vignette at the bottom of the window shows the angry crowd clutching large stones around his praying figure.
Built amid workers' cottages and terrace houses of shopkeepers, St. Mark the Evangelist Church of England sits atop an undulating rise in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy. Nestled behind a thick bank of agapanthus beyond its original cast-iron palisade fence, it would not look out of place in an English country village with its neat buttresses, bluestone masonry and simple, unadorned belfry.
St. Mark the Evangelist was the first church to be built outside of the original Melbourne grid as Fitzroy developed into the city's first suburb. A working-class suburb, the majority of its residents were Church of England and from 1849 a Mission Church and school served as a centre for religious, educational and recreational facilities. The school was one of a number of denominational schools established by the Church of England and was partly funded by the Denominational School Board.
St. Mark the Evangelist Church of England was designed by architect James Blackburn and built in Early English Gothic style. Richard Grice, Victorian pastoralist and philanthropist, generously contributed almost all the cost of its construction. Work commenced in 1853 to accommodate the growing Church of England congregation of Fitzroy. On July 1st, 1853, the first stone of St. Mark the Evangelist was laid by the first Bishop of Melbourne, The Right Rev. Charles Perry.
Unfortunately, Blackburn did not live to see its completion, dying the following year in 1854 of typhoid. This left St. Mark the Evangelist without an architect to oversee the project, and a series of other notable Melbourne architects helped finish the church including Lloyd Tayler, Leonard Terry and Charles Webb. Even then when St. Mark the Evangelist opened its doors on Sunday, January 21st, 1855, the church was never fully completed with an east tower and spire never realised. The exterior of the church is very plain, constructed of largely unadorned bluestone, with simple buttresses marking structural bays and tall lancet windows. The church's belfry is similarly unadorned, yet features beautiful masonry work. It has a square tower and broach spire.
Inside St. Mark the Evangelist Church of England it is peaceful and serves as a quiet sanctuary from the noisy world outside. I visited it on a hot day, and its enveloping coolness was a welcome relief. Walking across the old, highly polished hardwood floors you cannot help but note the gentle scent of the incense used during mass. The church has an ornately carved timber Gothic narthex screen which you walk through to enter the nave. Once there you can see the unusual two storey arcaded gallery designed by Leonard Terry that runs the entire length of the east side of building. Often spoken of as “The Architect’s Folly” Terry's gallery was a divisive point in the Fritzroy congregation. Some thought it added much beauty to the interior with its massive square pillars and seven arches supporting the principals of the roof. Yet it was generally agreed that the gallery was of little effective use, and came with a costly price tag of £3,000.00! To this day, it has never been fully utlised by the church. St. Mark the Evangelist has been fortunate to have a series of organs installed over its history; in 1854 a modest organ of unknown origin: in 1855 an 1853 Foster and Andrews, Hull, organ which was taken from the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne's Collins Street: in 1877 an organ built by Melbourne organ maker William Anderson: and finally in 1999 as part of major renovation works a 1938 Harrison and Harrison, Durham, organ taken from St. Luke's Church of England in Cowley, Oxfordshire. The church has gone through many renovations over the ensuing years, yet the original marble font and pews have survived these changes and remain in situ to this day. Blackwood reredos in the chancel, dating from 1939, feature a mosaic of the last supper by stained glass and church outfitters Brooks, Robinson and Company. A similar one can be found at St. Matthew's Church of England in High Street in Prahran. The fine lancet stained glass windows on the west side of St. Mark the Evangelist feature the work of the stained glass firms Brooks, Robinson and Company. and William Montgomery. Many of the windows were installed in the late Nineteenth Century.
The St. Mark the Evangelist Parish Hall and verger's cottage were added in 1889 to designs by architects Hyndman and Bates. The hall is arranged as a nave with clerestorey windows and side aisles with buttresses. In 1891 the same architects designed the Choir Vestry and Infants Sunday School on Hodgson Street, to replace the earlier school of 1849 which had been located in the forecourt of the church.
The present St. Mark the Evangelist's vicarage, a two-storey brick structure with cast-iron lacework verandahs, was erected in 1910.
I am very grateful to the staff of Anglicare who run the busy adjoining St. Mark's Community Centre for allowing me to have free range of the inside of St. Mark the Evangelist for a few hours to photograph it so extensively.
James Blackburn (1803 - 1854) was an English civil engineer, surveyor and architect. Born in Upton, West Ham, Essex, James was the third of four sons and one daughter born to his parents. His father was a scalemaker, a trade all his brothers took. At the age of 23, James was employed by the Commissioners of Sewers for Holborn and Finsbury and later became an inspector of sewers. However, his life took a dramatic turn in 1833, when suffering economic hardship, he forged a cheque. He was caught and his penalty was transportation to Van Diemen’s Land (modern day Tasmania). As a convicted prisoner, yet also listed as a civil engineer, James was assigned to the Roads Department under the management of Roderic O’Connor, a wealthy Irishman who was the Inspector of Roads and Bridges at the time. On 3 May 1841 James was pardoned, whereupon he entered private practice with James Thomson, another a former convict. In April 1849, James sailed from Tasmania aboard the "Shamrock" with his wife and ten children to start a new life in Melbourne. Once there he formed a company to sell filtered and purified water to the public, and carried out some minor architectural commissions including St. Mark the Evangelist in Fitzroy. On 24 October he was appointed city surveyor, and between 1850 and 1851 he produced his greatest non-architectural work, the basic design and fundamental conception of the Melbourne water supply from the Yan Yean reservoir via the Plenty River. He was injured in a fall from a horse in January 1852 and died on 3 March 1854 at Brunswick Street, Collingwood, of typhoid. He was buried as a member of St. Mark The Evangelist Church of England. James is best known in Tasmania for his ecclesiastical architectural work including; St Mark's Church of England, Pontville, Tasmania (1839-1841), Holy Trinity Church, Hobart, Tasmania (1841-1848): St. George's Church of England, Battery Point, Tasmania, (1841-1847).
Leonard Terry (1825 - 1884) was an architect born at Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. Son of Leonard Terry, a timber merchant, and his wife Margaret, he arrived in Melbourne in 1853 and after six months was employed by architect C. Laing. By the end of 1856 he had his own practice in Collins Street West (Terry and Oakden). After Mr. Laing's death next year Leonard succeeded him as the principal designer of banks in Victoria and of buildings for the Anglican Church, of which he was appointed diocesan architect in 1860. In addition to the many banks and churches that he designed, Leonard is also known for his design of The Melbourne Club on Collins Street (1858 - 1859) "Braemar" in East Melbourne (1865), "Greenwich House" Toorak (1869) and the Campbell residence on the corner of Collins and Spring Streets (1877). Leonard was first married, at 30, on 26 June 1855 to Theodosia Mary Welch (d.1861), by whom he had six children including Marmaduke, who trained as a surveyor and entered his father's firm in 1880. Terry's second marriage, at 41, on 29 December 1866 was to Esther Hardwick Aspinall, who bore him three children and survived him when on 23 June 1884, at the age of 59, he died of a thoracic tumor in his last home, Campbellfield Lodge, Alexandra Parade, in Collingwood.
