Father of The Nation

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

   Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, greatly know as Mahatma Gandhi was born in Porbandar, Gujarat on 2nd October 1869. His father Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi was the Chief Minister of Porbandar and his mother Putlibai, a religious person who was a fourth wife to Uttamchand Gandhi. Mohandas Gandhi was the fourth and last child for Uttamchand Gandhi and Putlibai.

Mohandas did his schooling in Rajkot and was a mediocre student in studies. When he was still in his high school, Gandhi married Kasturba Makhanji at an age of 13. They had four sons Harilal, Ramdas, Manilal and Devdas. In 1885, his father Uttamchand Gandhi died. Then Mohandas went to England to qualify as a Barrister and to help his family to lead a comfortable life.

At the age 18, Gandhi enrolled in The Inner Temple and great opportunities to explore new things and to reflect on the philosophy and religion of his own country. He got interested in studying different religions and vegetarianism. He passed his examination and became a bar on 1891. Then he flies back to india and failed to establish his legal practice in India. Then he got an offer from Dada Abdulla & Company, an Indian firm in Natal, South Africa.

Gandhi had a bitter experience of racial discrimination, On one occasion he was thrown from a first class train carriage, because he was ‘coloured’. Then he decides to fight against injustice of racial segregation and united all the Indian who have settled in South Africa from different languages, communities and religions. Gandhi found Natal Indian Congress in 1893. 

He found the concept of Satyagraha and set an ashram in South Africa. Gandhi organized a protest against unfair Asiatic Regulation Bill of 1906. And  he fought against many laws and organized a march from New Castle to Transvaal without permit and courting arrest. He travelled to South Africa as a young, inexperienced barrister, but returned to India as Mahatma in 1915.

Gandhi travelled all around India for one year to study India and her people. He established an ashram on the bank of Sabarmati river near Ahmedabad, called as Satyagraha Ashram. His first Satyagraha was against the British government for the rights of peasants on indigo plantations at Champaran, Bihar in 1917. The British ordered Gandhi to leave Champaran, but he refused and said "British could not order me about in my own country". Then he released without bail and the case against him was withdrawn.

From 1921, Gandhi started to wear a loin cloth to identify himself as a poor and to spread the khadi, hand spun cloth. Then he started a movement called "Swadeshi" to advise the use of the products made in the country. He asked all the people of India to boycott the foreign cloth and to promote the khadi and hand spun cloth to create work for the villagers. 

On march 12, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi made a historical salt march from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi with many volunteers. This was the important non-violent movement of Indian freedom struggle. Gandhi was arrested for breaking the law and thousands of men and women were imprisoned. Gandhi flew to London to attend a Round Table Conference to have a discussion with the British, but the discussion was unsuccessful.

A hope of the people for freedom under Gandhi’s leadership was rising high. In 1942, Gandhi started "Quit India" movement fight for the freedom from the British. For that Gandhi and other leaders of Congress were imprisoned in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune and held there for two years. Three months before his release on Feb 22 1944, Kasturba Gandhi died in the same prison at the age of 62 which was a big blow for Gandhi and he was released in May 1944.

Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fundamentalist opposed Gandhi's non-violent acceptance and tolerance of all religions, had so many attempts to assassinate Gandhi. The British plan to partition the British ruled-India, into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India which was opposed by Gandhi. But the political congress party ignored his concern and accepted the partition proposals by the British. India celebrated its Independence Day on 15th August 1947.

On 30th Jan 1948, Gandhiji, on his way to the prayer meeting at Birla House, New Delhi, fell to the bullets fired by Nathuram Vinayak Godse. The world was horrified by the death of a man nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Godse and his co-conspirators were imprisoned and executed in Ambala Jail, on 15th Nov 1949.

Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times, he never received it. In the year of his death, 1948, the Prize was not awarded, the stated reason being that “there was no suitable living candidate” that year. It was a loss to the Nobel prize, not to Gandhi.

Gandhi has inspired many, including Martin Luther King in the United States, Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko in South Africa, and Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar.

Famous Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi:

Be the change that you wish to see in the world. ― Mahatma Gandhi

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. ― Mahatma Gandhi 

Live as if you were to die tomorrow; learn as if you were to live forever. ― Mahatma Gandhi

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. ― Mahatma Gandhi

Quotes on Mahatma Gandhi by famous people who are inspired by him:

Generations to come will scarcely believe that such a one as this (GANDHI) walked the earth in flesh and blood. I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. - Albert Einstein

If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought, and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore him at our own risk. - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In my life, I have always looked to Mahatma Gandhi as an inspiration, because he embodies the kind of transformational change that can be made when ordinary people come together to do extraordinary things. - Barack Obama, President, United States 

Millions in all countries mourned Gandhi’s death as a personal loss. They did not quite know why; they did not quite know what he stood for. But he was ‘a good man’ and good men are rare. - Louis Fischer