Mahatma Ghandi

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Mohanda S. Karamchand Gandhi, more principally known as, Mahatma (Great Soul) Gandhi, was India's greatest spiritual and political leader, and also one of the prime political leaders of the 1900s. He was born in Porbandor, Gujrat, India on October 2nd, 1869 into a Hindu merchant class family. At the age of 13, he was married to a woman named Kasturbai, and then in 1888, he left for London at the age of 18 to study law, and developed his philosophy of life. Gandhi's key aim in life was to attain truthfulness in thought, word and deed. He believed that 'truth could be known only through tolerance and concern for other and finding a truthful way to solutions required constant testing'.1

Mahatma Gandhi had achieved a great deal for his country, India, by trying to teach his people to avoid violence and to struggle for independence through a peaceful manner. In 1893, Gandhi had sailed to South Africa to do some legal work and had established a law practice, spending 21 years opposing prejudiced legislation against Indians after seeing the discrimination to his people. Being there, Gandhi had found out about the limited and unfair policies of the British after being thrown off a train for having a first class ticket and sitting next to whites from the British Empire. After this critical incident, he was inspired to develop a technique of direct social action to use against the British rule. This technique came from main beliefs of courage, nonviolence (Ahimsa) and truth, which he significantly called; satyagraha (truth-force).Gandhi and his followers used satyagraha to fight for India's independence and to create social change. The Indians in South America had led a campaign of civil disobedience and got sent to jail, however they had won some reforms from the government.
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In 1914, Mahatma Gandhi went home to India and supported the Home Rule Movement and then became the leading figure of the Indian National Congress, an Indian Independence government party. In 1919, the British Imperial government had created the Rowlatt bills to make organizing opposition to the government illegal. Gandhi had then led a satyagraha campaign, which was successful in preventing means of access to one the bills. He had called off the campaign when riots began to take place, and then fasted to make an impact on the people to be nonviolent. On April 13, 1919, the ...

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