write a short note on 'Interesting life events in Mahatma Gandhi's life'
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Explanation:
Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, western India, Gandhi trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in June 1891. After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to stay for 21 years. It was in South Africa that Gandhi raised a family, and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India. 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 easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.[9]
The same year Gandhi adopted the Indian loincloth, or short dhoti and, in the winter, a shawl, both woven with yarn hand-spun on a traditional Indian spinning wheel, or charkha, as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. Thereafter, he lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community, ate simple vegetarian food, and undertook long fasts as a means of self-purification and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them 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.
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]
Answer:
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on the 2nd of October 1869 in western India. He is famous because he led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world, he is also known because he undertook long fasts as a sign of social protest in favour of women’s rights and also civil rights in South Africa and India, he fought against excessive taxes and discrimination.
He spent twenty-one years in South Africa where he developed his political views, ethics and political leadership skills. There, Indians employed Gandhi as a lawyer and he stood up for Hindu labourers who had very limited rights. He believed he could bridge historic differences, especially regarding religion, and he took that belief back to India where he tried to implement it.
Gandhi was the leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India, his vision of this new independent India was based on a religious pluralism, but there was a religious conflict between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. So he undertook several fasts unto death to promote religious harmony.
His last fast, started on the 12th of January 1948, it had the indirect goal of pressing India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. On the 30th of January 1948 a Hindu nationalist assassinated Mahatma Gandhi by firing three bullets into his chest, he accused Gandhi of favouring Pakistan and opposing the doctrine of nonviolence.