by Andy Hill
Gandhi
March 9, 2011 in by Andy Hill
Mahatma Gandhi, India’s Father of the Nation, led the country’s independence movement through ‘Satyagraha’, resistance to oppression through mass civil disobedience, and ‘ahimsa’, total non-violence. He has inspired movements for civil rights across the world.
Born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, Kathiawar in western Indian state of Gujarat, to Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai, he was married at the age of 13 to 14-year old Kasturbai Makhanji. He had four sons.
In 1921, he assumed the leadership of the Indian National Congress and led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, for expanding women’s rights, for building religious and ethnic amity, for ending untouchability, and above all for achieving the independence of India from foreign domination.
Gandhi, a practitioner of non-violence and truth, advocated that others follow the principles. He lived modestly and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and social protest.
The Ghandi prefects 2010/11
