Mahatma Gandhi: The Life of a Leader

• Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Gujarat, India.
• He attended the Inner Temple in London and was called to the bar in 1891.
• Gandhi moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit.
• He lived in South Africa for 21 years.
• In 1915, at the age of 45, Gandhi returned to India and soon became involved in the Indian National Congress.
• Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding womens rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and 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 independence, Gandhi undertook several hunger strikes to stop 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 prominent figure in the Indian independence movement who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for Indias independence from British rule. He is best known for his campaigns against untouchability and for advocating for religious pluralism in India. Gandhi was also a prominent figure in the struggle for civil rights in South Africa, where he lived for 21 years. Following independence, Gandhi went on to play a significant role in the partition of British India, helping to ease religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims. He died on January 30, 1948.