Father of our Nation.

Mahatma Gandhi 

His Childhood

Mohandas Gandhi was born in  Porbandar, Gujarat India in October 2, 1869 but his family moved to the town of Rajkot when he was only seven years old. He was the youngest of four children in his family. Gandhi was a member of the Hindu religion which meant he wasn't allowed to eat meat or drink wine. To Gandhi his religion and beliefs were very important because he never broke his promise about eating meat, drinking wine and other forbidden things throughout his life. Even when he was small his brothers offered him meat but he refused to try it which was the best decision he made. This action showed that even though Gandhi was small he was responsible, respectful and loyal to his religion.    Gandhi attended an all boy school when he was about seven years old in Rajkot. Once he finished elementary school Gandhi attended a high school in Rajkot with other boys as well. As he was finishing high school Gandhi began to wonder were he would attend collage. He wanted to study in a different place besides India where he had lived all his life. His mother was really worried about his decision especially since they didn't really have a lot of money to pay for his career. But she still supported her son to do what he wanted to do and that was to study law in London. So in 1818 Mohandas Gandhi left his country and his family to study law in London.    There Gandhi adapted to the country's way of dressing and other things involving school and work. But he never broke the promise he made to his mother and that was never to eat meat, drink whine, or do anything that was against his religion during his career in London. All Gandhi did in London was focus in his career and the work he had to accomplish just like he promised his mother and himself. After a four year career Gandhi finally returned to India in 1891. With his return a bad surprise was waiting for him, sadly when he was studying in London to have a good education and make his family proud, his mother passed away shortly after he left.

His Early Life &Career

Young Gandhi was a shy, unremarkable student who was so timid that he slept with the lights on even as a teenager. At the age of 13, he wed Kasturba Makanji, a merchant’s daughter, in an arranged marriage. In the ensuing years, the teenager rebelled by smoking, eating meat and stealing change from household servants. 

In 1885, Gandhi endured the passing of his father and shortly after that the death of his young baby. Although Gandhi was interested in becoming a doctor, his father had hoped he would also become a government minister, so his family steered him to enter the legal profession. Shortly after the birth of the first of four surviving sons, 18-year-old Gandhi sailed for London, England, in 1888 to study law. The young Indian struggled with the transition to Western culture, and during his three-year stay in London, he became more committed to a meatless diet, joining the executive committee of the London Vegetarian Society, and started to read a variety of sacred texts to learn more about world religions. 

Upon returning to India in 1891, Gandhi learned that his mother had died just weeks earlier. Then, he struggled to gain his footing as a lawyer. In his first courtroom case, a nervous Gandhi blanked when the time came to cross-examine a witness. He immediately fled the courtroom after reimbursing his client for his legal fees. After struggling to find work in India, Gandhi obtained a one-year contract to perform legal services in South Africa. Shortly after the birth of another son, he sailed for Durban in the South African state of Natal in April 1893.

Indian Independence

After 21 years in South Africa, Gandhi returned to India in 1915. He became the leader of the Indian nationalist movement campaigning for home rule or Swaraj.

Gandhi successfully instigated a series of non violent protest. This included national strikes for one or two days. The British sought to ban opposition, but the nature of non-violent protest and strikes made it difficult to counter.

Gandhi also encouraged his followers to practice inner discipline to get ready for independence. Gandhi said, the Indians had to prove they were deserving of independence. This is in contrast to independence leaders such as Aurobindo Ghose, who argued that Indian independence was not about whether India would offer better or worse government, but that it was the right for India to have self government.

Gandhi also clashed with others in the Indian independence movement such as Subhas Chandra Bose who advocated direct action to overthrow the British.

Gandhi frequently called off strikes and non-violent protest if he heard people were rioting or violence was involved.

In 1930, Gandhi led a famous march to the sea in protest at the new Salt Acts. In the sea they made their own salt – in violation of British regulations. Many hundreds were arrested and Indian jails were full of Indian independence followers.

