Gandhi, Mahatma (1869–1948)

MAHATMA GANDHI will be remembered as the architect of India's independence and the pioneer of nonviolence as a form of political action. Gandhi, a Hindu, was born in 1869 in the state of Gujarat, western India. His family sent him to London, England, to study law and, although he returned to Bombay, he left to live and work in South Africa in 1907. There, he worked ceaselessly to improve the rights of the immigrant Indians by taking part in passive protests against the government's discriminatory policies. It was there that he developed his creed of passive resistance against injustice or satyagraha, meaning “truth force,” and began to be jailed as a result of his protests. Before he returned to India, he had radically changed the ...