Mahatma Gandhi Biography: Full Name,Birth anniversary,Family, Education,profession, History, Movements, and Facts
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Mahatma Gandhi Indian Leader |
- Mahatma Gandhi the Indian Leader known as the Father of Nation born on 2 October, 1869
- Full name Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
- Family details
- Full Name: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
- Born: 2 October, 1869
- Place of Birth: Porbandar, Gujarat
- Death: 30 January, 1948
- Place of Death: Delhi, India
- Cause of Death: Shot by Gun or assassination
- Father: Karamchand Gandhi
- Mother: Putlibai Gandhi
- Nationality: Indian
- Spouse: Kasturba Gandhi
- Children: Harilal Gandhi, Manilal Gandhi, Ramdas Gandhi and Devdas Gandhi
- Professions: Lawyer, Politician, Activist, Writer
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is
born in Porbandar, in western India. His father is
the dewan (chief minister) of the city of Porbandar and an able
administrator. His mother is completely absorbed in religion. Mohandas grows up
in a home steeped in Vaisnavnism—worship of the Hindu god Vishnu—with a strong tinge of Jainism, a morally rigorous Indian religion whose chief tenets
are nonviolence and the belief that everything in the universe is eternal.
Gandhi studies law in London.
While there he meets playwright George Bernard
Shaw and social reformer Annie
Besant, among other notable figures. He is
introduced to the Bible and
to the Bhagavadgita, which he
reads for the first time in its English translation by Sir Edwin Arnold.
In 1893 Gandhi takes a job
with an Indian law firm in South Africa, where he is quickly exposed to the
racial discrimination practiced there. He settles in Durban and begins to
practice law. In 1894 he founds the Natal Indian Congress to agitate for Indian
rights. Through that political organization he infuses a spirit of solidarity
in the heterogeneous Indian community. He floods the government, the
legislature, and the press with closely reasoned statements of Indian
grievances. Important newspapers, such as The Times of London and The
Statesman and Englishman of Calcutta (now Kolkata), begin to
take notice of issues that Gandhi raises.
Development of Satyagraha under Mahatma Gandhi
When he moved to South Africa in 1893, Gandhi quickly encountered racial
discrimination. In a Durban court he was asked by the European
magistrate to take off his turban; he refused and left the courtroom. A few
days later, while traveling to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a
first-class railway compartment and was later beaten up by the white driver of
a stagecoach because he would not travel on the footboard to make room for a
European passenger. He was also barred from hotels reserved “for Europeans
only.” But something happened to Gandhi as he smarted under the insults heaped
upon him. That journey from Durban to Pretoria was his moment of truth.
Henceforth he would not accept injustice. He would defend his dignity as an Indian
and as a man. Gandhi fought with mixed success against South Africa’s system of
discrimination. He founded the Natal Indian Congress, and his writings exposed
to the world the injustices suffered by Indians and others. In 1906 satyagraha
(“devotion to truth”) was born as a technique of nonviolent resistance. By the
time Gandhi returned to India in 1915, he had developed satyagraha into an
effective tool in the fight for social justice
In 1906 a discriminatory law
is passed in the Transvaal region of South Africa forcing all Indians to
register with the provincial government or else face punishment. Under Gandhi’s
leadership the Indian community takes a pledge to defy the law and to suffer
all the penalties resulting from its defiance. This practice becomes known as satyagraha,
a technique for redressing wrongs through inviting, rather than inflicting,
suffering, for resisting adversaries without rancor, and fighting them without
violence. Gandhi is frequently jailed during the ensuing years. Thousands of
other Indians are imprisoned, flogged, or shot. The law is eventually
abolished, though racial discrimination in the country continues. Gandhi
returns to India in 1915.
In 1919 Gandhi becomes a
leader in the Indian National Congress political party. He campaigns for swaraj, or “self-rule.” He works to reconcile all classes and
religious sects, especially Hindus and Muslims. In 1920 he launches a
noncooperation campaign against Britain, urging Indians to spin their own
cotton and to boycott British goods, courts, and government. This leads to his
imprisonment from 1922 to 1924.
Gandhi leads tens of
thousands of Indians on a 240-mile (385-kilometer) march to
the sea to collect their own salt. The march is a protest against a
British tax on salt and results in 60,000 people being arrested. In 1931 the
British viceroy and Gandhi sign an agreement (the Gandhi-Irwin Pact)
marking the end of a period of civil disobedience in India against British
rule. The pact involves Gandhi pledging to give up
the satyagraha campaign and the British viceroy agreeing to release
all those who had been imprisoned and to allow Indians to make salt for domestic
use.
