Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi was one of the greatest leader of India. Named as the Father of Nation, he played a major role in the freedom movement of India. He employed non-violence and led to the Independence of the nation from British rule.
Background
Mahatma Gandhi was born on 2nd October 1869 in Porbander located now in the state of Gujarat, which was a part of the Bombay Presidency during the British rule. He was born to Karamchand Gandhi, who served as the diwan (chief minister) of Porbander state, a small princely state in the Kathiawar Agency of British India and his mother was Putlibai, who was the fourth wife. The stories of Shravana and king Harishchandra made a huge impact on the childhood Gandhi and in his autobiography, he confessed it. Gandhi's early self-identification with truth and love as highest values is noticeable. The religious background was diverse as his father was Hindu Modh Baniya and his mother was from Pranami Vaishnava family and they were quite often visited by religious people. This as well made a huge impact on his life.
In May 1883 at the age of 13 Mohandas was married to 14 Kasturbai Makhanji, who was 14 in an arranged child marriage, as per the custom followed in the area. In the process, he lost a year at school. In the year 1885, when Gandhi was 15, the couple's first child was born, but died soon and in the same year Gandhi's father, Karamchand Gandhi, also died. Mohandas and Kasturba had four sons
Gandhi was an average student and passed the matriculation exam from Samaldas College in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, with some obscurity. However, his family wanted him to be a barrister, as it would amplify the prospects of taking up his father's post.
In 1888, Gandhi went to London, England, to study law at University College London. During his stay in London he kept the promise he had made to his mother while leaving India, in the presence of a Jain monk, to observe the principle of asceticism from meat and alcohol as well as of promiscuity. Inclined to the writings of Henry Salt he joined the Vegetarian Society and was elected in the executive committee and started a local Bayswater chapter. Some of the vegetarians he met were members of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, which encouraged him to join them in reading the Bhagavad Gita as well as in translation. Although he did not have much inclination towards religion before, he became interested in religious thought later. Gandhi was called to the bar in June 1891 and then left London for India, where he came that his mother died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from him. His attempts at setting up a law practice in Bombay failed as he was too timid to speak in court. He returned to Rajkot to make a meek living by drafting petitions for litigants, but he was forced to close it when he ran afoul of a British officer. In 1893, he accepted a contract from Dada Abdulla & Co., an Indian firm, to a post in the Colony of Natal, South Africa for a year.
Civil Rights Movement in South Africa (1893-1914)
Mahatma Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa, where he widened his political views, ethics and political leadership skills. In South Africa, Gandhi faced the discrimination at all coloured people. Once, he was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg as he refused to move from the first-class and as he protested against it he was allowed to travel in first class the next day. While, travelling by stagecoach, he was beaten by a driver as he refused to move to make place for a European passenger. In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court ordered Gandhi to take off his turban, which he refused to do and these events shaped his social activism and awakened him to social injustice. After observing chauvinism, racism, and injustice against Indians in South Africa, he began to question his place in society and his people position in the British Empire. He extended his stay in South Africa to help Indians in opposing a bill that denied them their right to vote. Gandhi had sent out a cenotaph to Joseph Chamberlain, British Colonial Secretary in regards to the bill, asking him to review his position on it. He was unable to stop the passing of the bill, but his campaign was successful in grabbing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped in the foundation of the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, through which he shaped the Indian community residing in South Africa into a cohesive political force. He focused on the Indians during his stay in South Africa and opposed the idea that Indians should be treated at the same level as native Africans in South Africa. After several ill treatments he received from the Whites in South Africa, he started to change his thinking, which increased his interest in politics. White rule enforced stringent separation among all races and created clashed between these communities. In 1906, the British declared warfare against the Zulu Kingdom in Natal and Gandhi buoyant the British to employ Indians. He said that Indians should support the war efforts in order to legitimise their claims for gaining full citizenship. The British accepted his proposal and permitted 20 Indians volunteer as a stretcher-bearer corps to treat wounded soldiers. This taught him the lesson that it was bleak to straight away confront the overpowering military power of the British army and he realized that it was only possible by doing it with non-violence.
Role in the Freedom Movement of India
In the year 1915, Gandhi came back to India with an international reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and organizer. He joined the Indian National Congress and was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people by Gopal Krishna Gokhale. He was a prominent leader of the Congress Party and was known for his command, temperance, and his persistence on working inside the system. He was inspired by Ghokhale’s thought but presented it with a complete Indian thought.
