Q

What were the names of Gandhi's parents and his wife and what was there socio economic status ?

A

Thank you for your query about Gandhi (whose full name, as you might know, was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi).

Gandhi's father's name was Karamchand Gandhi. His mother's name was Putlibai. His wife's name was Kasturba (also written as Kasturbai).
With regard to the Gandhi family's socio-economic status: the Gandhis were of the Vaisya caste, 'below' the Brahmin and Kshatriya caste and 'above' the Sudra caste. However, Gandhi's grandfather and father had been prime minister of a small state in the Kathiawar peninsula, western India. Authoritative Gandhi biograher Louis Fischer describes Gandhi's home life as cultured and the family as well-to-do by Indian standards. There were books in the house, chiefly about religion and mythology. At one stage Gandhi's father Karamchand owned three houses. Gandhi's elder brother Laxmidas practised law and became a government treasury official. He owned two houses. Gandhi's other brother, Karsandas, was a sub-inspector of police. Before Gandhi became the figure he was to become, he graduated as a barrister-at-law. He studied at the Inner Temple in London. Fischer recounts an opinion that the Inner Temple was considered by Indians the most aristocratic of the four Inns of Court in London.

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