3 Questions
When did Mahatma Gandhi return to India?
1915
What did Mahatma Gandhi do to identify with India's rural poor?
Wore a short dhoti
What was the indirect goal of Mahatma Gandhi's last hunger strike?
To pressure India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan
Study Notes
- Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, India.
- He trained in the law at the Inner Temple in London and was called to the bar at age 22.
- After two uncertain years in India, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit.
- 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.
- 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, 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 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.
- As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal.
- Abstaining from the official celebration of independence, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress.
- 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, in India.
Test your knowledge on the life and impact of Mahatma Gandhi, from his early years in South Africa to his leadership in the Indian independence movement. Explore key events, ideologies, and the lasting legacy of this influential figure.
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