Mahatma Gandhi

MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND M K MAHATMA GANDHI d1948. Indian activist who was the leader of the Indian Independence movement against British rule. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, he led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights. Born and raised in a Hindu merchant caste family in coastal Gujarat and trained in law at the Inner Temple London, Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he 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, he led nationwide campaigns for various social causes and for achieving Swaraj or self-rule. He led Indians in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930 and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl. He ate simple vegetarian food and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and political protest. His vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early 1940s by a new Muslim nationalism which was demanding a separate Muslim homeland carved out of India. Eventually, in August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions ; a Hindu-majority India and 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. Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to stop religious violence. The last of these undertaken on 12th January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating. Among them was Nathuram Godse, a hindu nattionalist who assassinated him on 30th January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest. Captured along with many of his co-conspirators and collaborators, Godse and his co-conspirator Narayan Apte were tried, convicted and executed while many of their other accomplices were given prison sentences. Over subsequent years, India, with its rapid economic modernisation and urbanisation has rejected Gandhi's economics, but continues to revere his memory. His birthday (October 2nd) is still commemorated and is a national holiday in India