Mahatma Gandhi

Project B : “Heroes!”

By Glarou Anastasia

School year 2017-2018

Class junior High school 3rd Grade

Who Was Mahatma Gandhi?

Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948) was the leader of India’s non-violent independence movement against British rule and in South Africa. He fought for the civil rights of Indians.

Personal admiration & influence

I admire Gandhi for all that he did and the risks that he took. He was sent to jail several times. Many world leaders have successfully employed Gandhi's technique of non-violence to achieve extraordinary success in their own political struggles.

Even now, his quotes and stories about his life, influence many other lives including mine giving them faith and hope and people all over the world still follow his preachings and try to use non-violence methods to solve their problems peacefully.

That’s why I view him as a role-model to my everyday life and I try to follow his principles like non-violence, simplicity, love, and determination.

Family

Mahatma Gandhi’s father, Karamchand Gandhi, served as a chief minister in Porbandar and other states in western India.

His mother, Putlibai, was a deeply religious woman.

Gandhi’s father Gandhi’s mother

Wife & children

At the age of 13, Mahatma Gandhi wed Kasturba Makanji, a merchant’s daughter, in an arranged marriage.

Wife & children

In 1888, Gandhi’s wife gave birth to the first of four sons. A second son was born in India 1893. Kasturba would give birth to two more sons, one in 1897 and one in 1900.

Religion & Beliefs

Gandhi grew up following Jainism, a Indian religion that espoused non-violence, fasting, meditation and vegetarianism.

During Gandhi’s first stay in London he became more committed to a meatless diet and started to learn more about world religions.

Living in South Africa, Gandhi adopted a life of simplicity, austerity, fasting and celibacy that was free of material goods.

Religion & Beliefs

Early Life & Education

Young Gandhi was a shy, unremarkable student. In the ensuing years, the teenager rebelled by smoking, eating meat and stealing change from household servants.

He struggled to gain his footing as a lawyer.

In 1888, 18-year-old Gandhi sailed for London, England, to study law.

Gandhi in South Africa

In April 1893 Gandhi arrived in South Africa where he quickly decided to devote himself to fighting the “deep disease of color prejudice.”

Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 to fight discrimination.

Nonviolent Civil Disobedience

In 1906, Gandhi organized his first mass civil-disobedience campaign, which he called “Satyagraha” (“truth and firmness”).

After years of protests, in 1913 the government imprisoned Gandhi. Under pressure, the South African government accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi.

Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Gandhi became a leading figure in the Indian home-rule movement.

Rather than buy British-manufactured clothes, he began to use a portable spinning wheel to produce his own cloth. The spinning wheel soon became a symbol of Indian independence and self-reliance.

Gandhi & the Salt March

In 1930, Gandhi protested against Britain’s Salt Acts, which not only prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt but imposed a heavy tax that hit the country’s poorest population.

Gandhi planned a new Satyagraha campaign that entailed a 390-kilometer march to the Arabian Sea, where he would collect salt in symbolic defiance of the government monopoly.

Gandhi & the Salt March

Gandhi & the Salt March

Gandhi broke the law by making salt from evaporated seawater.

In May 1930, approximately 60,000 Indians were jailed for breaking the Salt Acts, including Gandhi. Still, he was named Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” for 1930.

Gandhi was released from prison in January 1931, and two months later he made an agreement which gave those who lived on the coasts the right to harvest salt from the sea.

India’s Independence from Great Britain

In 1942, Gandhi launched the “Quit India” movement that called for the immediate British withdrawal from the country.

In August 1942, the British arrested Gandhi, his wife and other leaders of the Indian National Congress.

India’s Independence

The final plan called for the partition of the subcontinent along religious lines into two independent states.

Violence between Hindus and Muslims flared and some Hindus increasingly viewed Gandhi as a traitor for expressing sympathy toward Muslims. He was killed by a fanatic in 1948.

Legacy

Gandhi’s actions inspired future human rights movements around the globe, including those of civil rights leader :

Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States

Nelson Mandela in South Africa

References

https://www.biography.com/people/mahatma-gandhi-9305898

https://howgandhichangedtheworld.weebly.com/gandhis-legacy.html

Google images

THANKS FOR WATCHING!