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1869 BCE
BIRTH
Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a coastal city in the small princely state of Kathiawar, now in the state of Gujarat (India). His family was of the Vaisia (merchant) caste. He was the son of Karamchand Gandhi, the diwan (prime minister) of Porbandar. -
college
he barely managed to pass the entrance exam to the University of Mumbai, enrolling in the School of Samaldas in Bhavnagar. He did not stay there long, because he took advantage of the opportunity to study in England, a country that he considered the cradle of philosophers and poets, the center of civilization. -
CONTRACT
accepted a one-year employment contract with an Indian company operating in Natal, South Africa. He was interested in the situation of the 150,000 compatriots who resided there, fighting against the laws that discriminated against Indians in South Africa through passive resistance and civil disobedience. -
Union
Through this organization he was able to unite the Indian community in South Africa into a homogeneous political force, flooding the press and the government with allegations of violations of the civil rights of Indians and evidence of discrimination by the British in South Africa. -
Return to india
Gandhi returned to India for a brief period to take his wife and children to South Africa. Upon his return, in January 1897, a group of white men attacked him and tried to lynch him. As a clear indication of the values that he would uphold throughout his life, he refused to bring his attackers to justice, stating that one of his principles was not to seek compensation in court for the damages inflicted on his person. -
Law
the Transvaal government enacted a law requiring all Indians to register. This led to a massive protest in Johannesburg, where Gandhi first adopted the platform called satyagraha ("attachment or devotion to the truth") which consisted of a non-violent protest.
Gandhi insisted that the Indians openly but without violence defy the enacted law, suffering whatever punishment the government wanted to impose. -
Changes
Gandhi returned to India in At this time he had already changed his habits and lifestyle adopting the more traditional ones of India. At first he tried to launch a new newspaper and practice law, but was dissuaded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who convinced him to pursue work of greater national importance. -
Review
Gandhi was criticized by some members of the same and by other Indian political groups, favorable to the British and opposed to the position of Mohandas. They believed that not supporting Great Britain in his life and death struggle against Nazism was immoral. For India it was the most powerful movement in the history of its struggle, with arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale. Thousands of freedom fighters were killed or wounded by police fire, and hundreds of thousands were arrested. -
Malaria
Gandhi suffered a severe attack of malaria six weeks later. He was released before the end of the war, on May 6, 1944, due to his weak health and the need to heal. The British Raj did not want him to die in prison and that would produce hatred in the nation.
