Mahatma Gandhi

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Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" (Sanskrit: "great soul") Gandhi (October 2, 1869 - January 30, 1948) was one of the founding fathers of the modern Indian state and an influential advocate of pacifism as a means of revolution. (See also: Mahatmas.)

He helped bring about India's independence from British rule, inspiring other colonial peoples to work for their own independence and ultimately dismantle the British Empire and replace it with the Commonwealth. Gandhi's principle of satyagraha (Sanskrit: truth + grasping firmly or holding onto it), often roughly translated as "passive resistance", has inspired generations of democratic and anti-racist activists including Martin Luther King Junior and Nelson Mandela.

Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Gujarat, India. He was the son of a local official and trained as a lawyer in London. He went to South Africa to practise law in 1893 and began his political career by lobbying against laws discriminating against Indians in South Africa.

Gandhi drew inspiration from the writings of Leo Tolstoy, who in the 1880s had undergone a profound conversion to a personal form of Christian anarchism. Gandhi translated Tolstoy's "Letter to a Hindu" which was written in 1908 in response to aggressive Indian nationalists, and the two corresponded until Tolstoy's death in 1910.

During World War I, Gandhi returned to India, where he campaigned for Indians to join British Indian Army. After the war, he became involved with the Indian National Congress and the movement for independence. He gained worldwide publicity through his policy of civil disobedience and the use of fasting as a form of protest, and was repeatedly imprisoned by the British authorities. One of his most striking actions was the salt march of 1930, when he led thousands of people to march to the sea to collect their own salt rather than pay the salt tax.

Gandhi became even more vocal in his demand for independence during World War II, drafting a resolution calling for the British to Quit India, which soon sparked the largest movement for Indian independence ever, with mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale. During this time, he even hinted an end for his otherwise unwavering support of non-violence, saying that the 'ordered anarchy' around him was 'worse than real anarchy'.

Gandhi was a larger-than-life figure in relations between the Hindu and Muslim communities of India. It is said that he ended communal riots through his mere presence. Gandhi was vehemently opposed to any plan which partitioned India into two separate countries (as the plan which was eventually adopted did--creating a Hindu-dominated India, and a Muslim-dominated Pakistan). On the day of power transfer, Gandhi did not celebrate independence with the rest of India, but mourned partition alone in Calcutta instead. He was assassinated by Naturam Godse, a Hindu radical who held him responsible for Partition, in New Delhi on January 30, 1948.

See also: Vinoba Bhave, Sarojini Naidu