However, whilst the campaign was at its peak some Indian protesters killed some British civilians, as a result Gandhi called off the independence movement saying that India was not ready. This broke the heart of many Indians committed to independence. It led to radicals like Bhagat Singh carrying on the campaign for independence, which was particularly strong in Bengal.

Partition of INDIA

After the war, Britain indicated that they would give India independence. However, with the support of the Muslims led by Jinnah, the British planned to partition India into two – India and Pakistan. Ideologically Gandhi was opposed to partition. He worked vigorously hard to show that Muslims and Hindus could live together peacefully. At his prayer meetings, Muslim prayers were read out along side Hindu and Christian prayers. However, Gandhi agreed to the partition and spent the day of Independence in prayer mourning the partition. Even Gandhi’s fasts and appeals were insufficient to prevent the wave of sectarian violence and killing that followed the partition.

Away from the politics of Indian independence Gandhi was harshly critical of the Hindu Caste system. In particular he inveighed against the ‘untouchable’ caste, who were treated abysmally by society. He launched many campaigns to change the status of the untouchables. Although his campaigns were met with much resistance, they did go along way to changing century old prejudices.

At the age of 78, Gandhi undertook another fast to try and prevent the sectarian killing. After 5 days, the leaders agreed to stop killing. But, ten days later, Gandhi was shot dead by a Hindu Brahmin opposed to Gandhi’s support for Muslims and the untouchables.

Dandi March

The Salt March, also known as the Dandi March and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience incolonial India initiated by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to produce salt from the seawater in the coastal village of Dandi, as was the practice of the local populace until British officials introduced taxation on salt production, deemed their sea-salt reclamation activities illegal, and then repeatedly used force to stop it. The 24-day march began on 12 March 1930 as adirect action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly, and it gained worldwide attention which gave impetus to the Indian independence movement and started the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement.

                    

Khilafat movement

In 1919, Gandhi, with his weak position in Congress, decided to broaden his political base by increasing his appeal to Muslims. The opportunity came in the form of the Khilafat movement, a worldwide protest by Muslims against the collapsing status of the Caliph, the leader of their religion. The Ottoman Empire had lost the First World War and was dismembered, as Muslims feared for the safety of the holy places and the prestige of their religion. Although Gandhi did not originate the All-India Muslim Conference, which directed the movement in India, he soon became its most prominent spokesman and attracted a strong base of Muslim support with local chapters in all Muslim centres in India. As a mark of solidarity with Indian Muslims he returned the medals that had been bestowed on him by the British government for his work in the Boer and Zulu Wars. He believed that the British government was not being honest in its dealings with Muslims on the Khilafat issue. His success made him India's first national leader with a multicultural base and facilitated his rise to power within Congress, which had previously been unable to influence many Indian Muslims. In 1920 Gandhi became a major leader in Congress. By the end of 1922 the Khilafat movement had collapsed.
Gandhi always fought against "communalism", which pitted Muslims against Hindus in Indian politics, but he could not reverse the rapid growth of communalism after 1922. Deadly religious riots broke out in numerous cities, including 91 in Uttar Pradesh alone.At the leadership level, the proportion of Muslims among delegates to Congress fell sharply, from 11% in 1921 to under 4% in 1923.

Non-co-operation

In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the co-operation of Indians and had survived only because of this co-operation. If Indians refused to co-operate, British rule would collapse and swaraj would come.
With Congress now behind him in 1920, Gandhi had the base to employ non-co-operation, nonviolence and peaceful resistance as his "weapons" in the struggle against the British Raj. His wide popularity among both Hindus and Muslims made his leadership possible; he even convinced the extreme faction of Muslims to support peaceful non-co-operation.The spark that ignited a national protest was overwhelming anger at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (or Amritsar massacre) of hundreds of peaceful civilians by British troops in Punjab. Many Britons celebrated the action as needed to prevent another violent uprising similar to the Rebellion of 1857, an attitude that caused many Indian leaders to decide the Raj was controlled by their enemies. Gandhi criticised both the actions of the British Raj and the retaliatory violence of Indians. He authored the resolution offering condolences to British civilian victims and condemning the riots which, after initial opposition in the party, was accepted following Gandhi's emotional speech advocating his principle that all violence was evil and could not be justified.

