: At Kochrab, a little-known Mohandas Gandhi won his first battle against untouchability #IndiaNEWS #National By Asmita DaveThe Gujarat government is spending Rs 1,200 crore to make the Sabarmati Gandhi

At Kochrab, a little-known Mohandas Gandhi won his first battle against untouchability #IndiaNEWS #National
By Asmita DaveThe Gujarat government is spending Rs 1,200 crore to make the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram a world class tourist spot. But the place where Gandhi started his ashram life is being sidelined nowadays.
Gandhi started his first ashram at Kochrab village near Paldi, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. When Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned home from South Africa and started looking for a place to establish an ashram, Rabindranath Tagore suggested to him to start the ashram in Santiniketan.
Then the people of Rajkot in Gujarat urged Gandhi to establish an ashram, but when Gandhi passed through Ahmedabad many friends chose a place there and started the exercise of establishing an ashram. They said they will bear all the expenses of the ashram.
Gandhis barrister friend Jivanlal Vrajrai Desai rented a house in then Kochrab village near Paldi, Ahmedabad and gave it to Gandhi who performed a special puja there on 20 May 1915.
On May 22 he came to live at Kochrab and on 25 May 1915 Kochrab Ashram was established and was named Satyagraha. The ashram was a witness to Gandhis first fast in his initial days of public life. It also witnessed the first movement to remove untouchability from the society, and the seeds of Indias freedom movement were also sown there.
On June 1, 1915, one of the ashram inmates was found to be lying, so Gandhi fasted and he confessed to the lie.
In the beginning 20 to 25 people lived there with Gandhi, including South Africans, South Indians and Telugu speakers. Apart from this, his wife Kasturba Gandhi, Gujarati poet Sundaram, Naykar, Rukhiben, Santokben, Manilal, Radhaben, Ramdas, Devdas, Gujarati and Konkani writer Kakasaheb Kalelkar, Vinoba Bhave, Mamasaheb Phadke, Amritalal Thakkar aka Thakkarbapa, Doodabhai, Daniben, Lakshmiben and Swamiyanand were staying in Kochrab Ashram.
Pravin Parikh, director of Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram, told IANS that the ashramvasis first encounter with untouchability is a well known incident. After three to four months of the ashrams establishment, Dudabhai and his family came to the ashram with a reference from Gandhis old friend Thakkarbapa.
As Dudabhai, his wife, Dahibahen, and his daughter Laxmibahen came to the ashram, Kasturba and Raliatben, Gandhis elder sister, opposed them. Gandhi had a big argument with his sister and Raliatben left the ashram. Gandhi tried to convince Kasturba, but many other inmates who also believed strongly in untouchability were not happy with Dudabhais family being there and were not cooperating with them.
Gandhi came to know about this through ashram manager Maganbhai. He told everyone that he would go and live with Dudabhais community, but he wont drive them out of the ashram.

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