Kasturba Gandhi
Encyclopedia
Kastürbā Gāndhi (11 April 1869 – 22 February 1944) was the wife of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, marrying him in an arranged marriage in 1883.

Early life and background

Born to wealthy businessman Gokuladas Kapadia of Porbandar
Porbandar
Porbandar is a coastal city in the Indian state of Gujarat, perhaps best known for being the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi and Sudama...

, Kasturba was married to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi through arrangement
Arranged marriage
An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...

. Gandhi was thirteen and Kasturba was fourteen when they married. When Gandhi left to study in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1888, she remained in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 to raise their newborn son Harilal
Harilal Gandhi
Harilal Mohandas Gandhi , was the first son of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.-Early life:Harilal wanted to go to England for higher studies and hoped to become a barrister as his father had once been...

. She had three more sons: Manilal
Manilal Gandhi
Manilal Mohandas Gandhi was the second of four sons of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi. Manilal was born in Rajkot, India. In 1897 Manilal traveled to South Africa for the first time, where he spent time working at the Phoenix Ashram near Durban...

 (1892), Ramdas
Ramdas Gandhi
Ramdas Gandhi was the third son of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was born in South Africa. He outlived his parents and all of his brothers. He and his wife Nirmal had three children; Sumitra Gandhi, Kanu Gandhi and Usha Gandhi...

 (1897), and Devdas
Devdas Gandhi
Devdas Gandhi was the fourth and youngest son of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was born in South Africa and returned to India with his parents as a young man. He became active in his father's movement, spending many terms in jail.He spent a lot of time with his father...

 (1900).

Political career

Kasturba Gandhi joined her husband in political protests. She traveled to South Africa in 1897 to be with her husband. From 1904 to 1914, she was active in the Phoenix Settlement near Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...

. During the 1913 protest against working conditions for Indians in South Africa, Kasturbai was arrest
Arrest
An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...

ed and sentenced
Sentence (law)
In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...

 to three months in a hard labor
Hard Labor
Hard Labor is the eleventh album by American rock band Three Dog Night, released in 1974 .- Cover Artwork :The original album cover, depicting of the birth of a record album , was deemed too controversial and was soon reworked with a huge bandage covering the "birth". The cover also includes an...

 prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

. Later, in India, she sometimes took her husband's place when he was under arrest. In 1915, when Gandhi returned to India to support indigo planters, Kasturba accompanied him. She taught hygiene, discipline, reading and writing.

Health and death

Kasturba suffered from chronic bronchitis
Bronchitis
Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...

 due to complications at birth. While her husband could move his mind from one thing to another, she would sometimes brood over troubles. Stress from the Quit India Movement
Quit India Movement
The Quit India Movement , or the August Movement was a civil disobedience movement launched in India in August 1942 in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for immediate independence. Gandhi hoped to bring the British government to the negotiating table...

's arrests and hard life at Sabarmati Ashram
Sabarmati Ashram
Sabarmati Ashram is located in the Ahmedabad suburb of Sabarmati adjoining to famous Ashram Road, at the bank of River Sabarmati, 4 miles from the town hall. This was one of the residences of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi...

 caused her to fall ill. Kasturbai fell ill with bronchitis
Bronchitis
Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...

 which was subsequently complicated by pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

.

In January 1944, Kasturba suffered two heart attacks. She was confined to her bed much of the time. Even there she found no respite from pain. Spells of breathlessness interfered with her sleep at night. Yearning for familiar ministrations, Kasturba asked to see an Ayurvedic doctor. After several delays (which Gandhi felt were unconscionable), the government allowed a specialist in traditional Indian medicine to treat her and prescribe treatments. At first she responded—recovering enough by the second week in February to sit on the verandah in a wheel chair for a short periods, and chat… then came a relapse. The doctor said Ayurvedic
Ayurveda
Ayurveda or ayurvedic medicine is a system of traditional medicine native to India and a form of alternative medicine. In Sanskrit, words , meaning "longevity", and , meaning "knowledge" or "science". The earliest literature on Indian medical practice appeared during the Vedic period in India,...

 medicine could do no more for her.
To those who tried to bolster her sagging morale saying "You will get better soon," Kasturba would respond, "No, my time is up."
Shortly after seven that evening, Devdas took Mohandas and the doctors aside. In what he would later describe as "the sweetest of all wrangles I ever had with my father," he pleaded fiercely that Ba be given the life saving medicine, even though the doctors told him her condition was beyond help. It was Mohandas, after learning that the penicillin
Penicillin
Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They include penicillin G, procaine penicillin, benzathine penicillin, and penicillin V....

 had to be administered by injection every four to six hours, who finally persuaded his youngest son to give up the idea. "Why do you want to prolong your mother's agonies after all the suffering she has been through?" Gandhi asked. Then he said, "You can't cure her now, no matter what miracle drug you may muster. But if you insist, I will not stand in your way."

After a short while, Kasturba stopped breathing. She died in Gandhi's arms while both were still in prison, in Poona (now Pune
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...

).
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