Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Born	Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 2 10, 1869
Birthplace	Porbandar, Kathiawar Agency, British Raj
Died	Template:Death date and age New Delhi, India
Nationality	Indian
Occupation	Lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, political thinker
Known for	Indian independence movement, nonviolent resistance (satyagraha), Dandi Salt March
Education	Barrister, Inner Temple, London
Spouse(s)	Kasturba Gandhi (m. 1883; d. 1944)
Children	4
Awards	Time Person of the Year (1930)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political thinker who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the campaign for India's independence from British rule. Known by the honorific Mahātmā — a Sanskrit term meaning "great-souled" or "venerable," first applied to him in South Africa in 1914 — Gandhi became the central figure of the Indian independence movement and one of the most consequential political leaders of the twentieth century. Through his philosophy of satyagraha (truth-force or nonviolent resistance), he mobilised millions of ordinary Indians in mass campaigns against colonial authority, from the Dandi Salt March of 1930 to the Quit India movement of 1942. His methods and philosophy inspired subsequent movements for civil rights and freedom around the world. Adopting the short dhoti woven from hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with India's rural poor, Gandhi lived in self-sufficient residential communities, ate simple food, and undertook prolonged fasts as instruments of both spiritual introspection and political protest. He was imprisoned multiple times in both South Africa and India for his activities. His life ended in assassination on 30 January 1948, when he was shot by Nathuram Godse, a militant Hindu nationalist, in New Delhi. The United Nations observes 2 October, Gandhi's birthday, as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Early Life

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, a coastal town in the Kathiawar peninsula of present-day Gujarat, India, then part of the British Raj. He was born into a Hindu family belonging to the Modh Bania subcaste of the Vaishya varna. His father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi, served as the diwan (chief minister) of Porbandar, and his mother, Putlibai, was a devout practitioner of Vaishnavism who observed rigorous religious fasts and vows. The household environment of devotion and self-discipline exerted a lasting influence on the young Mohandas.

Gandhi's early years were spent in Porbandar and later in Rajkot, where his father had been appointed diwan. He attended local schools and was, by his own later admission, a mediocre student — shy, earnest, and unremarkable in academic performance. At the age of thirteen, in accordance with prevailing custom, he was married to Kasturba Makhanji Kapadia (later known as Kasturba Gandhi) in an arranged child marriage in 1883. The couple would go on to have four sons: Harilal (born 1888), Manilal (born 1892), Ramdas (born 1897), and Devdas (born 1900).

Gandhi's father died in 1885, and the family subsequently supported the young man's ambitions for higher education. A family friend and adviser, Mavji Dave, suggested that Mohandas travel to England to study law, a path that could eventually lead him to a position comparable to his father's. Despite opposition from members of his subcaste — who considered overseas travel to be a form of ritual pollution — Gandhi sailed for London in September 1888 at the age of eighteen, leaving behind his young wife and infant son Harilal.

Education

Gandhi enrolled at the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in London, to study law. His early months in England were marked by considerable difficulty as he attempted to adapt to Western customs, climate, and cuisine. He experimented with English dress and manners, taking lessons in dancing, French, and elocution, before eventually abandoning these efforts and committing himself to his legal studies and to a simple, vegetarian way of life. His vegetarianism, which had been a promise made to his mother before departure, led him to the London Vegetarian Society, where he encountered ideas about dietary reform, ethical living, and, significantly, the writings of Leo Tolstoy and Henry David Thoreau, both of whom would later influence his political philosophy.

Gandhi was called to the bar on 10 June 1891 at the age of twenty-two. He departed England and returned to India shortly thereafter, only to discover that his mother had died during his absence. He attempted to establish a law practice in Bombay (now Mumbai) and then in Rajkot, but found limited success and struggled with the practical demands of legal advocacy in Indian courts.