Lloyd Tayler (1830 - 1900) was an architect born on 26 October 1830 in London, youngest son of tailor William Tayler, and his wife Priscilla. Educated at Mill Hill Grammar School, Hendon, and King's College, London, he is said to have been a student at the Sorbonne. In June 1851 he left England to join his brother on the land near Albury, New South Wales. He ended up on the Mount Alexander goldfields before setting up an architectural practice with Lewis Vieusseux, a civil engineer in 1854. By 1856 he had his own architectural practice where he designed premises for the Colonial Bank of Australasia. In the 1860s and 1870s he was lauded for his designs for the National Bank of Australasia, including those in the Melbourne suburbs of Richmond and North Fitzroy, and further afield in country Victoria at Warrnambool and Coleraine. His major design for the bank was the Melbourne head office in 1867. With Edmund Wright in 1874 William won the competition for the design of the South Australian Houses of Parliament, which began construction in 1881. The pair also designed the Bank of Australia in Adelaide in 1875. He also designed the Australian Club in Melbourne's William Street and the Melbourne Exchange in Collins Street in 1878. Lloyd's examples of domestic architecture include the mansion "Kamesburgh", Brighton, commissioned by W. K. Thomson in 1872. Other houses include: "Thyra", Brighton (1883): "Leighswood", Toorak, for C. E. Bright: "Roxcraddock", Caulfield: "Cherry Chase", Brighton: and "Blair Athol", Brighton. In addition to his work on St. Mark the Evangelist in Fitzroy, Lloyd also designed St. Mary's Church of England, Hotham (1860); St Philip's, Collingwood, and the Presbyterian Church, Punt Road, South Yarra (1865); and Trinity Church, Bacchus Marsh (1869). The high point of Lloyd's career was the design for the Melbourne head office of the Commercial Bank of Australia. His last important design was the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Headquarters Station, Eastern Hill in 1892. Lloyd was also a judge in 1900 of the competition plans for the new Flinders Street railway station. Lloyd was married to Sarah Toller, daughter of a Congregational minister. They established a comfortable residence, Pen-y-Bryn, in Brighton, and it was from here that he died of cancer of the liver on the 17th of August 1900 survived by his wife, four daughters and a son.
Charles Webb (1821 - 1898) was an architect. Born on 26 November 1821 at Sudbury, Suffolk, England, he was the youngest of nine children of builder William Webb and his wife Elizabeth. He attended Sudbury Academy and was later apprenticed to a London architect. His brother James had migrated to Van Diemen's Land in 1830, married in 1833, gone to Melbourne in 1839 where he set up as a builder in and in 1848 he bought Brighton Park, Brighton. Charles decided to join James and lived with James at Brighton. They went into partnership as architects and surveyors. The commission that established them was in 1850 for St Paul's Church, Swanston Street. It was here that Charles married Emma Bridges, daughter of the chief cashier at the Bank of England. Charles and James built many warehouses, shops and private homes and even a synagogue in the city. After his borther's return to England, Charles designed St. Andrew's Church, Brighton, and receiving an important commission for Melbourne Church of England Grammar School in 1855. In 1857 he added a tower and a slender spire to Scots Church, which James had built in 1841. He designed Wesley College in 1864, the Alfred Hospital and the Royal Arcade in 1869, the South Melbourne Town Hall and the Melbourne Orphan Asylum in 1878 and the Grand Hotel (now the Windsor) in 1884. In 1865 he had designed his own home, "Farleigh", in Park Street, Brighton, where he died on 23 January 1898 of heat exhaustion. Predeceased by Emma in 1893 and survived by five sons and three daughters, he was buried in Brighton cemetery.
William Montgomery (1850 - 1927) was an artist who specialised in stained glass painting and design. He was born in England in 1850, and studied at the School of Art in Newcastle-on-Tyne. In his final year William was awarded one of only three National Art Scholarships that year to study at South Kensington School of Art (now the Royal College of Art). He was employed by the leading London stained glass firm, Clayton and Bell, before joining Franz Mayer and Company in Munich, Germany. Over the next seven years he not only designed windows he also trained others in the English style of glass painting. William arrived in Melbourne, Australia, in 1886 during the Boom Period provided by the Gold Rush. Melbourne was at the time one of the wealthiest cities in the world, and was in the throes of a building boom. He quickly set up his studio at 164 Flinders Street in the heart of Melbourne, bringing with him the latest in European style and design and achieving instant success amongst wealthy patrons. He worked equally for Catholic and Protestant denominations, his windows being found in many churches as well as in mansions, houses and other commercial buildings around the city. This extended to the country beyond as his reputation grew. A painter as well as stained glass window designer William was a founding member of the Victorian Art Society in Albert Street, Eastern Hill. William became President of its Council in 1912, a position he held until 1916. He was a trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria. His commissions included; stained glass windows at Christ Church, Hawthorn: St. John's, Heidelberg, St. Ignatius', Richmond: Christ Church, St Kilda: Geelong Grammar School: the Bathurst Cathedral and private houses "Tay Creggan", Hawthorn (now Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar), and "Earlsbrae Hall", Essendon (now Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School). The success of William Montgomery made Melbourne the leading centre of stained glass in the Southern Hemisphere. William Montgomery died in 1927.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (from Sanskrit 'great-souled, venerable'), first applied to him in South Africa in 1914, is now used throughout the world.
Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, Gandhi trained in the law at the Inner Temple in London, and was called to the bar in June 1891, at the age of 22. After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to live in South Africa for 21 years. There, Gandhi raised a family and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India and soon set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against discrimination and excessive land-tax.
Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and, above all, achieving swaraj or self-rule. Gandhi adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. He began to live in a self-sufficient residential community, to eat simple food, and undertake long fasts as a means of both introspection and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930 and in calling for the British to quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India.
Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early 1940s by a Muslim nationalism which demanded a separate homeland for Muslims within British India. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Abstaining from the official celebration of independence, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress. In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The last of these was begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948, when he was 78. The belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defense of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India. Among these was Nathuram Godse, a militant Hindu nationalist from Pune, western India, who assassinated Gandhi by firing three bullets into his chest at an interfaith prayer meeting in Delhi on 30 January 1948.
Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence. Gandhi is considered to be the Father of the Nation in post-colonial India. During India's nationalist movement and in several decades immediately after, he was also commonly called Bapu (Gujarati endearment for "father", roughly "papa", "daddy"[
Gandhi's father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi (1822–1885), served as the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar state. His family originated from the then village of Kutiana in what was then Junagadh State. Although he only had been a clerk in the state administration and had an elementary education, Karamchand proved a capable chief minister.
During his tenure, Karamchand married four times. His first two wives died young, after each had given birth to a daughter, and his third marriage was childless. In 1857, he sought his third wife's permission to remarry; that year, he married Putlibai (1844–1891), who also came from Junagadh, and was from a Pranami Vaishnava family. Karamchand and Putlibai had four children: a son, Laxmidas (c. 1860–1914); a daughter, Raliatbehn (1862–1960); a second son, Karsandas (c. 1866–1913). and a third son, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar (also known as Sudamapuri), a coastal town on the Kathiawar Peninsula and then part of the small princely state of Porbandar in the Kathiawar Agency of the British Raj.
In 1874, Gandhi's father Karamchand left Porbandar for the smaller state of Rajkot, where he became a counsellor to its ruler, the Thakur Sahib; though Rajkot was a less prestigious state than Porbandar, the British regional political agency was located there, which gave the state's diwan a measure of security. In 1876, Karamchand became diwan of Rajkot and was succeeded as diwan of Porbandar by his brother Tulsidas. His family then rejoined him in Rajkot.
