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=                           Mahatma_Gandhi                           =
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                            Introduction
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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian
lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed
nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's
independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights
and freedom across the world. The honorific 'Mahātmā' (from Sanskrit,
meaning great-souled, or venerable), first applied to him in South
Africa in 1914, is now used throughout the world.

Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, Gandhi trained
in the law at the Inner Temple in London and was called to the bar at
the age of 22. After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable
to start a successful law practice, Gandhi moved to South Africa in
1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to live
in South Africa for 21 years. Here, Gandhi raised a family and first
employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In
1915, aged 45, he returned to India and soon set about organising
peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against
discrimination and excessive land tax.

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, achieving 'swaraj' or self-rule. Gandhi adopted the short 'dhoti'
woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with India's
rural poor. He began to live in a self-sufficient residential
community, to eat simple food, and undertake long fasts as a means of
both introspection 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 Dandi Salt March in 1930 and
in calling for the British to quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned
many times and for many years 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 Muslim nationalism which
demanded a separate homeland for Muslims within British India. In
August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian
Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and
a Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and
Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out,
especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Abstaining from the official
celebration of independence, Gandhi visited the affected areas,
attempting to alleviate distress. In the months following, he
undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The
last of these was begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948, when Gandhi was
78. The belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of
both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India.
Among these was Nathuram Godse, a militant Hindu nationalist from
Pune, western India, who assassinated Gandhi by firing three bullets
into his chest at an interfaith prayer meeting in Delhi on 30 January
1948.

Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi
Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of
Nonviolence. Gandhi is considered to be the Father of the Nation in
post-colonial India. During India's nationalist movement and in
several decades immediately after, he was also commonly called 'Bapu',
an endearment roughly meaning "father".


Parents
=========
Gandhi's father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi (1822-1885), served as
the 'dewan' (chief minister) of Porbandar state. His family originated
from the then village of Kutiana in what was then Junagadh State.
Although Karamchand only had been a clerk in the state administration
and had an elementary education, he proved a capable chief minister.

During his tenure, Karamchand married four times. His first two wives
died young, after each had given birth to a daughter, and his third
marriage was childless. In 1857, Karamchand sought his third wife's
permission to remarry; that year, he married Putlibai (1844-1891), who
also came from Junagadh, and was from a Pranami Vaishnava family.
Karamchand and Putlibai had four children: a son, Laxmidas (-1914); a
daughter, Raliatbehn (1862-1960); a second son, Karsandas (-1913). and
a third son, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who was born on 2 October 1869
in Porbandar (also known as 'Sudamapuri'), a coastal town on the
Kathiawar Peninsula and then part of the small princely state of
Porbandar in the Kathiawar Agency of the British Raj.

In 1874, Gandhi's father, Karamchand, left Porbandar for the smaller
state of Rajkot, where he became a counsellor to its ruler, the Thakur
Sahib; though Rajkot was a less prestigious state than Porbandar, the
British regional political agency was located there, which gave the
state's 'diwan' a measure of security. In 1876, Karamchand became
'diwan' of Rajkot and was succeeded as 'diwan' of Porbandar by his
brother Tulsidas. Karamchand's family then rejoined him in Rajkot.
They moved to their family home Kaba Gandhi No Delo in 1881.


Childhood
===========
As a child, Gandhi was described by his sister Raliat as "restless as
mercury, either playing or roaming about. One of his favourite
pastimes was twisting dogs' ears." The Indian classics, especially the
stories of Shravana and king Harishchandra, had a great impact on
Gandhi in his childhood. In his autobiography, Gandhi states that they
left an indelible impression on his mind. Gandhi writes: "It haunted
me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without
number." Gandhi's early self-identification with truth and love as
supreme values is traceable to these epic characters.

The family's religious background was eclectic. Mohandas was born into
a Gujarati Hindu Modh Bania family. Gandhi's father, Karamchand, was
Hindu and his mother Putlibai was from a Pranami Vaishnava Hindu
family. Gandhi's father was of Modh Baniya caste in the varna of
Vaishya. His mother came from the medieval Krishna bhakti-based
Pranami tradition, whose religious texts include the Bhagavad Gita,
the 'Bhagavata Purana', and a collection of 14 texts with teachings
that the tradition believes to include the essence of the Vedas, the
Quran and the Bible. Gandhi was deeply influenced by his mother, an
extremely pious lady who "would not think of taking her meals without
her daily prayers... she would take the hardest vows and keep them
without flinching. To keep two or three consecutive fasts was nothing
to her."

At the age of nine, Gandhi entered the local school in Rajkot, near
his home. There, he studied the rudiments of arithmetic, history, the
Gujarati language and geography. At the age of 11, Gandhi joined the
High School in Rajkot, Alfred High School. He was an average student,
won some prizes, but was a shy and tongue-tied student, with no
interest in games; Gandhi's only companions were books and school
lessons.


Marriage
==========
In May 1883, the 13-year-old Gandhi was married to 14-year-old
Kasturbai Gokuldas Kapadia (her first name was usually shortened to
"Kasturba", and affectionately to "Ba") in an arranged marriage,
according to the custom of the region at that time. In the process, he
lost a year at school but was later allowed to make up by accelerating
his studies. Gandhi's wedding was a joint event, where his brother and
cousin were also married. Recalling the day of their marriage, Gandhi
once said, "As we didn't know much about marriage, for us it meant
only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives."
As was the prevailing tradition, the adolescent bride was to spend
much time at her parents' house, and away from her husband.

Writing many years later, Gandhi described with regret the lustful
feelings he felt for his young bride: "Even at school I used to think
of her, and the thought of nightfall and our subsequent meeting was
ever haunting me." Gandhi later recalled feeling jealous and
possessive of her, such as when Kasturba would visit a temple with her
girlfriends, and being sexually lustful in his feelings for her.


In late 1885, Gandhi's father, Karamchand, died. Gandhi had left his
father's bedside to be with his wife mere minutes before his passing.
Many decades later, Gandhi wrote "if animal passion had not blinded
me, I should have been spared the torture of separation from my father
during his last moments." Later, Gandhi, then 16 years old, and his
wife, age 17, had their first child, who survived only a few days. The
two deaths anguished Gandhi. The Gandhis had four more children, all
sons: Harilal, born in 1888; Manilal, born in 1892; Ramdas, born in
1897; and Devdas, born in 1900.

In November 1887, the 18-year-old Gandhi graduated from high school in
Ahmedabad. In January 1888, he enrolled at Samaldas College in
Bhavnagar State, then the sole degree-granting institution of higher
education in the region. However, Gandhi dropped out and returned to
his family in Porbandar.

Outside school, Gandhi's education was enriched by exposure to
Gujarati literature, especially reformers like Narmad and Govardhanram
Tripathi, whose works alerted the Gujaratis to their own faults and
weaknesses such as belief in religious dogmatism.


Student of law
================
Gandhi had dropped out of the cheapest college he could afford in
Bombay. Mavji Dave Joshiji, a Brahmin priest and family friend,
advised Gandhi and his family that he should consider law studies in
London. In July 1888, Gandhi's wife Kasturba gave birth to their first
surviving child, Harilal. Gandhi's mother was not comfortable about
Gandhi leaving his wife and family and going so far from home.
Gandhi's uncle Tulsidas also tried to dissuade his nephew, but Gandhi
wanted to go. To persuade his wife and mother, Gandhi made a vow in
front of his mother that he would abstain from meat, alcohol, and
women. Gandhi's brother, Laxmidas, who was already a lawyer, cheered
Gandhi's London studies plan and offered to support him. Putlibai gave
Gandhi her permission and blessing.

On 10 August 1888, Gandhi, aged 18, left Porbandar for Mumbai, then
known as Bombay. A local newspaper covering the farewell function by
his old high school in Rajkot noted that Gandhi was the first Bania
from Kathiawar to proceed to England for his Barrister Examination. As
Mohandas Gandhi waited for a berth on a ship to London he found that
he had attracted the ire of the Modh Banias of Bombay. Upon arrival in
Bombay, he stayed with the local Modh Bania community whose elders
warned Gandhi that England would tempt him to compromise his religion,
and eat and drink in Western ways. Despite Gandhi informing them of
his promise to his mother and her blessings, Gandhi was excommunicated
from his caste. Gandhi ignored this, and on 4 September, he sailed
from Bombay to London, with his brother seeing him off. Gandhi
attended University College, London, where he took classes in English
literature with Henry Morley in 1888-1889.


Gandhi also enrolled at the Inns of Court School of Law in Inner
Temple with the intention of becoming a barrister. His childhood
shyness and self-withdrawal had continued through his teens. Gandhi
retained these traits when he arrived in London, but joined a public
speaking practice group and overcame his shyness sufficiently to
practise law.

Gandhi demonstrated a keen interest in the welfare of London's
impoverished dockland communities. In 1889, a bitter trade dispute
broke out in London, with dockers striking for better pay and
conditions, and seamen, shipbuilders, factory girls and other joining
the strike in solidarity. The strikers were successful, in part due to
the mediation of Cardinal Manning, leading Gandhi and an Indian friend
to make a point of visiting the cardinal and thanking him for his
work.


