The Great Gandhi (1869-1948)

(1869–1948). Considered to be the father of modern India, Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of his country's independence movement. He led the Indian people in nonviolent protest against British rule when India was a colony of Great Britain. His efforts on behalf of Indians earned him the title Mahatma, meaning “great soul.”

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India. He grew up in a religious home where he was influenced by two Indian religions—Hinduism and Jainism. Two of Jainism's central ideas are nonviolence and the belief that everything in the universe is eternal.
During his years at school, Mohandas was considered an average student. In 1887 he finished his studies at the University of Bombay. He then moved to England in September 1888 to study law in London.
In London Gandhi spent some of his time reading philosophy. He discovered the political theory of nonviolence in an essay called Civil Disobedience by U.S. writer Henry David Thoreau. This idea, coupled with the religious teachings of his childhood, shaped Gandhi's social and political thought. In 1891 Gandhi returned to India. His career as a lawyer in India, however, was not successful.
Gandhi went to South Africa in 1893. He had no intention of staying for long. However, the living conditions of Indians in the British colony of Natal changed his mind. He became actively involved in the affairs of Natal's Indian community. Gandhi succeeded in drawing the public's attention to the problems of Natal's Indians.
Gandhi remained loyal to the British Empire during South Africa's Boer War. At the outbreak of the war between the British and Dutch in 1899, he urged Indians to support the British. The British victory in 1902 brought little relief to the Indians in the Transvaal, a British colony. In 1906 the British in the Transvaal ordered the Indian population to register their names with the government. Under Gandhi's leadership, the Transvaal Indians defied the order. They willingly suffered the penalties of the British government. Thus was born Satyagraha, or “devotion to truth.” It was a new method of political protest. Satyagraha tried to correct injustices by accepting the attacks of political opponents. It also meant resisting an opponent without bitterness or violence.

Gandhi returned to India in early 1915. In February 1919 he protested against a law allowing the British to imprison Indians without trial. In response to the law, Gandhi called for a Satyagraha against the British rulers in India.
He ended the satyagraha after a crowd of Indians was attacked by British police. By the autumn of 1920, however, Gandhi was the leading political figure in India. Gandhi's followers boycotted British goods as well as British institutions in India, such as legislatures, courts, offices, and schools. This mass civil disobedience stunned the entire country. Gandhi was arrested on March 10, 1922. He was tried for treason and sentenced to prison for six years.
In 1930, in protest of a tax on salt, Gandhi led thousands of Indians on a 200-mile (320-kilometer) march to the sea to make their own salt. As a result, the British imprisoned more than 60,000 people. A year later, Gandhi accepted a truce and called off the civil disobedience movement.
With the outbreak of Worldwar2, the Indian nationalist struggle entered its last phase. Gandhi demanded immediate independence as India's price for aiding Britain in the war. He was imprisoned for the third time, from 1942 to 1944.
In 1947 India was granted independence from Britain. With independence, however, India's land was divided into two new countries: India and Pakistan. The new nation of India contained mostly Hindus while Pakistan contained a majority of Muslims. This geographical and religious separation was a great disappointment to Gandhi. Before and after India's division, the country was torn by clashes between Hindus and Muslims. During this period, Gandhi tried to end the conflict between the two groups of people. His efforts to restore peace were resented by people in both groups. On January 30, 1948, in the city of Delhi, Gandhi was shot and killed by a Hindu man.
Gandhi was one of the greatest political and social leaders in the 20th century. His use of nonviolent protest eventually led to his country's independence. Within his country, he supported the rights of both Hindus and Muslims. He also sought better treatment for the lowest members of Indian society.