As a child, Gandhi was described by his sister Raliat as "restless as mercury, either playing or roaming about. One of his favourite pastimes was twisting dogs' ears." The Indian classics, especially the stories of Shravana and king Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood. In his autobiography, he states that they left an indelible impression on his mind. He writes: "It haunted me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without number." Gandhi's early self-identification with truth and love as supreme values is traceable to these epic characters.
The family's religious background was eclectic. Mohandas was born into a Gujarati Hindu Modh Bania family. Gandhi's father Karamchand was Hindu and his mother Putlibai was from a Pranami Vaishnava Hindu family. Gandhi's father was of Modh Baniya caste in the varna of Vaishya. His mother came from the medieval Krishna bhakti-based Pranami tradition, whose religious texts include the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavata Purana, and a collection of 14 texts with teachings that the tradition believes to include the essence of the Vedas, the Quran and the Bible. Gandhi was deeply influenced by his mother, an extremely pious lady who "would not think of taking her meals without her daily prayers... she would take the hardest vows and keep them without flinching. To keep two or three consecutive fasts was nothing to her."
Gandhi (right) with his eldest brother Laxmidas in 1886
At age 9, Gandhi entered the local school in Rajkot, near his home. There, he studied the rudiments of arithmetic, history, the Gujarati language and geography. At the age of 11, he joined the High School in Rajkot, Alfred High School. He was an average student, won some prizes, but was a shy and tongue tied student, with no interest in games; his only companions were books and school lessons.
In May 1883, the 13-year-old Mohandas was married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Gokuldas Kapadia (her first name was usually shortened to "Kasturba", and affectionately to "Ba") in an arranged marriage, according to the custom of the region at that time. In the process, he lost a year at school but was later allowed to make up by accelerating his studies. His wedding was a joint event, where his brother and cousin were also married. Recalling the day of their marriage, he once said, "As we didn't know much about marriage, for us it meant only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives." As was the prevailing tradition, the adolescent bride was to spend much time at her parents' house, and away from her husband.
Writing many years later, Mohandas described with regret the lustful feelings he felt for his young bride: "even at school I used to think of her, and the thought of nightfall and our subsequent meeting was ever haunting me." He later recalled feeling jealous and possessive of her, such as when she would visit a temple with her girlfriends, and being sexually lustful in his feelings for her.
In late 1885, Gandhi's father Karamchand died. Gandhi, then 16 years old, and his wife of age 17 had their first baby, who survived only a few days. The two deaths anguished Gandhi. The Gandhi couple had four more children, all sons: Harilal, born in 1888; Manilal, born in 1892; Ramdas, born in 1897; and Devdas, born in 1900.
In November 1887, the 18-year-old Gandhi graduated from high school in Ahmedabad. In January 1888, he enrolled at Samaldas College in Bhavnagar State, then the sole degree-granting institution of higher education in the region. However, he dropped out, and returned to his family in Porbandar.
Gandhi had dropped out of the cheapest college he could afford in Bombay. Mavji Dave Joshiji, a Brahmin priest and family friend, advised Gandhi and his family that he should consider law studies in London. In July 1888, his wife Kasturba gave birth to their first surviving son, Harilal. His mother was not comfortable about Gandhi leaving his wife and family, and going so far from home. Gandhi's uncle Tulsidas also tried to dissuade his nephew. Gandhi wanted to go. To persuade his wife and mother, Gandhi made a vow in front of his mother that he would abstain from meat, alcohol and women. Gandhi's brother Laxmidas, who was already a lawyer, cheered Gandhi's London studies plan and offered to support him. Putlibai gave Gandhi her permission and blessing.
On 10 August 1888, Gandhi, aged 18, left Porbandar for Mumbai, then known as Bombay. Upon arrival, he stayed with the local Modh Bania community whose elders warned him that England would tempt him to compromise his religion, and eat and drink in Western ways. Despite Gandhi informing them of his promise to his mother and her blessings, he was excommunicated from his caste. Gandhi ignored this, and on 4 September, he sailed from Bombay to London, with his brother seeing him off. Gandhi attended University College, London, where he took classes in English literature with Henry Morley in 1888–1889.
He also enrolled at the Inns of Court School of Law in Inner Temple with the intention of becoming a barrister.[38] His childhood shyness and self-withdrawal had continued through his teens. He retained these traits when he arrived in London, but joined a public speaking practice group and overcame his shyness sufficiently to practise law.
He demonstrated a keen interest in the welfare of London's impoverished dockland communities. In 1889, a bitter trade dispute broke out in London, with dockers striking for better pay and conditions, and seamen, shipbuilders, factory girls and other joining the strike in solidarity. The strikers were successful, in part due to the mediation of Cardinal Manning, leading Gandhi and an Indian friend to make a point of visiting the cardinal and thanking him for his work.
Gandhi's time in London was influenced by the vow he had made to his mother. He tried to adopt "English" customs, including taking dancing lessons. However, he did not appreciate the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady and was frequently hungry until he found one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. Influenced by Henry Salt's writing, he joined the London Vegetarian Society, and was elected to its executive committee under the aegis of its president and benefactor Arnold Hills. An achievement while on the committee was the establishment of a Bayswater chapter. Some of the vegetarians he met were members of the Theosophical Society, which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of Buddhist and Hindu literature. They encouraged Gandhi to join them in reading the Bhagavad Gita both in translation as well as in the original.
Gandhi had a friendly and productive relationship with Hills, but the two men took a different view on the continued LVS membership of fellow committee member Thomas Allinson. Their disagreement is the first known example of Gandhi challenging authority, despite his shyness and temperamental disinclination towards confrontation.
Allinson had been promoting newly available birth control methods, but Hills disapproved of these, believing they undermined public morality. He believed vegetarianism to be a moral movement and that Allinson should therefore no longer remain a member of the LVS. Gandhi shared Hills' views on the dangers of birth control, but defended Allinson's right to differ. It would have been hard for Gandhi to challenge Hills; Hills was 12 years his senior and unlike Gandhi, highly eloquent. He bankrolled the LVS and was a captain of industry with his Thames Ironworks company employing more than 6,000 people in the East End of London. He was also a highly accomplished sportsman who later founded the football club West Ham United. In his 1927 An Autobiography, Vol. I, Gandhi wrote:
The question deeply interested me...I had a high regard for Mr. Hills and his generosity. But I thought it was quite improper to exclude a man from a vegetarian society simply because he refused to regard puritan morals as one of the objects of the society
A motion to remove Allinson was raised, and was debated and voted on by the committee. Gandhi's shyness was an obstacle to his defence of Allinson at the committee meeting. He wrote his views down on paper but shyness prevented him from reading out his arguments, so Hills, the President, asked another committee member to read them out for him. Although some other members of the committee agreed with Gandhi, the vote was lost and Allinson excluded. There were no hard feelings, with Hills proposing the toast at the LVS farewell dinner in honour of Gandhi's return to India.
Gandhi, at age 22, was called to the bar in June 1891 and then left London for India, where he learned that his mother had died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from him. His attempts at establishing a law practice in Bombay failed because he was psychologically unable to cross-examine witnesses. He returned to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but he was forced to stop when he ran afoul of British officer Sam Sunny.