Vegetarianism and committee work
==================================
His vow to his mother influenced Gandhi's time in London. Gandhi tried
to adopt "English" customs, including taking dancing lessons. However,
he didn't appreciate the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady
and was frequently hungry until he found one of London's few
vegetarian restaurants. Influenced by Henry Salt's writing, Gandhi
joined the London Vegetarian Society (LVS) and was elected to its
executive committee under the aegis of its president and benefactor
Arnold Hills. An achievement while on the committee was the
establishment of a Bayswater chapter. Some of the vegetarians Gandhi
met were members of the Theosophical Society, which had been founded
in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the
study of Buddhist and Hindu literature. They encouraged Gandhi to join
them in reading the Bhagavad Gita both in translation as well as in
the original.

Gandhi had a friendly and productive relationship with Hills, but the
two men took a different view on the continued LVS membership of
fellow committee member Thomas Allinson. Their disagreement is the
first known example of Gandhi challenging authority, despite his
shyness and temperamental disinclination towards confrontation.

Allinson had been promoting newly available birth control methods, but
Hills disapproved of these, believing they undermined public morality.
He believed vegetarianism to be a moral movement and that Allinson
should therefore no longer remain a member of the LVS. Gandhi shared
Hills' views on the dangers of birth control, but defended Allinson's
right to differ. It would have been hard for Gandhi to challenge
Hills; Hills was 12 years his senior and unlike Gandhi, highly
eloquent. Hills bankrolled the LVS and was a captain of industry with
his Thames Ironworks company employing more than 6,000 people in the
East End of London. Hills was also a highly accomplished sportsman who
later founded the football club West Ham United. In his 1927 'An
Autobiography, Vol. I', Gandhi wrote:



A motion to remove Allinson was raised, and was debated and voted on
by the committee. Gandhi's shyness was an obstacle to his defence of
Allinson at the committee meeting. Gandhi wrote his views down on
paper, but shyness prevented Gandhi from reading out his arguments, so
Hills, the President, asked another committee member to read them out
for him. Although some other members of the committee agreed with
Gandhi, the vote was lost and Allinson was excluded. There were no
hard feelings, with Hills proposing the toast at the LVS farewell
dinner in honour of Gandhi's return to India.


Called to the bar
===================
Gandhi, at age 22, was called to the bar in June 1891 and then left
London for India, where he learned that his mother had died while he
was in London and that his family had kept the news from Gandhi. His
attempts at establishing a law practice in Bombay failed because
Gandhi was psychologically unable to cross-examine witnesses. He
returned to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for
litigants, but Gandhi was forced to stop after running afoul of
British officer Sam Sunny.

In 1893, a Muslim merchant in Kathiawar named Dada Abdullah contacted
Gandhi. Abdullah owned a large successful shipping business in South
Africa. His distant cousin in Johannesburg needed a lawyer, and they
preferred someone with Kathiawari heritage. Gandhi inquired about his
pay for the work. They offered a total salary of £105 (~$4,143 in 2023
money) plus travel expenses. He accepted it, knowing that it would be
at least a one-year commitment in the Colony of Natal, South Africa,
also a part of the British Empire.


         Civil rights activist in South Africa (1893–1914)
======================================================================
In April 1893, Gandhi, aged 23, set sail for South Africa to be the
lawyer for Abdullah's cousin. Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa
where he developed his political views, ethics, and politics. During
this time Gandhi briefly returned to India in 1902 to mobilise support
for the welfare of Indians in South Africa.

Immediately upon arriving in South Africa, Gandhi faced discrimination
due to his skin colour and heritage. Gandhi was not allowed to sit
with European passengers in the stagecoach and was told to sit on the
floor near the driver, then beaten when he refused; elsewhere, Gandhi
was kicked into a gutter for daring to walk near a house, in another
instance thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to
leave the first-class. Gandhi sat in the train station, shivering all
night and pondering if he should return to India or protest for his
rights. Gandhi chose to protest and was allowed to board the train the
next day. In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court
ordered Gandhi to remove his turban, which he refused to do. Indians
were not allowed to walk on public footpaths in South Africa. Gandhi
was kicked by a police officer out of the footpath onto the street
without warning.

When Gandhi arrived in South Africa, according to Arthur Herman, he
thought of himself as "a Briton first, and an Indian second." However,
the prejudice against Gandhi and his fellow Indians from British
people that Gandhi experienced and observed deeply bothered him.
Gandhi found it humiliating, struggling to understand how some people
can feel honour or superiority or pleasure in such inhumane practices.
Gandhi began to question his people's standing in the British Empire.

The Abdullah case that had brought him to South Africa concluded in
May 1894, and the Indian community organised a farewell party for
Gandhi as he prepared to return to India. The farewell party was
turned into a working committee to plan the resistance to a new Natal
government discriminatory proposal. This led to Gandhi extending his
original period of stay in South Africa. Gandhi planned to assist
Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote, a right
then proposed to be an exclusive European right. He asked Joseph
Chamberlain, the British Colonial Secretary, to reconsider his
position on this bill. Though unable to halt the bill's passage,
Gandhi's campaign was successful in drawing attention to the
grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the Natal
Indian Congress in 1894, and through this organisation, Gandhi moulded
the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force.
In January 1897, when Gandhi landed in Durban, a mob of white settlers
attacked him, and Gandhi escaped only through the efforts of the wife
of the police superintendent. However, Gandhi refused to press charges
against any member of the mob.


During the Boer War, Gandhi volunteered in 1900 to form a group of
stretcher-bearers as the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps. According to
Arthur Herman, Gandhi wanted to disprove the British colonial
stereotype that Hindus were not fit for "manly" activities involving
danger and exertion, unlike the Muslim "martial races." Gandhi raised
1,100 Indian volunteers to support British combat troops against the
Boers. They were trained and medically certified to serve on the front
lines. They were auxiliaries at the Battle of Colenso to a White
volunteer ambulance corps. At the Battle of Spion Kop, Gandhi and his
bearers moved to the front line and had to carry wounded soldiers for
miles to a field hospital since the terrain was too rough for the
ambulances. Gandhi and 37 other Indians received the Queen's South
Africa Medal.


In 1906, the Transvaal government promulgated a new Act compelling
registration of the colony's Indian and Chinese populations. At a mass
protest meeting held in Johannesburg on 11 September that year, Gandhi
adopted his still evolving methodology of 'Satyagraha' (devotion to
the truth), or nonviolent protest, for the first time. According to
Anthony Parel, Gandhi was also influenced by the Tamil moral text
'Tirukkuṛaḷ' after Leo Tolstoy mentioned it in their correspondence
that began with "A Letter to a Hindu". Gandhi urged Indians to defy
the new law and to suffer the punishments for doing so. His ideas of
protests, persuasion skills, and public relations had emerged. Gandhi
took these back to India in 1915.


Europeans, Indians and Africans
=================================
Gandhi focused his attention on Indians and Africans while he was in
South Africa. Initially, Gandhi was not interested in politics, but
this changed after he was discriminated against and bullied, such as
by being thrown out of a train coach due to his skin colour by a white
train official. After several such incidents with Whites in South
Africa, Gandhi's thinking and focus changed, and he felt he must
resist this and fight for rights. Gandhi entered politics by forming
the Natal Indian Congress. According to Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed,
Gandhi's views on racism are contentious in some cases. He suffered
persecution from the beginning in South Africa. Like with other
coloured people, white officials denied Gandhi his rights, and the
press and those in the streets bullied and called Gandhi a "parasite",
"semi-barbarous", "canker", "squalid coolie", "yellow man", and other
epithets. People would even spit on him as an expression of racial
hate.


While in South Africa, Gandhi focused on the racial persecution of
Indians before he started to focus on racism against Africans. In some
cases, state Desai and Vahed, Gandhi's behaviour was one of being a
willing part of racial stereotyping and African exploitation. During a
speech in September 1896, Gandhi complained that the whites in the
British colony of South Africa were "degrading the Indian to the level
of a raw Kaffir." Scholars cite it as an example of evidence that
Gandhi at that time thought of Indians and black South Africans
differently. As another example given by Herman, Gandhi, at the age of
24, prepared a legal brief for the Natal Assembly in 1895, seeking
voting rights for Indians. Gandhi cited race history and European
Orientalists' opinions that "Anglo-Saxons and Indians are sprung from
the same Aryan stock or rather the Indo-European peoples" and argued
that Indians should not be grouped with the Africans.

Years later, Gandhi and his colleagues served and helped Africans as
nurses and by opposing racism. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson
Mandela is among admirers of Gandhi's efforts to fight against racism
in Africa. The general image of Gandhi, state Desai and Vahed, has
been reinvented since his assassination as though Gandhi was always a
saint, when in reality, his life was more complex, contained
inconvenient truths, and was one that changed over time. Scholars have
also pointed the evidence to a rich history of co-operation and
efforts by Gandhi and Indian people with nonwhite South Africans
against persecution of Africans and the Apartheid.

In 1903, Gandhi started the 'Indian Opinion', a journal that carried
news of Indians in South Africa, Indians in India with articles on all
subjects -social, moral and intellectual. Each issue was multi-lingual
and carried material in English, Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil. It carried
ads, depended heavily on Gandhi's contributions (often printed without
a byline) and was an 'advocate' for the Indian cause.

In 1906, when the Bambatha Rebellion broke out in the colony of Natal,
the then 36-year-old Gandhi, despite sympathising with the Zulu
rebels, encouraged Indian South Africans to form a volunteer
stretcher-bearer unit. Writing in the 'Indian Opinion', Gandhi argued
that military service would be beneficial to the Indian community and
claimed it would give them "health and happiness." Gandhi eventually
led a volunteer mixed unit of Indian and African stretcher-bearers to
treat wounded combatants during the suppression of the rebellion.


