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, which the Indian government had been resisting. In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. Abstaining from the official celebration of independence, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. 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. 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. He was imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India.

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 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. Gandhi adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with India's rural poor.

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.Īssuming 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 or self-rule. It was here that Gandhi raised a family and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. He went on to live in South Africa for 21 years. 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. īorn 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. The honorific Mahātmā ( Sanskrit: 'great-souled', 'venerable'), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule. Mahatma Gandhi’s spiritual message to the world

Mohandas Gandhi by Mahatma Gandhi