Mahatma Gandhi's Life and Legacy

• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Gujarat, India.
• He trained as a lawyer and moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant.
• There, he began to employ nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights.
• In 1915, he returned to India and soon set about organizing peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination.
• He 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 achieving swaraj or self-rule.
• In the months following independence, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop religious violence.
• 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 refused to celebrate independence and visited the affected areas to try to alleviate distress.
• In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to pressure the Indian government to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan.
• He died on 30 January 1948 at the age of 80.

Test your knowledge of Mahatma Gandhi's life and contributions to India's independence movement, his principles of nonviolent resistance, and his efforts for social justice and religious harmony.