Those were the formative periods of Gandhi’s political life and personality. He wrote and read continuously. His readings took him to Tolstoy and to Ruskin. He wrote articles in Gujarati on dietetics and organized hospital services to meet the health problems during the outbreak of plague in Johannesburg. He did not stop there. 

Back home in India, serious developments were taking shape. Bengal was divided and promptly Gandhi opposed the move. He declared his support to the call of the Indian leaders back home to the boycott of British Goods. And he supported the Indian leaders’ demand for ‘home rule’ for India.

Around the same time (1906), he declared that he is not interested in worldly possessions, and took a vow of brahmacharya (abstinence from sex life).