Mohandas Gandhi


Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" (Sanskrit: "great soul")  Gandhi (October 2,
1869 - January 30, 1948) was one of the founding fathers of the modern Indian
state and an influential advocate of pacifism as a means of revolution.

He helped bring about India's independence from British rule, inspiring
other colonial peoples to work for their own independence and ultimately
dismantle the British Empire and replace it with the Commonwealth. Gandhi's
principle of satyagraha (Sanskrit: truth + path/way), often roughly
translated as "way of truth", has inspired generations of democratic and
anti-racist activists including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
He often stated his values were simple: truth (satya), and non-violence (ahimsa).

Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Gujarat, India. He was the son of a
local official and trained as a lawyer in London. He went to South Africa to
practise law in 1893 and began his political career by lobbying against laws
discriminating against Indians in South Africa. Gandhi was arrested on
November 6, 1913 while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.

Gandhi drew inspiration from the writings of Leo Tolstoy, who in the 1880s
had undergone a profound conversion to a personal form of Christian
anarchism. Gandhi translated Tolstoy's "Letter to a Hindu" which was written
in 1908 in response to aggressive Indian nationalists, and the two
corresponded until Tolstoy's death in 1910.

During World War I, Gandhi returned to India, where he campaigned for
Indians to join the British Indian Army. After the war, he became involved
with the Indian National Congress and the movement for independence. He
gained worldwide publicity through his policy of civil disobedience and the
use of fasting as a form of protest, and was repeatedly imprisoned by the
British authorities (for example on March 18, 1922 he was sentenced to six
years in prison for civil disobedience but served only 2 years). One of his
most striking actions was the salt march that started on March 12, 1930 and
ended on April 5, when he led thousands of people to the sea to collect
their own salt rather than pay the salt tax. On May 8, 1933 Gandhi began a
fast that would last 21 days to protest British oppression in India. In
Bombay, on March 3, 1939 Gandhi fasted again in protest of the autocratic
rule in India.

Gandhi became even more vocal in his demand for independence during World
War II, drafting a resolution calling for the British to Quit India, which
soon sparked the largest movement for Indian independence ever, with mass
arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale. During this time, he even
hinted an end for his otherwise unwavering support of non-violence, saying
that the 'ordered anarchy' around him was 'worse than real anarchy'. He was
then arrested in Bombay by British forces on August 9, 1942 and was held for
two years.

Gandhi was a larger-than-life figure in relations between the Hindu and
Muslim communities of India. It is said that he ended communal riots through
his mere presence. Gandhi was vehemently opposed to any plan which
partitioned India into two separate countries (as the plan which was
eventually adopted did — creating a Hindu-dominated India, and a
Muslim-dominated Pakistan). On the day of power transfer, Gandhi did not
celebrate independence with the rest of India, but mourned partition alone
in Calcutta instead. He was assassinated in New Delhi on January 30, 1948 by
Naturam Godse, a Hindu radical who held him responsible for weakening the
new government by insisting on a payment to Pakistan.

The most famous artistic depiction of his life is the film Gandhi, directed
by Richard Attenborough and starring Ben Kingsley in the title role. Another
film that deals with Gandhi's 21 years of life in South Africa is The Making
of the Mahatma directed by Shyam Benegal and starring Rajit Kapur.

Albert Einstein famously said of Gandhi, "Generations to come, it may be,
will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked
upon this earth."