Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, widely known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, in present-day Gujarat, India. He grew up in a family connected with local administration and attended school in Rajkot. He married Kasturba while still a teenager. In 1888, he travelled to London to study law at the Inner Temple. He qualified as a barrister in 1891 and returned to India, where his early attempts to establish a legal practice met with difficulty. SOUTH AFRICA AND SATYAGRAHA A legal assignment took Gandhi to South Africa in 1893. There, racial discrimination, including his removal from a train at Pietermaritzburg, helped turn his attention towards public action. He became an organiser for the Indian community and helped establish the Natal Indian Congress in 1894. During campaigns against discriminatory laws, Gandhi developed satyagraha: resistance grounded in truth and nonviolence. It involved refusing unjust demands while accepting imprisonment and other consequences, rather than attacking opponents. His South African years also included experiments in communal living, manual work and a simpler way of life. RETURN TO INDIA Gandhi returned to India in 1915. He supported farmers at Champaran in 1917 and later became a leading figure in the Indian independence movement. Through non-cooperation, civil disobedience and the promotion of hand-spun cloth, he connected opposition to British rule with everyday choices. THE SALT MARCH In March 1930, Gandhi began the Salt March from Sabarmati to Dandi. By making salt in defiance of colonial restrictions, he challenged a law affecting ordinary people. The protest became a major episode in the independence struggle and prompted widespread civil disobedience. QUIT INDIA AND PARTITION Gandhi supported the Quit India movement in 1942 and was imprisoned alongside other Congress leaders. Kasturba died during their detention in 1944. India gained independence in 1947, accompanied by partition and communal violence. Gandhi opposed partition and worked for reconciliation, spending time among communities affected by the violence. DEATH AND HISTORICAL RECORD On January 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse assassinated Gandhi as he approached a prayer meeting at Birla House in New Delhi. He was 78. Gandhi’s life can be studied through his speeches, correspondence, journals and autobiographical writings. The Gandhi Heritage Portal preserves these materials alongside a detailed chronology. They document a political career shaped by organising, imprisonment, negotiation and the continuing development of his ideas.