3 Questions
What was the primary goal of Gandhi's hunger strikes?
To pressure India to pay out cash assets owed to Pakistan
In which year did Gandhi return to India?
1915
What did Gandhi adopt as a mark of identification with India's rural poor?
A short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn
Study Notes
- Mahatma Gandhi was born in October 1869 in Gujarat, India.
- He trained as a lawyer and was called to the bar at age 22 in 1891.
- He moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit.
- He lived in South Africa for 21 years.
- In 1915, 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.
- In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence.
- The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan.
Test your knowledge about the life and achievements of Mahatma Gandhi, from his early years in South Africa to his leadership of the Indian National Congress and his efforts for social change and independence in India.
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