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{{Short description|Indian independence activist (1869–1948)}}
{{Redirect|Gandhi|other uses|Gandhi (disambiguation)}}
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{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix = [[Mahātmā]]
| name             = Gandhi
| image            = Mahatma-Gandhi, studio, 1931.jpg
| caption          = Gandhi in 1931
| other_names      = ''Bāpū'' (father), ''Rāṣṭrapitā'' (the [[Father of the Nation]])
| birth_name       = Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
| birth_date       = {{birth date|df=y|1869|10|2}}
| birth_place      = [[Porbandar]], Kathiawar Agency, British Raj
| death_date       = {{death date and age|df=y|1948|1|30|1869|10|2}}
| death_place      = New Delhi, India
| death_cause      = [[Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi|Assassination by gunshot]]
| monuments        = {{plainlist|
* [[Raj Ghat and associated memorials|Raj Ghat]], Delhi
* [[Gandhi Smriti]], New Delhi}}
| module           = {{infobox officeholder
| embed            = yes
| office           = [[President of the Indian National Congress|43rd President of the Indian National Congress]]
| term             = December 1924 – April 1925
| successor        = [[Sarojini Naidu]]
| predecessor      = [[Maulana Azad]]
}}
| known_for        = {{ubli|Leadership of the [[Indian independence movement|campaign for India's independence]] from [[British Raj|British rule]]|[[Nonviolent resistance]]}}
| height_m         = 
| party            = [[Indian National Congress]] (1920–1934)
| alma_mater       = {{ubl|[[Samaldas Arts College]]{{efn|Did not graduate}}|[[University College London]]{{efn|Informal [[Academic audit|auditing student]] between 1888 and 1891}}}}[[City Law School|Inns of Court School of Law]]
| occupation       = {{hlist|Lawyer|activist|politician}}
| years_active     = 1893–1948
| spouse           = {{marriage|[[Kasturba Gandhi]]|1883|1944|end=died}}
| children         = {{hlist|[[Harilal Gandhi|Harilal]]|[[Manilal Gandhi|Manilal]]|[[Ramdas Gandhi|Ramdas]]|[[Devdas Gandhi|Devdas]]}}
| parents          = {{ubl|[[Karamchand Gandhi]]|[[Putlibai Gandhi]]}}
| relatives        = [[Family of Mahatma Gandhi|Gandhi family]]
| signature        = Mohandas K. Gandhi signature.svg
| signature_alt    = Signature of Gandhi
| module2          = {{listen|pos=center|embed=yes|filename=Gandhi - His Spiritual Message to the World, 17 October 1931.mp3|title=Gandhi's voice|type=speech|description=Gandhi's spiritual message to the world<br />Recorded 17 October 1931}}
}}

'''Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi'''{{efn|{{langx|gu|મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી|Mohanadāsa Karamacaṁda Gāṁdhī}}; Pronounced variously {{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|ɑː|n|d|i|,_|ˈ|ɡ|æ|n|d|i}} {{Respell|GA(H)N|dee}};<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gandhi "Gandhi"]. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150114041417/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gandhi |date=14 January 2015}} ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{IPA|gu|ˈmoɦəndɑs ˈkəɾəmtʃənd ˈɡɑndʱi}}}} (2{{nbsp}}October 1869{{snd}}30{{nbsp}}January 1948)<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi |title=Mahatma Gandhi |last= |first= |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |date= |publisher= |access-date=24 January 2025 |quote=}}</ref> was an Indian lawyer, [[Nationalism#Anti-colonial|anti-colonial nationalist]], and [[Political thought|political thinker]] who employed [[nonviolent resistance]] to lead the successful [[Indian independence movement|campaign for India's independence]] from [[British Raj|British rule]]. He inspired movements for [[Civil rights movements|civil rights]] and freedom across the world. The honorific ''[[Mahātmā]]'' (from [[Sanskrit]], meaning great-souled, or venerable), first applied to him in [[Union of South Africa|South Africa]] in 1914, is used worldwide.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goswami |first=K.P |url=https://archive.org/details/mahatmagandhichr00kpgo |title=Mahatma Gandhi A Chronology |date=1971 |publisher=Publications Division |isbn=9788123001395 |pages=60}}</ref>

Born and raised in a [[Hindu]] family in coastal [[Gujarat]], Gandhi was trained in the law at the [[Inner Temple]] in London and was [[called to the bar]] at the age of 22. After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, Gandhi moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to live in South Africa for the next 21 years. Here, Gandhi raised a family and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India and soon set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against discrimination and excessive land tax.

Assuming leadership of the [[Indian National Congress]] in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending [[untouchability]], and, above all, achieving ''[[swaraj]]'' or self-rule. Gandhi adopted the short ''[[dhoti]]'' woven with [[Charkha (spinning wheel)|hand-spun]] yarn as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. He began to live in a [[Sabarmati Ashram|self-sufficient residential community]], to eat simple food, and undertake [[List of fasts undertaken by Mahatma Gandhi|long fasts]] as a means of both introspection and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed [[Salt tax#Impacted regions|salt tax]] with the {{convert|400|km|mi|abbr=on}} [[Salt March|Dandi Salt March]] in 1930 and in calling for the British to [[Quit India Movement|quit India]] in 1942. He was imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India.

Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on [[religious pluralism]] was challenged in the early 1940s by a [[Muslim nationalism in South Asia|Muslim nationalism]] which demanded a separate homeland for Muslims within [[British India]]. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was [[Partition of India|partitioned]] into two [[dominion]]s, a Hindu-majority [[Dominion of India|India]] and a Muslim-majority [[Dominion of Pakistan|Pakistan]]. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and [[Sikh]]s made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in [[Punjab region|Punjab]] and [[Bengal]]. Abstaining from the [[Independence Day (India)|official celebration of independence]], Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress. In the months following, he undertook several [[hunger strike]]s to stop the religious violence. The last of these was begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948, when Gandhi was 78. The belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and [[Indian Muslim]]s spread among some Hindus in India. Among these was [[Nathuram Godse]], a militant [[Hindu nationalist]] from [[Pune]], western India, who [[Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi|assassinated Gandhi]] by firing three bullets into his chest at an interfaith prayer meeting in Delhi on 30 January 1948.

Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as [[Gandhi Jayanti]], a [[Public holidays in India|national holiday]], and worldwide as the [[International Day of Non-Violence|International Day of Nonviolence]]. Gandhi is considered to be the [[Father of the Nation]] in post-colonial India. During India's nationalist movement and in several decades immediately after, he was also commonly called ''Bapu'', an endearment roughly meaning "father".<!--Do NOT add citations to the lead, except for material likely to be challenged, per [[MOS:LEADCITE]] ([[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Citations)]]. Move unneeded citations to the body.-->
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== Early life and background ==

=== Parents ===
Gandhi's father, [[Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi]] (1822–1885), served as the ''[[dewan]]'' (chief minister) of Porbandar state.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gandhi |first=Mohandas K. |year=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=in3_3H1szHYC&pg=PA21 |title=An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth |publisher=The Floating Press |isbn=978-1-77541-405-6 |page=21 |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329130538/https://books.google.com/books?id=in3_3H1szHYC&pg=PA21#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="GangulyDocker20082">{{cite book |title=Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality: Global Perspectives |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cId9AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 |pages=4– |year=2008 |editor-last=Ganguly |editor-first=Debjani |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-134-07431-0 |editor-last2=Docker |editor-first2=John |access-date=21 July 2019 |archive-date=21 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721085146/https://books.google.com/books?id=cId9AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 |url-status=live |quote=... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti-colonial nationalist politics in the twentieth-century in ways that neither indigenous nor westernized Indian nationalists could.}}</ref> His family originated from the then village of [[Kutiyana|Kutiana]] in what was then [[Junagadh State]].{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=19–21}} Although Karamchand only had been a clerk in the state administration and had an elementary education, he proved a capable chief minister.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=19–21}}

During his tenure, Karamchand married four times. His first two wives died young, after each had given birth to a daughter, and his third marriage was childless. In 1857, Karamchand sought his third wife's permission to remarry; that year, he married Putlibai (1844–1891), who also came from Junagadh,{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=19–21}} and was from a [[Pranami]] [[Vaishnavism|Vaishnava]] family.<ref>{{cite book |author=Misra, Amalendu |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aLgB8pZg0qsC&pg=PA67 |title=Identity and Religion: Foundations of anti-Islamism in India |publisher=Sage Publications |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-7619-3227-7 |page=67}}</ref>{{sfnp|Gandhi|2007a|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=TEyXCoc76AEC&pg=PA5 5]}}<ref>{{cite book |author=Malhotra, S.L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fRq21fNfydIC&pg=PA5 |title=Lawyer to Mahatma: Life, Work and Transformation of M. K. Gandhi |year=2001 |isbn=978-81-7629-293-1 |page=5 |publisher=Deep & Deep Publications |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329130509/https://books.google.com/books?id=fRq21fNfydIC&pg=PA5 |url-status=live}}</ref> Karamchand and Putlibai had four children: a son, Laxmidas ({{circa|1860}}–1914), a daughter, Raliatbehn (1862–1960), a second son, Karsandas ({{circa|1866}}–1913),{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=21}}{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=512}} and a third son, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,<ref>{{cite book |last=Todd |first=Anne M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=svxDMQZ7fakC&pg=PA8 |title=Mohandas Gandhi |publisher=Infobase Publishing |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4381-0662-5 |page=8 |quote=The name Gandhi means "grocer", although Mohandas's father and grandfather were politicians not grocers. |access-date=29 March 2024 |url-status=live |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329130649/https://books.google.com/books?id=svxDMQZ7fakC&pg=PA8#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref> who was born on 2 October 1869 in [[Porbandar]] (also known as ''Sudamapuri''), a coastal town on the [[Kathiawar]] Peninsula and then part of the small [[princely state]] of [[Porbandar State|Porbandar]] in the [[Kathiawar Agency]] of the [[British Raj]].{{sfnp|Gandhi|2008|pp=1–3}}

