Mahatma Gandhi's Life and Legacy

• Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, a coastal town in Gujarat, India.
• He was educated at the Inner Temple in London and was called to the bar at the age of 22.
• After two years in India, Gandhi moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant.
• Gandhi became involved in the struggle for civil rights in South Africa, and used nonviolent resistance to achieve success.
• In 1915, Gandhi returned to India and soon took leadership of 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 sign of identification with Indias rural poor.
• Gandhi 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.
• Following independence, religious violence broke out in many parts of the country, particularly in the Punjab and Bengal.
• Gandhi attempted to stop the violence with 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 significant figure in the Indian independence movement and his work helped to lead to the country's independence from British rule. He was a lawyer by profession, and used nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for Indias independence from British rule. He also inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a sign of identification with Indias rural poor, and 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. After independence was granted, religious violence broke out in many parts of the country, particularly in the Punjab and Bengal. Gandhi attempted to stop the violence with several hunger strikes, but 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 significant figure in the Indian independence movement and his work helped to lead to the country's independence from British rule. He was a lawyer by profession, and used nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for Indias independence from British rule. He also inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a sign of identification with Indias rural