MAHATMA GANDHI “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or Mahatma Gandhi was a renowned freedom activist and an authoritative or powerful political leader who had played an important role in India’s struggle for Independence against the British rule of India. CHILDHOOD Mohandas Gandhi was born on Oct ober 2 nd 1869. His parents were Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai. Porbandar, on the coast of Kathiawad in western India,The grandfather and father of Mohandas were famous for their ability and for their upright character. Putlibai, Karamchand Gandhi’s wife, was deeply religious. Every day she worshipped at the temple. She was a lovable and strong willed woman, widely respected for her wisdom and good sense. At Rajkot he was sent to a primary school. He was shy and did not mix easily with the other childre n. Every morning he went to school in time, and ran back home as soon as school was over. His books were his sole companions and he spent all his free time alone reading Mohandas was only thirteen when he was told that he was soon to be married. His parent has already chosen his bride. She lived in Porbandar and her name was kasturbai. She and Mohandas were about the same age.
MARRIAGE :The wedding day approached. Mohandas was dressed in new clothes. Everyone was gaily dressed and the house was decked with f lowers and banana leaves. The bridegroom, accompanied by the wedding party, left for Porbandar.
MAHATMA GANDHI AS LAWYER London-trained young barrister Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was struggling to establish a practice in his home town of Porbandar when he was offered a contract to work in the then Transvaal province of South Africa for a year. Gandhi in South Africa. Gandhi arrived in Durban, Natal (now kwaZuluNatal) in 18 93 to serve as legal counsel to a merchant Dada Abdulla. After struggling to find work as a lawyer in India, Gandhi obtained a one-year contract to perform legal services in South Africa. As he took on the most powerful governmental, economic, and political forces of his day, Gandhi transformed himself from a modest civil rights lawyer into a tireless freedom fighter. MAHATMA GANDHI FACED HUMILIATION On the night of June 7, 1893, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a young lawyer then, was thrown off the train’s first class “whitesonly” compartment at Pietermaritzburg station in South Africa for refusing to give up his seat. A white man had objected to Gandhi travelling in the first class coach in spite of the latter possessing a valid ticket. When Gandhi refused to move to the rear end of the train, he was thrown out. He had stayed at the station that night shivering in cold and the bitter incident had played a major role in Gandhi’s decision to stay on in South Africa and fight the racial discrimination being fac ed by Indians there.
CHAMPARAN SATHYAGRAHA When Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915 and saw peasants in Northern India oppressed by Indigo planters, he tried to use the same methods that he had used in South Africa to organize mass uprisings by people to protest against KHED SATHAYGRAHA In Kheda injustice , Gujarat, the peasants were frequently plagued by poverty, famines, scant resource, untouchability, alcoholism and British discrimination. The famine of Chhappania Akal and some subsequent famines had destroyed the agrarian economy of the region and the peasants were still dying out of starvation. The Bombay Presidency increased the taxes in 1917 18 by 23%.
KHILAFIT MOVEMENT The Khilafat movement (19191924) was an agitation by Indian Muslims allied with In nationalism in the years following World War I. Its purpose was to pressure the British government to preserve the authority of the Ottoman Sultan as Caliph of I JALLIANWALA BAGH T he Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in which several hundreds of people were killed on this day in 1919 as a result of indiscriminate firing by the colonial forces, completed 102 years on Tuesday. The British had banned gatherings at the time and to punish civilians for their ‘disobedience’, Brigadier General Reginald Dyer ordered the army to fire into a crowd of thousands of unarmed Indians who had come together to celebrate the festival of Baisakhi, unaware of the order. QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT The Quit India Movement also known as India August Movement or Bharat Chodo Andolan was laun ched at the Bombay session of the All . India Congress Committee (AICC) by Mahatma Gandhi on August 8, 1942.The protest was initiated to demand an end to the British rule in India GANDHIJI AS JOURNALIST According to Chalapathi Raju, himself an eminent editor, Gandhi was probably the greatest journalist of all time, and the weeklies he ran and edited were probably the greatest weeklies the world has known. He published no advertisement; at the same time he did not want his news papers to run at a loss. He had gained considerable experience in South Africa, where he had taken over in 1904 the editorship of Indian Opinion and published it in English, Tamil and Gujarati, sometimes running the press himself. Young India and Harijan be came powerful vehicles of his views on all subjects. He wrote on all subjects. He wrote simply and clearly but forcefully, with passion and burning indignation. One of the objects of a newspaper, he said, is to understand the popular feeling and give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments, and the third is to expose popular defects fearlessly. IMPRISONMENT On March 10, 1922, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was arrested on charges of sedition by British officials in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. He was sentenced to six years in prison for his involvement in protesting the British colonial government in India. Gandhi, nicknamed “Mahatma,” meaning “great soul,” served two years before being released for medical reasons (he had appendicitis).
SABARMATI ASHRAM Sabarmati Ashram, formerly known as ‘Satyagraha Ashram”, situated in Ahmedabad at the Kocharab Bungalow of Jivanlal Desai, a barrister. Later on it w as shifted to the banks of Sabarmati river and then it came to be a nown as ‘Sabarmati Ashram’. Gandhi stayed at the Ashram from 1915 to 1933 later on the Ashram was disbanded. The Ashram is a witness to many important historical events. ASSASSINATION On 29 January one of the fanatics, a man in his thirties named Nathuram Godse, returned to Delhi, armed with a Beretta automatic pistol. About 5pm in the afternoon of the next day, the 78yearold Gandhi, frail from fasting, was being helped across the gardens of Birla House by his greatness on his way to a prayer meeting when Nathuram Godse emerged from the admiring crowd, bowed to him and shot him three times at pointblank range in the stomach and chest. Gandhi raised his hands in front of his face in the conventional Hindu gesture of greeting, almost if he was welcoming his murderer, and slumped to the ground, mortally wounded. CONCLUSION Gandhi felt it was his responsibility to fight for India’s rights. Mahatma Gandhi was important because he led India into freedom from the British. Also, he influenced many people and places other than India. He changed history by protesting non violently and gaining independence for India. Gandhi is important to us today because he influenced Martin Luther King, so now rights. Americans have equal .
Jennifer (Internship)
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