Career

South Africa (1893–1914)

In 1893, Gandhi accepted an offer to travel to South Africa to represent an Indian merchant, Dada Abdulla, in a lawsuit in the Transvaal. What was intended as a brief professional engagement became a twenty-one-year sojourn that fundamentally shaped his political consciousness and methods. Shortly after his arrival, Gandhi experienced firsthand the pervasive racial discrimination against Indians in South Africa. In a well-documented incident, he was thrown off a first-class railway compartment at Pietermaritzburg station despite holding a valid ticket, simply because of his race. This and other experiences of discrimination became catalysts for his political awakening.

Gandhi organised the Indian community in South Africa to resist discriminatory legislation, including laws that denied Indians the right to vote, restricted their movements, and required them to carry registration passes. In 1894, he founded the Natal Indian Congress to advocate for the rights of Indians in the Colony of Natal. He developed his legal practice and became a prominent figure in the Indian community.

It was in South Africa that Gandhi developed and first employed the concept of satyagraha — a term he coined to describe his method of nonviolent resistance, distinguishing it from passive resistance. The word combined the Sanskrit terms satya (truth) and agraha (firmness or insistence). Beginning in 1906, Gandhi led the Indian community in a campaign of nonviolent defiance against the Transvaal government's requirement that all Indians register and carry identity documents (the "Black Act"). The campaign involved mass civil disobedience, including the public burning of registration cards and the acceptance of imprisonment by thousands of participants.

During the Second Boer War (1899–1902), Gandhi organised the Indian Ambulance Corps to serve the British forces, believing that demonstrating loyalty to the Empire would strengthen Indian claims to equal citizenship. He took a similar position during the Zulu Rebellion of 1906. These decisions reflected his then-evolving views on the relationship between duty, citizenship, and justice within the British Empire.

Gandhi raised his family in South Africa and established two communal settlements — Phoenix Settlement near Durban in 1904 and Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg in 1910 — where residents practiced self-sufficiency, communal living, and celibacy. The settlements served as laboratories for the social and spiritual experiments that he would continue in India. In 1914, following negotiations with the South African government that led to the partial repeal of discriminatory legislation, Gandhi departed for India. It was during his time in South Africa that the honorific Mahātmā was first applied to him, in 1914.

Return to India and Early Campaigns (1915–1922)

Gandhi returned to India in January 1915 at the age of forty-five. On the advice of his political mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, he spent his first year travelling across the country, observing conditions, and refraining from public political activity. He established the Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad in 1917, which became the base for his activities and a community modelled on the principles developed at his South African settlements.

His first significant political engagements in India focused on localised economic grievances. In 1917, he led the Champaran Satyagraha in Bihar, supporting indigo farmers who were being compelled by British planters to grow indigo under oppressive conditions and at minimal payment. The campaign resulted in an inquiry committee and reforms favourable to the farmers. Shortly afterwards, he organised protests in Kheda district in Gujarat, where peasants sought relief from tax obligations during a period of famine, and in Ahmedabad, where he supported a strike by textile mill workers. These campaigns established Gandhi's reputation as a leader who could mobilise ordinary Indians — peasants, farmers, and urban labourers — in disciplined nonviolent protest.

The passage of the Rowlatt Act in 1919, which extended wartime emergency powers including detention without trial, provoked Gandhi to call for a nationwide hartal (strike). The protests that followed were largely peaceful but were met with severe British repression, culminating in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919, in which British troops under Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer fired on a peaceful gathering in Amritsar, killing hundreds of men, women, and children. The massacre deepened Indian disillusionment with British rule and strengthened support for the independence movement.

In 1920, Gandhi launched the Non-cooperation movement, calling on Indians to boycott British institutions, courts, schools, and goods, and to revive indigenous industries, particularly the hand-spinning and hand-weaving of khadi (cloth). The spinning wheel became a symbol of Indian self-reliance and resistance. The movement drew massive participation across the country. However, after an outbreak of violence at Chauri Chaura in Uttar Pradesh in February 1922, in which a mob killed twenty-two policemen, Gandhi abruptly called off the campaign, insisting that nonviolence was not merely a tactic but a fundamental principle. He was arrested and sentenced to six years' imprisonment, though he was released in 1924 after undergoing an appendicitis operation.

