Mahatma Gandhi: Life and Legacy

• Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Gujarat, India.
• He trained as a lawyer and began to practice in India in 1891, but was unsuccessful.
• In 1915, he returned to India and began to lead the Indian National Congress, a political organization which aimed to achieve independence from British rule.
• He led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding womens rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and achieving self-rule.
• He adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with Indias rural poor.
• 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.
• In 1947, Britain granted independence to India and the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan.
• The religious violence which broke out following independence led Gandhi to undertake several hunger strikes.
• The last of these, begun in Delhi on January 12, 1948, had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan.

Mahatma Gandhi was a successful lawyer and political leader who used nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule and to later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. He adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with the country's rural poor and undertook long fasts as a means of both introspection and political protest. Following independence, religious violence broke out and he undertook several hunger strikes in an attempt to stop it. He is considered one of the most influential political figures in the history of India.