His Life

    
Mahatma Gandhi, (also known with his full name, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) is a historical figure people all around the globe know or have heard about at least once- it is pretty much impossible not to know him. An Indian lawyer, politician, social activist and writer, he is one many still look up to to this day. He is also known mostly as the father of his country, and for his non-violent social rights movements.

But what exactly was his life story?

Gandhi was born on the 2nd of October, 1869 in Porbandar, India, as the youngest child of his father's 4th wife. His father, Karamchand Gandhi, was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar, the capital of a small city in west of the country which was under British rule. He didn't have the best education, but he was a good administrator who knew how to make his way through the princes, their subjects, and the British political officers in control.

His mother, Putlibai, was considerably captivated in religion. She did not care for jewelry and other goods, and divided her time between home and the temple. She also fasted quite often. 

Gandhi grew up in a home overflowing with Vaishnavism, a religion based on the worship of the Hindu god Vishnu, with a strong tint of Jainism, another Indian religion, based on non-violence and that all in the universe is eternal. Thus he also took for granted "ahimsa", noninjury to all living beings, vegetarianism, fasting, and mutual tolerance between various creeds and sects.

Schools in Porbandar were poor- so much so that in the primary 
school Mohandas went to, the children attending had to write the alphabet in the dust with their fingers. Luckily for him, his father moved onto become the dewan of another princely state where he occasionally won scholarships at other schools, even though his record was on the whole mediocre. He had an arranged marriage at age 13, and for this reason lost one year at school. 

Although Gandhi wanted to become a doctor, his father urged him to become a minister like him, and so he sailed to London at 18 years old to study law. The young man had a hard time adapting to the western culture. When he returned to his country, India, in 1891 he came to learn that his mother had died not long before. He struggled with being a lawyer, and even fled the courtroom in his first case. 

After trying to find a job in India, Gandhi got a one year contract to platform legal services in South Africa. In April 1893, he sailed there, and almost instantly he was met with the discrimination and racism faced by many other Indians like him, by the hands of the white British and Boer officers. Upon entering the courtroom there for the first time, he was told to take off his turban. He refused and left the court instead. 

An upmost important incident happened on June 7, 1893 during a trip which was going to occur by train, alas he was forcefully removed from the train for not moving his seat when a white passenger was opposing to his presence- even though he had a ticket, and the full right to sit in the front. This act of civil disobedience awoke something in Gandhi: he was determined to eradicate the "deep disease of color prejudice", suffering many hardships in the process.

From that incident onward, the unsuspicious man would grow to become one of the greatest symbols for civil rights. It was after then that he formed the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 to fight discrimination.

After a brief trip to India in late 1896 and early 1897, Gandhi returned to South Africa with his wife and children. Gandhi ran a legal practice, and at the outbreak of the Boer War, he raised an all-Indian ambulance of 1,100 volunteers to support the British , arguing that if Indians expected to have full citizenship in the British Empire, they also needed to shoulder their responsibilities.

In 1906, Gandhi organised his first civil disobedience campaign called the "Satyagraha", which means truth and durability as a reaction to the law refusing to give Indians there equal rights.
When he returned to India, Jan Smuts even wrote "The saint has left our shores, I sincerely hope forever." After this, Gandhi lived devoted to prayer and meditation, although for a short while. The people around him granted the name of "Mahatma", which means "Great Soul". 

In 1919, with the British still in rule of India and coming up with a new law that was bad for the locals, Gandhi organized a Satyagraha campaign of peaceful protests and strikes. 

Violence broke out instead, and on April 13, 1919, in the Massacre of Amritsar, British troops fired guns into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators and killed nearly 400 people.



 After this, Gandhi could no longer pledge allegiance to the British rule, and called for people all over the country to stop buying British things, stop attending government schools, stop working for the government and such to boycott. Instead of buying clothes, Gandhi bought a spinning wheel and made them himself- and the spinning wheel quickly became a symbol of Indian independence.

 

He also continued peaceful protests on other different topics, but what he is most known for is the Salt March. Upon the British once again making new laws, this time prohibiting the Indian rights to collect or produce salt, a necessity in food, and increased taxes. This hit the poor particularly hard. In response to this, Gandhi set out from his house wearing homespun clothes, sandals and carrying a walking stick, and marched 390 kilometers to the Arabian Sea where he would collect salt as an act of defiance against the government. Many people joined him along the way. “My ambition is no less than to convert the British people through non-violence and thus make them see the wrong they have done to India,” he wrote, days before the march took place.

After this, many people in India got inspired by his act and similar protests were organized all around the country. Of course, the government couldn't stay silent at this, and imprisoned many people, including Gandhi. Despite this, he was chosen 1930 Man of the Year in Times. He was released a year later, and an agreement was made that the people were allowed to collect salt again was made, showing that Gandhi's protests had its desired effect, while also showing protests could be made peacefully and no one had to be harmed.

As Great Britain found itself in World War II, Gandhi launched another movement in hopes of home rule. In 1945, after elections they began negotiations for Indian independence with the Indian National Congress and Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League. Gandhi played an active role in the negotiations, but he couldn't achieve his unified India. Instead, the country was going to be split along religious lines into two independent ones: Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.

Violence between Hindus and Muslims increased even more with this. Gandhi toured around the areas in which most fights etc. took place as a signature of peace, and in hopes for achieving it- but some Indians took this as an act of betrayal for showing sympathy for the Muslims.
Unfortunately, Gandhi's life did not end well. On January 30, 1948, 78 year old Gandhi was shot and killed by Hindu extremist Godse, who was angered at Gandhi’s tolerance of Muslims. Such a violent crime done against a man who lived his whole life promoting peace and nonviolence was painful to a lot of people, and it still is to this day.
After this atrocity and Gandhi's death, his popularity only rose, making him the man so many look up to today, with his admirable ways.  Gandhi's non-violent civil disobedience even inspired future world leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Even so, it seems that the modern world still has a lot to learn from him.

Ahimsa