legacy_mini_button
 

Name:Mahatma Ghandi
Life Span: October 2nd, 1869- January 30, 1948
Country: India
Occupation: Lawyer/Spiritual Leader
Best known for: Nonviolent Protests, Satyagraha Campaigns, and liberating India from the control of Great Britain.
Influenced by: His mother
His exposure to many types of peoples, beliefs and religions

Timeline:

1869-1880:
Ghandi is born to Karamchand and Putlibai Gandhi in Porbandar, India. His family then moved to Rajkot, and Ghandi entered primary school. He is betrothed to Kasturba Makanji.

1881-1890:
Ghandi enters high school in Rajkot. He marries Kasturba at the age of 13. He was accepted into Samaldas College, Bhavnagar, Kathiawad but found it to difficult and remained only one term. His first son is born.

1891-1900:
Ghandi traveled to England to study law, but returned after being called to bar. He began a law practice in Bombay and Rajkot. He then traveled to South Africa to practice in an Indian law firm there, and found himself to all kinds of racism due to the color of his skin. He was persuaded to stay in South Africa by an Indian colony to do public work and earn a living as a lawyer. He then drafted his first petition sent to the South African legislature, and organized the Natal Indian Congress. After returning to India for six months, he brought his wife and children with him to Natal, and was mobbed upon disembarkation for what Europeans believed he wrote about South Africa while in India. He then organized the Indian Ambulance Corps for the British in the Boer War.

1901-1910:
Ghandi returned to India with family, and traveled extensively upon his return. He opened a law office in Johannesburg, and established a weekly journal, the Indian Opinion. He established Indian Ambulance Corps for the Zulu Rebellion, and took a vow of continence for life. He then had his first satyagraha campaign in protest against proposed Asiatic ordinance directed against Indian immigrants in Transvaal. Finally he sailed to England to present India’s case to the Colonial Secretary, and then organized a second satyagraha to campaign against compulsory registration of the Asians (the “Black Act”). Ghandi was then sentenced to two months in jail for instigating the satyagraha, serving his first sentence in prison. However, a compromise was made between Ghandi and General Smuts at Pretoria, and he was released. For reaching this settlement with Smuts, he was attacked by an Indian extremist, Mir Alam. After Smuts broke the agreement, the second satyagraha campaign began with a bonfire of registration certificates. Ghandi was imprisoned a second time for this, and was sentenced to three months in Volksrust and Pretoria jails.

1911-1920:
Ghandi helped campaign against the nullification of marriages not celebrated by Christian rites, with his wife Kasturba and other women being sentenced for crossing the Transvaal border without permits. His third satyagraha campaign begun by leading the "great march" of 2,000 Indian miners from Newcastle across the Transvaal border in Natal. Ghandi was then arrested three times in four days sentence to three months, and then kept in jail for a few days, then moved to Bloemfontein in Orange Free State. Ghandi was then released unconditionally. He went on a 14 day fast for the moral lapse of members of the Phoenix settlement. He organized the Indian Ambulance Corps in England, but was forced to return to India due to pleurisy. Ghandi secured the removal of customs harassment of passengers at Viramgam, the first developing satyagraha campaign in India. He then led a successful satyagraha campaign for the rights of peasants on indigo plantations in Champaran. He also defied an order to leave area in April, and was arrested at Motihari and then tried, but his case was withdrawn. Ghandi led a mill worker’s strike, and was successful. Led another satyagraha campaign for peasants in Kheda. He then attended a conference at Delhi and agreed that Indians should be recruited for World War I. He began recruiting, but became very ill. In the spring, the Rowlatt Bills passed, and in protest, the first all-Indian Satyagraha followed. After this, he organized a nation-wide hartal. Ghandi then fasted at Sabarmati for three days as punishment for violence and the suspended satyagraha campaign, which he called a miscalculation because people were not disciplined enough. Ghandi was the elected as the president of the All-India Home Rule League.

1921-1930:
Gave up wearing clothes and resorted to wearing only a loincloth in devotion to simplicity. Fasted at Bombay for 5 days for communal rioting. There then was mass civil disobedience, and Ghandi invested with “sole executive authority” on behalf of Congress. It was then suspended however, due to violence at ChauriChaura, and Ghandi took another 5 day fast of penance. He was then arrested for sedition in Young India (his journal), pleaded guilty, and charged with a six year sentence. While in jail, he wrote part of his autobiography, and a satyagraha for South Africa. The next year, he was unconditionally released from prison, and operated on for appendicitis. Soon after, began a 21-day “great fast.” He then had another 7 day fast, a year later. In December of 1928, Ghandi called for independence within one year, without which would lead to another all-Indian satyagraha. Again arrested, for burning foreign cloth. The next December, a third all-Indian satyagraha began, along with a boycott of the legislature, and a declaration of independence. January 26th was made National Independence day. Soon began the historic salt march 200 miles to sea at Dandi, and broke the salt law by taking salt from the seashore. He was then arrested and thrown in jail without trial.