In 1893, a Muslim merchant in Kathiawar named Dada Abdullah contacted Gandhi. Abdullah owned a large successful shipping business in South Africa. His distant cousin in Johannesburg needed a lawyer, and they preferred someone with Kathiawari heritage. Gandhi inquired about his pay for the work. They offered a total salary of £105 (~$4,143.31 2023 money) plus travel expenses. He accepted it, knowing that it would be at least a one-year commitment in the Colony of Natal, South Africa, also a part of the British Empire.
In April 1893, Gandhi, aged 23, set sail for South Africa to be the lawyer for Abdullah's cousin. He spent 21 years in South Africa, where he developed his political views, ethics and politics.
Immediately upon arriving in South Africa, Gandhi faced discrimination because of his skin colour and heritage. He was not allowed to sit with European passengers in the stagecoach and told to sit on the floor near the driver, then beaten when he refused; elsewhere he was kicked into a gutter for daring to walk near a house, in another instance thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to leave the first-class. He sat in the train station, shivering all night and pondering if he should return to India or protest for his rights. He chose to protest and was allowed to board the train the next day. In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court ordered Gandhi to remove his turban, which he refused to do. Indians were not allowed to walk on public footpaths in South Africa. Gandhi was kicked by a police officer out of the footpath onto the street without warning.
When Gandhi arrived in South Africa, according to Herman, he thought of himself as "a Briton first, and an Indian second". However, the prejudice against him and his fellow Indians from British people that Gandhi experienced and observed deeply bothered him. He found it humiliating, struggling to understand how some people can feel honour or superiority or pleasure in such inhumane practices. Gandhi began to question his people's standing in the British Empire.
The Abdullah case that had brought him to South Africa concluded in May 1894, and the Indian community organised a farewell party for Gandhi as he prepared to return to India. However, a new Natal government discriminatory proposal led to Gandhi extending his original period of stay in South Africa. He planned to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote, a right then proposed to be an exclusive European right. He asked Joseph Chamberlain, the British Colonial Secretary, to reconsider his position on this bill. Though unable to halt the bill's passage, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, and through this organisation, he moulded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force. In January 1897, when Gandhi landed in Durban, a mob of white settlers attacked him and he escaped only through the efforts of the wife of the police superintendent. However, he refused to press charges against any member of the mob.
During the Boer War, Gandhi volunteered in 1900 to form a group of stretcher-bearers as the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps. According to Arthur Herman, Gandhi wanted to disprove the British colonial stereotype that Hindus were not fit for "manly" activities involving danger and exertion, unlike the Muslim "martial races". Gandhi raised eleven hundred Indian volunteers, to support British combat troops against the Boers. They were trained and medically certified to serve on the front lines. They were auxiliaries at the Battle of Colenso to a White volunteer ambulance corps. At the battle of Spion Kop Gandhi and his bearers moved to the front line and had to carry wounded soldiers for miles to a field hospital because the terrain was too rough for the ambulances. Gandhi and thirty-seven other Indians received the Queen's South Africa Medal.
In 1906, the Transvaal government promulgated a new Act compelling registration of the colony's Indian and Chinese populations. At a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg on 11 September that year, Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of Satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or nonviolent protest, for the first time. According to Anthony Parel, Gandhi was also influenced by the Tamil moral text Tirukkuṛaḷ after Leo Tolstoy mentioned it in their correspondence that began with "A Letter to a Hindu". Gandhi urged Indians to defy the new law and to suffer the punishments for doing so. Gandhi's ideas of protests, persuasion skills and public relations had emerged. He took these back to India in 1915.
Gandhi focused his attention on Indians and Africans while he was in South Africa. He initially was not interested in politics. This changed, however, after he was discriminated against and bullied, such as by being thrown out of a train coach because of his skin colour by a white train official. After several such incidents with Whites in South Africa, Gandhi's thinking and focus changed, and he felt he must resist this and fight for rights. He entered politics by forming the Natal Indian Congress. According to Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, Gandhi's views on racism are contentious in some cases, but that changed afterward.[further explanation needed] Gandhi suffered persecution from the beginning in South Africa. Like with other coloured people, white officials denied him his rights, and the press and those in the streets bullied and called him a "parasite", "semi-barbarous", "canker", "squalid coolie", "yellow man", and other epithets. People would spit on him as an expression of racial hate.
While in South Africa, Gandhi focused on the racial persecution of Indians before he started to focus on racism against Africans. In some cases, state Desai and Vahed, his behaviour was one of being a willing part of racial stereotyping and African exploitation. During a speech in September 1896, Gandhi complained that the whites in the British colony of South Africa were "degrading the Indian to the level of a raw Kaffir". Scholars cite it as an example of evidence that Gandhi at that time thought of Indians and black South Africans differently. As another example given by Herman, Gandhi, at the age of 24, prepared a legal brief for the Natal Assembly in 1895, seeking voting rights for Indians. Gandhi cited race history and European Orientalists' opinions that "Anglo-Saxons and Indians are sprung from the same Aryan stock or rather the Indo-European peoples", and argued that Indians should not be grouped with the Africans.
Years later, Gandhi and his colleagues served and helped Africans as nurses and by opposing racism. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela is among admirers of Gandhi's efforts to fight against racism in Africa. The general image of Gandhi, state Desai and Vahed, has been reinvented since his assassination as though he was always a saint, when in reality his life was more complex, contained inconvenient truths, and was one that changed over time.[68] Scholars have also pointed the evidence to a rich history of co-operation and efforts by Gandhi and Indian people with nonwhite South Africans against persecution of Africans and the Apartheid.
In 1906, when the Bambatha Rebellion broke out in the colony of Natal, the then 36-year-old Gandhi, despite sympathising with the Zulu rebels, encouraged Indian South Africans to form a volunteer stretcher-bearer unit. Writing in the Indian Opinion, Gandhi argued that military service would be beneficial to the Indian community and claimed it would give them "health and happiness". Gandhi eventually led a volunteer mixed unit of Indian and African stretcher-bearers to treat wounded combatants during the suppression of the rebellion.
The medical unit commanded by Gandhi operated for less than two months before being disbanded.[72] After the suppression of the rebellion, the colonial establishment showed no interest in extending to the Indian community the civil rights granted to white South Africans. This led Gandhi to becoming disillusioned with the Empire and aroused a spiritual awakening with him; historian Arthur L. Herman wrote that his African experience was a part of his great disillusionment with the West, transforming him into an "uncompromising non-cooperator".
By 1910, Gandhi's newspaper, Indian Opinion, was covering reports on discrimination against Africans by the colonial regime. Gandhi remarked that the Africans are "alone are the original inhabitants of the land. … The whites, on the other hand, have occupied the land forcibly and appropriated it to themselves."
In 1910, Gandhi established, with the help of his friend Hermann Kallenbach, an idealistic community they named Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg. There he nurtured his policy of peaceful resistance.
In the years after black South Africans gained the right to vote in South Africa (1994), Gandhi was proclaimed a national hero with numerous monuments.
At the request of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, conveyed to him by C. F. Andrews, Gandhi returned to India in 1915. He brought an international reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and community organiser.
Gandhi joined the Indian National Congress and was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people primarily by Gokhale. Gokhale was a key leader of the Congress Party best known for his restraint and moderation, and his insistence on working inside the system. Gandhi took Gokhale's liberal approach based on British Whiggish traditions and transformed it to make it look Indian.
