Kasturba Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, remembering baa's role in India's freedom movement

Kasturba Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, fondly known as "Baa" (mother) for role in India's freedom movement, was born on April 11 1869, in Porbandar. The country remembered her today on her 154th birth anniversary and paid their tribute.

Known as Kasturba Kapadia before her marriage, she was engaged at a very early age and married to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. This was the beginning of her journey towards becoming a freedom fighter.

Kasturba as wife

Mahatma Gandhi often mentioned his wife in his autobiography My experiment with the Truth. He recalls that his marriage was not very smooth initially as he had frequent fights with Kastuba for the first two years of her marriage. She travelled to South Africa with her husband in 1897, as he went to practice law there and helped Gandhi in his work.

But she wasn’t just Bapu’s wife but also a political rights activist who fought for other women and Indians in South Africa.

Kasturba as freedom fighter

The official start of her political career was marked when she founded the Phoenix Settlement near Durban and started to help her husband. She even once aided Gandhi escape a mob of white people that was threatening to lynch him.

When Mahatma Gandhi launched the Civil disobedience movement (Satyagraha) movement in Borsad, Gujarat, she actively participated. Although unable to take part in the Dandi salt march in 1930 due to her deteriorating health, she motivated others to enthusiastically join the movement. She was part of many campaigns during the freedom struggle and was jailed many times for it.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting as well as several Congress leaders paid their tribute to her on Twitter.

My tribute to the great freedom fighter who fought shoulder to shoulder in the National Movement with Gandhi ji, Kasturba Gandhi ji on her birth anniversary. 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/GeuVdDCnaG

— Gaikhangam (@Gaikhangam2) April 11, 2023

Remembering Great Political Activist involved in Indian Independence Movement, Bai Kasturba Gandhi on her Birth Anniversary today. pic.twitter.com/N2LUp3AAPM

— Yuri Alemao (@Yurialemao9) April 11, 2023

📍Kasturba Gandhi
(11th April 1869 - 22nd February, 1944)

💠Remembering the Independence activist on her birth anniversary

💠During the Satyagraha in 1917, she worked on the welfare of women in Champaran, Bihar#AmritMahotsav pic.twitter.com/dgqQsFldNO

— Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (@MIB_India) April 11, 2023

Kasturba as Social Worker

Not only was she a freedom fighter but also a compassionate and kind social worker who worked for improving women’s lives and establishment of an ashram for the untouchable. She also led a nonviolent liberation movement for women and was later imprisoned and put in solitary confinement for more than a month for it. She was the one who took in-charge and addressed thousands of people to nonviolent protest when Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned.

Baa suffered from chronic bronchitis and died at the Aga Khan Palace prison in Pune on February 22, 1944.

As Gandhi wrote on February 22, 1944: "If anything she stood above me. But for her unfailing co-operation I might have been in the abyss... She helped me to keep wide awake and true to my vows. She stood by me in all my political fights and never hesitated to take the plunge...She was a devoted Vaishnav. But she had obliterated all feeling of caste from her mind and regarded a Harijan girl with no less affection than her own children...''.