The medical unit commanded by Gandhi operated for less than two months
before being disbanded. After the suppression of the rebellion, the
colonial establishment showed no interest in extending to the Indian
community the civil rights granted to white South Africans.

By 1910, Gandhi's newspaper, 'Indian Opinion', was covering reports on
discrimination against Africans by the colonial regime. Gandhi
remarked that the Africans "alone are the original inhabitants of the
land. … The whites, on the other hand, have occupied the land forcibly
and appropriated it for themselves."

In 1910, Gandhi established, with the help of his friend Hermann
Kallenbach, an idealistic community they named Tolstoy Farm near
Johannesburg. There, Gandhi nurtured his policy of peaceful
resistance.

In the years after black South Africans gained the right to vote in
South Africa (1994), Gandhi was proclaimed a national hero with
numerous monuments.


            Struggle for Indian independence (1915–1947)
======================================================================
At the request of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, conveyed to Gandhi by C. F.
Andrews, Gandhi returned to India in 1915. He brought an international
reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and community
organiser.

Gandhi joined the Indian National Congress and was introduced to
Indian issues, politics and the Indian people primarily by Gokhale.
Gokhale was a key leader of the Congress Party best known for his
restraint and moderation, and his insistence on working inside the
system. Gandhi took Gokhale's liberal approach based on British
Whiggish traditions and transformed it to make it look Indian.

Gandhi took leadership of the Congress in 1920 and began escalating
demands until on 26 January 1930 the Indian National Congress declared
the independence of India. The British did not recognise the
declaration, but negotiations ensued, with the Congress taking a role
in provincial government in the late 1930s. Gandhi and the Congress
withdrew their support of the Raj when the Viceroy declared war on
Germany in September 1939 without consultation. Tensions escalated
until Gandhi demanded immediate independence in 1942, and the British
responded by imprisoning him and tens of thousands of Congress
leaders. Meanwhile, the Muslim League did co-operate with Britain and
moved, against Gandhi's strong opposition, to demands for a totally
separate Muslim state of Pakistan. In August 1947, the British
partitioned the land with India and Pakistan each achieving
independence on terms that Gandhi disapproved.


Role in World War I
=====================
In April 1918, during the latter part of World War I, the Viceroy
invited Gandhi to a War Conference in Delhi. Gandhi agreed to support
the war effort. In contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the outbreak
of World War I in 1914, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance
Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants. In a June
1918 leaflet entitled "Appeal for Enlistment", Gandhi wrote: "To bring
about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend
ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them... If we
want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it
is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army." However, Gandhi
stipulated in a letter to the Viceroy's private secretary that he
"personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe."

Gandhi's support for the war campaign brought into question his
consistency on nonviolence. Gandhi's private secretary noted that "The
question of the consistency between his creed of 'Ahimsa'
(nonviolence) and his recruiting campaign was raised not only then but
has been discussed ever since." According to political and educational
scientist Christian Bartolf, Gandhi's support for the war stemmed from
his belief that true ahimsa could not exist simultaneously with
cowardice. Therefore, Gandhi felt that Indians needed to be willing
and capable of using arms before they voluntarily chose non-violence.

In July 1918, Gandhi said that he could not persuade even one
individual to enlist for the world war. "So far I have not a single
recruit to my credit apart," Gandhi wrote. He added: "They object
because they fear to die."


Champaran agitations
======================
Gandhi's first major achievement came in 1917 with the Champaran
agitation in Bihar. The Champaran agitation pitted the local peasantry
against largely Anglo-Indian plantation owners who were backed by the
local administration. The peasants were forced to grow indigo
('Indigofera' sp.), a cash crop for Indigo dye whose demand had been
declining over two decades and were forced to sell their crops to the
planters at a fixed price. Unhappy with this, the peasantry appealed
to Gandhi at his ashram in Ahmedabad. Pursuing a strategy of
nonviolent protest, Gandhi took the administration by surprise and won
concessions from the authorities.


Kheda agitations
==================
In 1918, Kheda was hit by floods and famine and the peasantry was
demanding relief from taxes. Gandhi moved his headquarters to Nadiad,
organising scores of supporters and fresh volunteers from the region,
the most notable being Vallabhbhai Patel. Using non-co-operation as a
technique, Gandhi initiated a signature campaign where peasants
pledged non-payment of revenue even under the threat of confiscation
of land. A social boycott of 'mamlatdars' and 'talatdars' (revenue
officials within the district) accompanied the agitation. Gandhi
worked hard to win public support for the agitation across the
country. For five months, the administration refused, but by the end
of May 1918, the government gave way on important provisions and
relaxed the conditions of payment of revenue tax until the famine
ended. In Kheda, Vallabhbhai Patel represented the farmers in
negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection and
released all the prisoners.


Khilafat movement
===================
In 1919, following World War I, Gandhi (aged 49) sought political
co-operation from Muslims in his fight against British imperialism by
supporting the Ottoman Empire that had been defeated in the World War.
Before this initiative of Gandhi, communal disputes and religious
riots between Hindus and Muslims were common in British India, such as
the riots of 1917-18. Gandhi had already vocally supported the British
crown in the first world war. This decision of Gandhi was in part
motivated by the British promise to reciprocate the help with 'swaraj'
(self-government) to Indians after the end of World War I. The British
government had offered, instead of self-government, minor reforms
instead, disappointing Gandhi. He announced his 'satyagraha' (civil
disobedience) intentions. The British colonial officials made their
counter move by passing the Rowlatt Act, to block Gandhi's movement.
The Act allowed the British government to treat civil disobedience
participants as criminals and gave it the legal basis to arrest anyone
for "preventive indefinite detention, incarceration without judicial
review or any need for a trial."

Gandhi felt that Hindu-Muslim co-operation was necessary for political
progress against the British. He leveraged the Khilafat movement,
wherein Sunni Muslims in India, their leaders such as the sultans of
princely states in India and Ali brothers championed the Turkish
Caliph as a solidarity symbol of Sunni Islamic community ('ummah').
They saw the Caliph as their means to support Islam and the Islamic
law after the defeat of Ottoman Empire in World War I. Gandhi's
support to the Khilafat movement led to mixed results. It initially
led to a strong Muslim support for Gandhi. However, the Hindu leaders
including Rabindranath Tagore questioned Gandhi's leadership because
they were largely against recognising or supporting the Sunni Islamic
Caliph in Turkey.

The increasing Muslim support for Gandhi, after he championed the
Caliph's cause, temporarily stopped the Hindu-Muslim communal
violence. It offered evidence of inter-communal harmony in joint
Rowlatt 'satyagraha' demonstration rallies, raising Gandhi's stature
as the political leader to the British. His support for the Khilafat
movement also helped Gandhi sideline Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who had
announced his opposition to the 'satyagraha' non-co-operation movement
approach of Gandhi. Jinnah began creating his independent support, and
later went on to lead the demand for West and East Pakistan. Though
they agreed in general terms on Indian independence, they disagreed on
the means of achieving this. Jinnah was mainly interested in dealing
with the British via constitutional negotiation, rather than
attempting to agitate the masses.

In 1922, the Khilafat movement gradually collapsed following the end
of the non-cooperation movement with the arrest of Gandhi. A number of
Muslim leaders and delegates abandoned Gandhi and Congress.
Hindu-Muslim communal conflicts reignited, and deadly religious riots
re-appeared in numerous cities, with 91 in United Provinces of Agra
and Oudh alone.


Non-co-operation
==================
With his book 'Hind Swaraj' (1909) Gandhi, aged 40, declared that
British rule was established in India with the co-operation of Indians
and had survived only because of this co-operation. If Indians refused
to co-operate, British rule would collapse and 'swaraj' (Indian
independence) would come.


In February 1919, Gandhi cautioned the Viceroy of India with a cable
communication that if the British were to pass the Rowlatt Act, he
would appeal to Indians to start civil disobedience. The British
government ignored him and passed the law, stating it would not yield
to threats. The 'satyagraha' civil disobedience followed, with people
assembling to protest the Rowlatt Act. On 30 March 1919, British law
officers opened fire on an assembly of unarmed people, peacefully
gathered, participating in 'satyagraha' in Delhi.

People rioted in retaliation. On 6 April 1919, a Hindu festival day,
Gandhi asked a crowd to remember not to injure or kill British people,
but to express their frustration with peace, to boycott British goods
and burn any British clothing they owned. He emphasised the use of
non-violence to the British and towards each other, even if the other
side used violence. Communities across India announced plans to gather
in greater numbers to protest. Government warned him not to enter
Delhi, but Gandhi defied the order and was arrested on 9 April.

On 13 April 1919, people including women with children gathered in an
Amritsar park, and British Indian Army officer Reginald Dyer
surrounded them and ordered troops under his command to fire on them.
The resulting Jallianwala Bagh massacre (or Amritsar massacre) of
hundreds of Sikh and Hindu civilians enraged the subcontinent but was
supported by some Britons and parts of the British media as a
necessary response. Gandhi in Ahmedabad, on the day after the massacre
in Amritsar, did not criticise the British and instead criticised his
fellow countrymen for not exclusively using 'love' to deal with the
'hate' of the British government. Gandhi demanded that the Indian
people stop all violence, stop all property destruction, and went on
fast-to-death to pressure Indians to stop their rioting.

