Mahatma Gandhi's Life and Legacy

• Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat, India.
• He was educated at the Inner Temple in London and became a lawyer in 1891.
• Gandhi moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit.
• He began to employ nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights in South Africa.
• In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India and soon set about organizing peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination.
• Gandhi assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921.
• He led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding womens rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and, above all, achieving swaraj or self-rule.
• Gandhi 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.
• Gandhi was imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India.
• 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.
• Gandhi visited the affected areas following the independence of India, attempting to alleviate distress.
• Gandhi undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence.
• 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 great-souled man who used nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for Indias independence from British rule and to later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. He is best known for his advocacy of satyagraha, or "truth-force", a philosophy of nonviolent resistance that he first put into practice in South Africa. After independence was granted to India in 1947, Gandhi led the country 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 was imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India. 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 is also remembered for his philosophy of ahimsa, or "nonviolence", which he put into practice throughout his life.

Test your knowledge of Mahatma Gandhi, a key figure in India's struggle for independence and a global symbol of nonviolent resistance. Learn about his life, philosophy, and contributions to civil rights movements around the world.