1931-1940:
Soon released from jail. The Ghandi-Irwin Pact was signed, which ended civil disobedience. Attended the second Round Table conference in London. Upon returning to India, he renewed the satyagraha campaign, and once again was arrested. Soon began the perpetual “fast unto death” while in prison, which was concluded when the British signed the “Yeravda Pact” Began another fast, of 21 days in protest of the untouchable caste, and released from prison. After disbanding an ashram at Sarambati for use of removing the untouchable caste, he was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison. Again began a fast in protest against being prohibited from working on untouchable’s case while in prison by British. Was released and brought to a hospital for poor health. In the summer, there were three separate assassination attempts on his life. Fasted again, and his health declined. He moved to Bombay to recover, and soon traveled to Seagon, deciding to settle there. Began another fast unto death as part of another satyagraha campaign, which ended 4 days later when he Viceroy was appointed arbitrator.

1941-1950:
A “Quit-India” resolution was passed, the final nation-wide satyagraha campaign, with Ghandi as leader. He was arrested along with Kasturba. He began a 21-day fast to speed up negotiations between Viceroy and Indian leaders. Kasturba died while in jail at the age of 74 from pneumonia. Ghandi’s health declined, and was released from jail. Began to attempt to lessen Hindu-Muslim tension. Began to fast and pray to stop violence. In January 1948, a bomb exploded during his prayer meeting at Birla House, in Delhi. Ten days later he was assassinated at the age of 78 in Birla House by Nathuram Vinayak Godse.

 

 
 

Mahatma Ghandi (born Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi) was born into the Hindu Modh family on October 2nd, 1869 in a small port town named Porbandar on the west coast of British India. His parents were Karamchand and Putlibai Ghandi. His mother was the fourth wife of his father. Karamchand was the Prime Minister of Porbandar, and was mother a Hindu of the Pranami Vaishnava order. Ghandi himself was born into the vaishya, or business caste. Ghandi was brought up exposed to all major religions, but practiced the Hindu religion. Because of this fact though, he learned all the major idesa of tolerance between religions, and the tenets of non-injuy to all living things. He was bethroted and married to Kasturba Makanji by the age thirteen, and they had four sons together. Throughout his life he lead many nonvionlent protests, fasts, and satyagraha campains. He was eventually assaasinated at the age of 78 in Birla House in Delhi by Nathuram Vinayak Godse.

Ghandi was a lawyer who dedicated his life to helping others. He is attributed with the“modern tradition of non-violent action for change” by the Dalai Lama. He worked towards, and succeeded in changing the Pass Laws in South Africa, which controlled the movements of blacks and others of mixed decent under the apartheid. Ghandi was never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, although many believe he should have.

Ghandi dedicated his life to trying to form an independent India, free from British control, and succeeded. Ghandi also was able to change some of the laws against the untouchables in the Hindu religion. He strongly believed in equality for everyone, and on some occasions, he and his followers did the work of the untouchables, to signify his belief in equality. He wanted to stay on the same level as the rest of his people in India, and he did this by staying in poverty, though he had the means to attain wealth. Because of his stubbornness on this matter, someone once said “It costs a great deal of money to keep Ghandi living in poverty.”

Ghandi is now known as Mahatma Ghandi, rather then his birth name, Mohandas, after having changed it later in life. Mahatma means “great soul.” Ghandi began the non-violence movement, which still lives on today, as his legacy. However, Ghandi had wildly inconsistent and a senseless view on nonviolence at times. Some believe that Ghandi’s domestic agenda was to close Indian textile mills, their only source of production. This would have caused massive job loses and hunger. Because of India’s already large-scale poverty, this would have devastated. However, Ghandi’s non-violence movement was very successful, primarily due to the fact that England had consented to grant India independence after World War II. His respect for all living things was often threatened, having once, in a fit of rage, said “I would not flinch from sacrificing a million lives for India’s liberty.” He was also known to have a “fierce joy of annihilation,” and a “ruthless determination to destroy pleasure wherever he saw it.”

>>back to top

 
DID YOU KNOW?
-Throughout his lifetime, Ghandi had spent 2,338 days in jail.
-When he was a child, he was afraid of the dark.
-He influenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and many others.
-He married at the age of 13.