In 1874, Gandhi's father, Karamchand, left Porbandar for the smaller state of [[Rajkot]], where he became a counsellor to its ruler, the Thakur Sahib; though Rajkot was a less prestigious state than Porbandar, the British regional political agency was located there, which gave the state's ''diwan'' a measure of security.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=24–25}} In 1876, Karamchand became ''diwan'' of Rajkot and was succeeded as ''diwan'' of Porbandar by his brother Tulsidas. Karamchand's family then rejoined him in Rajkot.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=24–25}} They moved to their family home [[Kaba Gandhi No Delo]] in 1881.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Kateshiya |first=Gopal B |date=14 July 2024 |title=Know Your City: Gandhi's family house which witnessed his transformation from 'Mohan to Mahatma' |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/gandhis-family-house-which-sowed-seeds-of-his-transformation-9452843/ |work=The Indian Express |access-date=15 July 2024 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007224423/https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/gandhis-family-house-which-sowed-seeds-of-his-transformation-9452843/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Childhood ===

[[File:Mohandas K Gandhi, age 7.jpg|thumb|upright|Gandhi in 1876 at the age of 7]]

As a child, Gandhi was described by his sister Raliat as "restless as mercury, either playing or roaming about. One of his favourite pastimes was twisting dogs' ears."{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=22}} The Indian classics, especially the stories of [[Shravana Kumara|Shravana]] and king [[Harishchandra]], had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood. In his autobiography, Gandhi states that they left an indelible impression on his mind. Gandhi writes: "It haunted me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without number." Gandhi's early self-identification with truth and love as supreme values is traceable to these epic characters.<ref name="Sorokin2002" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rudolph |first1=Susanne Hoeber |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fi6GDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA48 |title=Gandhi: The Traditional Roots of Charisma |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |year=1983 |isbn=978-0-226-73136-0 |page=48 |last2=Rudolph |first2=Lloyd I. |name-list-style=amp |access-date=19 March 2023 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007224423/https://books.google.com/books?id=Fi6GDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

The family's religious background was eclectic. Mohandas was born into a [[Gujarati people|Gujarati]] [[Hindu]] [[Modh]] [[Bania (caste)|Bania]] family.<ref>{{harvp|Guha|2014a|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XS7UAAAAQBAJ&q=%22the+subcaste+the+Gandhis+belonged+to+was+known+as+Modh+Bania,+the+prefix%22&pg=PP42 42]}}. "The subcaste the Gandhis belonged to was known as Modh Bania, the prefix apparently referring to the town of Modhera, in Southern Gujarat."</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Renard, John |year=1999 |title=Responses to 101 Questions on Hinduism |url=https://archive.org/details/responsesto101qu0000rena_e0p7/page/139 |publisher=Paulist Press |isbn=978-0-8091-3845-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/responsesto101qu0000rena_e0p7/page/139 139] |access-date=16 August 2020}}</ref> Gandhi's father, Karamchand, was Hindu and his mother Putlibai was from a Pranami [[Vaishnava]] Hindu family.{{sfnp|Gandhi|2008|pp=2, 8, 269}}<ref name="sharma11">{{cite book |last=Arvind Sharma |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhispiritualb0000shar |title=Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-300-18738-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/gandhispiritualb0000shar/page/11 11]–14 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Gandhi's father was of Modh Baniya caste in the [[Varna (Hinduism)|varna]] of [[Vaishya]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rudolph |first1=Susanne Hoeber |title=Gandhi: The Traditional Roots of Charisma |last2=Rudolph, Lloyd I. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fi6GDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1983 |isbn=978-0-226-73136-0 |page=17 |name-list-style=amp |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007224429/https://books.google.com/books?id=Fi6GDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> His mother came from the medieval [[Krishna]] bhakti-based [[Pranami]] tradition, whose religious texts include the [[Bhagavad Gita]], the ''[[Bhagavata Purana]]'', and a collection of 14 texts with teachings that the tradition believes to include the essence of the [[Vedas]], the [[Quran]] and the [[Bible]].<ref name="sharma11" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Gerard Toffin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uuuICwAAQBAJ&pg=PT249 |title=Public Hinduisms |publisher=Sage Publications |year=2012 |isbn=978-81-321-1696-7 |editor-last=John Zavos |pages=249–57 |display-editors=etal}}</ref> Gandhi was deeply influenced by his mother, an extremely pious lady who "would not think of taking her meals without her daily prayers... she would take the hardest vows and keep them without flinching. To keep two or three consecutive fasts was nothing to her."{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=23}}

At the age of nine, Gandhi entered the local school in [[Rajkot]], near his home. There, he studied the rudiments of arithmetic, history, the Gujarati language and geography.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=24–25}} At the age of 11, Gandhi joined the High School in Rajkot, [[Alfred High School (Rajkot)|Alfred High School]].{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=25–26}} He was an average student, won some prizes, but was shy and tongue-tied, with no interest in games; Gandhi's only companions were books and school lessons.{{sfnp|Ghose|1991|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=5l0BPnxN1h8C&pg=PA4 4]}}

=== Marriage ===
In May 1883, the 13-year-old Gandhi was married to 14-year-old [[Kasturba Gandhi|Kasturbai Gokuldas Kapadia]] (her first name was usually shortened to "Kasturba", and affectionately to "Ba") in an [[arranged marriage]], according to the custom of the region at that time.<ref name="Mohanty2011" /> In the process, he lost a year at school but was later allowed to make up by accelerating his studies.<ref name="Childhood">{{cite web |last=Gandhi |first=Mohandas K. |year=1940 |title=At the High School |url=http://wikilivres.org/wiki/The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth/Part_I/At_the_High_School |access-date=20 February 2023 |website=[[The Story of My Experiments with Truth]] |publisher=Wikilivres |archive-date=7 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307155915/http://wikilivres.org/wiki/The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth/Part_I/At_the_High_School |url-status=live}}</ref> Gandhi's wedding was a joint event, where his brother and cousin were also married. Recalling the day of their marriage, Gandhi once said, "As we didn't know much about marriage, for us it meant only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives." As was the prevailing tradition, the adolescent bride was to spend much time at her parents' house, and away from her husband.<ref name="Husband">{{cite web |last=Gandhi |first=Mohandas K. |year=1940 |title=Playing the Husband |url=http://wikilivres.org/wiki/The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth/Part_I/Playing_the_Husband |access-date=20 February 2023 |website=[[The Story of My Experiments with Truth]] |publisher=Wikilivres |archive-date=7 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307155915/http://wikilivres.org/wiki/The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth/Part_I/Playing_the_Husband |url-status=live }}</ref>

Writing many years later, Gandhi described with regret the lustful feelings he felt for his young bride: "Even at school I used to think of her, and the thought of nightfall and our subsequent meeting was ever haunting me." Gandhi later recalled feeling jealous and possessive of her, such as when Kasturba would visit a temple with her girlfriends, and being sexually lustful in his feelings for her.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=28–29}}

[[File:Gandhi and Laxmidas 2.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|Gandhi (right) with his eldest brother Laxmidas in 1886<ref name="Fischer1982p96">{{Cite book |last=Fischer, Louis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=02NWvRxCx64C |title=Gandhi, his life and message for the world |publisher=New American Library |year=1982 |isbn=978-0-451-62142-9 |page=96}}</ref>]]

In late 1885, Gandhi's father, Karamchand, died.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=29}} Gandhi had left his father's bedside to be with his wife mere minutes before his passing. Many decades later, Gandhi wrote "if animal passion had not blinded me, I should have been spared the torture of separation from my father during his last moments."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gandhi |first=M. K. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=in3_3H1szHYC |title=An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth |date=1 January 2009 |publisher=The Floating Press |isbn=978-1-77541-405-6 |pages=61–62 |language=en |access-date=4 June 2020 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007224424/https://books.google.com/books?id=in3_3H1szHYC |url-status=live }}</ref> Later, Gandhi, then 16 years old, and his wife, age 17, had their first child, who survived only a few days. The two deaths anguished Gandhi.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=29}} The Gandhis had four more children, all sons: [[Harilal Gandhi|Harilal]], born in 1888; [[Manilal Gandhi|Manilal]], born in 1892; [[Ramdas Gandhi|Ramdas]], born in 1897; and [[Devdas Gandhi|Devdas]], born in 1900.<ref name="Mohanty2011" />

