For decades, Mahatma Gandhi has been celebrated across the world as a symbol of peace, nonviolence, and moral integrity. His statues stand in global capitals, his quotes fill classrooms, and his name appears in history books as one of humanity’s greatest figures.
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But here in Africa, Gandhi’s legacy is far more complicated — and far less flattering — than most people realize.
In African schools, children are taught to admire him. Yet almost none are told what Gandhi truly believed about Africans during his 21 years on this continent. Very few are taught what he wrote, what he fought for, or how he viewed the people who were born here.
This article uncovers the Gandhi most African history lessons left out.
Not speculation.
Not rumors.
But Gandhi’s own words, hand-written petitions, public positions, and documented actions.
It is time to confront the man behind the global myth.
Gandhi’s Early Life and the Journey to Africa
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, India. Raised in a religious household, he married his wife Kasturba at the age of 13, a common practice at the time. Gandhi himself later admitted his early marriage was filled with jealousy, immaturity, and decisions he regretted — including the night he was with his wife while his father died in the next room.
Gandhi later travelled to London in 1888 to study law. He tried hard to blend into British society — from dancing lessons to French classes — eventually qualifying as a barrister in 1891.
However, upon returning to India, Gandhi struggled to launch a legal career. He froze in court, failed to attract clients, and could not establish himself. So when a wealthy merchant, Dada Abdulla, offered him a year-long contract in South Africa, Gandhi took the opportunity.
He arrived in Durban on 24 May 1893 — not as a freedom fighter, but as a young lawyer needing work.
The Famous Train Incident — and What It Really Meant
Just weeks after arriving, Gandhi boarded a first-class train to Pretoria. When a white passenger protested his presence, Gandhi was thrown out at Pietermaritzburg. This event is often portrayed as the moment Gandhi became “the champion of equality.”
But the truth is different.
Gandhi’s outrage was not about the treatment of Africans. He was upset that he, a formally dressed Indian attorney with a first-class ticket, was treated like Africans were treated daily.
That night sparked not a universal fight against racism — but a personal fight to ensure Indians were never grouped with Africans.
This moment shaped his racial worldview:
Europeans → Indians → Africans.
And Gandhi spent years defending that hierarchy.
Gandhi’s Racist Views: In His Own Words
One of Gandhi’s earliest political victories in South Africa tells us everything about his intentions.
At the Durban post office, there were two entrances: one for Europeans and one for Africans. Gandhi complained vigorously that Indians were forced to use the same entrance as Africans.
He demanded a third entrance exclusively for Indians — and celebrated when it was approved.
This was not a fight against segregation.
It was a fight to preserve it.
Throughout his time in South Africa, Gandhi repeatedly referred to Africans using offensive, derogatory, and dehumanising terms. He described Black people as “living like animals,” and insisted that Indians should “not be placed among the Kaffirs.”
These are Gandhi’s own words, found in his own petitions and writings. They are not interpretations — they are historical record.
Gandhi and the British Empire
Many people also do not know that Gandhi actively supported British colonial rule during key conflicts on African soil.
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The Boer War (1899–1902)
Gandhi formed an Indian Ambulance Corps to assist the British military. He argued that supporting the empire would prove Indian loyalty to the colonial system.
The 1906 Zulu Uprising
When the British launched a violent campaign against the Zulu people — killing thousands — Gandhi again recruited Indians to support the imperial forces.
He wrote proudly that Indians showed no “disaffection” toward Britain.
This is crucial:
While Africans were dying fighting for their freedom, Gandhi was assisting the empire that oppressed them.
A Freedom Fighter — But Only for Indians
Gandhi is rightly remembered for resisting the 1906 “Black Act,” which required Indians to carry registration passes. But this resistance — Satyagraha — applied only to Indians.
Africans had been subjected to such humiliating laws long before, yet Gandhi never led a movement for African liberation.
He was fighting for the rights of Indians within the empire, not the freedom of Africans from the empire.
His activism in South Africa was ethnic, not universal.
The Man Behind the Myth: Gandhi’s Personal Life
Gandhi’s public image often overshadows the darker parts of his personal life.
His marriage
Gandhi admitted in his autobiography that he was a “cruel, kind husband” who harassed and mistreated Kasturba.
On one occasion, when she refused to clean a guest’s chamber pot, he dragged her out of the house while shouting at her — in front of witnesses.
The celibacy vow
In 1906, Gandhi imposed celibacy on his marriage without consulting his wife.
His controversial “experiments”
Later, in the 1940s, Gandhi slept naked or semi-naked beside young women, including his teen grandniece Manu, claiming he was “testing his self-control.”
Even close followers were disturbed by this behavior.
Selective use of medicine
Gandhi preached against Western medicine, but accepted surgery when he needed it.
Yet when his wife Kasturba fell ill with pneumonia in 1944, he refused the penicillin that could have saved her. She died.
His beliefs bent for him — but not for her.
How Gandhi Became a Global Saint
Much of Gandhi’s saintly global image was crafted after he left Africa in 1914.
The world preferred the picture of a kind old man walking barefoot in India, leading the Salt March, speaking softly of peace. That story was simple, iconic, and easy to hero-worship.
What the world erased were:
- His racist statements about Africans
- His fight to separate Indians from Africans
- His loyalty to the British Empire
- His contradictions and hypocrisy
- His troubling personal behaviour
The real Gandhi was complex — but the version taught in schools is a polished myth.
So How Should Africa Remember Gandhi?
Gandhi’s story in Africa is not one of Black liberation.
It is not a story of unity across races.
And it is not the story African children have been taught for generations.
The Gandhi who lived in South Africa:
- fought for Indians, not Africans
- held deeply racist beliefs
- supported British colonial rule
- practised troubling behaviour in his private life
- never led a struggle for African freedom
This does not mean Gandhi made no contributions to history.
But it does mean Africa must remember him as he truly was — not as the myth the world created.
History demands honesty, not worship.
If Gandhi is to be studied on this continent, then Gandhi in Africa must be taught truthfully.
Not a saint.
Not a saviour.
But a flawed, complicated man whose legacy has been simplified for far too long.