Gandhi  (Deceased)

Revered political leader and activist, Mohandas Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India. As the son of a Prime Minister, Gandhi grew up in an affluent family. He studied law in England, and then returned to his native India to find employment in the legal field. When a job in his field of study eluded him, Gandhi moved to South Africa, where he secured a position with a firm of Muslim lawyers and became involved in immigration rights cases.

This was early practice for Gandhi’s mediation and conflict resolution skills, which would come in later in life and define his place in history.It was not until his mid-40s that Gandhi eventually returned to India, where he promptly began helping to build the Indian National Congress. Also at this time, Gandhi’s style of dress (simple white robes and sandals) earned him the title of "Mahatma", which means "great saint." Gandhi employed three main political strategies to further India’s emancipation from British rule and the rediscovery of its historical and religious significance: non-violence, home rule, and the welfare of all. Less than five years after returning to India, Gandhi had persuaded the Congress to launch a Non-Cooperation Movement which was supported by the Muslim community.

After the movement sparked violence at the end of its three-year run, Gandhi suspended it, but not before being sentenced to six years in prison. Shortly after his release, Gandhi launched another movement; the Civil Disobedience Movement, which also lasted three years. Although Gandhi had severed ties with the Congress by 1940, that year he briefly resumed leadership of it, while India was declared to be in a state of war. After a declaration was rejected that offered to support the war effort on the condition that India’s independence could be guaranteed, Congress launched a Quit India Movement, and Gandhi was kept in detention at the Aga Khan Palace.

After his release in 1944, Gandhi engaged in talks with the leader of the Muslim League, but found himself excluded from the new discussions regarding the impending future of India, post-independence from British rule. For his last major political protest as a national leader, Gandhi fasted for peace between Hindus and Muslims. Fasting was something he had previously done twice in Calcutta, to protest killing in the name of religion. Amidst growing resentment from Hindu extremists, Gandhi was assassinated by gunshot on January 30, 1948, at the hands of the editor of Hindu Mahasabah extremist weekly.

Gone but never forgotten, Gandhi has become revered in his native India as "the father of the nation", and inspired non-violent political movements such as the civil rights movement in the US. He is counted amongst Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the greatest humanitarians of the twentieth century.

In 1982 British film maker, Richard Attenborough, who starred in Jurassic Park with Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum, directed the movie 'Ghandi' which starred Candice Bergen, John Mills and Ben Kingsley who won an Academy Award for Best Actor.

ABB