In November 1887, the 18-year-old Gandhi graduated from high school in [[Ahmedabad]].{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=30}} In January 1888, he enrolled at [[Samaldas College]] in [[Bhavnagar State]], then the sole degree-granting institution of higher education in the region. However, Gandhi dropped out and returned to his family in Porbandar.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=32}}

Outside school, Gandhi's education was enriched by exposure to Gujarati literature, especially reformers like [[Narmad]] and [[Govardhanram Tripathi]], whose works alerted the Gujaratis to their own faults and weaknesses such as belief in religious dogmatism.<ref name="Guha 2014">{{Cite book |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=arDvngEACAAJ |title=Gandhi Before India |date=2014 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |isbn=978-0-385-53229-7 |language=en}}</ref>

== Three years in London ==
=== Student of law ===
[[File:MAHATMA GANDHI 1869-1948 lived here as a law student.jpg|thumb|upright|Commemorative plaque at 20 Baron's Court Road, Barons Court, London]]
Gandhi had dropped out of the cheapest college he could afford in Bombay.<ref name="Turban">{{cite book |last=Gandhi |first=Mohandas K. |year=1940 |chapter-url=http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth/Part_I/Preparation_for_England |chapter=Preparation for England |title=[[The Story of My Experiments with Truth]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120702043412/http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth/Part_I/Preparation_for_England |archive-date=2 July 2012}}</ref> Mavji Dave Joshiji, a [[Brahmin]] priest and family friend, advised Gandhi and his family that he should consider law studies in London.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=32}}<ref name="B. R. Nanda">{{cite encyclopedia |last=B. R. Nanda |article=Mahatma Gandhi |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |article-url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi |year=2019 |access-date=3 June 2017 |archive-date=13 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170513015455/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi |url-status=live | quote=Mahatma Gandhi, byname of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, (born October 2, 1869, Porbandar, India – died January 30, 1948, Delhi), Indian lawyer, politician, ...}}</ref> In July 1888, Gandhi's wife Kasturba gave birth to their first surviving child, Harilal.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=33–34}} Gandhi's mother was not comfortable about Gandhi leaving his wife and family and going so far from home. Gandhi's uncle Tulsidas also tried to dissuade his nephew, but Gandhi wanted to go. To persuade his wife and mother, Gandhi made a vow in front of his mother that he would abstain from meat, alcohol, and women. Gandhi's brother, Laxmidas, who was already a lawyer, cheered Gandhi's London studies plan and offered to support him. Putlibai gave Gandhi her permission and blessing.{{sfnp|Guha|2015|p=32}}{{sfnp|Gandhi|2008|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FauJL7LKXmkC&pg=PA20 20–21]}}

On 10 August 1888, Gandhi, aged 18, left Porbandar for Mumbai, then known as Bombay. A local newspaper covering the farewell function by his old high school in Rajkot noted that Gandhi was the first Bania from Kathiawar to proceed to England for his Barrister Examination.<ref name="Guha 2014"/> As Mohandas Gandhi waited for a berth on a ship to London he found that he had attracted the ire of the Modh Banias of Bombay.<ref name="Guha 2014"/> Upon arrival in Bombay, he stayed with the local Modh Bania community whose elders warned Gandhi that England would tempt him to compromise his religion, and eat and drink in Western ways. Despite Gandhi informing them of his promise to his mother and her blessings, Gandhi was excommunicated from his caste. Gandhi ignored this, and on 4 September, he sailed from Bombay to London, with his brother seeing him off.<ref name="Turban" />{{sfnp|Guha|2015|pp=33–34}} Gandhi attended [[University College, London]], where he took classes in English literature with [[Henry Morley]] in 1888–1889.<ref>{{cite news |last=Swapnajit Mitra |date=12 October 2014 |title=My Experiment with Truth |work=[[India Currents]] |url=https://indiacurrents.com/my-experiment-with-truth/ |access-date=16 January 2023 |archive-date=16 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116214150/https://indiacurrents.com/my-experiment-with-truth/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Gandhi student full.jpg|thumb|upright|Gandhi in London as a law student|left]]

Gandhi also enrolled at the [[City Law School|Inns of Court School of Law]] in [[Inner Temple]] with the intention of becoming a [[barrister]].<ref name="B. R. Nanda"/> His childhood shyness and self-withdrawal had continued through his teens. Gandhi retained these traits when he arrived in London, but joined a public speaking practice group and overcame his shyness sufficiently to practise law.<ref>{{cite book |last=Thomas Weber |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhiasdisciple0000webe |title=Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-139-45657-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/gandhiasdisciple0000webe/page/19 19]–25 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Gandhi demonstrated a keen interest in the welfare of London's impoverished dockland communities. In 1889, a [[London dock strike, 1889|bitter trade dispute]] broke out in London, with dockers striking for better pay and conditions, and seamen, shipbuilders, factory girls and other joining the strike in solidarity. The strikers were successful, in part due to the mediation of [[Henry Edward Manning|Cardinal Manning]], leading Gandhi and an Indian friend to make a point of visiting the cardinal and thanking him for his work.<ref>{{cite web |title=Narayan Hemchandra &#124; Gandhi Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth |url=https://www.mkgandhi.org/autobio/chap22.htm |access-date=20 February 2023 |website=www.mkgandhi.org |archive-date=15 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210515111533/https://www.mkgandhi.org/autobio/chap22.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Vegetarianism and committee work ===

[[File:Gandhi-1890.jpg|thumb|Gandhi with the Vegetarian Society on the Isle of Wight, 1890]]

His vow to his mother influenced Gandhi's time in London. Gandhi tried to adopt "English" customs, including taking dancing lessons.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tendulkar |first=Dinanath Gopal |title=Mahatma: 1920-1929 |date=2 September 2008 |publisher=Vithalbhai K. Javeri & D.G. Tendulkar, 1951 |location=the University of Michigan |pages=463}}</ref> However, he didn't appreciate the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady and was frequently hungry until he found one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. Influenced by [[Henry Stephens Salt|Henry Salt's]] writing, Gandhi joined the [[Vegetarian Society|London Vegetarian Society]] (LVS) and was elected to its executive committee under the aegis of its president and benefactor [[Arnold Hills]].{{sfnp|Brown|1991|p={{page needed|date=July 2024}}}} An achievement while on the committee was the establishment of a [[Bayswater]] chapter.<ref name="Tendulkar1951" /> Some of the vegetarians Gandhi met were members of the [[Theosophical Society]], which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of [[Buddhist]] and [[Hindu]] literature. They encouraged Gandhi to join them in reading the [[Bhagavad Gita]] both in translation as well as in the original.{{sfnp|Brown|1991|p={{page needed|date=July 2024}}}}

[[Thomas Allinson]], another LVS member, had been promoting [[Birth control#Birth control movement|newly available birth control methods]], but Hills disapproved of these, believing they undermined public morality. He believed [[History of vegetarianism#19th century|vegetarianism to be a moral movement]] and that Allinson should therefore no longer remain a member of the LVS. Gandhi shared Hills' views on the dangers of birth control, but defended Allinson's right to differ.<ref name="shyness">{{Cite web |date=1927 |title=Shyness my shield |url=https://www.mkgandhi.org/autobio/chap18.htm |website=Autobiography |access-date=11 August 2019 |archive-date=8 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190608201409/https://www.mkgandhi.org/autobio/chap18.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> It would have been hard for Gandhi to challenge Hills; Hills was 12 years his senior and unlike Gandhi, highly eloquent. Hills bankrolled the LVS and was a [[captain of industry]] with his [[Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company|Thames Ironworks]] company employing more than 6,000 people in the [[East End of London]]. Hills was also a highly accomplished sportsman who later founded the football club [[West Ham United]]. In his 1927 ''An Autobiography, Vol. I'', Gandhi wrote:

{{blockquote|The question deeply interested me{{nbsp}}... I had a high regard for Mr. Hills and his generosity. But I thought it was quite improper to exclude a man from a vegetarian society simply because he refused to regard puritan morals as one of the objects of the society<ref name="shyness" />}}