The massacre and Gandhi's non-violent response to it moved many, but
also made some Sikhs and Hindus upset that Dyer was getting away with
murder. Investigation committees were formed by the British, which
Gandhi asked Indians to boycott. The unfolding events, the massacre
and the British response, led Gandhi to the belief that Indians will
never get a fair equal treatment under British rulers, and he shifted
his attention to 'swaraj' and political independence for India. In
1921, Gandhi was the leader of the Indian National Congress. He
reorganised the Congress. With Congress now behind Gandhi, and Muslim
support triggered by his backing the Khilafat movement to restore the
Caliph in Turkey, Gandhi had the political support and the attention
of the British Raj.


Gandhi expanded his nonviolent non-co-operation platform to include
the 'swadeshi' policy - the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially
British goods. Linked to this was his advocacy that 'khadi' (homespun
cloth) be worn by all Indians instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi
exhorted Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day
spinning 'khadi' in support of the independence movement. In addition
to boycotting British products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott
British institutions and law courts, to resign from government
employment, and to forsake British titles and honours. Gandhi thus
began his journey aimed at crippling the British India government
economically, politically and administratively.

The appeal of "Non-cooperation" grew, its social popularity drew
participation from all strata of Indian society. Gandhi was arrested
on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years'
imprisonment. He began his sentence on 18 March 1922. With Gandhi
isolated in prison, the Indian National Congress split into two
factions, one led by Chitta Ranjan Das and Motilal Nehru favouring
party participation in the legislatures, and the other led by
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, opposing
this move. Furthermore, co-operation among Hindus and Muslims ended as
Khilafat movement collapsed with the rise of Atatürk in Turkey. Muslim
leaders left the Congress and began forming Muslim organisations. The
political base behind Gandhi had broken into factions. He was released
in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only two
years.


Salt Satyagraha (Salt March/Civil Disobedience Movement)
==========================================================
After his early release from prison for political crimes in 1924,
Gandhi continued to pursue 'swaraj' over the second half of the 1920s.
He pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December
1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominion status
or face a new campaign of non-cooperation with complete independence
for the country as its goal. After Gandhi's support for World War I
with Indian combat troops, and the failure of Khilafat movement in
preserving the rule of Caliph in Turkey, followed by a collapse in
Muslim support for his leadership, some such as Subhas Chandra Bose
and Bhagat Singh questioned his values and non-violent approach. While
many Hindu leaders championed a demand for immediate independence,
Gandhi revised his own call to a one-year wait, instead of two.

The British did not respond favourably to Gandhi's proposal. British
political leaders such as Lord Birkenhead and Winston Churchill
announced opposition to "the appeasers of Gandhi" in their discussions
with European diplomats who sympathised with Indian demands. On 31
December 1929, an Indian flag was unfurled in Lahore. Gandhi led
Congress in a celebration on 26 January 1930 of India's Independence
Day in Lahore. This day was commemorated by almost every other Indian
organisation. Gandhi then launched a new Satyagraha against the
British salt tax in March 1930. He sent an ultimatum in the form of a
letter personally addressed to Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India, on 2
March. Gandhi condemned British rule in the letter, describing it as
"a curse" that "has impoverished the dumb millions by a system of
progressive exploitation and by a ruinously expensive military and
civil administration... It has reduced us politically to serfdom."
Gandhi also mentioned in the letter that the viceroy received a salary
"over five thousand times India's average income." In the letter,
Gandhi also stressed his continued adherence to non-violent forms of
protest.

This was highlighted by the Salt March to Dandi from 12 March to 6
April, where, together with 78 volunteers, Gandhi marched 388 km from
Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself, with the declared
intention of breaking the salt laws. The march took 25 days to cover
240 miles with Gandhi speaking to often huge crowds along the way.
Thousands of Indians joined him in Dandi.

According to Sarma, Gandhi recruited women to participate in the salt
tax campaigns and the boycott of foreign products, which gave many
women a new self-confidence and dignity in the mainstream of Indian
public life. However, other scholars such as Marilyn French state that
Gandhi barred women from joining his civil disobedience movement
because Gandhi feared he would be accused of using women as a
political shield. When women insisted on joining the movement and
participating in public demonstrations, Gandhi asked the volunteers to
get permissions of their guardians and only those women who can
arrange child-care should join him. Regardless of Gandhi's
apprehensions and views, Indian women joined the Salt March by the
thousands to defy the British salt taxes and monopoly on salt mining.
On 5 May, Gandhi was interned under a regulation dating from 1827 in
anticipation of a protest that he had planned. The protest at
Dharasana salt works on 21 May went ahead without Gandhi. A horrified
American journalist, Webb Miller, described the British response thus:



This went on for hours until some 300 or more protesters had been
beaten, many seriously injured and two killed. At no time did they
offer any resistance. After Gandhi's arrest, the women marched and
picketed shops on their own, accepting violence and verbal abuse from
British authorities for the cause in the manner Gandhi inspired.

This campaign was one of Gandhi's most successful at upsetting British
hold on India; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.
However, Congress estimates put the figure at 90,000. Among them was
one of Gandhi's lieutenants, Jawaharlal Nehru.


Gandhi as folk hero
=====================
Indian Congress in the 1920s appealed to Andhra Pradesh peasants by
creating Telugu language plays that combined Indian mythology and
legends, linked them to Gandhi's ideas, and portrayed Gandhi as a
messiah, a reincarnation of ancient and medieval Indian nationalist
leaders and saints. The plays built support among peasants steeped in
traditional Hindu culture, according to Murali, and this effort made
Gandhi a folk hero in Telugu speaking villages, a sacred messiah-like
figure.

According to Dennis Dalton, it was Gandhi's ideas that were
responsible for his wide following. Gandhi criticised Western
civilisation as one driven by "brute force and immorality",
contrasting it with his categorisation of Indian civilisation as one
driven by "soul force and morality". Gandhi captured the imagination
of the people of his heritage with his ideas about winning "hate with
love". These ideas are evidenced in his pamphlets from the 1890s, in
South Africa, where too Gandhi was popular among the Indian indentured
workers. After he returned to India, people flocked to Gandhi because
he reflected their values.


Gandhi also campaigned hard going from one rural corner of the Indian
subcontinent to another. He used terminology and phrases such as
'Rama-rajya' from 'Ramayana', Prahlada as a paradigmatic icon, and
such cultural symbols as another facet of 'swaraj' and 'satyagraha'.
During Gandhi's lifetime, these ideas sounded strange outside India,
but they readily and deeply resonated with the culture and historic
values of his people.


Negotiations
==============
The government, represented by Lord Irwin, decided to negotiate with
Gandhi. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed in March 1931. The British
Government agreed to free all political prisoners, in return for the
suspension of the civil disobedience movement. According to the pact,
Gandhi was invited to attend the Round Table Conference in London for
discussions and as the sole representative of the Indian National
Congress. The conference was a disappointment to Gandhi and the
nationalists. Gandhi expected to discuss India's independence, while
the British side focused on the Indian princes and Indian minorities
rather than on a transfer of power. Lord Irwin's successor, Lord
Willingdon, took a hard line against India as an independent nation,
began a new campaign of controlling and subduing the nationalist
movement. Gandhi was again arrested, and the government tried and
failed to negate his influence by completely isolating him from his
followers.

In Britain, Winston Churchill, a prominent Conservative politician who
was then out of office but later became its prime minister, became a
vigorous and articulate critic of Gandhi and opponent of his long-term
plans. Churchill often ridiculed Gandhi, saying in a widely reported
1931 speech:



Churchill's bitterness against Gandhi grew in the 1930s. He called
Gandhi as the one who was "seditious in aim" whose evil genius and
multiform menace was attacking the British empire. Churchill called
him a dictator, a "Hindu Mussolini", fomenting a race war, trying to
replace the Raj with Brahmin cronies, playing on the ignorance of
Indian masses, all for selfish gain. Churchill attempted to isolate
Gandhi, and his criticism of Gandhi was widely covered by European and
American press. It gained Churchill sympathetic support, but it also
increased support for Gandhi among Europeans. The developments
heightened Churchill's anxiety that the "British themselves would give
up out of pacifism and misplaced conscience."


Round Table Conferences
=========================
During the discussions between Gandhi and the British government over
1931-32 at the Round Table Conferences, Gandhi, now aged about 62,
sought constitutional reforms as a preparation to the end of colonial
British rule, and begin the self-rule by Indians. The British side
sought reforms that would keep the Indian subcontinent as a colony.
The British negotiators proposed constitutional reforms on a British
Dominion model that established separate electorates based on
religious and social divisions. The British questioned the Congress
party and Gandhi's authority to speak for all of India. They invited
Indian religious leaders, such as Muslims and Sikhs, to press their
demands along religious lines, as well as B. R. Ambedkar as the
representative leader of the untouchables. Gandhi vehemently opposed a
constitution that enshrined rights or representations based on
communal divisions, because he feared that it would not bring people
together but divide them, perpetuate their status, and divert the
attention from India's struggle to end the colonial rule.

The Second Round Table conference was the only time Gandhi left India
between 1914 and his death in 1948. He was accompanied by his
secretary Mahadev Desai, son Devdas Gandhi and British supporter
Mirabehn. Gandhi declined the government's offer of accommodation in
an expensive West End hotel, preferring to stay in the East End, to
live among working-class people, as he did in India. Gandhi based
himself in a small cell-bedroom at his friend Muriel Lester's
"People's House" at Kingsley Hall for the three-month duration of his
stay. He was enthusiastically received by East Enders. Local children
gave him toys for his birthday and Lester noted that he would gently
place them on window sills and in carriages during his stay and took
them back to India. During this time, Gandhi also renewed his links
with the British vegetarian movement.


