Mohandas Gandhi, India's "Father of the Nation"

Article Summary

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

Mohandas Gandhi - October 2, 1869(1869-10-02) - January 30, 1948 (aged 78)
Mohandas Karamchand Gandh, is commonly known in India and across the world as Mahatma Gandhi: Maha-tma ("Great Soul") and as Bapu ("Father").
Living with a devout Hindu mother, Gandhi learned from an early age the tenets of non-injury to living beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification.
At the age of 18 on September 4, 1888, Gandhi went to University College London to train as a barrister.
In 1893 he accepted a year-long contract from an Indian firm to a post in Natal, South Africa.
South Africa changed Gandhi dramatically, as he faced the discrimination commonly directed at blacks and Indians.
He was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg, after refusing to move from the first class to a third class coach while holding a valid first class ticket.
He suffered other hardships on the journey as well, including being barred from many hotels.
These incidents have been acknowledged by several biographers as a turning point in his life, explaining his later social activism.
Gandhi's first major achievements came in 1918. He organized poor farmers and labourers to protest against oppressive taxation and widespread discrimination.
He was arrested for creating unrest. Thousands protested. On release Gandhi led organized protests and strikes against the landlords.
Non-cooperation and peaceful resistance were Gandhi's "weapons" in the fight against injustice.
Gandhi expanded his non-violence platform to include the swadeshi policy - the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods.
Gandhi exhorted Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning khadi in support of the independence movement.
"Non-cooperation" enjoyed wide-spread appeal from all strata of Indian society. Gandhi was arrested tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years imprisonment.
In December 1928, Gandhi pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress calling on the British government to grant India dominion status
He launched a new satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930, highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi to make salt himself.
This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British rule; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.
World War II broke out in 1939. Gandhi declared that while democratic freedom was denied to India itself, india should not participate.
At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands.
Gandhi was vehemently opposed to any plan that partitioned India into two separate countries.
The partition plan was approved by the Congress leadership as the only way to prevent a wide-scale Hindu-Muslim civil war.
He conducted extensive dialogue with Muslim and Hindu community leaders, concerned about an inability to come to terms with one another.
On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was shot and killed while having his nightly public walk on the grounds of the Birla Bhavan (Birla House) in New Delhi.

If you need the original article it's here.