Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, in the Indian state of Gujarat, Western India. His father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi was the chief minister (Diwan) of Porbandar; his mother, Putlibai was a devoted worshiper of Vaishnavism (the Hindu god Vishnu), influenced by Jainism, an ascetic religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence.

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"she would not think of taking her meals without her daily prayers...she would take the hardest vows and keep them without flinching. To keep two or three consecutive fasts was nothing to her."

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The Indian classics, especially the stories of Shravana and king Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood. He admitted that they left a great impression on him. He writes: "It haunted me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without number." Gandhi's feelings about truth and love as supreme values is traceable to these epic characters.

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As the best-educated of his brothers, Gandhi was seen by his family as the best candidate to one day succeed his father and his uncle Tulsidas as Diwan. At the age of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in London at the Inner Temple, one of the city’s four law colleges.

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His time in London was influenced by the vow he had made to his mother. Gandhi tried to adopt "English" customs, including taking dancing lessons. However, he could not appreciate the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady and was frequently hungry until he found one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. He returned to India in 1891 where he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.

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Gandhi faced the discrimination directed at all coloured people. He was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to move from the first-class. He protested and was allowed on first class the next day. Travelling farther on by stagecoach, he was beaten by a driver for refusing to move to make room for a European passenger. He suffered other hardships on the journey as well, including being barred from several hotels. In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court ordered Gandhi to remove his turban, which he refused to do and left the courtroom.

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In 1906, the Transvaal government promoted a new Act compelling registration of the colony's Indian and Chinese populations. At a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of Satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or nonviolent protest, for the first time. He urged Indians to defy the new law and to suffer the punishments for doing so. The community adopted this plan, and during the ensuing seven year struggle, thousands of Indians were jailed, flogged, or shot for striking, refusing to register, for burning their registration cards or engaging in other forms of nonviolent resistance.

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Gandhi returned to India in 1915. He brought an international reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and organiser. He joined the Indian National Congress and was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people primarily by Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Gokhale was a key leader of the Congress Party best known for his restraint and moderation, and his insistence on working inside the system.

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He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. In 1919, Gandhi launched an organized campaign of passive resistance in response to Parliament’s passage of the Rowlatt Acts, which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to suppress subversive activities. He backed off after violence broke out, including the massacre by British led soldiers of 400 Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar, but only temporarily. By 1920 he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence.

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As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, (homespun cloth), to replace imported textiles from Britain. Gandhi’s lifestyle based on prayer, fasting and meditation earned him the respect of his followers, who called him Mahatma ("high-souled"). With all the authority of the Indian National Congress, Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.

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After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March 1922 and tried him for incitement and was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1924 after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. He refrained from active participation in politics for the next several years, but in 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government’s tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian’s poorest citizens.

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This led to the famous Salt March to Dandi where he marched 240 miles from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself. Thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British hold on India.

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Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.

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Gandhi strongly favoured the emancipation of women,"the women have come to look upon me as one of themselves." He opposed purdah, child marriage, untouchability, and the extreme oppression of Hindu widows, up to and including Sati (an Indian funeral custom where a widow sacrificed herself on her husband's pyre). He especially recruited women to participate in the salt tax campaigns and the boycott of foreign products. He gave many women a new self-confidence and dignity in the mainstream of Indian public life.

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In 1931, after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London. Meanwhile, some of his party colleagues, particularly Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a leading voice for India’s Muslim minority, grew frustrated with Gandhi’s methods. Arrested upon his return, Gandhi began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India’s so called “untouchables” (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or “children of God.” The fasting caused an uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government.

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In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II, Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort. Gandhi declared that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom while that freedom was denied to India itself. As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, calling for the British to Quit India in a speech at Gowalia Tank Maidan. This was Gandhi's and the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from India.

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Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were arrested in Bombay by the British on 9 August 1942. Gandhi was held for two years in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. His 50-year-old secretary Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack 6 days later and his wife Kasturba died after 18 months' imprisonment in 1944. Six weeks later Gandhi suffered a severe malaria attack. He was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of his failing health. The Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. He came out of detention to an altered political scene. The  Muslim League, once marginal, "now occupied the centre of the political stage" and Muhammad Ali Jinnah's campaign for Pakistan was a major talking point. Gandhi met Jinnah in September 1944 in Bombay but Jinnah rejected, on the grounds that it fell short of a fully independent Pakistan.

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While the leaders of Congress languished in jail, the other parties supported the war and gained organizational strength. At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership.

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Partition

As a rule, Gandhi was opposed to the concept of partition of India to create Pakistan as it contradicted his vision of religious unity. While the Indian National Congress and Gandhi called for the British to quit India, the Muslim League passed a resolution for them to divide and quit, in 1943. Gandhi suggested an agreement which required the Congress and Muslim League to co-operate and attain independence under a provisional government, thereafter, the question of partition could be resolved by a referendum in the districts with a Muslim majority When Jinnah called for direct action, on 16 August 1946, Gandhi was infuriated and personally visited the most riot-prone areas to stop the massacres. He made strong efforts to unite the Indian Hindus, Muslims, and Christians and struggled for the emancipation of the "untouchables" in Hindu society.

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India's partition and independence were accompanied by more than half a million killed in riots as 10–12 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims crossed the borders dividing India and Pakistan. Gandhi, having vowed to spend the day of independence fasting and spinning, was in Calcutta on 15 August 1947 where he prayed, confronted rioters and worked with Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy to stop the communal killing. But for his teachings, the efforts of his followers, and his own presence, there perhaps could have been much more bloodshed during the partition.

Gandhi aged 7

Gandhi in South Africa,1909.

With Cotton Mill workers. Darwen, Lancashire, 1931

Spinning yarn in the 1920's

Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Gandhi in 1944

Gandhi with Jawaharlal Nehru who became the first Prime Minister of India

Gandhi with the Mountbattens in 1947

Memorial at the former Birla House, New Delhi,

where Gandhi was assassinated

Photo: Unknown/Wikimedia • Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age -Copyright expired)

Photo: Unknown/Wikimedia • Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age Copyright expired)

Photo: UK Government/IWM/Wikimedia

Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age - Crown Copyright expired)

Video: Rick Ray • Shutterstock.com

Stanley Wolpert has argued, the "plan to carve up British India was never approved of or accepted by Gandhi...who realised too late that his closest comrades and disciples were more interested in power than principle, and that his own vision had long been clouded by the illusion that the struggle he led for India's independence was a nonviolent one.

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In January 1948, Gandhi carried out yet another fast, this time to bring about peace in the city of Delhi. On January 30, 12 days after that fast ended, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma’s efforts to negotiate with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi’s body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.

Source: Wikipedia/www.history.com

Images: Believed to be in the Public Domain or used with permission