Mohandas Gandhi
...Paper
This Essay will be about the life and accomplishments of Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi. And will also discuss Civil Disobedience.
Throughout history most national heroes have been warriors, but Gandhi
ended British rule over his native India without striking a single blow. A frail
man, he devoted his life to peace and brotherhood in order to achieve social and
political progress. Yet less than six months after his nonviolent resistance to
British rule won independence for India, he was assassinated by a religious
fanatic.
Gandhi was one of the gentlest of men, a devout and almost mystical Hindu,
but he had an iron core of determination. Nothing could change his convictions.
This combination of traits made him the leader of India's nationalist movement.
Some observers called him a master politician. Others believed him a saint. To
millions of Hindus he was their beloved Mahatma, meaning "great soul."
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on Oct. 2, 1869, in Porbandar, near
Bombay. His family belonged to the Hindu merchant caste Vaisya. His father had
been prime minister of several small native states. Gandhi was married when he
was only 13 years old.
When he was 19 he defied custom by going abroad to study. He studied law
at University College in London. Fellow students snubbed him because he was an
Indian. In his lonely hours he studied philosophy. In his reading he discovered
the principle of nonviolence as enunciated in Henry David Thoreau's "Civil
Disobedience," and he was persuaded by John Ruskin's plea to give up
industrialism for farm life and traditional handicrafts--ideals similar to many
Hindu religious ideas.
In 1891 Gandhi returned to India....
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