Gandhi took leadership of the Congress in 1920 and began escalating demands until on 26 January 1930 the Indian National Congress declared the independence of India. The British did not recognise the declaration but negotiations ensued, with the Congress taking a role in provincial government in the late 1930s. Gandhi and the Congress withdrew their support of the Raj when the Viceroy declared war on Germany in September 1939 without consultation. Tensions escalated until Gandhi demanded immediate independence in 1942 and the British responded by imprisoning him and tens of thousands of Congress leaders. Meanwhile, the Muslim League did co-operate with Britain and moved, against Gandhi's strong opposition, to demands for a totally separate Muslim state of Pakistan. In August 1947 the British partitioned the land with India and Pakistan each achieving independence on terms that Gandhi disapproved.
In April 1918, during the latter part of World War I, the Viceroy invited Gandhi to a War Conference in Delhi. Gandhi agreed to actively recruit Indians for the war effort. In contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants. In a June 1918 leaflet entitled "Appeal for Enlistment", Gandhi wrote "To bring about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them... If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army." He did, however, stipulate in a letter to the Viceroy's private secretary that he "personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe."
Gandhi's war recruitment campaign brought into question his consistency on nonviolence. Gandhi's private secretary noted that "The question of the consistency between his creed of 'Ahimsa' (nonviolence) and his recruiting campaign was raised not only then but has been discussed ever since."
In July 1918, Gandhi admitted that he couldn't persuade even one individual to enlist for the world war. "So far I have not a single recruit to my credit apart," Gandhi wrote. He added: "They object because they fear to die."
Gandhi's first major achievement came in 1917 with the Champaran agitation in Bihar. The Champaran agitation pitted the local peasantry against largely Anglo-Indian plantation owners who were backed by the local administration. The peasants were forced to grow indigo (Indigofera sp.), a cash crop for Indigo dye whose demand had been declining over two decades, and were forced to sell their crops to the planters at a fixed price. Unhappy with this, the peasantry appealed to Gandhi at his ashram in Ahmedabad. Pursuing a strategy of nonviolent protest, Gandhi took the administration by surprise and won concessions from the authorities.
In 1918, Kheda was hit by floods and famine and the peasantry was demanding relief from taxes. Gandhi moved his headquarters to Nadiad, organising scores of supporters and fresh volunteers from the region, the most notable being Vallabhbhai Patel. Using non-co-operation as a technique, Gandhi initiated a signature campaign where peasants pledged non-payment of revenue even under the threat of confiscation of land. A social boycott of mamlatdars and talatdars (revenue officials within the district) accompanied the agitation. Gandhi worked hard to win public support for the agitation across the country. For five months, the administration refused, but by the end of May 1918, the Government gave way on important provisions and relaxed the conditions of payment of revenue tax until the famine ended. In Kheda, Vallabhbhai Patel represented the farmers in negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection and released all the prisoners.
In 1919, following World War I, Gandhi (aged 49) sought political co-operation from Muslims in his fight against British imperialism by supporting the Ottoman Empire that had been defeated in the World War. Before this initiative of Gandhi, communal disputes and religious riots between Hindus and Muslims were common in British India, such as the riots of 1917–18. Gandhi had already supported the British crown with resources and by recruiting Indian soldiers to fight the war in Europe on the British side. This effort of Gandhi was in part motivated by the British promise to reciprocate the help with swaraj (self-government) to Indians after the end of World War I. The British government had offered, instead of self-government, minor reforms instead, disappointing Gandhi. Gandhi announced his satyagraha (civil disobedience) intentions. The British colonial officials made their counter move by passing the Rowlatt Act, to block Gandhi's movement. The Act allowed the British government to treat civil disobedience participants as criminals and gave it the legal basis to arrest anyone for "preventive indefinite detention, incarceration without judicial review or any need for a trial".
Gandhi felt that Hindu-Muslim co-operation was necessary for political progress against the British. He leveraged the Khilafat movement, wherein Sunni Muslims in India, their leaders such as the sultans of princely states in India and Ali brothers championed the Turkish Caliph as a solidarity symbol of Sunni Islamic community (ummah). They saw the Caliph as their means to support Islam and the Islamic law after the defeat of Ottoman Empire in World War I. Gandhi's support to the Khilafat movement led to mixed results. It initially led to a strong Muslim support for Gandhi. However, the Hindu leaders including Rabindranath Tagore questioned Gandhi's leadership because they were largely against recognising or supporting the Sunni Islamic Caliph in Turkey.
The increasing Muslim support for Gandhi, after he championed the Caliph's cause, temporarily stopped the Hindu-Muslim communal violence. It offered evidence of inter-communal harmony in joint Rowlatt satyagraha demonstration rallies, raising Gandhi's stature as the political leader to the British. His support for the Khilafat movement also helped him sideline Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who had announced his opposition to the satyagraha non-co-operation movement approach of Gandhi. Jinnah began creating his independent support, and later went on to lead the demand for West and East Pakistan. Though they agreed in general terms on Indian independence, they disagreed on the means of achieving this. Jinnah was mainly interested in dealing with the British via constitutional negotiation, rather than attempting to agitate the masses.
In 1922 the Khilafat movement gradually collapsed following the end of the non-cooperation movement with the arrest of Gandhi. A number of Muslim leaders and delegates abandoned Gandhi and Congress. Hindu-Muslim communal conflicts reignited. Deadly religious riots re-appeared in numerous cities, with 91 in United Provinces of Agra and Oudh alone.
With his book Hind Swaraj (1909) Gandhi, aged 40, declared that British rule was established in India with the co-operation of Indians and had survived only because of this co-operation. If Indians refused to co-operate, British rule would collapse and swaraj (Indian independence) would come.
In February 1919, Gandhi cautioned the Viceroy of India with a cable communication that if the British were to pass the Rowlatt Act, he would appeal to Indians to start civil disobedience. The British government ignored him and passed the law, stating it would not yield to threats. The satyagraha civil disobedience followed, with people assembling to protest the Rowlatt Act. On 30 March 1919, British law officers opened fire on an assembly of unarmed people, peacefully gathered, participating in satyagraha in Delhi.
People rioted in retaliation. On 6 April 1919, a Hindu festival day, he asked a crowd to remember not to injure or kill British people, but to express their frustration with peace, to boycott British goods and burn any British clothing they owned. He emphasised the use of non-violence to the British and towards each other, even if the other side used violence. Communities across India announced plans to gather in greater numbers to protest. Government warned him to not enter Delhi. Gandhi defied the order. On 9 April, Gandhi was arrested.
On 13 April 1919, people including women with children gathered in an Amritsar park, and British Indian Army officer Reginald Dyer surrounded them and ordered troops under his command to fire on them. The resulting Jallianwala Bagh massacre (or Amritsar massacre) of hundreds of Sikh and Hindu civilians enraged the subcontinent, but was supported by some Britons and parts of the British media as a necessary response. Gandhi in Ahmedabad, on the day after the massacre in Amritsar, did not criticise the British and instead criticised his fellow countrymen for not exclusively using 'love' to deal with the 'hate' of the British government. Gandhi demanded that the Indian people stop all violence, stop all property destruction, and went on fast-to-death to pressure Indians to stop their rioting.
