Kasturba Gandhi was born at Porbander (Gujarat) in April, 1869. She was married to Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi at the age of 13 and accompanied him to South Africa in 1896 when he went there on a lawyer's assignment. Public life for both of them began with the Satyagrah to reinstitute the prestige of Indian s in South Africa in 1902 and the establishment of the Phoenix Ashram and later Tolstoy Farm where bread labour was the rule. Kasturba stayed in the Ashram, bore all its hardships, courted arrest on her own and was sometimes a guide to Gandhiji.

She returned to India along with Gandhiji and joined the Indian freedom struggle. She went to Champaran (Bihar) in 1917 and pioneered the work for the upliftment of the rural women. At Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad and at Sewagram Ashram Wardha, she gave the Jove of a mother to all specially the girls and women who came to join the Ashram and the freedom movement of the country.

She courted arrest in 1939 at Rajkot and was in prison at Tramba (now called Kasturbagram) 13 k.m. away from Rajkot. Again  during the Quit India Movement in 1942 she was imprisoned in August and that proved to be her last journey. She breathed her last on 22nd February, 1944 while under detention. All her life she suffered for the independence of the country but did not Jive to see dawn of  freedom.

Her demise was a great shock to the nation. An appeal by 100 prominent citizens of the country was issued to the nation to collect a donation of Rs. 75 lacs and present it to Gandhiji. The regard in which she was held was so high that the amount later came to about Rs. 1 crore and 31 lacs. Gandhiji turned this collection into the Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust with the sole aim of serving needy women and children in the rural areas who could become capable of serving the country in the true sense of the word.

The Kasturba Trust has been working with this aim since April 1945 when it was registered. It has its headquarters at Kasturbagram, Indore, Madhya Pradesh with provincial headquarters and more than 600 centres spread in almost all states. Besides running health and education Centres in remote areas, the Trust works for awakening amongst rural women, establishes 'Ba Ka Ghar' for women in distress, works for eradication of addiction to liquor so that families womenfolk and children live in peace.

In a befitting tribute to her the Department of Post issues a commemorative postage stamp on the completion of fifty years of service by the Kasturba Trust which was established in memory of the indomitable Kasturba Gandhi.

Source : Information Folder issued by Indian Posts & Telegraph Department, Government of India