A motion to remove Allinson was raised, and was debated and voted on by the committee. Gandhi's shyness was an obstacle to his defence of Allinson at the committee meeting. Gandhi wrote his views down on paper, but shyness prevented Gandhi from reading out his arguments, so Hills, the President, asked another committee member to read them out for him. Although some other members of the committee agreed with Gandhi, the vote was lost and Allinson was excluded. There were no hard feelings, with Hills proposing the toast at the LVS farewell dinner in honour of Gandhi's return to India.<ref>{{cite web |title=International Vegetarian Union – Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) |url=https://ivu.org/history/gandhi/1891-11.html |access-date=26 September 2020 |website=ivu.org |archive-date=5 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201205030437/http://www.ivu.org/history/gandhi/1891-11.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Called to the bar ===
Gandhi, at age 22, was [[called to the bar]] in June 1891 and then left London for India, where he learned that his mother had died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from Gandhi.{{sfnp|Brown|1991|p={{page needed|date=July 2024}}}} His attempts at establishing a law practice in [[Bombay]] failed because Gandhi was psychologically unable to [[cross-examine]] witnesses. He returned to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but Gandhi was forced to stop after running afoul of British officer Sam Sunny.{{sfnp|Brown|1991|p={{page needed|date=July 2024}}}}<ref name="Tendulkar1951" />

In 1893, a Muslim merchant in Kathiawar named Dada Abdullah contacted Gandhi. Abdullah owned a large successful shipping business in South Africa. His distant cousin in Johannesburg needed a lawyer, and they preferred someone with Kathiawari heritage. Gandhi inquired about his pay for the work. They offered a total salary of £105 (~$4,143 in 2023 money) plus travel expenses. He accepted it, knowing that it would be at least a one-year commitment in the [[Colony of Natal]], South Africa, also a part of the British Empire.<ref name="Tendulkar1951" />{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=82–83}}

== Civil rights activist in South Africa (1893–1914) ==

[[File:Natal Indian Congress.jpg|thumb|left|Gandhi and the founders of the Natal Indian Congress, 1895]]

In April 1893, Gandhi, aged 23, set sail for South Africa to be the lawyer for Abdullah's cousin.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=82–83}}<ref name="NHOA-193">{{cite book |last1=Giliomee |first1=Hermann |author1-link=Hermann Giliomee |last2=Mbenga |first2=Bernard |author2-link=Bernard Mbenga |title=New History of South Africa |publisher=Tafelberg |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-624-04359-1 |editor-last=Roxanne Reid |edition=1st |page=193 |chapter=3 |name-list-style=amp}}</ref> Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa where he developed his political views, ethics, and politics.<ref name="Gandhi">{{cite journal |last=Power, Paul F. |year=1969 |title=Gandhi in South Africa |journal=[[The Journal of Modern African Studies]] |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=441–55 |doi=10.1017/S0022278X00018590 |jstor=159062 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Keshavjee 2015 p.">{{cite book |last=Keshavjee |first=M.M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_2KmmwEACAAJ |title=Into that Heaven of Freedom: The Impact of Apartheid on an Indian Family's Diasporic History |publisher=Mawenzi House Publishers Limited |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-927494-27-1 |access-date=17 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317164705/https://books.google.com/books?id=_2KmmwEACAAJ |archive-date=17 March 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> During this time Gandhi briefly returned to India&nbsp;in 1902 to mobilise support for the welfare of Indians in South Africa.<ref>{{Cite web |title=High Commission of India, Pretoria, South Africa : Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa |url=https://www.hcipretoria.gov.in/eoi.php?id=Africa |access-date=17 September 2024 |website=www.hcipretoria.gov.in |archive-date=9 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240909090657/https://www.hcipretoria.gov.in/eoi.php?id=Africa |url-status=live }}</ref>

Immediately upon arriving in South Africa, Gandhi faced discrimination due to his skin colour and heritage.<ref name="Parekh2001" /> Gandhi was not allowed to sit with European passengers in the stagecoach and was told to sit on the floor near the driver, then beaten when he refused; elsewhere, Gandhi was kicked into a gutter for daring to walk near a house, in another instance thrown off a train at [[Pietermaritzburg]] after refusing to leave the first-class.<ref name="Turban" />{{sfnp|Dhiman|2016|pp=25–27}} Gandhi sat in the train station, shivering all night and pondering if he should return to India or protest for his rights.{{sfnp|Dhiman|2016|pp=25–27}} Gandhi chose to protest and was allowed to board the train the next day.{{sfnp|Gandhi|2002|p={{page needed|date=July 2024}}}} In another incident, the magistrate of a [[Durban]] court ordered Gandhi to remove his turban, which he refused to do.<ref name="Turban" /> Indians were not allowed to walk on public footpaths in South Africa. Gandhi was kicked by a police officer out of the footpath onto the street without warning.<ref name="Turban" />

[[File:Mahatma-Gandhi Suedafrika-1906.jpg|thumb|upright|Gandhi in South Africa, 1906]]

When Gandhi arrived in South Africa, according to Arthur Herman, he thought of himself as "a Briton first, and an Indian second."{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=87–88}} However, the prejudice against Gandhi and his fellow Indians from British people that Gandhi experienced and observed deeply bothered him. Gandhi found it humiliating, struggling to understand how some people can feel honour, superiority or pleasure in such inhumane practices.{{sfnp|Dhiman|2016|pp=25–27}} Gandhi began to question his people's standing in the [[British Empire]].<ref name="Allen2011">{{cite book |last=Allen |first=Jeremiah |year=2011 |title=Sleeping with Strangers: A Vagabond's Journey Tramping the Globe |page=273 |publisher=Other Places Publishing |isbn=978-1-935850-01-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vyl8f54UToQC&pg=PT273 |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329130651/https://books.google.com/books?id=vyl8f54UToQC&pg=PT273 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The Abdullah case that had brought him to South Africa concluded in May 1894, and the Indian community organised a farewell party for Gandhi as he prepared to return to India.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=88–89}} The farewell party was turned into a working committee to plan the resistance to a new Natal government discriminatory proposal. This led to Gandhi extending his original period of stay in South Africa. Gandhi planned to assist Indians in opposing a bill to [[Disfranchisement|deny them the right to vote]], a right then proposed to be an exclusive European right. He asked [[Joseph Chamberlain]], the British Colonial Secretary, to reconsider his position on this bill.<ref name="Gandhi" /> Though unable to halt the bill's passage, Gandhi's campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the [[Natal Indian Congress]] in 1894,<ref name="Tendulkar1951"/>{{sfnp|Gandhi|2002|p={{page needed|date=July 2024}}}} and through this organisation, Gandhi moulded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force. In January 1897, when Gandhi landed in Durban, a mob of white settlers attacked him.<ref>{{cite wikisource |title=The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi |chapter=March 1897 Memorial |wslink=The_Collected_Works_of_Mahatma_Gandhi/Volume_II}}: correspondence and newspaper accounts of the incident.</ref>  Gandhi refused to press charges against any member of the mob.<ref name="Tendulkar1951"/>

[[File:Gandhi Boer War.jpg|thumb|left|Gandhi (middle, third from right) with the stretcher-bearers of the [[Indian Ambulance Corps]] during the [[Boer War]]]]

During the [[Second Boer War|Boer War]], Gandhi volunteered in 1900 to form a group of stretcher-bearers as the [[Natal Indian Ambulance Corps]]. According to Arthur Herman, Gandhi wanted to disprove the British colonial stereotype that Hindus were not fit for "manly" activities involving danger and exertion, unlike the Muslim "[[martial race]]s."{{sfnp|Herman|2008|p=125}} Gandhi raised 1,100 Indian volunteers to support British combat troops against the Boers. They were trained and medically certified to serve on the front lines. They were auxiliaries at the [[Battle of Colenso]] to a White volunteer ambulance corps. At the [[Battle of Spion Kop]], Gandhi and his bearers moved to the front line and had to carry wounded soldiers for miles to a field hospital since the terrain was too rough for the ambulances. Gandhi and 37 other Indians received the [[Queen's South Africa Medal]].{{sfnp|Herman|2008|loc=chapter 6}}<ref name="medals_south_african">{{cite web |date=5 March 1949 |title=South African Medals that Mahatma Returned Put on View at Gandhi Mandap Exhibition |website=Press Information Bureau of India – Archive |url=http://pibarchive.nic.in/archive/ArchiveSecondPhase/DEFENCE/1949-JAN-DEC-DEFENCE/PDF/DEF-1949-02-24_076.pdf |access-date=18 July 2020 |archive-date=28 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200928203725/http://pibarchive.nic.in/archive/ArchiveSecondPhase/DEFENCE/1949-JAN-DEC-DEFENCE/PDF/DEF-1949-02-24_076.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Gandhi and Kasturbhai 1902.jpg|thumb|Gandhi and his wife [[Kasturba Gandhi|Kasturba]] (1902)]]