World War II and Quit India movement

Gandhi and Nehru in 1942

Gandhi initially favoured offering "nonviolent moral support" to the British effort when World War II broke out in 1939, but the Congressional leaders were offended by the unilateral inclusion of India in the war without consultation of the people's representatives. All Congressmen resigned from office. After long deliberations, Gandhi declared that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom while that freedom was denied to India itself. As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, calling for the British to Quit India in a speech at Gowalia Tank Maidan. This was Gandhi's and the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from India.Gandhi was criticized by some Congress party members and other Indian political groups, both pro-British and anti-British. Some felt that not supporting Britain more in its struggle against Nazi Germany was unethical. Others felt that Gandhi's refusal for India to participate in the war was insufficient and more direct opposition should be taken, while Britain fought against Nazism, it continued to refuse to grant India Independence. Quit India became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle, with mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale.
In 1942, although still committed in his efforts to "launch a nonviolent movement", Gandhi clarified that the movement would not be stopped by individual acts of violence, saying that the "ordered anarchy" of"the present system of administration" was "worse than real anarchy." He called on all Congressmen and Indians to maintain discipline via ahimsa, and Karo ya maro ("Do or die") in the cause of ultimate freedom.Write your suggestion plz.
Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were arrested in Bombay by the British on 9 August 1942. Gandhi was held for two years in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. It was here that Gandhi suffered two terrible blows in his personal life. His 50-year-old secretary Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack 6 days later and his wife Kasturba died after 18 months' imprisonment on 22 February 1944; six weeks later Gandhi suffered a severe malaria attack. He was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. He came out of detention to an altered political scene—the Muslim League for example, which a few years earlier had appeared marginal, "now occupied the centre of the political stage"^] and the topic of Muhammad Ali Jinnah's campaign for Pakistan was a major talking point. Gandhi met Jinnah in September 1944 in Bombay but Jinnah rejected, on the grounds that it fell short of a fully independent Pakistan, his proposal of the right of Muslim provinces to opt out of substantial parts of the forthcoming political union.
While the leaders of Congress languished in jail, the other parties supported the war and gained organizational strength. Underground publications flailed at the ruthless suppression of Congress, but it had little control over events.At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership.Suggestion box
Gandhi dedicated his life to the wider purpose of discovering truth, or Satya. He tried to achieve this by learning from his own mistakes and conducting experiments on himself. He called his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth.
Bruce Watson argues that Gandhi based Satyagraha on the Vedantic ideal of self-realization, and notes it also contains Jain and Buddhist notions of nonviolence, vegetarianism, the avoidance of killing, and 'agape' (universal love). Gandhi also borrowed Christian-Islamic ideas of equality, the brotherhood of man, and the concept of turning the other cheek.
Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities. Gandhi summarised his beliefs first when he said "God is Truth". He would later change this statement to "Truth is God". Thus, satya(truth) in Gandhi's philosophy is "God".
The essence of Satyagraha (a name Gandhi invented meaning "adherence to truth"^[) is that it seeks to eliminate antagonisms without harming the antagonists themselves and seeks to transform or "purify" it to a higher level. A euphemism sometimes used for Satyagraha is that it is a "silent force" or a "soul force" (a term also used by Martin Luther King Jr. during his famous "I Have a Dream" speech). It arms the individual with moral power rather than physical power. Satyagraha is also termed a "universal force", as it essentially "makes no distinction between kinsmen and strangers, young and old, man and woman, friend and foe."
Gandhi wrote: "There must be no impatience, no barbarity, no insolence, no undue pressure. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy, we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause." Civil disobedience and non-co-operation as practised under Satyagraha are based on the "law of suffering", a doctrine that the endurance of suffering is a means to an end. This end usually implies a moral upliftment or progress of an individual or society. Therefore, non-co-operation in Satyagraha is in fact a means to secure the co-operation of the opponent consistently with truth and justice

