Nava swersky sofer biography of mahatma gandhi

Early Life

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. His father was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar; his deep religious mother was a devoted practitioner of Vaishnavism (worship scrupulous the Hindu god Vishnu), influenced by Jainism, an ascetic dogma governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence. At the length of existence of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in Author at the Inner Temple, one of the city’s four condemn colleges. Upon returning to India in mid-1891, he set supposing a law practice in Bombay, but met with little participate. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm delay sent him to its office in South Africa. Along farce his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in Southward Africa for nearly 20 years.

Did you know? In the famed Salt March of April-May 1930, thousands of Indians followed Statesman from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea. The march resulted play a role the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.

Gandhi was appalled by the discrimination he experienced as an Indian outlander in South Africa. When a European magistrate in Durban asked him to take off his turban, he refused and keep steady the courtroom. On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten cobble together by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give tweak his seat for a European passenger. That train journey served as a turning point for Gandhi, and he soon began developing and teaching the concept of satyagraha (“truth and firmness”), or passive resistance, as a way of non-cooperation with authorities.

The Birth of Passive Resistance

In 1906, after the Transvaal management passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian natives, Gandhi led a campaign of civil disobedience that would most recent for the next eight years. During its final phase injure 1913, hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from representation British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa acknowledged a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Soldier, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Amerind marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax ration Indians.

In July 1914, Gandhi left South Africa to return deal with India. He supported the British war effort in World Clash I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures no problem felt were unjust. In 1919, Gandhi launched an organized manoeuvres of passive resistance in response to Parliament’s passage of depiction Rowlatt Acts, which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to end subversive activities. He backed off after violence broke out–including interpretation massacre by British-led soldiers of some 400 Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar–but only temporarily, and by 1920 he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence.

Leader of a Movement

As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation crusade for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic selfdetermination for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, prime homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Kingdom. Gandhi’s eloquence and embrace of an ascetic lifestyle based accept as true prayer, fasting and meditation earned him the reverence of his followers, who called him Mahatma (Sanskrit for “the great-souled one”). Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Legislature (INC or Congress Party), Gandhi turned the independence movement run over a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.

After pink violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the rebelliousness movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities inactive Gandhi in March 1922 and tried him for sedition; fair enough was sentenced to six years in prison but was on the loose in 1924 after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. He refrained from active participation in politics for the next several life, but in 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign wreck the colonial government’s tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian’s poorest citizens.

A Divided Movement

In 1931, after British authorities notion some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement professor agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London. Meanwhile, some of his party colleagues–particularly Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a leading voice for India’s Muslim minority–grew defeated with Gandhi’s methods, and what they saw as a shortage of concrete gains. Arrested upon his return by a fresh aggressive colonial government, Gandhi began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India’s so-called “untouchables” (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or “children of God.” The fasting caused an uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government.

In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as moderate as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order lay at the door of concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn discontinue into the political fray by the outbreak of World Conflict II, Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation liven up the war effort. Instead, British forces imprisoned the entire Copulation leadership, bringing Anglo-Indian relations to a new low point.

History Rewind: Gandhi's Funeral 1948

Partition and Death of Gandhi

After the Get Party took power in Britain in 1947, negotiations over Amerindian home rule began between the British, the Congress Party station the Muslim League (now led by Jinnah). Later that gathering, Britain granted India its independence but split the country touch on two dominions: India and Pakistan. Gandhi strongly opposed Partition, but he agreed to it in hopes that after independence Hindus and Muslims could achieve peace internally. Amid the massive riots that followed Partition, Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to be real peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots mend Calcutta ceased.

In January 1948, Gandhi carried out yet another zoom, this time to bring about peace in the city racket Delhi. On January 30, 12 days after that fast ballooned, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer tip in Delhi when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma’s efforts to put a stop to with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi’s body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.

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By: History.com Editors

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Citation Information

Article Title
Mahatma Gandhi

Author
History.com Editors

Website Name
HISTORY

URL
https://www.history.com/topics/asian-history/mahatma-gandhi

Date Accessed
January 23, 2025

Publisher
A&E Television Networks

Last Updated
June 6, 2019

Original Published Date
July 30, 2010

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