Who was gandhi and what did he do?

Answer 1

Mahatma Gandhi (born name Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) (October 2, 1869 - January 30, 1948) was the most prominent political and spiritual leader during the movement for India's independence in the 20th century. Although President of the Indian National Congress (1925-34), he never held government office.

After early civil-rights activities as a lawyer in South Africa, Gandhi returned to India in 1914, where he became prominent in the opposition to British rule and was frequently imprisoned. By 1942, as independence for India drew near, he cooperated with the British despite his opposition to the partition of the sub-continent. In political terms Gandhi's main achievement was to turn the small, upper-middle-class Indian National Congress movement into a mass movement. In intellectual terms his emphasis was upon the force of truth and non-violence (ahimsa) in the struggle against evil. His acceptance of partition and his concern over the treatment of Muslims in India created enemies among extremist Hindus. One such, Nathuram Godse, assassinated him in Delhi in 1948.

Widely revered before and after his death, he was known as the Mahatma (Sanskrit, 'Great Soul') . He was also known as "The Father of the Nation" and "Bapu"(father). "Gandhi Jayanti" is a national holiday celebrated each year in India on his birthday, October 2. In 2007, The United Nations General Assembly declared October 2 as the International Day of Non-Violence.

More on Gandhi

Mohandas K. Gandhi was a practitioner of what the West calls Hinduism. His religious scruples demanded that no person harm another, a concept founded in Hinduism's practice and tenet of Ahimsa. He was born in India in 1869. He studied law and embarked on a legal career in South Africa, where he was involved in the struggle for civil rights for individuals the British rulers called "coloreds" : nonwhite, nonblack, mainly Asian residents. He returned to India and was a major figure in the movement seeking independence from Great Britain. He employed nonviolent tactics that would be later copied by Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement for blacks in America during the 1950s and 1960s. Gandhi's work led to the independence of two countries carved out of the subcontinent in 1947, India and Pakistan (in the 1970s, East Pakistan declared itself separate from West Pakistan, becoming the nation of Bangladesh). Although Gandhi never took government office, he remained an important spiritual and political force in India until his assassination in 1948. His spiritual approach to the civil rights and independence movements, as well as to his daily life, earned him the honorific "Mahatma," loosely meaning, "great spirit."

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi- 2 October 1869 - 30 January 194 was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was committed to pacifism, that there should be no violence