Mahatma Gandhi's Life and Achievements

• Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in the town of Porbandar in Gujarat, India.
• He studied law at the Inner Temple in London and was called to the bar in 1891.
• After two years in India, Gandhi moved to South Africa to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit.
• In South Africa, Gandhi began to employ nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights.
• In 1915, aged 45, he 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 womens rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and, above all, achieving swaraj or self-rule.
• 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, after a long and successful career as an advocate for civil rights and freedom.

Test your knowledge about Mahatma Gandhi, his early life, activism in South Africa, and leadership in India's struggle for independence. Learn about his advocacies for civil rights, nonviolent resistance, and his impact on social and political reforms.