Mahatma Gandhi's Life and Legacy

• Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Gujarat, India.
• He trained as a lawyer and was called to the bar in 1891.
• After two uncertain years in India, Gandhi moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit.
• In 1915, aged 45, Gandhi 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 and led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and, above all, achieving swaraj or self-rule.
• In August 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 independence, attempting to alleviate distress.
• 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.
• Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse on January 30, 1948.

Test your knowledge on the life and achievements of Mahatma Gandhi, an influential leader in India's fight for independence. Learn about his early life, legal career, activism in South Africa, leadership of the Indian National Congress, and his role in India's independence movement.