Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in 1869 in Porbandar, in present-day Gujarat, into a Hindu merchant family. His father held administrative posts in princely states; his mother was religious and influenced the household through practices of fasting and self-discipline. Gandhi grew up in an environment where Hindu, Jain and other religious traditions met.

Gandhi married Kasturba as a teenager, as was customary in his community, and went to London in 1888 to study law. He qualified as a barrister and returned to India, but settled as a lawyer in South Africa in 1893. There he encountered discrimination against Indians and developed political networks; his education, caste background and later public position differed from those of many workers he mobilised.

In South Africa, from 1906 Gandhi developed satyagraha, a method he described as holding to truth and resisting without violence. Participants disobeyed particular laws and requirements, accepted arrest, and organised campaigns, petitions and boycotts. The practice changed over time and also involved negotiation; for Gandhi, non-violence was both a political strategy and a moral discipline.

After returning to India in 1915, Gandhi became a central organiser of the independence movement. He supported non-cooperation campaigns, spinning and the wearing of khadi, linking political action to self-sufficiency and reform of daily life. The 1930 Salt March protested the British monopoly and tax system by making salt; it led to arrests and attracted widespread attention.

Gandhi organised campaigns through mass meetings, fasting, travel and personal correspondence, and sought to maintain discipline and non-violence. He opposed colonial rule and called for the Quit India movement in 1942. He also mediated during the violence surrounding the partition of British India. His views on religion, caste, gender, sexuality and the position of Black South Africans changed over time and remain subjects of criticism and historical study.

Gandhi lived during the expansion and crisis of the British Empire, when India was under colonial rule and political representation was unequal. Railways, the press and new associations connected regions, while taxes and laws shaped everyday life. The First and Second World Wars changed imperial relationships; nationalist movements in Asia and Africa increasingly challenged European claims to power.

India was religiously, linguistically and socially diverse, with Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian and other communities. Caste shaped access and status in many settings, while reformers and political organisations advanced different proposals. The Indian National Congress, Muslim political organisations, labour movements and regional leaders did not always share the same aims. Gandhi’s appeal to moral unity coexisted with real conflicts over representation and power.

Gandhi’s campaigns brought large numbers of people into organised political action and made civil disobedience a visible means of challenging colonial rule. British authorities responded with arrests, bans and, at times, negotiations. His role was influential, but independence resulted from many movements, economic and international circumstances, and political negotiations; the 1947 partition brought mass violence and forced migration.

Activists in other countries later studied his non-violent strategies, while historians and critics also discuss their limitations. Gandhi’s early statements about Black South Africans contained racist hierarchies; his views on caste and his sexual experiments are also controversial. Assessments differ over the significance of changes in his views and over how far his approach could address the structural inequality faced by marginalised groups.

Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi on 30 January 1948 by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist who objected to his efforts at reconciliation with Muslims. His death came shortly after the independence and partition of British India, amid continuing communal violence. His funeral and commemorations drew wide public attention, and his writings and speeches remained subjects of political and religious interpretation.

Gandhi’s methods of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance influenced, among others, Martin Luther King Jr. and anti-colonial activists. In India he is commemorated as a major independence leader, but his legacy is not an uncontested national story. Historians discuss both the practical force of his mass politics and its contradictions, the varied contributions of others, and the enduring consequences of caste and partition.