During the First World War in 1918, Gandhi tried to recruit combatants and this campaign brought up the question on his reliability on nonviolence. In the year 1919, the Khilafat movement started worldwide and then, although Gandhi did not originate the All-India Muslim Conference, which directed the movement in India, he soon turned into a well-known spokesman for it and attracted a strong support of Muslim support with local subdivisions in all Muslim centres in India. His success made him India’s first national leader with a multicultural foundation and aided in his ascends to power within Congress, which had earlier been incapable to reach many Muslims. In 1920 Gandhi became a major leader in Congress. In the same year, he initiated the non-cooperation movement, which he had to withdraw due to some agitation that occurred. During this movement, many young Nationalists like Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and many others took part and later got completely involved in the freedom movement. In the year 1928, he initiated the Salt Satyagraha, where he focused on intensifying ideas against untouchability, alcoholism, ignorance and poverty, instead on resolving the wedge between the Swaraj Party and the Indian National Congress. He returned to the forefront in 1928. In the former year, the British government had appointed a new constitutional reform commission under Sir John Simon, which did not comprise any Indian as its member and the result was boycott of the commission by Indian political parties. Gandhi hard-pressed a declaration at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominance status or face a new campaign of non-cooperation with complete independence for the nation. Gandhi had not only temperate the views of young leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru, who sought a demand for immediate independence, but also abridged his own term to a one year wait.
Gandhi took leadership of Congress in 1920 and began a firm intensification of demands until 26 January 1930, when the Indian National Congress declared the independence of India. The British did not identify that and more discussions resulted with Congress taking a role in provincial government in the late 1930s. Gandhi and Congress took away their support of the Raj when the Viceroy declared war against Germany in September 1939 without consulting anyone. In the year 1942, when the 2nd World War was declared, the Quit India movement was started under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and the British Government retorted by imprisoning him and thousands of other Congress leaders for the duration. In the meantime, the Muslim League did oblige with Britain and moved, against Gandhi's strapping resistance, to demands for a completely separate Muslim state of Pakistan. In August 1947 the British partitioned the land of India and Pakistan, wherein each of the nations gained independence on terms that Gandhi condemned.
India gained Independence on 15th August 1947 under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy of non-violence and with several peaceful protests and boycotts. He also wrote his autobiography “My experience with truth” during his struggle for freedom of India from colonial rule. However, In his last year, forlorn at the partition of India, Gandhi tried to stop the massacre between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs that fumed in the border areas of India and Pakistan. On 30 January 1948, he was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, who was of the notion that Gandhi was too compassionate to India's Muslims. 30 January is thus observed as Martyrs' Day in India to honour the contribution of the great leader and the father of the nation.
BIRTH: 2nd October 1869
DEATH: 30 January 1948
ACHIEVEMENT: India's Independence from British rule.
Background
Mahatma Gandhi was born on 2nd October 1869 in Porbander located now in the state of Gujarat, which was a part of the Bombay Presidency during the British rule. He was born to Karamchand Gandhi, who served as the diwan (chief minister) of Porbander state, a small princely state in the Kathiawar Agency of British India and his mother was Putlibai, who was the fourth wife. The stories of Shravana and king Harishchandra made a huge impact on the childhood Gandhi and in his autobiography, he confessed it. Gandhi's early self-identification with truth and love as highest values is noticeable. The religious background was diverse as his father was Hindu Modh Baniya and his mother was from Pranami Vaishnava family and they were quite often visited by religious people. This as well made a huge impact on his life.
In May 1883 at the age of 13 Mohandas was married to 14 Kasturbai Makhanji, who was 14 in an arranged child marriage, as per the custom followed in the area. In the process, he lost a year at school. In the year 1885, when Gandhi was 15, the couple's first child was born, but died soon and in the same year Gandhi's father, Karamchand Gandhi, also died. Mohandas and Kasturba had four sons
Gandhi was an average student and passed the matriculation exam from Samaldas College in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, with some obscurity. However, his family wanted him to be a barrister, as it would amplify the prospects of taking up his father's post.
In 1888, Gandhi went to London, England, to study law at University College London. During his stay in London he kept the promise he had made to his mother while leaving India, in the presence of a Jain monk, to observe the principle of asceticism from meat and alcohol as well as of promiscuity. Inclined to the writings of Henry Salt he joined the Vegetarian Society and was elected in the executive committee and started a local Bayswater chapter. Some of the vegetarians he met were members of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, which encouraged him to join them in reading the Bhagavad Gita as well as in translation. Although he did not have much inclination towards religion before, he became interested in religious thought later. Gandhi was called to the bar in June 1891 and then left London for India, where he came that his mother died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from him. His attempts at setting up a law practice in Bombay failed as he was too timid to speak in court. He returned to Rajkot to make a meek living by drafting petitions for litigants, but he was forced to close it when he ran afoul of a British officer. In 1893, he accepted a contract from Dada Abdulla & Co., an Indian firm, to a post in the Colony of Natal, South Africa for a year.