In 1906, the [[Transvaal Colony|Transvaal]] government promulgated a new Act compelling registration of the colony's Indian and Chinese populations. The law required Asians to undergo fingerprint registration and to carry identity certificates that officials could demand at any time.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Breckenridge |first=Keith |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/biometric-state/4A38EA25FF753A196560D6CFB8091E8D |title=Biometric State: The Global Politics of Identification and Surveillance in South Africa, 1850 to the Present |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-07784-3 |location=Cambridge}}</ref> Historians have noted that Gandhi's resistance was therefore also a protest against a system of biometric identification that treated Indians as criminal subjects.<ref name=":3" /> Gandhi initially accepted voluntary registration as a gesture of trust, but later realized that once fingerprints were recorded, individuals lost the right to withdraw their consent. This then shaped Gandhi's understanding of Satyagraha as a defense of dignity and personal autonomy.<ref name=":3" /> At a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg on 11 September that year, Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of ''[[Satyagraha]]'' (devotion to the truth), or nonviolent protest, for the first time.<ref name="Rai2000">{{cite book |last=Rai |first=Ajay Shanker |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z9ZSLa6cy-8C&pg=PA35 |title=Gandhian Satyagraha: An Analytical And Critical Approach |publisher=Concept Publishing Company |year=2000 |isbn=978-81-7022-799-1 |page=35 |access-date=3 June 2020 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007224938/https://books.google.com/books?id=Z9ZSLa6cy-8C&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Anthony Parel, Gandhi was also influenced by the [[Tamil language|Tamil]] moral text ''[[Tirukkuṛaḷ]]'' after [[Leo Tolstoy]] mentioned it in their correspondence that began with "[[A Letter to a Hindu]]".<ref name="LetterToAHindu">{{Cite web |last=Tolstoy |first=Leo |date=14 December 1908 |title=A Letter to A Hindu: The Subjection of India-Its Cause and Cure |url=http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2733/ |access-date=12 February 2012 |website=The Literature Network |quote=The Hindu Kural |archive-date=10 November 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061110204732/http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2733/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="gandhi">{{cite book |last=Parel |first=Anthony J. |title=Meditations on Gandhi : a Ravindra Varma festschrift |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kcpDOVk5Gp8C&pg=PA96 |pages=96–112 |year=2002 |editor-last=M. P. Mathai |access-date=8 September 2012 |contribution=Gandhi and Tolstoy |place=New Delhi |publisher=Concept |isbn=978-81-7022-961-2 |author-link=Anthony Parel |editor2-last=M. S. John |editor3-last=Siby K. Joseph}}</ref> Gandhi urged Indians to defy the new law and to suffer the punishments for doing so. His ideas of protests, persuasion skills, and public relations had emerged. Gandhi took these back to India in 1915.{{sfnp|Guha|2013a|loc=Ch. 22}}<ref>{{Cite book |first=Charles R. |last=DiSalvo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9XGtAAAAQBAJ&pg=PR14 |title=M.K. Gandhi, Attorney at Law: The Man before the Mahatma |publisher=Univ of California Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-520-95662-9 |pages=14–15 |access-date=15 November 2015 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007225044/https://books.google.com/books?id=9XGtAAAAQBAJ&pg=PR14#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Europeans, Indians and Africans ===
Gandhi focused his attention on Indians and Africans while he was in South Africa. Initially, Gandhi was not interested in politics, but this changed after he was discriminated against and bullied, such as by being thrown out of a train coach due to his skin colour by a white train official. After several such incidents with [[White South African|Whites in South Africa]], Gandhi's thinking and focus changed, and he felt he must resist this and fight for rights. Gandhi entered politics by forming the Natal Indian Congress.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Constance |last2=Ryan |first2=James |title=Encyclopedia of Hinduism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OgMmceadQ3gC&pg=PA158 |publisher=Facts On File |location=New York |year=2007 |pages=158–159 |isbn=978-0-8160-5458-9 |access-date=5 July 2024 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007224940/https://books.google.com/books?id=OgMmceadQ3gC&pg=PA158#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, Gandhi's views on racism are contentious in some cases. He suffered persecution from the beginning in South Africa. Like with other coloured people, white officials denied Gandhi his rights, and the press and those in the streets bullied and called Gandhi a "parasite", "semi-barbarous", "canker", "squalid coolie", "yellow man", and other epithets. People would even spit on him as an expression of racial hate.<ref name="Desai2015p26"/>

[[File:Indian_opinion_advertisement_in_1910.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Advertisement of the ''[[Indian Opinion]]'', a newspaper founded by Gandhi]]

While in South Africa, Gandhi focused on the racial persecution of Indians before he started to focus on racism against Africans. In some cases, state Desai and Vahed, Gandhi's behaviour was one of being a willing part of racial stereotyping and African exploitation.<ref name="Desai2015p26"/> During a speech in September 1896, Gandhi complained that the whites in the British colony of South Africa were "degrading the Indian to the level of a raw [[Kaffir (racial term)|Kaffir]]."<ref>{{cite book |last=DiSalvo |first=Charles R. |title=M.K. Gandhi, Attorney at Law: The Man Before the Mahatma |publisher=University of California Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-520-28015-1 |page=153 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=plYlDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA153 |access-date=17 March 2023 |archive-date=17 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317164248/https://books.google.com/books?id=plYlDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA153 |url-status=live}}</ref> Scholars cite it as an example of evidence that Gandhi at that time thought of Indians and black South Africans differently.<ref name="Desai2015p26"/> As another example given by Herman, Gandhi, at the age of 24, prepared a legal brief for the Natal Assembly in 1895, seeking voting rights for Indians. Gandhi cited race history and European Orientalists' opinions that "Anglo-Saxons and Indians are sprung from the same Aryan stock or rather the Indo-European peoples" and argued that Indians should not be grouped with the Africans.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=88–89}}

Years later, Gandhi and his colleagues served and helped Africans as nurses and by opposing racism. The Nobel Peace Prize winner [[Nelson Mandela]] is among admirers of Gandhi's efforts to fight against racism in Africa.<ref>{{cite web |last=Reddy |first=E.S. |date=18 October 2016 |title=Some of Gandhi's Early Views on Africans Were Racist. But That Was Before He Became Mahatma |url=https://thewire.in/history/gandhi-and-africans |website=The Wire |access-date=11 January 2023 |archive-date=25 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225184538/https://thewire.in/history/gandhi-and-africans |url-status=live }}</ref> The general image of Gandhi, state Desai and Vahed, has been reinvented since his assassination as though Gandhi was always a saint, when in reality, his life was more complex, contained inconvenient truths, and was one that changed over time.<ref name="Desai2015p26"/> Scholars have also pointed the evidence to a rich history of co-operation and efforts by Gandhi and Indian people with nonwhite South Africans against persecution of Africans and the [[Apartheid]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ramsamy |first1=Edward |last2=Mbanaso |first2=Michael |last3=Korieh |first3=Chima |year=2010 |title=Minorities and the State in Africa |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-J-EZLTRVRwC |publisher=[[Cambria Press]] |pages=71–73 |isbn=978-1-62196-874-0}}</ref>

In 1903, Gandhi started the ''Indian Opinion'', a journal that carried news of Indians in South Africa, Indians in India with articles on all subjects – social, moral and intellectual. Each issue was multi-lingual and carried material in English, Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil. It carried ads, depended heavily on Gandhi's contributions (often printed without a byline) and was an "advocate" for the Indian cause.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=arDvngEACAAJ |title=Gandhi Before India |date=2014 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |isbn=978-0-385-53229-7 |language=en |access-date=7 September 2024 |archive-date=7 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240907114829/https://books.google.hu/books/about/Gandhi_Before_India.html?id=arDvngEACAAJ&redir_esc=y |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1906, when the [[Bambatha Rebellion]] broke out in the [[colony of Natal]], the then 36-year-old Gandhi, despite sympathising with the Zulu rebels, encouraged Indian South Africans to form a volunteer stretcher-bearer unit.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=136–137}} Writing in the ''[[Indian Opinion]]'', Gandhi argued that military service would be beneficial to the Indian community and claimed it would give them "health and happiness."{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=154–157, 280–281}} Gandhi eventually led a volunteer mixed unit of Indian and African stretcher-bearers to treat wounded combatants during the suppression of the rebellion.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=136–137}}

[[File:Gandhi suit crop.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.85|Gandhi photographed in South Africa (1909)]]

The medical unit commanded by Gandhi operated for less than two months before being disbanded.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=136–137}} By 1910, Gandhi's newspaper, ''Indian Opinion'', was covering reports on discrimination against Africans by the colonial regime. Gandhi remarked that the Africans "alone are the original inhabitants of the land. … The whites, on the other hand, have occupied the land forcibly and appropriated it for themselves."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |date=23 December 2018 |title=Setting the Record Straight on Gandhi and Race |url=https://thewire.in/history/setting-the-record-straight-on-gandhi-and-race |access-date=25 December 2022 |website=The Wire |archive-date=25 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225175747/https://thewire.in/history/setting-the-record-straight-on-gandhi-and-race |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1910, Gandhi established, with the help of his friend [[Hermann Kallenbach]], an idealistic community they named [[Tolstoy Farm]] near Johannesburg.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Vashi |first=Ashish |date=31 March 2011 |title=For Gandhi, Kallenbach was a friend and guide |work=The Times of India |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/For-Gandhi-Kallenbach-was-a-friend-and-guide/articleshow/7829668.cms?referral=PM |access-date=20 February 2023 |issn=0971-8257 |archive-date=15 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415150305/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/For-Gandhi-Kallenbach-was-a-friend-and-guide/articleshow/7829668.cms?referral=PM |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Bartley |first=Grant |year=2014 |title=Satuagraha § A Medium for Truth |url=http://philosophynow.org/issues/101/Satyagraha |magazine=Philosophy Now |issue=101 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140324184714/http://philosophynow.org/issues/101/Satyagraha |archive-date=24 March 2014}}</ref> There, Gandhi nurtured his policy of peaceful resistance.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Corder, Catherine |last2=Plaut, Martin |year=2014 |title=Gandhi's Decisive South African 1913 Campaign: A Personal Perspective from the Letters of Betty Molteno |journal=[[South African Historical Journal]] |volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=22–54 |doi=10.1080/02582473.2013.862565 }}</ref> In the years after black South Africans gained the right to vote in South Africa (1994), Gandhi was proclaimed a national hero with numerous monuments.<ref name="Mbeki2006" />

