Mirabehn

Mirabehn
Mirabehn on a 1983 stamp of India
Born	Madeleine Slade (1892-11-22)22 November 1892
Died	20 July 1982(1982-07-20) (aged 89) Vienna, Austria

Madeleine Slade (22 November 1892 – 20 July 1982), also known as Mirabehn or Meera Behn, was a British supporter of the Indian Independence Movement who in the 1920s left her home in England to live and work with Mahatma Gandhi. She devoted her life to human development and the advancement of Gandhi's principles.

She was the daughter of the British Rear-Admiral Sir Edmond Slade and Florence Madeleine, eldest daughter of Mr James Carr Saunders of Milton Heath, Dorking (but born in Reigate, Surrey in 1870). Sir Edmund and his wife also had another daughter, Madeline's sister Rhona.

Early life

Mirabehn was born into a well connected British family in 1892. Her father, Sir Edmond Slade was an officer in the Royal Navy who was posted in Mirabehn's early years as the Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies Squadron, later becoming director of the Naval Intelligence Division. She spent much of her childhood with her maternal grandfather who owned a large country estate, and was from an early age a nature and animal lover, having developed a love for horses, and for riding them.

At the age of 15, Mirabehn developed a passion for Ludwig van Beethoven's music. She took to the piano and concerts and went on to become a concert manager. In 1921, she arranged for a German conductor to lead the London Orchestra in concerts featuring Beethoven, and helped bring about an end to the British boycott of German musicians that followed the First World War.

She also visited Vienna and Germany to see where Beethoven had lived and composed his music and she read about him extensively. She read Romain Rolland's books on Beethoven and later met with him at Villeneuve, where he was living at the time. During this meeting, Rolland mentioned about a new book of his called Mahatma Gandhi, which she had not yet read. Rolland described Gandhi as another Christ and as the greatest figure of the 20th century. On her return to England, she read Rolland's biography of Gandhi, which convinced her to become a disciple of the Mahatma. She later recalled in regards to the book, "I could not put it down...From that moment I knew that my life was dedicated to Gandhi." Rather than embarking for India right away, Mirabehn decided to prepare herself for the change by studying material on the Sabarmarti Ashram, sitting cross-legged, and adopting a vegetarian diet. In 1924, she wrote to Gandhi expressing her wish to join him, and also sending him 20 pounds. Gandhi replied, pleased with her patience and willingness to prepare herself first, and asked that she decide on whether or not to come in a year's time. She then continued training herself for all the demands of an ascetic's life in India, giving up all wine, beer, and spirits, completely eliminating meat from her diet, and learning to spin and weave wool. That year in England, she subscribed to Young India and spent a part of her time in Paris reading the Bhagvad Gita and part of the Rigveda in French.

Life in India and role in the independence movement

In November 1925, she contacted Gandhi and requested to stay in his ashram. She arrived in Bombay on 6 November 1925, and was met by followers of Gandhi as well as his son, Devdas. Declining to spend the day sightseeing, she set off to Ahmedabad, where she was received by Mahadev Desai, Vallabhbhai Patel, and Swami Anand on 7 November 1925. This was the beginning of her stay in India that lasted almost 34 years. Upon meeting her, Gandhi said "You will be my daughter", and gave her the name Mirabehn, which represents the Hindu mystic Mirabai. Speaking about her name Mirabehn, she stated in the spring of 1982, ''It is my name. If someone says 'Miss Slade' to me, I don't know who they are talking to.''

Mirabehn attended her first annual meeting of the Indian National Congress in December of 1925. She spent most of 1926 in Sabarmati, where she spun and wove, cooked, and cleaned in the ashram. In December of that year, she travelled to Delhi, where she stayed at a women's hostel. She spent the early months of 1927 visiting ashrams across North India. During this time, she also worked on correcting the language and grammar of the English version of Gandhi's autobiography, a special task given to her by Gandhi himself. After returning to Sabarmati, she decided to become a celibate, began wearing a white sari, and cut her hair short.

After about a year during her stay in India, Mirabehn continued to struggle with the language in North India such as Hindi and Gujarati that Gandhi sent her to Gurukul Kanya and Gurukul Kangri to learn the language. Mirabehn had hopes that Gandhi would take her with him after the Jubilee Celebration at Gurukul Kangri, but to her dismay he sent her to Bhagwadbhakti Ashram of Rewari for a better learning experience.

