role of gandhi ji in indian national movement
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He pioneered satyagraha, resistance to tyranny through mass civil resistance.
His philosophy was firmly founded upon truth and ahimsa (nonviolence).
His philosophy and leadership helped India gain independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.
He inspired many prominent Leaders across the World, who applied his principles in their own countries, in fight against tyranny and for gaining Independence.
Gandhiji is referred to as Mahatma or "Great Soul" (magnanimous), an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore).
In India, he is also called Bapu and officially honored in India as the Father of the Nation. His birthday, 2 October, is commemorated as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.
Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by Nathuram Godse of RSS.
Gandhi first employed civil disobedience while working as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa. He fought for the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he organised protests by peasants, farmers, and urban labourers concerning excessive land-tax and discrimination. After assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns to ease poverty, expand women's rights, build religious and ethnic amity, end untouchability, and increase economic self-reliance. Above all, he aimed to achieve Swaraj or the independence of India from foreign domination.
Gandhi famously led his followers in the Non-cooperation movement that protested the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (240 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930.
He launched the Quit India Movement in 1942, demanding immediate independence for India. Gandhi spent a number of years in jail in both South Africa and India.
As a practitioner of ahimsa, Gandhi swore to speak the truth and advocated that others do the same.
He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven from yarn that he had spun by hand himself.
He ate simple vegetarian food, experimented for a time with a fruitarian diet, and undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest.
He was really a Mahatma born in the disguise of a Man.
The Swadeshi Movement declined by 1907. There was also a split in the Congress in 1907 and Tilak was imprisoned and deported in 1908. Aurobindo Ghosh and Bipin Chandra Pal retired from politics and Lala Lajpat Rai left India for some time.
All these developments led to a decline in the nationalist movement. It remained dormant for a few years but was revived during the First World War. Annie Besant and Tilak started the Home Rule Leagues and the two wings of the Congress united in 1916.
The War also witnessed the Ghadar Movement started in the United States by some Indian revolutionaries which sought to overthrow the British rule in India. However, the most important development was the arrival of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was later popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, from South Africa.