Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (October 2, 1869 - January 30, 1948) was the great political and ideological leader of India in the Indian independence movement. A pioneer of Satyagraha, or resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience - a philosophy firmly based on ahimsa or total non-violence - Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom through world.Gandhi often called Mahatma ([TMA məɦa ː ː] Sanskrit. महात्मा Mahatma or "great soul", an award first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore) In India, it is also known as Bapu (Gujarati: બાપુ, Bapu or "Father") and officially honored as the father of the nation. His birthday October 2, remembers India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and the rest of the world as the International Day of Nonviolence.

Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience as a foreign lawyer in South Africa, the struggle of the Indian community resident for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915 he began to organize the peasants, farmers and urban workers in protest against the excessive property tax and discrimination. Assuming that the leaders of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns to alleviate poverty, increase women's rights, building religious and ethnic friendship, ending untouchability, increased economic autonomy, but also to achieve Swaraj - the independence of India from foreign domination. Famous Gandhi led Indians to protest against British salt tax imposed on 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in the call to the British to leave India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, on numerous occasions in both South Africa and India.

Gandhi tried to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, 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 with the son she had woven by hand on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as means of two self-purification and social protest.