Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on the 2 October 1869 and was assassinated 30 January 1948 at the age of 79. He was and is regarded as the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during its independence movement. His birthday has also been designated as the International Day of Non-Violence.

He was the pioneer of satyagraha which is he resistance to tyranny and despotism through mass civil disobedience. This ideology is based firmly in the ideal of total nonviolence. It was this ideal which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

Gandhi is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi which means Great Soul, an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore (who was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913). He was also known in India also as Bapu that means father in Gujarati.

Gandhi first started to employ the ideals of non-violent civil disobedience whilst working as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa. This was during the South African Indian community's struggle for their civil rights.

After returning to India in 1915, Gandhi organised civil disobedience actions against the ruling British. These protests were made up of peasants, farmers, and urban labourers. The major point of contention here was the excessive land-tax and discrimination by the authorities towards them.

In 1921, Gandhi assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress and embarked upon a nationwide campaign to ease poverty, expand women's rights, build-up religious and ethnic tolerance and unity, increase economic self-reliance and end to the caste system.

Above all this though the idea which fuelled Gandhi was Swaraj or the independence of India from foreign domination. With his followers in the Non-cooperation movement, Gandhi embarked upon a protest against the British-imposed salt tax culminating in the Dandi Salt March. This march led to wider protests against the British and brought in all sections of the Indian community.

Gandhi practised ahimsa which essentially means the avoidance of violence against all living beings. He transformed this spiritual concept into a political concept. He vowed to always speak the truth no matter how painful and advocated that others do the same. He undertook long fasts and adopted a fruitarian diet all aimed at spiritual cleansing. With the ideals of peace, freedom and truth along with spiritualism Gandhi was one of the great leaders of the previous millennium.

 

Sources:

Britannica

BBC

Page Last Updated 18 March 2010