Biography of Mahatma Gandhi

 Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) played an important role in India's struggle for freedom. Mahatma Gandhi is known for his policy of truth and nonviolence.

Early Life 

He was born on 2 October, 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat in western India. His father’s name was Karamchand Gandhi and his mother’s name was Putlibai His father was Dewan or Chief Minister of Porbandar, the capital of a small principality in Western British India. Mahatma Gandhi was the son of his father's fourth wife Putlibai, who belonged to an affluent Vaishnava family. Having born in a Hindu family Gandhi strictly followed vegetarianism and fasting as means of self-purification. At the age of 13 he was married to one year older kasturba. In 1885, Kasturbai gave birth to their first child who survived only few days. Later the couple had four sons.

Studying

When Gandhi was 9 years old he went to a local school at Rajkot and studied the basics of arithmetic, history, geography, and languages. At the age of 11, he went to a high school in Rajkot. Because of his wedding, at least about one year, his studies were disturbed and later he joined and completed his schooling. He joined Samaldas college in Bhavnagar in 1888 at Gujarat.  Mahatma Gandhi left for London to study law. Thereafter 10 days after arrival, he joined the Inner Temple, one of the four London law colleges, and studied and practiced law. In London, he also joined a Vegetarian Society and was introduced to Bhagavad Gita by some of his vegetarian friends.

Struggles

Gandhi took a job with an Indian law firm in South Africa, where he was quickly exposed to the racial discrimination practiced there. He settled in Durban and began to practice law. He founded 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 flooded the government, the legislature, and the press with closely reasoned statements of Indian grievances.Gandhi became a leader in the Indian National Congress political party. He campaigned for swaraj, or “self-rule.” He worked to reconcile all classes and religious sects, especially Hindus and Muslims. He launched a noncooperation campaign against Britain, urging Indians to spin their own cotton and to boycott British goods, courts, and government. This leaded to his imprisonment.Gandhi leaded tens of thousands of Indians on a 240-mile march to the sea to collect their own salt. The march was a protest against a British tax on salt and results in 60,000 people being arrested. 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 involved 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.Gandhi is imprisoned again. While in prison he fasted 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 caused an emotional upheaval in the country, and theBritish agreed to change the policy.India formally achieved independence from British rule. However, the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan was a great disappointment to Gandhi, who had long worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. Rioting between Muslims and Hindus over the partition broke out in many areas. Again Gandhi turnsed to nonviolence, fasting until Delhi rioters pledged peace.

Death

While on his way to prayer in Delhi,Gandhi was killed by Nathuram Godse a young Hindu fanatic who had been angered by Gandhi’s efforts to reconcile Hindus and Muslims.

To conclude, Mahatma Gandhi was the spiritual leader known as the “Great Soul of India” and champion of the Indian movement for independence.