Leadership of the Indian National Congress (1921–1934)

Gandhi assumed the leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, transforming it from an organisation of the educated elite into a mass political movement. He served as the 43rd President of the Congress from December 1924 to April 1925. Under his influence, the Congress adopted programmes aimed at easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, and ending untouchability — the social practice of discriminating against lower-caste Hindus.

Gandhi adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as his standard attire, a deliberate act of identification with India's poorest citizens. He lived in ashrams, ate simple vegetarian food, and undertook regular periods of fasting, which served as acts of self-purification as well as potent political tools. His asceticism and personal discipline lent him moral authority that extended far beyond formal political office.

The most iconic campaign of this period was the Dandi Salt March, which began on 12 March 1930. Gandhi led a march of approximately 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi in Gujarat to protest the British-imposed salt tax. By picking up natural salt from the seashore on 6 April 1930, Gandhi symbolically defied British law and ignited the broader Civil Disobedience Movement. Tens of thousands of Indians joined the campaign, and approximately 60,000 people were arrested, including Gandhi himself. The movement drew global attention to the Indian independence cause and led to the Gandhi–Irwin Pact of 1931 and Gandhi's participation in the Round Table Conferences in London.

Quit India Movement and World War II (1939–1945)

With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the British government committed India to the war effort without consulting Indian political leaders. Gandhi and the Congress demanded that Britain grant India independence as a precondition for cooperation in the war. When Britain refused, Gandhi launched the Quit India movement on 8 August 1942, calling for an immediate end to British rule with the rallying cry "Do or Die." The British response was swift and severe: Gandhi, his wife Kasturba, and the entire Congress leadership were arrested and imprisoned. Kasturba Gandhi died in detention at Aga Khan Palace in Pune on 22 February 1944. Gandhi himself was held until 6 May 1944, when he was released due to declining health.

The Quit India movement, though suppressed by the British through mass arrests and violence, demonstrated the depth of Indian opposition to colonial rule and weakened the moral and political legitimacy of British governance in India.

Partition and Independence (1947)

Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism and Hindu-Muslim unity was challenged in the 1940s by the Pakistan Movement, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the All-India Muslim League, which demanded a separate sovereign state for Muslims. Despite Gandhi's efforts to prevent partition, the British plan for the transfer of power ultimately divided British India into two dominions: a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. Independence was granted on 15 August 1947.

The partition was accompanied by one of the largest mass migrations in human history and by devastating communal violence, particularly in Punjab and Bengal, in which hundreds of thousands of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were killed. Gandhi abstained from the official celebrations of independence and instead travelled to the affected areas, attempting to calm communal tensions and alleviate distress. In the months following partition, he undertook several hunger strikes aimed at stopping the violence and promoting reconciliation between religious communities.

Personal Life

Gandhi married Kasturba Makhanji Kapadia in 1883 when both were thirteen years old, in an arranged marriage following the customs of their community. The couple had four sons: Harilal, Manilal, Ramdas, and Devdas. Gandhi's relationship with his eldest son, Harilal, was strained for much of their lives; Harilal publicly broke with his father on multiple occasions and struggled with personal difficulties including alcoholism.

In 1906, at the age of thirty-six, Gandhi took a vow of brahmacharya (celibacy), which he maintained for the remainder of his life. He described this decision as essential to his spiritual development and to his capacity for public service.

Kasturba Gandhi was a partner in many of her husband's political activities and endured multiple imprisonments. She died on 22 February 1944, while imprisoned alongside Gandhi at Aga Khan Palace in Pune.

Gandhi's dietary practices were central to his personal philosophy. He was a lifelong vegetarian and frequently experimented with various dietary regimens, including raw food and extended fasting. His fasts were both personal spiritual disciplines and political instruments; the threat of his death through fasting was a means of compelling action from both the British authorities and his own compatriots.

