Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), also known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist. He led the successful campaign for India’s independence from British rule, and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. He was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who fired three bullets into his chest. Gandhi’s birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence.
About Mahatma Gandhi in brief
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), also known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist. He led the successful campaign for India’s independence from British rule, and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi’s birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence. Gandhi is commonly, though not formally, considered the Father of the Nation in India, and was commonly called Bapu papa. He was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who fired three bullets into his chest. The honorific Mahātmā, first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world, and Gandhi’s name is still widely used in India and other parts of the world as well as in the US and UK. He is buried at the Gandhi Museum in New Delhi, along with his wife Indira, and their three children, Raja, Ravi, and Kalyan, who were born in 1869 and 1875. He died of a heart attack in 1948, aged 78, at his home in Rajkot, Rajasthan, India. His funeral was attended by more than 100,000 people, including former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. His son Ravi was born on the same day as his father, and is now a member of the Indian parliament, the Rajya Sabha.
Gandhi was also the first Indian to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end untouchability. He also won the Padmashri, India’s highest civilian honour, for his contribution to the fight against British rule in India. The Gandhi family are still living in Porbandar, a coastal town on the Kathiawar Peninsula and then part of the small princely state of Porbandsar in the Indian Empire. His wife, Putlibai, was also from a Vaishya varna family, and gave birth to three children over the ensuing decade: a son, Laxmidas ; a daughter, Raliatas ; and another son, Karsandas. His first two wives died young after each had given birth, and his third marriage was childless. In 1857, he sought his third wife’s permission to remarry; she also came from Junagadh and was from a Pranami family. His last wife, who came from Vaishnishnava, gave birth in a dark, windowless room of the family residence in a city city. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community, ate simple vegetarian food, and undertook long fasts as a means of self-purification and political protest. He adopted the Indian loincloth, or short dhoti and, in the winter, a shawl, as a mark of identification with India’s rural poor.
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This page is based on the article Mahatma Gandhi published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 17, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