After Gandhi returned from the Second Round Table conference, he
started a new 'satyagraha'. Gandhi was arrested and imprisoned at the
Yerwada Jail, Pune. While he was in prison, the British government
enacted a new law that granted untouchables a separate electorate. It
came to be known as the Communal Award. In protest, Gandhi started a
fast-unto-death, while he was held in prison. The resulting public
outcry forced the government, in consultations with Ambedkar, to
replace the Communal Award with a compromise Poona Pact.


Congress politics
===================
In 1934, Gandhi resigned from Congress party membership. He did not
disagree with the party's position, but felt that if he resigned,
Gandhi's popularity with Indians would cease to stifle the party's
membership, which actually varied, including communists, socialists,
trade unionists, students, religious conservatives, and those with
pro-business convictions, and that these various voices would get a
chance to make themselves heard. Gandhi also wanted to avoid being a
target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily
accepted political accommodation with the Raj.

In 1936, Gandhi returned to active politics again with the Nehru
presidency and the Lucknow session of the Congress. Although Gandhi
wanted a total focus on the task of winning independence and not
speculation about India's future, he did not restrain the Congress
from adopting socialism as its goal. Gandhi had a clash with Subhas
Chandra Bose, who had been elected president in 1938, and who had
previously expressed a lack of faith in nonviolence as a means of
protest. Despite Gandhi's opposition, Bose won a second term as
Congress President, against Gandhi's nominee, Bhogaraju Pattabhi
Sitaramayya. Gandhi declared that Sitaramayya's defeat was his defeat.
Bose later left the Congress when the All-India leaders resigned en
masse in protest of his abandonment of the principles introduced by
Gandhi.


World War II and '' Quit India movement''
===========================================
Gandhi opposed providing any help to the British war effort and he
campaigned against any Indian participation in World War II. The
British government responded with the arrests of Gandhi and many other
Congress leaders and killed over 1,000 Indians who participated in
this movement. A number of violent attacks were also carried out by
the nationalists against the British government. While Gandhi's
campaign did not enjoy the support of a number of Indian leaders, and
over 2.5 million Indians volunteered and joined the British military
to fight on various fronts of the Allied Forces, the movement played a
role in weakening the control over the South Asian region by the
British regime and it ultimately paved the way for Indian
independence.

Gandhi's opposition to the Indian participation in World War II was
motivated by his belief that India could not be party to a war
ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom while that freedom was
denied to India itself. Gandhi also condemned Nazism and Fascism, a
view which won endorsement of other Indian leaders. As the war
progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, calling
for the British to 'Quit India' in a 1942 speech in Mumbai. This was
Gandhi's and the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at
securing the British exit from India. The British government responded
quickly to the Quit India speech, and within hours after Gandhi's
speech arrested Gandhi and all the members of the Congress Working
Committee. His countrymen retaliated the arrests by damaging or
burning down hundreds of government owned railway stations, police
stations, and cutting down telegraph wires.

In 1942, Gandhi now nearing age 73, urged his people to completely
stop co-operating with the imperial government. In this effort, Gandhi
urged that they neither kill nor injure British people but be willing
to suffer and die if violence is initiated by the British officials.
He clarified that the movement would not be stopped because of any
individual acts of violence, saying that the '"ordered anarchy"' of
'"the present system of administration"' was '"worse than real
anarchy."' Gandhi urged Indians to 'karo ya maro' ("do or die") in the
cause of their rights and freedoms.


Gandhi's arrest lasted two years, as he was held in the Aga Khan
Palace in Pune. During this period, Gandhi's longtime secretary
Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack, his wife Kasturba died after 18
months' imprisonment on 22 February 1944, and Gandhi suffered a severe
malaria attack. While in jail, he agreed to an interview with Stuart
Gelder, a British journalist. Gelder then composed and released an
interview summary, cabled it to the mainstream press, that announced
sudden concessions Gandhi was willing to make, comments that shocked
his countrymen, the Congress workers and even Gandhi. The latter two
claimed that it distorted what Gandhi actually said on a range of
topics and falsely repudiated the Quit India movement.

Gandhi was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of
his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to
die in prison and enrage the nation. Gandhi came out of detention to
an altered political scene - the Muslim League for example, which a
few years earlier had appeared marginal, "now occupied the centre of
the political stage" and the topic of Jinnah's campaign for Pakistan
was a major talking point. Gandhi and Jinnah had extensive
correspondence and the two men met several times over a period of two
weeks in September 1944 at Jinnah's house in Bombay, where Gandhi
insisted on a united religiously plural and independent India which
included Muslims and non-Muslims of the Indian subcontinent
coexisting. Jinnah rejected this proposal and insisted instead for
partitioning the subcontinent on religious lines to create a separate
Muslim homeland (later Pakistan). These discussions continued through
1947.

While the leaders of Congress languished in jail, the other parties
supported the war and gained organisational strength. Underground
publications flailed at the ruthless suppression of Congress, but it
had little control over events. At the end of the war, the British
gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian
hands. At this point, Gandhi called off the struggle, and around
100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's
leadership.


Partition and independence
============================
Gandhi opposed the partition of the Indian subcontinent along
religious lines. The Indian National Congress and Gandhi called for
the British to Quit India. However, the All-India Muslim League
demanded "Divide and Quit India." Gandhi suggested an agreement which
required the Congress and the Muslim League to co-operate and attain
independence under a provisional government, thereafter, the question
of partition could be resolved by a plebiscite in the districts with a
Muslim majority.

Jinnah rejected Gandhi's proposal and called for Direct Action Day, on
16 August 1946, to press Muslims to publicly gather in cities and
support his proposal for the partition of the Indian subcontinent into
a Muslim state and non-Muslim state. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the
Muslim League Chief Minister of Bengal - now Bangladesh and West
Bengal (excluding Cooch Behar), gave Calcutta's police special holiday
to celebrate the Direct Action Day. The Direct Action Day triggered a
mass murder of Calcutta Hindus and the torching of their property, and
holidaying police were missing to contain or stop the conflict. The
British government did not order its army to move in to contain the
violence. The violence on Direct Action Day led to retaliatory
violence against Muslims across India. Thousands of Hindus and Muslims
were murdered, and tens of thousands were injured in the cycle of
violence in the days that followed. Gandhi visited the most riot-prone
areas to appeal a stop to the massacres.


Archibald Wavell, the Viceroy and Governor-General of British India
for three years through February 1947, had worked with Gandhi and
Jinnah to find a common ground, before and after accepting Indian
independence in principle. Wavell condemned Gandhi's character and
motives as well as his ideas. Wavell accused Gandhi of harbouring the
single-minded idea to "overthrow British rule and influence and to
establish a Hindu raj", and called Gandhi a "malignant, malevolent,
exceedingly shrewd" politician. Wavell feared a civil war on the
Indian subcontinent, and doubted Gandhi would be able to stop it.

The British reluctantly agreed to grant independence to the people of
the Indian subcontinent, but accepted Jinnah's proposal of
partitioning the land into Pakistan and India. Gandhi was involved in
the final negotiations, but Stanley Wolpert states the "plan to carve
up British India was never approved of or accepted by Gandhi".

The partition was controversial and violently disputed. More than half
a million were killed in religious riots as 10 million to 12 million
non-Muslims (Hindus and Sikhs mostly) migrated from Pakistan into
India, and Muslims migrated from India into Pakistan, across the newly
created borders of India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan.

Gandhi spent the day of independence not celebrating the end of the
British rule, but appealing for peace among his countrymen by fasting
and spinning in Calcutta on 15 August 1947. The partition had gripped
the Indian subcontinent with religious violence and the streets were
filled with corpses. Gandhi's fasting and protests are credited for
stopping the religious riots and communal violence. His final fast
took place from 13-18 January 1948, just days before his
assassination.


                               Death
======================================================================
At 5:17 p.m. on 30 January 1948, Gandhi was with his grandnieces in
the garden of Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti), on his way to address a
prayer meeting, when Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, fired three
bullets into Gandhi's chest from a pistol at close range. According to
some accounts, Gandhi died instantly. In other accounts, such as one
prepared by an eyewitness journalist, Gandhi was carried into the
Birla House, into a bedroom. There, he died about 30 minutes later as
one of Gandhi's family members read verses from Hindu scriptures.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed his countrymen over the
All-India Radio saying:

Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there
is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or
how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father
of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that;
nevertheless, we will not see him again, as we have seen him for these
many years, we will not run to him for advice or seek solace from him,
and that is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for millions and
millions in this country.


Godse, a Hindu nationalist, with links to the Hindu Mahasabha and the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, made no attempt to escape; several other
conspirators were soon arrested as well. The accused were Nathuram
Vinayak Godse, Narayan Apte, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Shankar
Kistayya, Dattatraya Parchure, Vishnu Karkare, Madanlal Pahwa, and
Gopal Godse.

The trial began on 27May 1948 and ran for eight months before Justice
Atma Charan passed his final order on 10February 1949. The prosecution
called 149 witnesses, the defence none. The court found all of the
defendants except one guilty as charged. Eight men were convicted for
the murder conspiracy, and others were convicted for violation of the
Explosive Substances Act. Savarkar was acquitted and set free.
Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were sentenced to death by hanging
while the remaining six (including Godse's brother, Gopal) were
sentenced to life imprisonment.