Under a new viceroy, Gandhi
is imprisoned again. While in prison he fasts to protest the British decision
to segregate the so-called untouchables (the lowest level of the Indian caste system) by
allotting them separate electorates in the new constitution. The fast causes an
emotional upheaval in the country, and the British agree to change the policy.
Under a new viceroy,
Gandhi is imprisoned again. While in prison he fasts to protest the British
decision to segregate the so-called untouchables (the lowest
level of the Indian caste system) by allotting them separate electorates in the
new constitution. The fast causes an emotional upheaval in the country, and the
British agree to change the policy.
Gandhi, who in 1934 had
resigned as leader and member of the Indian National Congress, becomes politically
active again early in World War II, demanding immediate
independence as India’s price for aiding Britain in the war. He is imprisoned
again, from 1942 to 1944.
Mahatma Gandhi was one of the
greatest national and civil rights leaders of the 20th century. He served as a
lawyer, politician, and activist in the struggle for social justice and for
India’s independence from British rule. Gandhi is internationally esteemed for
his doctrine of nonviolent protest (satyagraha) to achieve political and social
progress.
Mahatma Gandhi & Salt March & Demand for Swaraj
The British
government appointed a new constitutional reform under Sir John Simon which did
not include any Indian and the result was a boycott of the commission by all
Indian political leaders. In December 1928 Gandhi demanded the British
government to grant India a dominion status and warned them to face a new non-
cooperation campaign with a complete freedom as its goal, if their demands were
not met. On 31st December 1929 Indian flag was unfurled in Lahore and next
year, 26 January was celebrated as the Independence Day by the National
Congress Party which was commemorated by almost every Indian organization. In
1930, Gandhi launched a new Satyagraha protesting the tax on salt. He marched
from Ahmadabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself. T housands of Indian
people joined him in this 400km march which was marked as his most successful
campaign against the British hold.
In March
1931 the Irwin-Gandhi pact was signed according to which the British government
agreed to free political prisoners if Gandhi denounced the civil disobedience
movement. In 1932, the government granted untouchables separate electorates
under the new constitution. Gandhi started a new campaign to improve the lives
of untouchables, whom he called Harijan, the children of God. Equality and
justice for Untouchables became his prime goal and it was a result of Gandhi's
constant effort that in September 1932 the government agreed to adopt a more
unbiased and fair arrangement via negotiation.
Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom and Partition of India
During world
war II in 1939, Gandhi opposed the inclusion of India in the war stating that
India can not be a part of the war being fought for the democratic freedom,
while freedom was denied to India itself. Gandhi and other Congressmen
intensified their movement for a complete freedom demanding the British to
‘Quit India’. It was the most vigorous movement in the history of Indian Independence
struggle in which thousands of freedom fighters were killed, imprisoned and
injured and violent clashes broke in every part of India. The demand this time
was a complete freedom and immediate exit of the British from India. Though
Gandhi appealed to maintain discipline, he made it clear that even violent act
wouldn't stop their movement this time, as it was a time to Do or Die.
Gandhi and
the committee of congress were arrested on 9 August 1942, and Gandhi was held
in Aga Khan Palace for 2 years. During that period his wife Kasturba Gandhi
died after 18 months of prison on 22 February 1944. At the end of the world
war, Gandhi called off his struggle. Time had come to see an Independent India.
Gandhi had always dreamed of India as a place where Hindu and Muslims lived in
harmony and thus he was opposed to any plan that partitioned India into two
different countries. A majority of Muslims living in India were in favor of the
partition, including Muhammad Ali Jinnah. T he partition plan was approved by the
Congress leadership as they knew it was the only way to avoid a looming Hindu
Muslim civil war. Against the wish of Gandhi, British India broke into two
parts, an Independent India and Pakistan.
Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi was
assassinated on 30 January 1948 on the grounds of Birla house, New Delhi. T he
assassin, Nathuram Godse, who had links to the extremist Hindu group Hindu
Mahasabha shot him dead because he was against Gandhi's sympathy for Pakistan.
Godse and his co-conspirator Narayan Apte were tried and executed on 15
November 1949. Gandhi's memorial on rajghat, New Delhi bears his last words He
Ram!
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