Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, more commonly known as ‘Mahatma’ (meaning ‘Great Soul’) was born in Porbandar, Gujarat, in North West India, on 2nd October 1869, into a Hindu Modh family. His father was the Chief Minister of Porbandar, and his mother’s religious devotion meant that his upbringing was infused with the Jain pacifist teachings of mutual tolerance, non-injury to living beings and vegetarianism.
1. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of india
during the Indian independence movement.
2.Mahatma Gandhi went to England when he was 19 to study law.
3. Gandhi is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.
4. Mahatma Gandhi literally translates to ‘great soul’ in Sanskrit.
5. Mahatma Gandhi walked and travelled almost 18km a day throughout his lifetime, which is enough to walk around the world twice.
6. In 1930 Mahatma Gandhi led hundreds of followers on a 240-mile march to the sea, where they made salt from seawater in protest against the British salt law, which made it illegal to possess salt not bought from the government.
7. Mahatma Gandhi experimented with diets to see how cheaply he could live and remain healthy. He started living principally on fruit and goats’ milk and olive oil.
8. Mahatma Gandhi spoke English with an Irish accent, for one of his first teachers was an Irishman.
9. On 30 January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was shot and killed on the grounds of the Birla Bhavan (Birla House) in New Delhi.
10. Although Gandhi is renowned for his non-violent philosophy, he served in the army during the Boer War. Only after the war did he realise the horrors of combat. Gandhi’s policy of Satyagraha, based largely on Hinduism, was influenced by many diverse sources, including Christ, Leo Tolstoy, and Henry David Thoreau.
