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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
(/ˈɡɑːndi, ˈɡændi/;[3] GAHN-dee; 2 October 1869 – 30 January

1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian revolutionary, anti-colonial
nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the
successful campaign for India's independence from British rule and later inspire movements
for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific epithet Mahātmā (Sanskrit: "great-
souled", "venerable"), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the
world. He was the President of the Indian National Congress in 1924.
Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, Gandhi trained in the law at the Inner
Temple, London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in June 1891. After two uncertain years in
India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in 1893
to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to live in South Africa for 21 years. It
was here that Gandhi raised a family and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for
civil rights. In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India and soon set about organising peasants,
farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination.
Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns
for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity,
ending untouchability, and, above all, achieving swaraj (self-rule). Gandhi adopted the
short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. He
began to live in a self-sufficient residential community, to eat simple food, and undertake long
fasts as a means of both introspection and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to
the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km
(250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930 and in calling for the British to quit India in 1942. He was
imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India.
Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early
1940s by a Muslim nationalism which demanded a separate homeland for Muslims within British
India. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire
was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. As
many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence
broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Abstaining from the official celebration of
independence, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress. In the months
following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The last of these,
begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring
India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. Although the Government of India relented,
as did the religious rioters, the belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both
Pakistan and Indian Muslims, especially those besieged in Delhi, spread among some Hindus in
India. Among these was Nathuram Godse, a militant Hindu nationalist from western India,
who assassinated Gandhi by firing three bullets into his chest at an interfaith prayer meeting in
Delhi on 30 January 1948.
Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday,
and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence. Gandhi is commonly considered
the Father of the Nation in India[4][5] and is commonly called Bapu (Gujarati: endearment
for father, papa).
Biography
Early life and background
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi[6] was born on 2 October 1869[7] into
a Gujarati Hindu Modh Bania family[8][9] in Porbandar (also known as Sudamapuri), a coastal town
on the Kathiawar Peninsula and then part of the small princely state of Porbandar in
the Kathiawar Agency of the British Raj. His father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi (1822–
1885), served as the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar state.[10][11] His family originated from the
then village of Kutiana in what was then Junagadh State.[12]
Although he only had an elementary education and had previously been a clerk in the state
administration, Karamchand proved a capable chief minister.[13] During his tenure, he married four
times. His first two wives died young, after each had given birth to a daughter, and his third
marriage was childless. In 1857, he sought his third wife's permission to remarry; that year, he
married Putlibai (1844–1891), who also came from Junagadh,[13] and was from
a Pranami Vaishnava family.[14] Karamchand and Putlibai had three children over the ensuing
decade: a son, Laxmidas (c. 1860–1914); a daughter, Raliatbehn (1862–1960); and another son,
Karsandas (c. 1866–1913).[15][16]
On 2 October 1869, Putlibai gave birth to her last child, Mohandas, in a dark, windowless
ground-floor room of the Gandhi family residence in Porbandar city. As a child, Gandhi was
described by his sister Raliat as "restless as mercury, either playing or roaming about. One of his
favourite pastimes was twisting dogs' ears."[17] The Indian classics, especially the stories
of Shravana and king Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood. In his
autobiography, he states that they left an indelible impression on his mind. He writes: "It haunted
me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without number." Gandhi's early self-
identification with truth and love as supreme values is traceable to these epic characters.[18][19]
The family's religious background was eclectic. Gandhi's father Karamchand was Hindu and his
mother Putlibai was from a Pranami Vaishnava Hindu family.[20][21] Gandhi's father was of Modh
Baniya caste in the varna of Vaishya.[22] His mother came from the medieval Krishna bhakti-
based Pranami tradition, whose religious texts include the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavata
Purana, and a collection of 14 texts with teachings that the tradition believes to include the
essence of the Vedas, the Quran and the Bible.[21][23] Gandhi was deeply influenced by his mother,
an extremely pious lady who "would not think of taking her meals without her daily prayers... she
would take the hardest vows and keep them without flinching. To keep two or three consecutive
fasts was nothing to her."[24]

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

(/ˈɡɑːndi, ˈɡændi/;[3] GAHN-dee; 2 October 1869 – 30 January

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