Funeral and memorials
=======================
Gandhi's death was mourned nationwide. Over a million people joined
the five-mile-long funeral procession that took over five hours to
reach Raj Ghat from Birla house, where Gandhi was assassinated, and
another million watched the procession pass by. His body was
transported on a weapons carrier, whose chassis was dismantled
overnight to allow a high-floor to be installed so that people could
catch a glimpse of Gandhi's body. The engine of the vehicle was not
used; instead, four drag-ropes held by 50 people each pulled the
vehicle. All Indian-owned establishments in London remained closed in
mourning as thousands of people from all faiths and denominations and
Indians from all over Britain converged at India House in London.


Gandhi was cremated in accordance with Hindu tradition. His ashes were
poured into urns which were sent across India for memorial services.
Most of the ashes were immersed at the Sangam at Allahabad on 12
February 1948, but some were secretly taken away. In 1997, Tushar
Gandhi immersed the contents of one urn, found in a bank vault and
reclaimed through the courts, at the Sangam at Allahabad. Some of
Gandhi's ashes were scattered at the source of the Nile River near
Jinja, Uganda, and a memorial plaque marks the event. On 30 January
2008, the contents of another urn were immersed at Girgaum Chowpatty.
Another urn is at the palace of the Aga Khan in Pune (where Gandhi was
held as a political prisoner from 1942 to 1944) and another in the
Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Los Angeles.

The Birla House site where Gandhi was assassinated is now a memorial
called Gandhi Smriti. The place near Yamuna River where he was
cremated is the Rāj Ghāt memorial in New Delhi. A black marble
platform, it bears the epigraph "Hē Rāma" (Devanagari: 'हे ! राम' or,
'Hey Raam'). These are said to be Gandhi's last words after he was
shot.


                 Principles, practices, and beliefs
======================================================================
Gandhi's spirituality was greatly based on his embracement of the five
great vows of Jainism and Hindu Yoga philosophy, viz. 'Satya' (truth),
'ahimsa' (nonviolence), 'brahmacharya' (celibacy), 'asteya'
(non-stealing), and 'aparigraha' (non-attachment). He stated that
"Unless you impose on yourselves the five vows you may not embark on
the experiment at all." Gandhi's statements, letters and life have
attracted much political and scholarly analysis of his principles,
practices and beliefs, including what influenced him. Some writers
present Gandhi as a paragon of ethical living and pacifism, while
others present him as a more complex, contradictory and evolving
character influenced by his culture and circumstances.


Truth and Satyagraha
======================
Gandhi dedicated his life to discovering and pursuing truth, or
'Satya', and called his movement satyagraha, which means "appeal to,
insistence on, or reliance on the Truth." The first formulation of the
'satyagraha' as a political movement and principle occurred in 1920,
which Gandhi tabled as "Resolution on Non-cooperation" in September
that year before a session of the Indian Congress. It was the
'satyagraha' formulation and step, states Dennis Dalton, that deeply
resonated with beliefs and culture of his people, embedded him into
the popular consciousness, transforming him quickly into Mahatma.


Gandhi based 'Satyagraha' on the Vedantic ideal of self-realisation,
ahimsa (nonviolence), vegetarianism, and universal love. William
Borman states that the key to his 'satyagraha' is rooted in the Hindu
Upanishadic texts. According to Indira Carr, Gandhi's ideas on
'ahimsa' and 'satyagraha' were founded on the philosophical
foundations of Advaita Vedanta. I. Bruce Watson states that some of
these ideas are found not only in traditions within Hinduism, but also
in Jainism or Buddhism, particularly those about non-violence,
vegetarianism and universal love, but Gandhi's synthesis was to
politicise these ideas. His concept of 'satya' as a civil movement,
states Glyn Richards, are best understood in the context of the Hindu
terminology of Dharma and 'Ṛta'.

Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming
his own demons, fears, and insecurities. Gandhi summarised his beliefs
first when he said, "God is Truth." Gandhi would later change this
statement to "Truth is God." Thus, 'satya' (truth) in Gandhi's
philosophy is "God". Gandhi, states Richards, described the term "God"
not as a separate power, but as the Being (Brahman, Atman) of the
Advaita Vedanta tradition, a nondual universal that pervades in all
things, in each person and all life. According to Nicholas Gier, this
to Gandhi meant the unity of God and humans, that all beings have the
same one soul and therefore equality, that 'atman' exists and is same
as everything in the universe, ahimsa (non-violence) is the very
nature of this 'atman'.


The essence of Satyagraha is "soul force" as a political means,
refusing to use brute force against the oppressor, seeking to
eliminate antagonisms between the oppressor and the oppressed, aiming
to transform or "purify" the oppressor. It is not inaction but
determined passive resistance and non-co-operation where, states
Arthur Herman, "love conquers hate". A euphemism sometimes used for
Satyagraha is that it is a "silent force" or a "soul force" (a term
also used by Martin Luther King Jr. during his "I Have a Dream"
speech). It arms the individual with moral power rather than physical
power. Satyagraha is also termed a "universal force", as it
essentially "makes no distinction between kinsmen and strangers, young
and old, man and woman, friend and foe."

Gandhi wrote: "There must be no impatience, no barbarity, no
insolence, no undue pressure. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of
democracy, we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want
of faith in one's cause." Civil disobedience and non-co-operation as
practised under Satyagraha are based on the "law of suffering", a
doctrine that 'the endurance of suffering is a means to an end'. This
end usually implies a moral upliftment or progress of an individual or
society. Therefore, non-co-operation in Satyagraha is in fact a means
to secure the co-operation of the opponent consistently with truth and
justice.

While Gandhi's idea of 'satyagraha' as a political means attracted a
widespread following among Indians, the support was not universal. For
example, Muslim leaders such as Jinnah opposed the 'satyagraha' idea,
accused Gandhi to be reviving Hinduism through political activism, and
began effort to counter Gandhi with Muslim nationalism and a demand
for Muslim homeland. The untouchability leader Ambedkar, in June 1945,
after his decision to convert to Buddhism and the first Law and
Justice minister of modern India, dismissed Gandhi's ideas as loved by
"blind Hindu devotees", primitive, influenced by spurious brew of
Tolstoy and Ruskin, and "there is always some simpleton to preach
them". Winston Churchill caricatured Gandhi as a "cunning huckster"
seeking selfish gain, an "aspiring dictator", and an "atavistic
spokesman of a pagan Hinduism." Churchill stated that the civil
disobedience movement spectacle of Gandhi only increased "the danger
to which white people there [British India] are exposed."


Nonviolence
=============
Although Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of
nonviolence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a
large scale. The concept of nonviolence ('ahimsa') has a long history
in Indian religious thought, and is considered the highest dharma
(ethical value/virtue), a precept to be observed towards all living
beings ('sarvbhuta'), at all times ('sarvada'), in all respects
('sarvatha'), in action, words and thought. Gandhi explains his
philosophy and ideas about 'ahimsa' as a political means in his
autobiography 'The Story of My Experiments with Truth'.

Although Gandhi considered non-violence to be "infinitely superior to
violence", he preferred violence to cowardice. Gandhi added that he
"would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor
than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless
witness to her own dishonor."


Brahmacharya: abstinence from sex and food
============================================
Along with many other texts, Gandhi studied the Bhagavad Gita while in
South Africa. This Hindu scripture discusses jnana yoga, bhakti yoga
and karma yoga along with virtues such as non-violence, patience,
integrity, lack of hypocrisy, self restraint and abstinence. Gandhi
began experiments with these, and in 1906 at age 37, although married
and a father, he vowed to abstain from sexual relations.

Gandhi's experiment with abstinence went beyond sex, and extended to
food. He consulted the Jain scholar Rajchandra, whom he fondly called
Raychandbhai. Rajchandra advised him that milk stimulated sexual
passion. Gandhi began abstaining from cow's milk in 1912, and did so
even when doctors advised him to consume milk. According to Sankar
Ghose, Tagore described Gandhi as someone who did not abhor sex or
women, but considered sexual life as inconsistent with his moral
goals.

Gandhi tried to test and prove to himself his 'brahmacharya'. The
experiments began some time after the death of his wife in February
1944. At the start of his experiment, he had women sleep in the same
room but in different beds. He later slept with women in the same bed,
often naked. In April 1945, Gandhi referenced being sleeping with
several "women or girls" in a letter to Birla as part of the
experiments. According to the 1960s memoir of his grandniece Manu,
Gandhi feared in early 1947 that he and she may be killed by Muslims
in the run-up to India's independence in August 1947, and asked her
when she was 18 years old if she wanted to help him with his
experiments to test their "purity", for which she readily accepted.
Gandhi also shared his bed with 18-year-old Abha, wife of his
grandnephew Kanu. Gandhi would sleep with both Manu and Abha at the
same time. According to Vinay Lal, Gandhi slept naked with Manu and
Abha several times, in order to test his celibacy and his will to
abstain from committing sexual acts, in order to fulfill the
conditions he felt were required in order to become a 'brahmacharya.'

According to Sean Scalmer, Gandhi in his final year of life was an
ascetic, and his sickly skeletal figure was caricatured in Western
media. In February 1947, he asked his confidants such as Birla and
Ramakrishna if it was wrong for him to experiment his 'brahmacharya'
oath. Gandhi's public experiments, as they progressed, were widely
discussed and criticised by his family members and leading
politicians. However, Gandhi said that if he would not let Manu sleep
with him, it would be a sign of weakness. Some of his staff resigned,
including two of his newspaper's editors who had refused to print some
of Gandhi's sermons dealing with his experiments. Nirmalkumar Bose,
Gandhi's Bengali interpreter, for example, criticised Gandhi, not
because Gandhi did anything wrong, but because Bose was concerned
about the psychological effect on the women who participated in his
experiments. Veena Howard states Gandhi's views on brahmacharya and
religious renunciation experiments were a method to confront women
issues in his times.