The massacre and Gandhi's non-violent response to it moved many, but also made some Sikhs and Hindus upset that Dyer was getting away with murder. Investigation committees were formed by the British, which Gandhi asked Indians to boycott.[109] The unfolding events, the massacre and the British response, led Gandhi to the belief that Indians will never get a fair equal treatment under British rulers, and he shifted his attention to swaraj and political independence for India. In 1921, Gandhi was the leader of the Indian National Congress. He reorganised the Congress. With Congress now behind him, and Muslim support triggered by his backing the Khilafat movement to restore the Caliph in Turkey, Gandhi had the political support and the attention of the British Raj.
Gandhi expanded his nonviolent non-co-operation platform to include the swadeshi policy – the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. Linked to this was his advocacy that khadi (homespun cloth) be worn by all Indians instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi exhorted Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning khadi in support of the independence movement. In addition to boycotting British products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British institutions and law courts, to resign from government employment, and to forsake British titles and honours. Gandhi thus began his journey aimed at crippling the British India government economically, politically and administratively.
The appeal of "Non-cooperation" grew, its social popularity drew participation from all strata of Indian society. Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He began his sentence on 18 March 1922. With Gandhi isolated in prison, the Indian National Congress split into two factions, one led by Chitta Ranjan Das and Motilal Nehru favouring party participation in the legislatures, and the other led by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, opposing this move. Furthermore, co-operation among Hindus and Muslims ended as Khilafat movement collapsed with the rise of Atatürk in Turkey. Muslim leaders left the Congress and began forming Muslim organisations. The political base behind Gandhi had broken into factions. Gandhi was released in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only two years.
After his early release from prison for political crimes in 1924, over the second half of the 1920s Gandhi continued to pursue swaraj. He pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominion status or face a new campaign of non-cooperation with complete independence for the country as its goal. After his support for World War I with Indian combat troops, and the failure of Khilafat movement in preserving the rule of Caliph in Turkey, followed by a collapse in Muslim support for his leadership, some such as Subhas Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh questioned his values and non-violent approach. While many Hindu leaders championed a demand for immediate independence, Gandhi revised his own call to a one-year wait, instead of two.
The British did not respond favourably to Gandhi's proposal. British political leaders such as Lord Birkenhead and Winston Churchill announced opposition to "the appeasers of Gandhi" in their discussions with European diplomats who sympathised with Indian demands. On 31 December 1929, an Indian flag was unfurled in Lahore. Gandhi led Congress in a celebration on 26 January 1930 of India's Independence Day in Lahore. This day was commemorated by almost every other Indian organisation. Gandhi then launched a new Satyagraha against the British salt tax in March 1930. Gandhi sent an ultimatum in the form of a letter personally addressed to Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India, on 2 March. Gandhi condemned British rule in the letter, describing it as "a curse" that "has impoverished the dumb millions by a system of progressive exploitation and by a ruinously expensive military and civil administration...It has reduced us politically to serfdom." Gandhi also mentioned in the letter that the viceroy received a salary "over five thousand times India's average income." In the letter, Gandhi also stressed his continued adherence to non-violent forms of protest.
This was highlighted by the Salt March to Dandi from 12 March to 6 April, where, together with 78 volunteers, he marched 388 kilometres (241 mi) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself, with the declared intention of breaking the salt laws. The march took 25 days to cover 240 miles with Gandhi speaking to often huge crowds along the way. Thousands of Indians joined him in Dandi. On 5 May he was interned under a regulation dating from 1827 in anticipation of a protest that he had planned. The protest at Dharasana salt works on 21 May went ahead without him see. A horrified American journalist, Webb Miller, described the British response thus:
In complete silence the Gandhi men drew up and halted a hundred yards from the stockade. A picked column advanced from the crowd, waded the ditches and approached the barbed wire stockade... at a word of command, scores of native policemen rushed upon the advancing marchers and rained blows on their heads with their steel-shot lathis [long bamboo sticks]. Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off blows. They went down like ninepins. From where I stood I heard the sickening whack of the clubs on unprotected skulls... Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing with fractured skulls or broken shoulders.
This went on for hours until some 300 or more protesters had been beaten, many seriously injured and two killed. At no time did they offer any resistance.
This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British hold on India; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people. Congress estimates, however, put the figure at 90,000. Among them was one of Gandhi's lieutenants, Jawaharlal Nehru.
According to Sarma, Gandhi recruited women to participate in the salt tax campaigns and the boycott of foreign products, which gave many women a new self-confidence and dignity in the mainstream of Indian public life. However, other scholars such as Marilyn French state that Gandhi barred women from joining his civil disobedience movement because he feared he would be accused of using women as a political shield. When women insisted on joining the movement and participating in public demonstrations, Gandhi asked the volunteers to get permissions of their guardians and only those women who can arrange child-care should join him. Regardless of Gandhi's apprehensions and views, Indian women joined the Salt March by the thousands to defy the British salt taxes and monopoly on salt mining. After Gandhi's arrest, the women marched and picketed shops on their own, accepting violence and verbal abuse from British authorities for the cause in the manner Gandhi inspired.
Indian Congress in the 1920s appealed to Andhra Pradesh peasants by creating Telugu language plays that combined Indian mythology and legends, linked them to Gandhi's ideas, and portrayed Gandhi as a messiah, a reincarnation of ancient and medieval Indian nationalist leaders and saints. The plays built support among peasants steeped in traditional Hindu culture, according to Murali, and this effort made Gandhi a folk hero in Telugu speaking villages, a sacred messiah-like figure.
According to Dennis Dalton, it was Gandhi's ideas that were responsible for his wide following. Gandhi criticised Western civilisation as one driven by "brute force and immorality", contrasting it with his categorisation of Indian civilisation as one driven by "soul force and morality". Gandhi captured the imagination of the people of his heritage with his ideas about winning "hate with love". These ideas are evidenced in his pamphlets from the 1890s, in South Africa, where too he was popular among the Indian indentured workers. After he returned to India, people flocked to him because he reflected their values.
Gandhi also campaigned hard going from one rural corner of the Indian subcontinent to another. He used terminology and phrases such as Rama-rajya from Ramayana, Prahlada as a paradigmatic icon, and such cultural symbols as another facet of swaraj and satyagraha. During his lifetime, these ideas sounded strange outside India, but they readily and deeply resonated with the culture and historic values of his people.
The government, represented by Lord Irwin, decided to negotiate with Gandhi. The Gandhi–Irwin Pact was signed in March 1931. The British Government agreed to free all political prisoners, in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. According to the pact, Gandhi was invited to attend the Round Table Conference in London for discussions and as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The conference was a disappointment to Gandhi and the nationalists. Gandhi expected to discuss India's independence, while the British side focused on the Indian princes and Indian minorities rather than on a transfer of power. Lord Irwin's successor, Lord Willingdon, took a hard line against India as an independent nation, began a new campaign of controlling and subduing the nationalist movement. Gandhi was again arrested, and the government tried and failed to negate his influence by completely isolating him from his followers.
In Britain, Winston Churchill, a prominent Conservative politician who was then out of office but later became its prime minister, became a vigorous and articulate critic of Gandhi and opponent of his long-term plans. Churchill often ridiculed Gandhi, saying in a widely reported 1931 speech:
It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace....to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.
Churchill's bitterness against Gandhi grew in the 1930s. He called Gandhi as the one who was "seditious in aim" whose evil genius and multiform menace was attacking the British empire. Churchill called him a dictator, a "Hindu Mussolini", fomenting a race war, trying to replace the Raj with Brahmin cronies, playing on the ignorance of Indian masses, all for selfish gain. Churchill attempted to isolate Gandhi, and his criticism of Gandhi was widely covered by European and American press. It gained Churchill sympathetic support, but it also increased support for Gandhi among Europeans. The developments heightened Churchill's anxiety that the "British themselves would give up out of pacifism and misplaced conscience".
