3 Questions
Where did Mahatma Gandhi first employ nonviolent resistance?
South Africa
What did Gandhi adopt as a mark of identification with India's rural poor?
A short dhoti
What was the indirect goal of Gandhi's last hunger strike?
To pressure India to pay out cash assets to Pakistan
Study Notes
- Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in coastal Gujarat, India.
- He trained in the law at the Inner Temple in London and was called to the bar at age 22 in 1891.
- After two uncertain years in India, Gandhi moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit.
- Gandhi went on to live in South Africa for 21 years.
- It was here that Gandhi first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights.
- In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India and soon set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination.
- Gandhi assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921 and 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 January 12, 1948, had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan.
- Mahatma Gandhi died on January 30, 1948, in India.
Test your knowledge about the life of Mahatma Gandhi, from his early years in India to his leadership in the Indian National Congress and his use of nonviolent resistance for civil rights. Explore his beliefs, actions, and impact on Indian history.
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