Truth and Satyagraha

Fasting

Gandhi used fasting as a political device, often threatening suicide unless demands were met. Congress publicised the fasts as a political action that generated widespread sympathy. In response the government tried to manipulate news coverage to minimise his challenge to the Raj. He fasted in 1932 to protest the voting scheme for separate political representation for Dalits; Gandhi did not want them segregated. The government stopped the London press from showing photographs of his emaciated body, because it would elicit sympathy. Gandhi's 1943 hunger strike took place during a two-year prison term for the anticolonial Quit India movement. The government called on nutritional experts to demystify his action, and again no photos were allowed. However, his final fast in 1948, after India was independent, was lauded by the British press and this time did include full-length photos.
Alter argues that Gandhi's fixation on diet and celibacy were much deeper than exercises in self-discipline. Rather, his beliefs regarding health offered a critique of both the traditional Hindu system of ayurvedic medicine and Western concepts. This challenge was integral to his deeper challenge to tradition and modernity, as health and nonviolence became part of the same ethics.

Death

Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, was shot at 5-12 p.m. to-day and he died fifteen minutes later. Gandhiji left his room in Birla House for the prayer meeting a few minutes after the conclusion of his talk with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. He passed through the garden leaning on the shoulders of Ava Gandhi and Manu Gandhi, grand daughter-in-law and grand niece.
As he walked up the four steps leading to the prayer mandap, a young man, aged about 35, came before Gandhiji and, bending his body forward at a distance of less than two yards, offered pranam. Gandhiji returned the salute, when the young man remarked “You are late to-day for the prayer.” Gandhiji smiled and replied, “Yes, I am”; but just at that moment, the young man pulled out his revolver and rang out three shots from point-blank range, the bullets piercing the frail body of the great leader just below the heart and stomach. Immediately, Gandhiji collapsed; but Ava Gandhi and Manu Gandhi stuck to their place by his side and held him firmly. But that was the last of the Nation’s Father. It was then 5.12 p.m.
The last act Gandhiji did was to lift both his hands as a sign of prayer in the direction of the large gathering which had assembled for the prayer. Thereafter, he was speechless and the loss of blood, at his age and so soon after his fast, made death inevitable. He was beyond medical aid even from the start when shock had its effect. Lord Mountbatten and Cabinet Ministers, including Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and others soon arrived. The Ministers present held consultations among themselves as to the future course of action.

If I’m to die by the bullet of a mad man, I must do so smiling. God must be in my heart and on my lips. And if anything happens, you are not to shed a single tear.”— Gandhiji, January 28, 1948

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who returned from Amritsar this afternoon, did not have an opportunity to meet Gandhiji. Pandit Nehru came out to address the huge gathering of nearly two lakhs which had surrounded Birla House, but broke down with grief more than once when he spoke. The leaders, including Pandit Nehru, who were present, were dazed and perplexed, while tears overflowed down the cheeks of countless women and men both inside and outside Birla House. The grief-struck crowd, which went on swelling in numbers, were making their way into the main building to have a last glimpse of the departed leader. Glass windows were broken. But the crowd restrained itself and leaders soon made arrangements to let the crowd see Mahatma Gandhi.

Assassin beaten by crowd

The assassin, soon after he fired the shots, was seized by the people who had come to attend the prayer. His revolver — a six-chambered one — and some cash were recovered. It appears he was beaten by the crowd and was slightly injured. The police have taken him into custody and investigation is proceeding. It is learnt that the name of the assassin is Nathuram Vinayak Godse (aged 36), a Mahratta. He described himself as the Editor of a daily paper called Hindu Rashtra published in Laxmipet, Poona

He wore khaki pants and tunic. There is no truth in the report that he attempted to commit suicide by putting a bullet into himself.

Gandhiji's Grave