Great Leaders - Gandhi

Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1869 in British-controlled India and died in 1948. He became a twentieth century political and spiritual leader of the Indian movement for independence from British colonial occupation. He launched Satyagraha, or resistance to oppression by mass civil disobedience, meaning peaceful non-cooperation with the enemy. This was based on ahimsa, the yogic principle of non-harmfulness to other beings. When this achieved independence, India's example motivated civil rights movements in many other countries and Gandhi became an inspirational figure to many peoples.

In India Gandhi is titled Father of the Nation and his birthday is a national holiday on 2 October every year. In 2007 the United Nations unanimously declared 2 October 2 to be the "International Day of Non-Violence."

As a trained lawyer, Gandhi started trying his ideas of peaceful civil disobedience in the Indian community's struggle for civil rights in South Africa, at that time also a British colony. Back in India, he rallied poor farmers against oppressive taxation and general racial discrimination. As leader of the Indian National Congress, Gandhi carried on broad campaigns for reducing poverty, for liberating women, for religious and ethnic tolerance, and to end the caste problems of Untouchability and exclusion. He also strove for Indian economic self-sufficiency and above all Swaraj, the political independence of India as a nation state.

Gandhi led Indians in the famous refusal of the salt tax on the 400 kilometre (Dandi Salt March in 1930, and in a public demand for the British to leave India in 1942. Gandhi's actions led to repeated imprisonment both in South Africa and later in India.

Gandhi practised non-violence and truthfulness, even in very challenging circumstances. Following Hindu philosophy, he lived a simple life, setting up a self-sufficient ashram, making his own clothes of Indian dhoti and shawl, and enjoying a healthy vegetarian diet. He also practised strict fasting for purification and protest.

Ironically, a Hollywood film was made of his life, with Gandhi portrayed by a Westerner in makeup.