Among his favourite devotional hymns was the Gujarati bhajan "Vaishnava Jana To," attributed to the fifteenth-century poet Narsinh Mehta, which describes the qualities of a true Vaishnava (devotee of Vishnu) as one who understands and shares the suffering of others.

Assassination

On 30 January 1948, at the age of seventy-eight, Gandhi was assassinated in the garden of Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti) in New Delhi. As he walked to a prayer meeting, Nathuram Godse, a militant Hindu nationalist from Pune, approached and fired three bullets into Gandhi's chest at close range. Gandhi died almost immediately. Godse and his co-conspirator, Narayan Apte, were tried, convicted, and executed in 1949.

Godse and his associates believed that Gandhi had been excessively sympathetic to Pakistan and Indian Muslims, particularly in his insistence that the Indian government honour its commitment to transfer financial assets to Pakistan following partition. Gandhi's last hunger strike, begun on 12 January 1948 in Delhi, had been aimed at stopping anti-Muslim violence in the capital and securing commitments to protect Muslim life and property. This stance provoked intense resentment among some Hindu nationalist groups.

Gandhi's assassination sent shockwaves through India and the world. His funeral procession in New Delhi on 31 January 1948 was attended by millions of mourners.

Recognition

Gandhi was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 1930, in recognition of the Salt March and its impact on global awareness of the Indian independence movement. In 2000, Time also included him in its list of the most important people of the twentieth century.

The Government of India honours Gandhi as the "Father of the Nation" (Rāṣṭrapitā). His birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday. The United Nations General Assembly declared 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence in 2007, recognising the global relevance of Gandhi's philosophy.

Numerous institutions, roads, and public spaces across the world bear Gandhi's name. Statues and memorials dedicated to him exist in dozens of countries. In India, the Raj Ghat memorial in New Delhi marks the site of his cremation. In recent years, proposals for new monuments have occasionally generated debate; in 2026, Tushar Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's great-grandson, publicly opposed the Telangana state government's proposed Gandhi Sarovar Project — a plan to install the world's tallest Gandhi statue at an estimated cost of ₹5,000 crore — arguing that it would cause displacement of people and dishonour Gandhi's principles.

Despite never receiving the Nobel Peace Prize — he was nominated five times — the Nobel Committee has publicly acknowledged the omission. The committee has stated that the prize was not awarded in 1948, the year of his death, because there was "no suitable living candidate" that year, in what has been interpreted as an implicit tribute to Gandhi.

Legacy

Gandhi's philosophy and methods of nonviolent resistance have had a profound and documented influence on subsequent political movements worldwide. Martin Luther King Jr. explicitly cited Gandhi's techniques as foundational to the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Nelson Mandela acknowledged Gandhi's influence on the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. The Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi are among other leaders who have drawn upon Gandhian principles in their respective struggles.

Gandhi's writings — collected in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, comprising approximately 100 volumes published by the Government of India — constitute a vast archive of political thought, personal reflection, and social commentary. His autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927–1929), remains a foundational text for understanding his philosophy and personal development.

Gandhi's legacy in India continues to be a subject of political discourse and debate. The portrayal of Gandhi and the Congress party's role in the events surrounding partition remains sensitive; in 2026, a revised NCERT social science textbook prompted national debate over its treatment of Gandhi and the Congress's stance on partition.

Gandhi's emphasis on self-reliance, village-based economies, communal harmony, and the moral transformation of individuals as a precondition for political freedom continues to inform debates about development, governance, and social justice in India and beyond. His concept of sarvodaya (the welfare of all) and his insistence that the means of political action must be consistent with its ends remain central tenets of nonviolent political philosophy. The image of Gandhi — the frail figure in a dhoti who challenged the British Empire with the force of moral conviction — endures as one of the most recognisable symbols of peaceful resistance in modern history.