Every year on October 2nd, Gandhi Jayanti is celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as Mahatma Gandhi.
Along with many other national leaders, he was known as the Father of the Nation and led the Indian independence fight against British rule. Throughout the world, various civil rights movements drew inspiration from his nonviolent approach. Every year, the second Monday in October is observed as a national holiday to honour his contributions to the country. The United Nations also recognises this day as the International Day of Nonviolence.
Mahatma Gandhi summary
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known by his given name Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian nationalist and a 20th-century prophet of nonviolence. He was born in Porbandar, India, on October 2, 1869, and died in Delhi on January 30, 1948.
Gandhi was educated in a deeply religious household and took ahimsa and religious tolerance for granted (noninjury to all living beings). From 1888 to 1891, he studied law in England, and in 1893, he accepted a position with an Indian company in South Africa. He developed there as a powerful defender of Indian rights.
He initially used satyagraha, his method of nonviolent protest, in 1906. His achievements in South Africa earned him a reputation on a global scale, and after returning to India in 1915, he soon became well-known as the head of a widespread movement for Indian home rule. Gandhi possessed influence by 1920, a level never before obtained by an Indian political figure.
In 1920–22, 1930–34 (including his historic march to the sea to collect salt to protest a government monopoly), and 1940–42, he launched significant campaigns of nonviolent resistance. He transformed the Indian National Congress into an effective political tool of Indian nationalism. He also advocated for the “untouchables” of India’s lower castes throughout the 1930s (Dalits; officially designated as Scheduled Castes)
India gained dominion status in 1947, but Gandhi, who had long advocated for Hindu-Muslim unity, was deeply disappointed by the subcontinent’s division into India and Pakistan. He fasted to put an end to rioting in Calcutta (Kolkata) in September 1947. Gandhi, also known as the Mahatma (Great-Souled), had gained the love and support of countless numbers of people. A teenage Hindu zealot shot and killed him in January 1948.
October 2, 1869
In the western Indian city of Porbandar, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is born. His father is a capable administrator who serves as the city of Porbandar’s dewan (chief minister). His mother is totally engrossed in her faith. Vaishnavism, the worship of the Hindu god Vishnu, and Jainism, a morally strict Indian religion whose major tenets are nonviolence and the conviction that everything in the cosmos is everlasting, are strongly ingrained in the home where Mohandas grows up.