Gandhi also supported alcohol abstinence, advocating Prohibition as
the only effective way to deal with alcohol usage.


                           Literary works
======================================================================
Gandhi was a prolific writer. His signature style was simple, precise,
clear and as devoid of artificialities. One of Gandhi's earliest
publications, 'Hind Swaraj', published in Gujarati in 1909, became
"the intellectual blueprint" for India's independence movement. The
book was translated into English the next year, with a copyright
legend that read "No Rights Reserved". For decades, Gandhi edited
several newspapers including 'Harijan' in Gujarati, in Hindi and in
the English language; 'Indian Opinion' while in South Africa and,
'Young India', in English, and 'Navajivan', a Gujarati monthly, on his
return to India. Later, 'Navajivan' was also published in Hindi.
Gandhi also wrote letters almost every day to individuals and
newspapers.

Gandhi also wrote several books, including his autobiography, 'The
Story of My Experiments with Truth (Gujarātī "સત્યના પ્રયોગો અથવા
આત્મકથા")', of which Gandhi bought the entire first edition to make
sure it was reprinted. His other autobiographies included: 'Satyagraha
in South Africa' about his struggle there, 'Hind Swaraj or Indian Home
Rule', a political pamphlet, and a paraphrase in Gujarati of John
Ruskin's 'Unto This Last' which was an early critique of political
economy. This last essay can be considered his programme on economics.
Gandhi also wrote extensively on vegetarianism, diet and health,
religion, social reforms, etc. Gandhi usually wrote in Gujarati,
though he also revised the Hindi and English translations of his
books. In 1934, Gandhi wrote 'Songs from Prison' while prisoned in
Yerawada jail in Maharashtra.

Gandhi's complete works were published by the Indian government under
the name 'The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi' in the 1960s. The
writings comprise about 50,000 pages published in about 100 volumes.
In 2000, a revised edition of the complete works sparked a
controversy, as it contained a large number of errors and omissions.
The Indian government later withdrew the revised edition.


                               Legacy
======================================================================
Gandhi is noted as the greatest figure of the successful Indian
independence movement against the British rule. He is also hailed as
the greatest figure of modern India. American historian Stanley
Wolpert described Gandhi as "India's greatest revolutionary
nationalist leader" and the greatest Indian since the Buddha. In 1999,
Gandhi was named "Asian of the century" by 'Asiaweek'. In a 2000 BBC
poll, he was voted as the greatest man of the millennium.

The word 'Mahatma', while often mistaken for Gandhi's given name in
the West, is taken from the Sanskrit words 'maha' (meaning 'Great')
and 'atma' (meaning 'Soul'). He was publicly bestowed with the
honorific title "Mahatma" in July 1914 at farewell meeting in Town
Hall, Durban. Rabindranath Tagore is said to have accorded the title
to Gandhi by 1915. In his autobiography, Gandhi nevertheless explains
that he never valued the title, and was often pained by it.
Innumerable streets, roads, and localities in India are named after
Gandhi. These include M.G.Road (the main street of a number of Indian
cities including Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Lucknow, Kanpur, Gangtok
and Indore), Gandhi Market (near Sion, Mumbai) and Gandhinagar (the
capital of the state of Gujarat, Gandhi's birthplace).

As of 2008, over 150 countries have released stamps on Gandhi. In
October 2019, about 87 countries including Turkey, the United States,
Russia, Iran, Uzbekistan, and Palestine released commemorative Gandhi
stamps on the 150th anniversary of his birth.
In 2014, Brisbane's Indian community commissioned a statue of Gandhi,
created by Ram V. Sutar and Anil Sutar in the Roma Street Parkland, It
was unveiled by Narendra Modi, then Prime Minister of India.

Florian asteroid 120461 Gandhi was named in his honour in September
2020. In October 2022, a statue of Gandhi was installed in Astana on
the embankment of the rowing canal, opposite the cult monument to the
defenders of Kazakhstan.

On 15 December 2022, the United Nations headquarters in New York
unveiled the statue of Gandhi. UN Secretary-General António Guterres
called Gandhi an "uncompromising advocate for peaceful co-existence."

On 11 April 2025, the Anglo-Boer War Museum in Bloemfontein, South
Africa launched a documentary called 'Caught in the Crossfire: Indian
Involvement in the South African War', and unveiled a bust of Gandhi.
This was part of the museum's initiatives to acknowledge the role of
Indian individuals -- soldiers, stretcher-bearers and civilians -- who
were caught in the conflict between the British and the Boers during
the Second Boer War.


Followers and international influence
=======================================
Gandhi influenced important leaders and political movements. Leaders
of the civil rights movement in the United States, including Martin
Luther King Jr., James Lawson, and James Bevel, drew from the writings
of Gandhi in the development of their own theories about nonviolence.
King said, "Christ gave us the goals and Mahatma Gandhi the tactics."
King sometimes referred to Gandhi as "the little brown saint."
Anti-apartheid activist and former President of South Africa, Nelson
Mandela, was inspired by Gandhi. Others include Steve Biko, Václav
Havel, and Aung San Suu Kyi.
In his early years, the former President of South Africa Nelson
Mandela was a follower of the nonviolent resistance philosophy of
Gandhi. Bhana and Vahed commented on these events as "Gandhi inspired
succeeding generations of South African activists seeking to end White
rule. This legacy connects him to Nelson Mandela...in a sense, Mandela
completed what Gandhi started."

Gandhi's life and teachings inspired many who specifically referred to
Gandhi as their mentor or who dedicated their lives to spreading his
ideas. In Europe, Romain Rolland was the first to discuss Gandhi in
his 1924 book 'Mahatma Gandhi', and Brazilian anarchist and feminist
Maria Lacerda de Moura wrote about Gandhi in her work on pacifism. In
1931, physicist Albert Einstein exchanged letters with Gandhi and
called him "a role model for the generations to come" in a letter
writing about him. Einstein said of Gandhi:

Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history.
He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation
war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and
devotion. The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human
being of the entire civilised world will probably be much more lasting
than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent
forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who
wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their
example and educational works. We may all be happy and grateful that
destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model
for the generations to come.

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked
the earth in flesh and blood.

Farah Omar, a political activist from Somaliland, visited India in
1930, where he met Gandhi and was influenced by Gandhi's non-violent
philosophy, which he adopted in his campaign in British Somaliland.

Lanza del Vasto went to India in 1936 intending to live with Gandhi;
he later returned to Europe to spread Gandhi's philosophy and founded
the Community of the Ark in 1948 (modelled after Gandhi's ashrams).
Madeleine Slade (known as "Mirabehn") was the daughter of a British
admiral who spent much of her adult life in India as a devotee of
Gandhi.

In addition, the British musician John Lennon referred to Gandhi when
discussing his views on nonviolence. In 2007, former US Vice-President
and environmentalist Al Gore drew upon Gandhi's idea of 'satyagraha'
in a speech on climate change. 44th President of the United States
Barack Obama said in September 2009 that his biggest inspiration came
from Gandhi. His reply was in response to the question: "Who was the
one person, dead or live, that you would choose to dine with?" Obama
added, "He's somebody I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr.
King with his message of nonviolence. He ended up doing so much and
changed the world just by the power of his ethics."

'Time' magazine named The 14th Dalai Lama, Lech Wałęsa, Martin Luther
King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Aung San Suu Kyi, Benigno Aquino Jr., Desmond
Tutu, and Nelson Mandela as 'Children of Gandhi' and his spiritual
heirs to nonviolence. The Mahatma Gandhi District in Houston, Texas,
United States, an ethnic Indian enclave, is officially named after
Gandhi.

Gandhi's ideas had a significant influence on 20th-century philosophy.
It began with his engagement with Romain Rolland and Martin Buber.
Jean-Luc Nancy said that the French philosopher Maurice Blanchot
engaged critically with Gandhi from the point of view of "European
spirituality." Since then philosophers including Hannah Arendt,
Etienne Balibar and Slavoj Žižek found that Gandhi was a necessary
reference to discuss morality in politics. American political
scientist Gene Sharp wrote an analytical text, Gandhi as a political
strategist, on the significance of Gandhi's ideas, for creating
nonviolent social change. Recently, in the light of climate change,
Gandhi's views on technology are gaining importance in the fields of
environmental philosophy and philosophy of technology.


Global days that celebrate Gandhi
===================================
In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly declared Gandhi's
birthday, 2 October, as "the International Day of Nonviolence". First
proposed by UNESCO in 1948, as the School Day of Nonviolence and Peace
(DENIP in Spanish), 30 January is observed as the School Day of
Nonviolence and Peace in schools of many countries. In countries with
a Southern Hemisphere school calendar, it is observed on 30 March.


Awards
========
'Time' magazine named Gandhi the Man of the Year in 1930. In the same
magazine's 1999 list of The Most Important People of the Century,
Gandhi was second only to Albert Einstein, who had called Gandhi "the
greatest man of our age." The University of Nagpur awarded him an
LL.D. in 1937. The Government of India awarded the annual Gandhi Peace
Prize to distinguished social workers, world leaders and citizens.
Nelson Mandela, the leader of South Africa's struggle to eradicate
racial discrimination and segregation, was a prominent non-Indian
recipient. In 2003, Gandhi was posthumously awarded with the World
Peace Prize. Two years later, he was posthumously awarded with the
Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo. In 2011, Gandhi topped the
'Time's' list of Top 25 Political Icons of All Time.

