Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Gujarati: મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી, (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of Satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. He is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi (Sanskrit: महात्मा mahātmā or "Great Soul", an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore) and in India also as Bapu (Gujarati: બાપુ bāpu or "Father"). He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and world-wide as the International Day of Non-Violence.
Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers in protesting excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, for expanding women's rights, for building religious and ethnic amity, for ending untouchability, for increasing economic self-reliance, but above all for achieving Swaraj—the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led Indians in protesting the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (249 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, on numerous occasions, in both South Africa and India.
Gandhi was a practitioner of non-violence and truth, and advocated that others do the same. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and social protest.
Contents[hide]
1 Early life

2 Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914)

3 Role in Zulu War of 1906

4 Struggle for Indian Independence (1916–1945)

4.1 Champaran and Kheda

5 Non-cooperation

6 Swaraj and the Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)

7 World War II and Quit India

8 Freedom and partition of India

9 Assassination

10 Gandhi's principles

10.1 Truth

10.2 Nonviolence

10.3 Vegetarianism

10.4 Brahmacharya

10.4.1 Experiments with Brahmacharya

10.5 Simplicity

10.6 Faith

11 Writings

11.1 Books on Gandhi

12 Followers and influence

13 Legacy

14 Ideals and criticisms

14.1 Concept of partition

14.2 Rejection of violent resistance

14.3 Early South African articles

14.4 Anti Statism

15 See also

16 Notes

16.1 Further reading

17 External links