essay on mahatma gandhi
Answers
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar , Gujarat , on 2nd October , 1869. His parents were Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai.
The life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a unique journey along the path of greatness. He courageously proclaimed that his life was his message. A simple man clad in a handwoven dhoti , he believed that the greatest weapon is one's own character.
Gandhiji lived in troubled times , when India's social and political existence was crushed by the mighty British Empire. His clarity of vision , and his mission ignited the minds of thousands of people.
Under his leadership , the freedom struggle for India , for the first time , became a truly mass movement. He had no armies to command , yet the mightiest empire of the times was no match for his determined leadership , clear vision and strength of character.
True , Gandhiji was the greatest leader of modern India, Yet , to millions of people across the world , he was much more than that. To them , he was a saint whose values will have a everlasting relevance.It's no wonder that the whole world came to worship him as a great soul - Mahatma
Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, western India, and trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, Gandhi first employed nonviolent 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 to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for various social causes and for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.[9]
Gandhi led Indians in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and political protest.
Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early 1940s by a new Muslim nationalism which was demanding a separate Muslim homeland carved out of India.[10] In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire[10] was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.[11] As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Eschewing the official celebration of independence in Delhi, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to stop religious violence. The last of these, undertaken on 12 January 1948 when he was 78,[12] also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan.[12] Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating.[12][13] Among them was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest.[13]
Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence. Gandhi is commonly, though not formally considered the Father of the Nation in India