Statue of Mahatma Gandhi

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a prominent Indian activist who led the Indian independence movement against British rule. He employed nonviolent civil disobedience to achieve this goal, inspiring movements for civil rights and freedom across the globe. Born in Gujarat, India, into a Hindu merchant caste family, Gandhi studied law at London's Inner Temple before becoming an expatriate lawyer in South Africa. There, he first used nonviolent resistance as a means of fighting for civil rights among Indian communities. After returning to India in 1915, Gandhi began organizing peasants and laborers to protest excessive land taxes and discrimination. He soon became the leader of the Indian National Congress in 1921, launching nationwide campaigns for various social causes and self-rule. Gandhi's famous Dandi Salt March in 1930 drew attention to the salt tax imposed by Britain, while his Quit India campaign in 1942 called for British withdrawal. Gandhi was imprisoned multiple times throughout his life, both in South Africa and India, due to his activism. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient community, wearing traditional Indian clothing woven on a charkha, and ate simple vegetarian meals. Gandhi also undertook long fasts as a means of self-purification and political protest. However, Gandhi's vision of an independent India was challenged by Muslim nationalism in the early 1940s, which sought to carve out a separate Muslim homeland from India. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was divided into two dominions: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced people made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out in regions such as Punjab and Bengal. Gandhi visited these areas, attempting to offer solace and comfort to those affected. He undertook several fasts unto death in an effort to stop the violence, including one on January 12, 1948. Gandhi's assassination occurred on January 30, 1948, when Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse shot him three times in the chest. Godse and his accomplice Narayan Apte were later tried, convicted, and executed for their role in Gandhi's murder.