Mira Behn (far right) with Mahatma Gandhi at the Greenfield Mill, at Darwen, Lancashire

Mirabehn's stay in India coincided with the zenith Gandhian phase of the freedom struggle. She accompanied Gandhi and others to the Round Table Conference in London in 1931. While on their way back from London, Mirabehn and Gandhi visited Rolland for a week and as they took his leave, Rolland gave her a book on Beethoven which he had written while she was in India. As she began to read it in 1960, it convinced her to move to Austria and spend her remaining days in the land of Beethoven's music. The resumption of the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1931 saw her being imprisoned during 1932–33.

To plead India's case she also went abroad meeting, among others, David Lloyd George, General Smuts and Winston Churchill, and visited the United States where she met Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House. Mirabehn also took an active interest in the establishment of the Sevagram Ashram and worked among the people of Orissa to non-violently resist any potential Japanese invasion in the beginning of 1942. She was arrested and detained with Gandhi in the Aga Khan Palace, Pune, from August 1942 to May 1944 where she saw Mahadev Desai and Kasturba Gandhi pass away. She was also a witness to the Simla Conference and the Cabinet Mission, the Interim Government and the Constituent Assembly, the Partition of India and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Post-independence life in India

After her release from the Aga Khan Palace, with Gandhi's permission, she established the Kisan Ashram at a Village named Mooldaspur majra a site near Roorkee. The land was donated to her by the local villagers. After Independence, she established the Pashulok Ashram near Rishikesh and a settlement named Bapu Gram and the Gopal Ashram in Bhilangana in 1952. She took to dairying and farming experiments in these ashrams and also spent a while in Kashmir. During the time she spent in Kumaon and Garhwal she observed the destruction of the forests there and the impact it was having on floods in the plains. She wrote about it in an essay titled Something Wrong in the Himalaya but her advice was ignored by the Forest Department. In the 1980s, these areas witnessed a large Gandhian environmental campaign to save the forests called the Chipko Movement.

She returned to England in 1959, and relocated to Austria in 1960. Her long-time friend, India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, whom Mirabehn had known since Gandhi was a child, made sure she was taken care of even while in Austria. Gandhi had instructed the Indian Embassy in Austria to provide Mirabehn with whatever she needed. Throughout her years in Austria, four of her friends visited her daily. Nonetheless, she continued to voluntarily live a simple life, eating only natural foods and abstaining from using labor saving devices. She spent 22 years in small villages in the Vienna Woods (Baden, Hinterbrühl, Kracking), where she died in 1982.

She was awarded India's second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1981.

Books by Mirabehn

Mirabehn with Gandhi at Darwen, Sharko, 1931

Mirabehn's autobiography is titled The Spiritual Pilgrimage. She also published Bapu's Letters to Mira and New and Old Gleanings. At the time of her death she had also left behind an unpublished biography of Beethoven, the Spirit of Beethoven.

In popular culture

• Actress Geraldine James portrayed her in Richard Attenborough's film, Gandhi, which premiered several months after Mirabehn's death in 1982.
• In Mira and the Mahatma, Sudhir Kakar provides a fictional account of Mirabehn's relationship with Gandhi as his disciple.
• In his book, Rebels Against the Raj, Ramchandra Guha tells the story of how Mirabehn and six other foreigners served India in its quest for independence from the British Raj.

Bibliography

• Spirits Pilgrimage, by Mirabehn. Great River Books. 1984. ISBN 0-915556-13-8.
• New and old gleanings, by Mirabehn. Navajivan Pub. House. 1964.

See also

• Gandhism
• Sarla Behn

Further reading

• Letters to Mirabehn, by Mahatma Gandhi. # Greenleaf Books. 1983. ISBN 0-934676-53-4.

External links

• Biography from mkgandhi.org
• In the company of Bapu: In the just-released Mira & the Mahatma, psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar delves into the complex relationship between a remarkable Englishwoman and the man she worshiped – The Telegraph
• Video interview with Mirabehn. A description of the video is here.