Gandhi did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize, although he was
nominated five times between 1937 and 1948, including the first-ever
nomination by the American Friends Service Committee, though Gandhi
made the short list only twice, in 1937 and 1947. Decades later, the
Nobel Committee publicly declared its regret for the omission and
admitted to deeply divided nationalistic opinion denying the award.
Gandhi was nominated in 1948 but was assassinated before nominations
closed. That year, the committee chose not to award the peace prize
stating that "there was no suitable living candidate", and later
research shows that the possibility of awarding the prize posthumously
to Gandhi was discussed and that the reference to no suitable living
candidate was to Gandhi. Geir Lundestad, Secretary of Norwegian Nobel
Committee in 2006 said, "The greatest omission in our 106-year history
is undoubtedly that Mahatma Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace
prize. Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace prize, whether Nobel
committee can do without Gandhi is the question." When the 14th Dalai
Lama was awarded the Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said
that this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi." In
the summer of 1995, the North American Vegetarian Society inducted
Gandhi posthumously into the Vegetarian Hall of Fame.


Father of the Nation
======================
Indians widely describe Gandhi as the Father of the Nation. Origin of
this title is traced back to a radio address (on Singapore radio) on 6
July 1944 by Subhash Chandra Bose where Bose addressed Gandhi as "The
Father of the Nation". On 28 April 1947, Sarojini Naidu during a
conference also referred Gandhi as "Father of the Nation". He is also
conferred the title "Bapu" (Gujarati: endearment for 'father',
'papa').


Film, theatre, and literature
===============================
* A five-hour, nine-minute long biographical documentary film,
'Mahatma: Life of Gandhi, 1869-1948', made by Vithalbhai Jhaveri in
1968, quoting Gandhi's words and using black and white archival
footage and photographs, captures the history of those times.
* Ben Kingsley portrayed him in Richard Attenborough's 1982 film
'Gandhi', which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was based
on the biography by Louis Fischer. The 1996 film 'The Making of the
Mahatma' documented Gandhi's time in South Africa and his
transformation from an inexperienced barrister to recognised political
leader.
* Gandhi was a central figure in the 2006 comedy film 'Lage Raho Munna
Bhai'. Jahnu Barua's 'Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara' (I did not kill
Gandhi), places contemporary society as a backdrop with its vanishing
memory of Gandhi's values as a metaphor for the senile forgetfulness
of the protagonist of his 2005 film, writes Vinay Lal.
* In the tale 'Le Jour du Jugement Dernier', in the collection 'Les
Mémoires de Satan et autres contes loufoques', by Pierre Cormon, God
tries to judge Gandhi at the Last Judgement but realises that the
character is more complex than he appears.
* In 1967, Gandhi was set to be featured on the album cover of one of
the best selling albums of The Beatles, 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band', however this idea was later cancelled due to respect for
Gandhi.
* The 1979 opera 'Satyagraha' by American composer Philip Glass is
loosely based on Gandhi's life. The opera's libretto, taken from the
Bhagavad Gita, is sung in the original Sanskrit.
* The 1995 Marathi play 'Gandhi Virudh Gandhi' explored the
relationship between Gandhi and his son Harilal. The 2007 film,
'Gandhi, My Father' was inspired on the same theme. The 1989 Marathi
play 'Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy' and the 1997 Hindi play 'Gandhi
Ambedkar' criticised Gandhi and his principles.
* Several biographers have undertaken the task of describing Gandhi's
life. Among them are D. G. Tendulkar with his 'Mahatma. Life of
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi' in eight volumes, Chaman Nahal's Gandhi
Quartet, and Pyarelal and Sushila Nayyar with their 'Mahatma Gandhi'
in 10 volumes. The 2010 biography, 'Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His
Struggle With India' by Joseph Lelyveld contained controversial
material speculating about Gandhi's sexual life. Lelyveld, however,
stated that the press coverage "grossly distort[s]" the overall
message of the book. The 2014 film 'Welcome Back Gandhi' takes a
fictionalised look at how Gandhi might react to modern day India. The
2019 play 'Bharat Bhagya Vidhata', inspired by Pujya Gurudevshri
Rakeshbhai and produced by Sangeet Natak Akademi and Shrimad
Rajchandra Mission Dharampur takes a look at how Gandhi cultivated the
values of truth and non-violence.
* "Mahatma Gandhi" is used by Cole Porter in his lyrics for the song
"You're the Top" which is included in the 1934 musical 'Anything
Goes'. In the song, Porter rhymes 'Mahatma Gandhi' with 'Napoleon
Brandy.'
* Gandhi is mentioned in the Kris Kristofferson song "They Killed
Him".


21st-century impact within India
==================================
India, with its rapid economic modernisation and urbanisation, has
rejected Gandhi's economics but accepted much of his politics and
continues to revere his memory. Reporter Jim Yardley notes that
"modern India is hardly a Gandhian nation, if it ever was one. His
vision of a village-dominated economy was shunted aside during his
lifetime as rural romanticism, and his call for a national ethos of
personal austerity and nonviolence has proved antithetical to the
goals of an aspiring economic and military power." By contrast, Gandhi
is "given full credit for India's political identity as a tolerant,
secular democracy."

Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is a national holiday in India, Gandhi
Jayanti. His image also appears on paper currency of all denominations
issued by Reserve Bank of India, except for the one rupee note.
Gandhi's date of death, 30 January, is commemorated as a Martyrs' Day
in India.

There are three temples in India dedicated to Gandhi. One is located
at Sambalpur in Odisha, the second at Nidaghatta village near Kadur in
Chikmagalur district of Karnataka, and the third at Chityal in the
district of Nalgonda, Telangana. The Gandhi Memorial in Kanyakumari
resembles central Indian Hindu temples and the Tamukkam or Summer
Palace in Madurai now houses the Mahatma Gandhi Museum.


Descendants
=============
Gandhi's children and grandchildren live in India and other countries.
Grandson Rajmohan Gandhi is a professor in Illinois and an author of
Gandhi's biography titled 'Mohandas', while another, Tarun Gandhi, has
authored several authoritative books on his grandfather. Another
grandson, Kanu Ramdas Gandhi (the son of Gandhi's third son Ramdas),
was found living at an old age home in Delhi despite having taught
earlier in the United States.


                              See also
======================================================================
* Gandhian socialism
* Gandhi cap
* Gandhi Teerth - Gandhi International Research Institute and Museum
for Gandhian study, research on Mahatma Gandhi and dialogue
* Inclusive Christianity
* List of civil rights leaders
* List of peace activists
* Seven Social Sins (a.k.a. Seven Blunders of the World)
* Trikaranasuddhi
* Composite nationalism
* Abdul Ghaffar Khan


                             References
======================================================================
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Books
=======
* Ahmed, Talat (2018). 'Mohandas Gandhi: Experiments in Civil
Disobedience'. .
*  (see book article)
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* Brown, Judith M. (2004). "Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand [Mahatma
Gandhi] (1869-1948)", 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography',
Oxford University Press.
* Brown, Judith M., and Anthony Parel, eds. (2012). 'The Cambridge
Companion to Gandhi'; 14 essays by scholars.
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Scholarly articles
====================
* Danielson, Leilah C. In My Extremity I Turned to Gandhi': American
Pacifists, Christianity, and Gandhian Nonviolence, 1915-1941". 'Church
History' 72.2 (2003): 361-388.
* Du Toit, Brian M. "The Mahatma Gandhi and South Africa." 'Journal of
Modern African Studies' 34#4 (1996): 643-660. .
* Gokhale, B. G. "Gandhi and the British Empire", 'History Today' (Nov
1969), 19#11 pp 744-751 online.
* Juergensmeyer, Mark. "The Gandhi Revival - A Review Article." 'The
Journal of Asian Studies' 43#2 (Feb. 1984), pp. 293-298.
*
* Kishwar, Madhu. "Gandhi on Women." 'Economic and Political Weekly'
20, no. 41 (1985): 1753-758. .
* Mohammed, Fevin "Gandhi the Great". (2013) (PhD in Historical
Research, Coordinated under Prof. Ram Prasad Sharma).
* Murthy, C. S. H. N., Oinam Bedajit Meitei, and Dapkupar Tariang.
"The Tale Of Gandhi Through The Lens: An Inter-Textual Analytical
Study Of Three Major Films-Gandhi, The Making Of The Mahatma, And
Gandhi, My Father." 'CINEJ Cinema Journal' 2.2 (2013): 4-37.
[https://cinej.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cinej/article/download/66/239
online]
* Power, Paul F. "Toward a Revaluation of Gandhi's Political Thought."
'Western Political Quarterly' 16.1 (1963): 99-108 excerpt.
* Rudolph, Lloyd I. "Gandhi in the Mind of America." 'Economic and
Political Weekly' 45, no. 47 (2010): 23-26. .


Primary sources
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*  (100 volumes). Free online access from Gandhiserve.
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                           External links
======================================================================
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[https://web.archive.org/web/20160701151650/http://www.dli.ernet.in/handle/2015/502501%3Bjsessionid%3DD74A55AB7FEF2464BAE33254D74FFA03
Gandhi's correspondence with the Indian government 1942-1944]
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