== Struggle for Indian independence (1915–1947) ==

{{See also|Indian independence movement}}

[[File:Gandhi back in india1915.gif|thumb|Welcome received at Karachi after Gandhi's (seated in carriage on the right) return to India (1916)]]

At the request of [[Gopal Krishna Gokhale]], Gandhi returned to India in 1915.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Verma |first1=Radhey Shyam |title=Gopal Krishna Gokhale and his contribution to struggle of people of Indian origin in South Africa |journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress |date=2010 |volume=70 |pages=860–868 |jstor=44147733}}</ref><!-- He brought an international reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and community organiser.-->

Gandhi joined the [[Indian National Congress]] and was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people primarily by Gokhale. Gokhale was a key leader of the Congress Party best known for his restraint and moderation, and his insistence on working inside the system. Gandhi took Gokhale's liberal approach based on British [[Whiggism|Whiggish]] traditions and transformed it to make it look Indian.<ref name="Whiggism"/>

Gandhi took leadership of the Congress in 1920 and began escalating demands until on 26 January 1930 the Indian National Congress declared the independence of India. The British did not recognise the declaration, but negotiations ensued, with the Congress taking a role in provincial government in the late 1930s. Gandhi and the Congress withdrew their support of the Raj when the Viceroy declared war on Germany in September 1939 without consultation. Tensions escalated until Gandhi demanded immediate independence in 1942, and the British responded by imprisoning him and tens of thousands of Congress leaders. Meanwhile, the Muslim League did co-operate with Britain and moved, against Gandhi's strong opposition, to demands for a totally separate Muslim state of Pakistan. In August 1947, the British partitioned the land with India and Pakistan each achieving independence on terms that Gandhi disapproved.{{sfnp|Markovits|2002|pp=367–386}}

=== Role in World War I ===

{{See also|Indian Army during World War I|label 1=The role of India in World War I}}

In April 1918, during the latter part of [[World War I]], the [[Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford|Viceroy]] invited Gandhi to a War Conference in Delhi.<ref>[[s:Chronology of Mahatma Gandhi's life/India 1918|Chronology of Mahatma Gandhi's Life:India 1918]] in WikiSource based on the [[s:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi|Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi]]. Based on public domain volumes.</ref> Gandhi agreed to support the war effort.<ref name="Turban" /><ref name="wikilivres.ca" /> In contrast to the [[Bambatha Rebellion|Zulu War]] of 1906 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants. In a June 1918 leaflet entitled "Appeal for Enlistment", Gandhi wrote: "To bring about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them... If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army."<ref name="CollectedWorks17b">Gandhi (1965), ''Collected Works'', [http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL017.PDF Vol 17.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091015235028/http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL017.PDF |date=15 October 2009}} Chapter "67. Appeal for enlistment", Nadiad, 22 June 1918.</ref> However, Gandhi stipulated in a letter to the [[John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby|Viceroy's private secretary]] that he "personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe."<ref name="CollectedWorks17c">Gandhi (1965), ''Collected Works'', [http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL017.PDF Vol 17.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091015235028/http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL017.PDF |date=15 October 2009}} "Chapter 8. Letter to J. L. Maffey", Nadiad, 30 April 1918.</ref>

Gandhi's support for the war campaign brought into question his consistency on nonviolence. [[Mahadev Desai|Gandhi's private secretary]] noted that "The question of the consistency between his creed of '[[Ahimsa]]' (nonviolence) and his recruiting campaign was raised not only then but has been discussed ever since."<ref name="wikilivres.ca" /> According to political and educational scientist Christian Bartolf, Gandhi's support for the war stemmed from his belief that true ahimsa could not exist simultaneously with cowardice. Therefore, Gandhi felt that Indians needed to be willing and capable of using arms before they voluntarily chose non-violence.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bartolf |first=Christian |date=22 August 2013 |title=Gandhi and War: The Mahatma Gandhi / Bart de Ligt Correspondence |url=https://www.satyagrahafoundation.org/gandhi-and-war-the-mahatma-gandhi-bart-de-ligt-correspondence |website=Satyagraha Foundation |access-date=5 February 2024 |archive-date=5 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240205071823/https://www.satyagrahafoundation.org/gandhi-and-war-the-mahatma-gandhi-bart-de-ligt-correspondence/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In July 1918, Gandhi said that he could not persuade even one individual to enlist for the world war. "So far I have not a single recruit to my credit apart," Gandhi wrote. He added: "They object because they fear to die."<ref name="Jarboe">{{cite book |author=Andrew T. Jarboe |title=Indian Soldiers in World War I: Race and Representation in an Imperial War |publisher=University of Nebraska |year=2021 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GvYrEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA238 |page=238 |isbn=9781496206787 |access-date=16 October 2023 |archive-date=21 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231021061242/https://books.google.com/books?id=GvYrEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA238 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Champaran agitations ===

{{Main|Champaran Satyagraha}}

[[File:Gandhi Kheda 1918.jpg|thumb|upright=0.5|Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the Kheda and Champaran Satyagrahas]]

Gandhi's first major achievement came in 1917 with the [[Champaran]] agitation in [[Bihar]]. The Champaran agitation pitted the local peasantry against largely Anglo-Indian plantation owners who were backed by the local administration. The peasants were forced to grow indigo (''[[Indigofera]]'' sp.), a cash crop for [[Indigo dye]] whose demand had been declining over two decades and were forced to sell their crops to the planters at a fixed price. Unhappy with this, the peasantry appealed to Gandhi at his [[ashram]] in Ahmedabad. Pursuing a strategy of nonviolent protest, Gandhi took the administration by surprise and won concessions from the authorities.<ref name="Hardiman2001" />

=== Kheda agitations ===
{{main|Kheda Satyagraha}}
In 1918, [[Kheda]] was hit by floods and famine and the peasantry was demanding relief from taxes. Gandhi moved his headquarters to [[Nadiad]],<ref name="Laboratory">{{cite web |year=2004 |title=Satyagraha Laboratories of Mahatma Gandhi |url=http://www.aicc.org.in/satyagraha_laboratories_of_mahatma_gandhi.htm |access-date=25 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061206050856/http://www.aicc.org.in/satyagraha_laboratories_of_mahatma_gandhi.htm |archive-date=6 December 2006 |website=[[Indian National Congress]] website |publisher=[[All India Congress Committee]]}}</ref> organising scores of supporters and fresh volunteers from the region, the most notable being [[Vallabhbhai Patel]].{{sfnp|Gandhi|2008|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FauJL7LKXmkC&pg=196 196–197]}} Using non-co-operation as a technique, Gandhi initiated a signature campaign where peasants pledged non-payment of revenue even under the threat of confiscation of land. A social boycott of ''mamlatdars'' and ''talatdars'' (revenue officials within the district) accompanied the agitation. Gandhi worked hard to win public support for the agitation across the country. For five months, the administration refused, but by the end of May 1918, the government gave way on important provisions and relaxed the conditions of payment of revenue tax until the famine ended. In Kheda, Vallabhbhai Patel represented the farmers in negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection and released all the prisoners.<ref name="Brown1974" />

=== Khilafat Movement ===

{{further|Khilafat Movement}}

[[File:Gandhi and Tagore 1920.jpg|thumb|upright|Gandhi (wearing a [[Gandhi cap]]) with [[Rabindranath Tagore]] and [[Sharda Mehta]], 1920]]

In 1919, Gandhi sought Muslim co-operation by supporting the defeated [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Nojeim |first=M. |title=Gandhi and King: The Power of Nonviolent Resistance |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-275-96574-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g9a5AAAAIAAJ |page=75 |access-date=3 February 2024 |archive-date=3 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240203075416/https://books.google.com/books?id=g9a5AAAAIAAJ |url-status=live}}</ref> This was in part motivated by the British promise to reciprocate the help with ''swaraj'' (self-government) to Indians after the war.<ref name="robbins133">{{cite book |last=Keith Robbins |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qnTq4w-Ny3oC |title=The First World War |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-19-280318-4 |pages=133–137}}</ref> Instead, the British government offered only minor reforms, disappointing Gandhi.<ref name="green89">{{cite book |last1=Green |first1=Michael J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0xHnDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA89 |title=A Global History of the Twentieth Century: Legacies and Lessons from Six National Perspectives |last2=Nicholas Szechenyi |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-4422-7972-8 |pages=89–90}}</ref> He announced his ''satyagraha'' (civil disobedience) intentions. The British countered with the [[Rowlatt Act]] to block Gandhi's movement, making civil disobedience a criminal offence and enabling internment without trial.{{sfnp|Minault|1982|pp=68–72, 78–82, 96–102, 108–109}}

