Leader's childhood

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The childhood of leaders who contributed to changing the course of history in one direction or another receives little attention. Those who chronicle them or write about them rarely care about their childhood, despite its importance in their formation, which made them leaders capable of influence in their youth and adulthood.

Among these people is the leader and pioneer of the independence movement in India, Mahatma Gandhi, whose childhood story was narrated by the great writer Muhammad al-Mansi Qandil in his enjoyable book, “Great People in Their Childhood,” published by Dar al-Karma in Cairo. The most important thing in this story is that the idea of ​​resistance was born in Gandhi’s mind and conscience when his mother was injured by a snake bite, so he took her to the nearest hospital, but his administration refused to allow them entry to treat the injured woman, and informed them that it was reserved for the British and that no Indian could enter it. On that day, Gandhi knew the severity of the British occupation and its arrogance. He never forgot what the English officer said to the hospital guard when he told him that a woman could die. He told him what it meant to follow orders, and that the death of an Indian woman did not matter because millions of Indians were alive. Gandhi cried a lot on that day when he was determined to work to liberate India. This was the beginning of his leadership of the national movement that relied on the approach of nonviolence or peaceful resistance... an approach that inspired millions of people around the world. As for his mother, she refused to search for another hospital that would accept her treatment, and asked her son to return to their home. When they arrived, she asked him to bring a handful of earth’s clay and place it in the place where the snake had been bitten, telling him what it meant that the good land of India is the one that heals its people.

It is likely that Gandhi also did not forget her words throughout his struggle to liberate the land that his mother said was good. He also kept mentioning her saying that the presence of the occupation desecrated this good land, so he insisted on liberating it and returning it to its owners, which was achieved when India gained its independence in 1947.