Mahatma Gandhi: Life and Legacy

• Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in the town of Porbandar in Gujarat, India.
• He trained as a lawyer and began working in India in 1891 but was unable to start a successful law practice due to discrimination against Indians.
• In 1915, Gandhi returned to India and began to lead the Indian National Congress, a leading political organization fighting for Indian independence from British rule.
• 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.
• 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 independence in 1947, Gandhi undertook several hunger strikes to stop religious violence.
• Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 while fasting in Delhi.

Test your knowledge about the life and contributions of Mahatma Gandhi, an influential leader in the Indian independence movement. Learn about his early life, activism, principles, and the impact of his nonviolent resistance.