Civil Rights Movement in South Africa (1893-1914)
Mahatma Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa, where he widened his political views, ethics and political leadership skills. In South Africa, Gandhi faced the discrimination at all coloured people. Once, he was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg as he refused to move from the first-class and as he protested against it he was allowed to travel in first class the next day. While, travelling by stagecoach, he was beaten by a driver as he refused to move to make place for a European passenger. In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court ordered Gandhi to take off his turban, which he refused to do and these events shaped his social activism and awakened him to social injustice. After observing chauvinism, racism, and injustice against Indians in South Africa, he began to question his place in society and his people position in the British Empire. He extended his stay in South Africa to help Indians in opposing a bill that denied them their right to vote. Gandhi had sent out a cenotaph to Joseph Chamberlain, British Colonial Secretary in regards to the bill, asking him to review his position on it. He was unable to stop the passing of the bill, but his campaign was successful in grabbing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped in the foundation of the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, through which he shaped the Indian community residing in South Africa into a cohesive political force. He focused on the Indians during his stay in South Africa and opposed the idea that Indians should be treated at the same level as native Africans in South Africa. After several ill treatments he received from the Whites in South Africa, he started to change his thinking, which increased his interest in politics. White rule enforced stringent separation among all races and created clashed between these communities. In 1906, the British declared warfare against the Zulu Kingdom in Natal and Gandhi buoyant the British to employ Indians. He said that Indians should support the war efforts in order to legitimise their claims for gaining full citizenship. The British accepted his proposal and permitted 20 Indians volunteer as a stretcher-bearer corps to treat wounded soldiers. This taught him the lesson that it was bleak to straight away confront the overpowering military power of the British army and he realized that it was only possible by doing it with non-violence.
Role in the Freedom Movement of India
In the year 1915, Gandhi came back to India with an international reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and organizer. He joined the Indian National Congress and was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people by Gopal Krishna Gokhale. He was a prominent leader of the Congress Party and was known for his command, temperance, and his persistence on working inside the system. He was inspired by Ghokhale’s thought but presented it with a complete Indian thought.
During the First World War in 1918, Gandhi tried to recruit combatants and this campaign brought up the question on his reliability on nonviolence. In the year 1919, the Khilafat movement started worldwide and then, although Gandhi did not originate the All-India Muslim Conference, which directed the movement in India, he soon turned into a well-known spokesman for it and attracted a strong support of Muslim support with local subdivisions in all Muslim centres in India. His success made him India’s first national leader with a multicultural foundation and aided in his ascends to power within Congress, which had earlier been incapable to reach many Muslims. In 1920 Gandhi became a major leader in Congress. In the same year, he initiated the non-cooperation movement, which he had to withdraw due to some agitation that occurred. During this movement, many young Nationalists like Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and many others took part and later got completely involved in the freedom movement. In the year 1928, he initiated the Salt Satyagraha, where he focused on intensifying ideas against untouchability, alcoholism, ignorance and poverty, instead on resolving the wedge between the Swaraj Party and the Indian National Congress. He returned to the forefront in 1928. In the former year, the British government had appointed a new constitutional reform commission under Sir John Simon, which did not comprise any Indian as its member and the result was boycott of the commission by Indian political parties. Gandhi hard-pressed a declaration at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominance status or face a new campaign of non-cooperation with complete independence for the nation. Gandhi had not only temperate the views of young leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru, who sought a demand for immediate independence, but also abridged his own term to a one year wait.
Gandhi took leadership of Congress in 1920 and began a firm intensification of demands until 26 January 1930, when the Indian National Congress declared the independence of India. The British did not identify that and more discussions resulted with Congress taking a role in provincial government in the late 1930s. Gandhi and Congress took away their support of the Raj when the Viceroy declared war against Germany in September 1939 without consulting anyone. In the year 1942, when the 2nd World War was declared, the Quit India movement was started under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and the British Government retorted by imprisoning him and thousands of other Congress leaders for the duration. In the meantime, the Muslim League did oblige with Britain and moved, against Gandhi's strapping resistance, to demands for a completely separate Muslim state of Pakistan. In August 1947 the British partitioned the land of India and Pakistan, wherein each of the nations gained independence on terms that Gandhi condemned.
India gained Independence on 15th August 1947 under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy of non-violence and with several peaceful protests and boycotts. He also wrote his autobiography “My experience with truth” during his struggle for freedom of India from colonial rule. However, In his last year, forlorn at the partition of India, Gandhi tried to stop the massacre between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs that fumed in the border areas of India and Pakistan. On 30 January 1948, he was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, who was of the notion that Gandhi was too compassionate to India's Muslims. 30 January is thus observed as Martyrs' Day in India to honour the contribution of the great leader and the father of the nation.
BIRTH: 2nd October 1869
DEATH: 30 January 1948
ACHIEVEMENT: India's Independence from British rule.