Mahatma Gandhi's Life and Legacy

• Mahatma Gandhi was born in October 1869 in Gujarat, India
• He trained as a lawyer and was called to the bar at age 22 in 1891
• After two years in India, Gandhi moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit
• Gandhi lived in South Africa for 21 years
• In 1915, aged 45, Gandhi 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
• Gandhi 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
• In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence
• The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan

Mahatma Gandhi was a successful lawyer who used nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for Indias independence from British rule, and to later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. He is best known for his advocacy of nonviolent resistance and his role in the nonviolent movement for Indian independence. After leading the successful campaign for Indias independence, Gandhi turned his attention to the plight of the poor and began using fasting as a form of political protest. Fasting became an important tool in his efforts to promote religious harmony and social justice. In 1947, after years of campaigning, Gandhi was successful in persuading the British to grant independence to India. However, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. As a result of the partition, millions of people were displaced and religious violence broke out. Gandhi tried to alleviate the distress of the displaced Hindus and Muslims, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He died in 1948 at the age of 80.