Gandhis Teachers Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta

SR No.: 006754
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Satish Sharma
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyapith Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2005
Total Pages: 260
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Rajchandra
File Size: 11 MB

Page 225

Gandhi : A Biographical Sketch
207
strenuous and did not improve. The law studies in England had prepared Gandhi for practicing British law and he had no knowledge of the Hindu and Muslim law or of Indian court system. These were the circumstances under which Gandhi settled in Rajkot and began his law practice. As befitting an England-returned attorney, Gandhi modernized his living. The expenditures were high, but income was meager. He kept his fees ten times the going rate and few clients would come to him. Meeting both ends was becoming difficult and getting harder day-by-day. Some friends advised Gandhi to go to Bombay and start his law practice there. They suggested that the big city would bring him more business, he would learn the Hindu and Muslim law, and also gain experience in a higher court. Gandhi moved to Bombay, but found that conditions there were even harder. Legal work came only if one agreed to pay a commission and Gandhi refused to do so. The study of the Hindu and Muslim law was tedious and more difficult than Gandhi had originally imagined. The expenditures in the big city went further up, without any corresponding increase in income. Gandhi also discovered that he did not have the needed ability to argue and contest the cases. Once he took the case of one Mamibai, but could not ask a single question in the court and another attorney had to take over the case. Thereupon, Gandhi decided that he would not to take other cases until he developed the ability to argue and contest them. Disappointed, Gandhi left Bombay and came back to Rajkot where he restricted his legal practice to drafting of briefs for other attorneys and somehow made both ends meet. At this time a Meman firm offered Gandhi a job in South Africa for one year to provide assistance in their long-pending legal case. Without hesitation or haggling for a higher salary, Gandhi accepted the offer and sailed for South Africa in April, 1893.
Upon reaching South Africa, it did not take Gandhi long to notice that the Indians and other colored people there were treated differently. Snobbishness and arrogance of the White people and the way they treated all others with prejudice and