During the discussions between Gandhi and the British government over 1931–32 at the Round Table Conferences, Gandhi, now aged about 62, sought constitutional reforms as a preparation to the end of colonial British rule, and begin the self-rule by Indians. The British side sought reforms that would keep the Indian subcontinent as a colony. The British negotiators proposed constitutional reforms on a British Dominion model that established separate electorates based on religious and social divisions. The British questioned the Congress party and Gandhi's authority to speak for all of India. They invited Indian religious leaders, such as Muslims and Sikhs, to press their demands along religious lines, as well as B. R. Ambedkar as the representative leader of the untouchables. Gandhi vehemently opposed a constitution that enshrined rights or representations based on communal divisions, because he feared that it would not bring people together but divide them, perpetuate their status, and divert the attention from India's struggle to end the colonial rule.
The Second Round Table conference was the only time he left India between 1914 and his death in 1948. He declined the government's offer of accommodation in an expensive West End hotel, preferring to stay in the East End, to live among working-class people, as he did in India. He based himself in a small cell-bedroom at Kingsley Hall for the three-month duration of his stay and was enthusiastically received by East Enders. During this time he renewed his links with the British vegetarian movement.
After Gandhi returned from the Second Round Table conference, he started a new satyagraha. He was arrested and imprisoned at the Yerwada Jail, Pune. While he was in prison, the British government enacted a new law that granted untouchables a separate electorate. It came to be known as the Communal Award. In protest, Gandhi started a fast-unto-death, while he was held in prison. The resulting public outcry forced the government, in consultations with Ambedkar, to replace the Communal Award with a compromise Poona Pact.
In 1934 Gandhi resigned from Congress party membership. He did not disagree with the party's position but felt that if he resigned, his popularity with Indians would cease to stifle the party's membership, which actually varied, including communists, socialists, trade unionists, students, religious conservatives, and those with pro-business convictions, and that these various voices would get a chance to make themselves heard. Gandhi also wanted to avoid being a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj.
Gandhi returned to active politics again in 1936, with the Nehru presidency and the Lucknow session of the Congress. Although Gandhi wanted a total focus on the task of winning independence and not speculation about India's future, he did not restrain the Congress from adopting socialism as its goal. Gandhi had a clash with Subhas Chandra Bose, who had been elected president in 1938, and who had previously expressed a lack of faith in nonviolence as a means of protest. Despite Gandhi's opposition, Bose won a second term as Congress President, against Gandhi's nominee, Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Gandhi declared that Sitaramayya's defeat was his defeat. Bose later left the Congress when the All-India leaders resigned en masse in protest of his abandonment of the principles introduced by Gandhi.
Gandhi opposed providing any help to the British war effort and he campaigned against any Indian participation in World War II. The British government responded with the arrests of Gandhi and many other Congress leaders and killed over 1,000 Indians who participated in this movement. A number of violent attacks were also carried out by the nationalists against the British government. While Gandhi's campaign did not enjoy the support of a number of Indian leaders, and over 2.5 million Indians volunteered and joined the British military to fight on various fronts of the Allied Forces, the movement played a role in weakening the control over the South Asian region by the British regime and it ultimately paved the way for Indian independence.
Gandhi's opposition to the Indian participation in World War II was motivated by his belief that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom while that freedom was denied to India itself. He also condemned Nazism and Fascism, a view which won endorsement of other Indian leaders. As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, calling for the British to Quit India in a 1942 speech in Mumbai. This was Gandhi's and the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from India. The British government responded quickly to the Quit India speech, and within hours after Gandhi's speech arrested Gandhi and all the members of the Congress Working Committee. His countrymen retaliated the arrests by damaging or burning down hundreds of government owned railway stations, police stations, and cutting down telegraph wires.
In 1942, Gandhi now nearing age 73, urged his people to completely stop co-operating with the imperial government. In this effort, he urged that they neither kill nor injure British people, but be willing to suffer and die if violence is initiated by the British officials. He clarified that the movement would not be stopped because of any individual acts of violence, saying that the "ordered anarchy" of "the present system of administration" was "worse than real anarchy." He urged Indians to karo ya maro ("do or die") in the cause of their rights and freedoms.
Gandhi's arrest lasted two years, as he was held in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. During this period, his long time secretary Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack, his wife Kasturba died after 18 months' imprisonment on 22 February 1944; and Gandhi suffered a severe malaria attack. While in jail, he agreed to an interview with Stuart Gelder, a British journalist. Gelder then composed and released an interview summary, cabled it to the mainstream press, that announced sudden concessions Gandhi was willing to make, comments that shocked his countrymen, the Congress workers and even Gandhi. The latter two claimed that it distorted what Gandhi actually said on a range of topics and falsely repudiated the Quit India movement.
Gandhi was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. He came out of detention to an altered political scene – the Muslim League for example, which a few years earlier had appeared marginal, "now occupied the centre of the political stage" and the topic of Jinnah's campaign for Pakistan was a major talking point. Gandhi and Jinnah had extensive correspondence and the two men met several times over a period of two weeks in September 1944 at Jinnah's house in Bombay, where Gandhi insisted on a united religiously plural and independent India which included Muslims and non-Muslims of the Indian subcontinent coexisting. Jinnah rejected this proposal and insisted instead for partitioning the subcontinent on religious lines to create a separate Muslim homeland (later Pakistan).These discussions continued through 1947.
While the leaders of Congress languished in jail, the other parties supported the war and gained organisational strength. Underground publications flailed at the ruthless suppression of Congress, but it had little control over events. At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership.
Gandhi opposed the partition of the Indian subcontinent along religious lines. The Indian National Congress and Gandhi called for the British to Quit India. However, the All-India Muslim League demanded "Divide and Quit India". Gandhi suggested an agreement which required the Congress and the Muslim League to co-operate and attain independence under a provisional government, thereafter, the question of partition could be resolved by a plebiscite in the districts with a Muslim majority.
Jinnah rejected Gandhi's proposal and called for Direct Action Day, on 16 August 1946, to press Muslims to publicly gather in cities and support his proposal for the partition of the Indian subcontinent into a Muslim state and non-Muslim state. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the Muslim League Chief Minister of Bengal – now Bangladesh and West Bengal, gave Calcutta's police special holiday to celebrate the Direct Action Day. The Direct Action Day triggered a mass murder of Calcutta Hindus and the torching of their property, and holidaying police were missing to contain or stop the conflict. The British government did not order its army to move in to contain the violence. The violence on Direct Action Day led to retaliatory violence against Muslims across India. Thousands of Hindus and Muslims were murdered, and tens of thousands were injured in the cycle of violence in the days that followed. Gandhi visited the most riot-prone areas to appeal a stop to the massacres.
Archibald Wavell, the Viceroy and Governor-General of British India for three years through February 1947, had worked with Gandhi and Jinnah to find a common ground, before and after accepting Indian independence in principle. Wavell condemned Gandhi's character and motives as well as his ideas. Wavell accused Gandhi of harbouring the single minded idea to "overthrow British rule and influence and to establish a Hindu raj", and called Gandhi a "malignant, malevolent, exceedingly shrewd" politician. Wavell feared a civil war on the Indian subcontinent, and doubted Gandhi would be able to stop it.