Gandhi leveraged the [[Khilafat Movement]], wherein [[Sunni]] Muslims in India championed the Turkish [[Caliph]] as a symbol of Sunni Islam (''[[ummah]]'').{{sfnp|Minault|1982|pp=4–8}}<ref name="paine20">{{cite book |last=Sarah C.M. Paine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cJ9sBgAAQBAJ |title=Nation Building, State Building, and Economic Development: Case Studies and Comparisons |publisher=Routledge |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-317-46409-9 |pages=20–21}}</ref>{{sfnp|Ghose|1991|p=161–164}} Gandhi's support gave mixed results. It initially brought strong Muslim support. However, Hindu leaders including Rabindranath Tagore questioned Gandhi's leadership because they opposed recognising the Caliph.{{efn|{{sfnp|Minault|1982|pp=68–72, 78–82, 96–102, 108–109}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Roderick Matthews |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r9A4AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT31 |title=Jinnah vs. Gandhi |publisher=Hachette |year=2012 |isbn=978-93-5009-078-7 |page=31 |quote=Rabindranath Tagore heavily criticized Gandhi at the time in private letters (...). They reveal Tagore's belief that Gandhi had committed the Indian political nation to a cause that was mistakenly anti-Western and fundamentally negative.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Kham |first=Aqeeluzzafar |year=1990 |title=The All-India Muslim Conference and the Origin of the Khilafat Movement in India |journal=Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=155–162}}</ref><ref name="Roberts1923">{{cite journal |last=Roberts |first=W.H. |year=1923 |title=A Review of the Gandhi Movement in India |journal=Political Science Quarterly |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=227–48 |doi=10.2307/2142634 |jstor=2142634}}</ref>}}

Gandhi's increased Muslim support temporarily stopped Hindu-Muslim communal violence,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bose, Sugata |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qMJIuHL9ksAC&pg=PA112 |title=Modern South History, Culture, Political Economy |last2=Jalal, Ayesha |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-203-71253-5 |pages=112–14 |name-list-style=amp}}</ref>{{sfnp|Brown|1991|pp=140–147}} and helped sideline [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah]]. Jinna went on to lead the demand for a Muslim homeland. Though they agreed on Indian independence, they disagreed on the means of achieving it. Jinnah favoured constitutional negotiation, rather than agitating the masses.{{sfnp|Minault|1982|pp=113–116}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Akbar S. Ahmed |url=https://archive.org/details/jinnahpakistanis00ahme/page/57 |title=Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin |publisher=Routledge |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-415-14966-2 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/jinnahpakistanis00ahme/page/57 57–71]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Gandhi and Islam |url=https://www.islamicity.org/3910/gandhi-and-islam/ |access-date=18 April 2020 |website=www.islamicity.org |date=17 August 2010 |archive-date=7 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200907012817/https://www.islamicity.org/3910/gandhi-and-islam/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1922, the Khilafat Movement collapsed following the end of the [[Non-cooperation movement (1909–22)|non-cooperation movement]] and Gandhi's arrest.<ref name="Bandyopādhyāẏa">{{cite book |last=Bandyopādhyāẏa |first=Ś. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0oVra0ulQ3QC&pg=PA304 |title=From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India |publisher=Orient Blackswan |year=2004 |isbn=978-81-250-2596-2 |page=304 |quote=He was arrested on 10 March 1922 and was sentenced to prison for six years. [...] Gradually the Khilafat movement too died. |access-date=25 August 2023 |archive-date=10 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230710131254/https://books.google.com/books?id=0oVra0ulQ3QC&pg=PA304 |url-status=live }}</ref> A number of Muslim leaders abandoned Gandhi and Congress.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brown, Judith Margaret |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Eq7tAAAAMAAJ |title=Modern India: the origins of an Asian democracy |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-19-873112-2 |page=228 |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=2 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702121919/https://books.google.com/books?id=Eq7tAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> Hindu-Muslim communal conflicts reignited, and deadly religious riots re-appeared in numerous cities.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sarkar, Sumit |url=https://archive.org/details/modernindia1885100sark |title=Modern India: 1885–1947 |publisher=Macmillan |year=1983 |isbn=978-0-333-90425-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/modernindia1885100sark/page/n252 233] |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{sfnp|Markovits|2002|p=372}}

=== Non-co-operation ===

{{main|Non-co-operation movement}}

[[File:Gandhi besant madras1921.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|Gandhi with [[Annie Besant]] en route to a meeting in [[Madras]] in September 1921. Earlier, in [[Madurai]], on 21 September 1921, Gandhi had adopted the [[loin-cloth]] for the first time as a symbol of his identification with India's poor.]]

With his book ''[[Hind Swaraj]]'' (1909) Gandhi, aged 40, declared that British rule was established in India with the co-operation of Indians and had survived only because of this. If Indians refused to co-operate, British rule would collapse and ''[[swaraj]]'' (Indian independence) would come.<ref name="GangulyDocker20082" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Baldwin |first1=Lewis V. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6xdNAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA168%257CYEAR=2013%257CPUBLISHER=WIPF |title=In an Inescapable Network of Mutuality: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Globalization of an Ethical Ideal |last2=Dekar |first2=Paul R. |date=30 August 2013 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=978-1-61097-434-9 |access-date=6 August 2023 |archive-date=5 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231005092125/https://books.google.com/books?id=6xdNAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA168%7CYEAR=2013%7CPUBLISHER=WIPF |url-status=live }}</ref> In February 1919, Gandhi cautioned the Viceroy of India that the [[Rowlatt Act]] would result in civil disobedience.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002a|pp=99–103}} The British government ignored him, and the ''satyagraha'' civil disobedience followed, with British law officers firing on unarmed people.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002a|pp=99–103}} Riots followed; Gandhi urged peaceful protest.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002a|pp=99–103}} The [[Jallianwala Bagh massacre]] enraged the subcontinent. Gandhi criticised his fellow countrymen for not exclusively using "love" to deal with the "hate" of the British government.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002a|pp=99–103}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gandhi |first=Mohandas Karamchand |title=An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments With Truth |title-link=The Story of My Experiments with Truth |publisher=Navajivan Publishing House |orig-year=1940 | year=1993 |isbn=0-8070-5909-9 |edition=2nd |location=Ahmedabad |page=[https://archive.org/details/autobiographyst00gand/page/82 82]}} Also available at [[s:An Autobiography or The Story of my Experiments with Truth|Wikisource]].</ref> 
Gandhi shifted his attention to ''swaraj'' and political independence for India.<ref name="Chakrabarty2008">{{Cite book |last=Chakrabarty |first=Bidyut |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QzQHZ178C24C&pg=PA154 |title=Indian Politics and Society since Independence: events, processes and ideology |publisher=Routledge |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-415-40868-4 |page=154 |access-date=4 April 2012 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007230049/https://books.google.com/books?id=QzQHZ178C24C&pg=PA154 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1921, Gandhi became the leader of the Indian National Congress.{{sfnp|Ghose|1991|p=161–164}} Gandhi expanded his nonviolence to include the [[Swadeshi movement|''swadeshi'' policy]] – the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods,{{sfnp|Gandhi|1990a|p=89}} and to boycott British institutions and law courts.{{sfnp|Shashi|1996|p=9}} Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment.{{sfnp|Gandhi|1990a|p=131}} 
<!--please do not add anything here, the full detail is at [[Non-co-operation movement]] -->

=== Salt Satyagraha (Salt March/Civil Disobedience Movement) ===

{{Main|Salt Satyagraha}}

[[File:Salt March.ogg|thumb|Original footage of Gandhi and his followers marching to Dandi in the Salt Satyagraha]]

After his release from prison in 1924, Gandhi continued to pursue ''swaraj''. He pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India [[dominion]] status or face further non-cooperation.{{sfnp|Gandhi|1990|p=172}}  The British did not respond favourably.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=419–420}} Gandhi led Congress in a celebration on 26 January 1930 of [[Independence Day (India)|India's Independence Day]] in Lahore. Gandhi launched a new Satyagraha against the British salt tax in March 1930, condemning British rule in a letter to the viceroy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bakshi, S. R. |title=Gandhi and Gandhi and the Mass Movement |publisher=New Delhi |year=1988 |pages=133–34}}</ref>

