Mahatma Gandhi's Life and Achievements

Study Notes

Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in the coastal town of Porbandar, Gujarat, in western India.
He trained as a lawyer and started his own law practice in India, but was unable to make a success of it.
In 1893, Gandhi moved to South Africa to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit.
He began using nonviolent resistance to campaign for civil rights in South Africa and returned to India in 1915.
Gandhi became the leader 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 self-rule.
In 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 after independence and attempted to alleviate distress.
In 1948, Gandhi began a hunger strike to pressure India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. He completed the strike in March 1948, but died a few weeks later.
Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early 1940s by a Muslim nationalism which demanded a separate homeland for Muslims within British India.

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