The British reluctantly agreed to grant independence to the people of the Indian subcontinent, but accepted Jinnah's proposal of partitioning the land into Pakistan and India. Gandhi was involved in the final negotiations, but Stanley Wolpert states the "plan to carve up British India was never approved of or accepted by Gandhi".
The partition was controversial and violently disputed. More than half a million were killed in religious riots as 10 million to 12 million non-Muslims (Hindus and Sikhs mostly) migrated from Pakistan into India, and Muslims migrated from India into Pakistan, across the newly created borders of India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan.
Gandhi spent the day of independence not celebrating the end of the British rule but appealing for peace among his countrymen by fasting and spinning in Calcutta on 15 August 1947. The partition had gripped the Indian subcontinent with religious violence and the streets were filled with corpses. Gandhi's fasting and protests are credited for stopping the religious riots and communal violence.
At 5:17 pm on 30 January 1948, Gandhi was with his grandnieces in the garden of Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti), on his way to address a prayer meeting, when Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, fired three bullets into his chest from a pistol at close range. According to some accounts, Gandhi died instantly. In other accounts, such as one prepared by an eyewitness journalist, Gandhi was carried into the Birla House, into a bedroom. There he died about 30 minutes later as one of Gandhi's family members read verses from Hindu scriptures.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed his countrymen over the All-India Radio saying:
Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that; nevertheless, we will not see him again, as we have seen him for these many years, we will not run to him for advice or seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for millions and millions in this country.
Godse, a Hindu nationalist, with links to the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, made no attempt to escape; several other conspirators were soon arrested as well. The accused were Nathuram Vinayak Godse, Narayan Apte, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Shankar Kistayya, Dattatraya Parchure, Vishnu Karkare, Madanlal Pahwa, and Gopal Godse.
The trial began on 27 May 1948 and ran for eight months before Justice Atma Charan passed his final order on 10 February 1949. The prosecution called 149 witnesses, the defense none. The court found all of the defendants except one guilty as charged. Eight men were convicted for the murder conspiracy, and others were convicted for violation of the Explosive Substances Act. Savarkar was acquitted and set free. Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were sentenced to death by hanging and the remaining six (including Godse's brother, Gopal) were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Gandhi's death was mourned nationwide. Over a million people joined the five-mile-long funeral procession that took over five hours to reach Raj Ghat from Birla house, where he was assassinated, and another million watched the procession pass by. Gandhi's body was transported on a weapons carrier, whose chassis was dismantled overnight to allow a high-floor to be installed so that people could catch a glimpse of his body. The engine of the vehicle was not used; instead four drag-ropes held by 50 people each pulled the vehicle. All Indian-owned establishments in London remained closed in mourning as thousands of people from all faiths and denominations and Indians from all over Britain converged at India House in London.
Gandhi was cremated in accordance with Hindu tradition. His ashes were poured into urns which were sent across India for memorial services. Most of the ashes were immersed at the Sangam at Allahabad on 12 February 1948, but some were secretly taken away. In 1997, Tushar Gandhi immersed the contents of one urn, found in a bank vault and reclaimed through the courts, at the Sangam at Allahabad. Some of Gandhi's ashes were scattered at the source of the Nile River near Jinja, Uganda, and a memorial plaque marks the event. On 30 January 2008, the contents of another urn were immersed at Girgaum Chowpatty. Another urn is at the palace of the Aga Khan in Pune (where Gandhi was held as a political prisoner from 1942 to 1944) and another in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Los Angeles.
The Birla House site where Gandhi was assassinated is now a memorial called Gandhi Smriti. The place near Yamuna river where he was cremated is the Rāj Ghāt memorial in New Delhi. A black marble platform, it bears the epigraph "Hē Rāma" (Devanagari: हे ! राम or, Hey Raam). These are said to be Gandhi's last words after he was shot.
New York, often called New York City or simply NYC, is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each of which is coextensive with a respective county. It is a global city and a cultural, financial, high-tech, entertainment, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care, scientific output, life sciences, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, and is sometimes described as the world's most important city and the capital of the world.
With an estimated population in 2022 of 8,335,897 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. New York is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities. The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents born outside the U.S., the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world.
New York City traces its origins to Fort Amsterdam and a trading post founded on the southern tip of Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists in approximately 1624. The settlement was named New Amsterdam (Dutch: Nieuw Amsterdam) in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was renamed New York after King Charles II granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. The city was temporarily regained by the Dutch in July 1673 and was renamed New Orange; however, the city has been named New York since November 1674. New York City was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. The modern city was formed by the 1898 consolidation of its five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island, and has been the largest U.S. city ever since.
Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City has been called both the world's premier financial and fintech center and the most economically powerful city in the world. As of 2022, the New York metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan economy in the world with a gross metropolitan product of over US$2.16 trillion. If the New York metropolitan area were its own country, it would have the tenth-largest economy in the world. The city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization of their listed companies: the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. New York City is an established safe haven for global investors. As of 2023, New York City is the most expensive city in the world for expatriates to live. New York City is home to the highest number of billionaires, individuals of ultra-high net worth (greater than US$30 million), and millionaires of any city in the world
The written history of New York City began with the first European explorer, the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. European settlement began with the Dutch in 1608 and New Amsterdam was founded in 1624.
The "Sons of Liberty" campaigned against British authority in New York City, and the Stamp Act Congress of representatives from throughout the Thirteen Colonies met in the city in 1765 to organize resistance to Crown policies. The city's strategic location and status as a major seaport made it the prime target for British seizure in 1776. General George Washington lost a series of battles from which he narrowly escaped (with the notable exception of the Battle of Harlem Heights, his first victory of the war), and the British Army occupied New York and made it their base on the continent until late 1783, attracting Loyalist refugees.
The city served as the national capital under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1789, and briefly served as the new nation's capital in 1789–90 under the United States Constitution. Under the new government, the city hosted the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States, the drafting of the United States Bill of Rights, and the first Supreme Court of the United States. The opening of the Erie Canal gave excellent steamboat connections with upstate New York and the Great Lakes, along with coastal traffic to lower New England, making the city the preeminent port on the Atlantic Ocean. The arrival of rail connections to the north and west in the 1840s and 1850s strengthened its central role.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, waves of new immigrants arrived from Europe dramatically changing the composition of the city and serving as workers in the expanding industries. Modern New York traces its development to the consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898 and an economic and building boom following the Great Depression and World War II. Throughout its history, New York has served as a main port of entry for many immigrants, and its cultural and economic influence has made it one of the most important urban areas in the United States and the world. The economy in the 1700s was based on farming, local production, fur trading, and Atlantic jobs like shipbuilding. In the 1700s, New York was sometimes referred to as a breadbasket colony, because one of its major crops was wheat. New York colony also exported other goods included iron ore as a raw material and as manufactured goods such as tools, plows, nails and kitchen items such as kettles, pans and pots.
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Surprised how many obscene vulgar words Birdy knows and uses freely about that man. Certainly not learned from me.
Hair- Magika
Shirt- Boutique
Veggie Burger Skirt- Schadenfreude
Birdy- Khaos
Caught him eating. He was so swift. Without a sign, went off, came back with this fly, I supposed, in his mouth. He chew on it for about a minute and I still could see some part of the fly protruding from his mouth. I presume it is a he.
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