Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi also known as Mahatma Gandhi was born October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, which is present day Gujarat, India. Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who acclaimed his country’s freedom through a nonviolent revolution. His father, Karamchand Gandhi, was a chief minister in Porbandar and his mother, Putlibai, was a very religious woman who fasted constantly. He was the youngest child of his father’s fourth wife. Gandhi was famous for fighting for the civil rights of Muslim and Hindu Indians in South Africa, and he reached out to all religious groups. Gandhi grew up worshipping the Hindu god Vishnu and following Jainism which is a ancient Indian religion that embraced non-violence, fasting, meditation, and vegetarianism.
At the age of 13, Gandhi married a merchant’s daughter and her name was Kasturba Makanji. Gandhi was interested in being a doctor, while his father wanted him to be a government minister. Gandhi’s mother and father pushed him to become a doctor until Gandhi sailed away to London to study law in 1888. His father passed away in 1885, and shortly after that when he returned back to India he found out his mother passed away. In 1887, Gandhi joined Salamaas College in Bhavnagar, he had to quickly switch from his native language to English.
Gandhi struggled to find work in India as a lawyer so he went to South Africa, but when he arrived there he was shocked at how the Indian immigrants were discriminated, and all of the racial segregation that was happening around him. Gandhi was in court in South Africa, and the European magistrates asked him to remove his turban, but he refused and left the courtroom. A few days later after that incident he was traveling to Pretoria and was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment. Gandhi went to Durban on January 1897, and he was assaulted and lynched by a white mob. Throughout Gandhi’s journey he was beaten, humiliated, and mistreated he did not accept injustice, so he defended his dignity as an Indian and as a man.
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After World War I in July 1894, Gandhi became a political campaigner at the age of 25. The job required him to draft petitions to the Natal legislature and the British government, and it was signed by hundreds of his compatriots. Great Britain refused to make amends and Gandhi started an non-cooperation movement; therefore, in India the streets were blocked by Indians who refused to move, and they were beaten by the police. Gandhi was arrested, but the British were forced to release him. Gandhi’s self-ruling movement involved the complete boycott of British goods. In 1906, Gandhi organized his first mass civil disobedience campaign called “Satyagraha” meaning truth and firmness. The government imprisoned hundreds of Indians in 1913, including Gandhi.
In 1921, the Indian National Congress gave Gandhi complete executive authority, and he was named his own successor. Gandhi established a new campaign for civil disobedience in 1930. The campaign was a two hundred mile march to the sea, thousands of Indians followed him from Ahmedabad to the Arabian sea, and he was arrested again. Gandhi and the congress party demanded a declaration of war aims when World War II broke out. The British was unsatisfied, and the party decided to not support Britain in the war unless they were granted complete independence.
Gandhi was not born great, but he made sure he was great through his hard struggles and works. Gandhi once said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” He changed the world by using non-violence as his weapon, and his ability to change the world was an amazing task. Gandhi ended British rule over his native India without being violent. He committed his life to peace so he could achieve social and political progress. Gandhi’s positive traits made him the leader of India’s nationalist movement. Some people referred to him as a master politician, others believed him a saint, but to millions of Hindus he was a great soul. Gandhi did not believe in killing animals for clothes or food, because he believed that the way people behave is more important than what they achieve.
Gandhi spent his whole life working toward independence for India without violence or division, and he finally became successful in making India an independent country on August 15, 1947. Since 1947, the 15th of August is celebrated every year as the Independence Day in India Gandhi showed that political change could happen by rejecting violence. Gandhi was called Mahatma because of his greatness all through his life. Gandhi is still inspiring the people in the country through his legacy of greatness and noble life today.
He started many independence movements and was arrested multiple times but he never stopped fighting for the justice of Indians. Gandhi understood the power of unity in people regardless of religions, community, race, age, or gender. He is the father of our nation who used all his power to make us free from the British rule. Gandhi, was assassinated on January 30, 1948 by Hindu activist, Nathuram Godse, and Gandhi was cremated at Rajghat, New Delhi. Nathuram Godse was later hanged by the government of India. Even after getting assassinated he is still alive in the hearts of every Indian as a “Father of the Nation and Bapu”.
