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Manilal Mohandas Gandhi (28 October 1892 – 5 April 1956) was the second son of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi.

Biography

Manilal was born in Rajkot, British India, the second of four sons of Mohandas Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi. He had an older brother, Harilal, and two younger brothers, Ramdas and Devdas.

Manilal's early years were spent in Rajkot, and it was in 1897 that he traveled to South Africa for the first time (his father having moved there several years previously). The family lived for a time in Durban and Johannesburg. Between 1906 and 1914, he lived at the Phoenix Settlement (in KwaZulu-Natal) and Tolstoy Farm (in Gauteng), both settlements established by his father. Manilal died from a cerebral thrombosis following a stroke.

Like his father, Manilal was also sent to prison several times by the British colonial government after protesting against what he perceived as unjust laws. He was one of the initial 78 marchers to accompany Gandhi on the 1930 Salt March, for which he was imprisoned.</blockquote>In 1927, Manilal married Sushila (24 August 1907 – 1988), a woman from his own community and similar background, in a match arranged by their families in the usual Indian way. Sushila was the daughter of Nanabhai Mashruwala of Akola, Bombay State, and the niece of Kishorlal Mashruwala, a close associate of Gandhi and a resident of Sevagram ashram. It was Mahatma Gandhi who sought her hand for his second son; the match was arranged, and after the wedding, Sushila duly joined her husband in South Africa. They had three children:

  • Sita Dhupelia (b. 1928), elder daughter
  • Arun Manilal Gandhi (1934–2023), son
  • Ela Gandhi Ramgobin (b. 1940), younger daughter

Legacy

Manilal's children Arun and Ela were also social-political activists. Uma D. Mesthrie, Sita's daughter, published a biography on Manilal.

Notes

  • Mesthrie, Uma Dhupelia. Gandhi's Prisoner? The Life of Gandhi's Son Manilal. Permanent Black: Cape Town, South Africa, 2003.
  • Dhupelia-Mesthrie, Uma, "Writing the Life of Manilal Mohandas Gandhi," Journal of Natal and Zulu History 24 & 25 (2006-2007): 188-213.

References

  • Interview of Ela Gandhi
  • The African Activist Archive Project website has an Interview with Manilal Gandhi conducted in South Africa in September 1954 by George M. Houser. At the time he was editor of newspaper Indian Opinion and ran the Phoenix Settlement, both established by his father. There is also a 1947 photograph of Manilal Gandhi at the Community Church of New York, a September 1954 photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Manilal Gandhi at Phoenix Settlement and a 1954 photograph of Chief Albert Luthuli and Manilal Gandhi. Four issues of the newsletter Bulletin: Americans for South African Resistance has information about him: September 1952 issue, the 14 January 1953 issue, the 27 February 1953 issue, and the 1 March 1954 issue.