This was highlighted by the Salt March from 12 March to 6 April, where Gandhi and volunteers marched {{convert|388|km|mi}} from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself, with the declared intention of breaking the salt laws, watched by huge crowds.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/viewbydoi/10.1093/acref/9780195176322.013.1384 |title=Salt March |encyclopedia=Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World |date=2008 |access-date=4 January 2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-517632-2 }}</ref> On 5 May, Gandhi was interned under a regulation dating from 1827 in anticipation of a planned protest. The protest at Dharasana salt works on 21 May went ahead without Gandhi and was brutally suppressed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fischer, L. |title=Gandhi and the Mass Movement |year=1950 |pages=298–99}}</ref> The campaign succeeded in upsetting the British; Britain responded by imprisoning at least 60,000 people.<ref name="Hatt2002">{{Cite book |last=Hatt |first=Christine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f6vvy-J7vhcC&pg=PA33 |title=Mahatma Gandhi |date=2002 |publisher=Evans Brothers |isbn=978-0-237-52308-4 |page=33 |access-date=5 January 2022 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007230102/https://books.google.com/books?id=f6vvy-J7vhcC&pg=PA33#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>
<!--please do not add anything here; this is just a brief summary of the "main" article, [[Salt Satyagraha]]-->

=== Gandhi as folk hero ===
[[File:Indian workers on strike in support of Mahatma Gandhi in 1930.jpg|thumb|Indian workers on strike in support of Gandhi in 1930]]

Indian Congress in the 1920s appealed to [[Andhra Pradesh]] peasants by creating Telugu language plays that combined Indian mythology and legends, linked them to Gandhi's ideas, and portrayed Gandhi as a [[messiah]], a reincarnation of ancient and medieval Indian nationalist leaders and saints. The plays built support among peasants steeped in traditional Hindu culture, according to Murali, and this effort made Gandhi a folk hero in Telugu speaking villages, a sacred messiah-like figure.<ref name="Murali1985" />

According to Dennis Dalton, it was Gandhi's ideas that were responsible for his wide following. Gandhi criticised Western civilisation as one driven by "brute force and immorality", contrasting it with his categorisation of Indian civilisation as one driven by "soul force and morality".{{sfnp|Dalton|2012|pp=8–14, 20–23, 30–35}} Gandhi captured the imagination of the people of his heritage with his ideas about winning "hate with love". These ideas are evidenced in his pamphlets from the 1890s, in South Africa, where too Gandhi was popular among the Indian [[Indian indenture system|indentured workers]]. After he returned to India, people flocked to Gandhi because he reflected their values.{{sfnp|Dalton|2012|pp=8–14, 20–23, 30–35}}

[[File:Gandhi first visit to Odisha.jpg|thumb| Gandhi's first visit to [[Odisha]] in 1921, a general meeting held at the riverbed of Kathajodi]]

Gandhi also campaigned hard going from one rural corner of the Indian subcontinent to another. He used terminology and phrases such as ''[[Rama]]-rajya'' from ''[[Ramayana]]'', [[Prahlada]] as a paradigmatic icon, and such cultural symbols as another facet of ''swaraj'' and ''satyagraha''.{{sfnp|Dhiman|2016|pp=46–49}} During Gandhi's lifetime, these ideas sounded strange outside India, but they readily and deeply resonated with the culture and historic values of his people.{{sfnp|Dalton|2012|pp=8–14, 20–23, 30–35}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=John M Levine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wrQ5DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA73 |title=Encyclopedia of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations |last2=Michael A. Hogg |publisher=Sage Publications |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4129-4208-9 |page=73}}</ref>

=== Negotiations ===
The government, represented by [[E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax|Lord Irwin]], the [[Viceroy of India]], decided to negotiate with Gandhi. The [[Gandhi–Irwin Pact]] was signed in March 1931. The British Government agreed to free all [[political prisoner]]s, in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. According to the pact, Gandhi was invited to attend the Round Table Conference in London for discussions and as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The conference was a disappointment to Gandhi and the nationalists. Gandhi expected to discuss India's independence, while the British side focused on the Indian princes and Indian minorities rather than on a transfer of power. Lord Irwin's successor, [[Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon|Lord Willingdon]], took a hard line against India as an independent nation, began a new campaign of controlling and subduing the nationalist movement. Gandhi was again arrested, and the government tried and failed to negate his influence by completely isolating him from his followers.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tquxD6dk914C&pg=PA375 375–377]}}

In Britain, [[Winston Churchill]], a prominent Conservative politician who was then out of office but later became its prime minister, became a vigorous and articulate critic of Gandhi and opponent of his long-term plans. Churchill said in a widely reported 1931 speech:

{{blockquote|It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace....to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|p=359}}}}

Churchill's bitterness against Gandhi grew in the 1930s. He called Gandhi as the one who was "seditious in aim" whose evil genius and multiform menace was attacking the British empire. Churchill called him a dictator, a "Hindu [[Mussolini]]", fomenting a race war, trying to replace the Raj with [[Brahmin]] cronies, playing on the ignorance of Indian masses, all for selfish gain.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=378–381}} Churchill attempted to isolate Gandhi, and his criticism of Gandhi was widely covered by European and American press. It gained Churchill sympathetic support, but it also increased support for Gandhi among Europeans. The developments heightened Churchill's anxiety that the "British themselves would give up out of pacifism and misplaced conscience."{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=378–381}}

=== Round Table Conferences ===

[[File:Mahadev Desai and Gandhi 2 1939.jpg|thumb|upright|Gandhi and his personal assistant [[Mahadev Desai]] at Birla House, 1939]]

During the discussions between Gandhi and the British government over 1931–32 at the [[Round Table Conferences (India)|Round Table Conferences]], Gandhi, now aged about 62, sought constitutional reforms as a preparation to the end of colonial British rule, and begin the self-rule by Indians.{{sfnp|Muldoon|2016|pp=92–99}} The British side sought reforms that would keep the Indian subcontinent as a colony. The British negotiators proposed constitutional reforms on a British Dominion model that established separate electorates based on religious and social divisions. The British questioned the Congress party and Gandhi's authority to speak for all of India.{{sfnp|Gandhi|2008|pp=332–333}} They invited Indian religious leaders, such as Muslims and Sikhs, to press their demands along religious lines, as well as [[B. R. Ambedkar]] as the representative leader of the untouchables.{{sfnp|Muldoon|2016|pp=92–99}} Gandhi vehemently opposed a constitution that enshrined rights or representations based on communal divisions, because he feared that it would not bring people together but divide them, perpetuate their status, and divert the attention from India's struggle to end the colonial rule.{{sfnp|Muldoon|2016|p=97}}{{sfnp|Brown|1991|pp=[https://archive.org/details/gandhi00judi/page/252 252–257]}}

The Second Round Table conference was the only time Gandhi left India between 1914 and his death in 1948. He was accompanied by his secretary [[Mahadev Desai]], son [[Devdas Gandhi]] and British supporter [[Mirabehn]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Gandhi |first=Rajmohan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dEUIqm0jquYC&dq=muriel+lester&pg=PA115 |title=The Good Boatman: A Portrait of Gandhi |date=1997 |publisher=Penguin Books India |isbn=978-0-14-025563-8 |pages=115–118 |language=en}}</ref> Gandhi declined the government's offer of accommodation in an expensive [[West End of London|West End]] hotel, preferring to stay in the [[East End of London|East End]], to live among working-class people, as he did in India.<ref>{{cite web |title=Mahatma Gandhi &#124; Philosopher & Teacher &#124; Blue Plaques |url=https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/mahatma-gandhi-kingsley-hall/ |access-date=26 September 2020 |website=English Heritage |archive-date=28 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200928214656/https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/mahatma-gandhi-kingsley-hall/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Gandhi based himself in a small [[monastic cell|cell-bedroom]] at his friend [[Muriel Lester]]'s "People's House" at [[Kingsley Hall]] for the three-month duration of his stay.<ref>{{Cite web |date=26 August 2017 |title=Peace seeking social reformer who became Gandhi's dear friend |url=https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/15496376.the-story-of-muriel-lester-who-went-from-essex-to-befriend-one-of-the-worlds-most-influential-leaders/ |access-date=22 March 2025 |website=Gazette |language=en}}</ref> He was enthusiastically received by East Enders.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gandhi visits the poor people of England in 1931 – Gandhi Video Footage |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLYIEajnqnI |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121002115124/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLYIEajnqnI&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=2 October 2012 |access-date=26 September 2020 |website=[[YouTube]]}}</ref> Local children gave him toys for his birthday and Lester noted that he would gently place them on window sills and in carriages during his stay and took them back to India.<ref name=":2" />

[[File:An admiring East End crowd gathers to witness the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi.jpg|thumb|An admiring [[East End of London|East End]] crowd gathers to witness the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi, 1931]]

After Gandhi returned from the Second Round Table conference, he started a new ''satyagraha''. Gandhi was arrested and imprisoned at the [[Yerwada Jail]], Pune. While he was in prison, the British government enacted a new law that granted untouchables a separate electorate. It came to be known as the [[Communal Award]].{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=382–390}} In protest, Gandhi started a fast-unto-death, while he was held in prison.<ref name="Dirks2011p267">{{Cite book |last=Nicholas B. Dirks |title=Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4008-4094-6 |pages=267–74 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UP7vmkFSJhIC&pg=PA268 |access-date=4 June 2017 |archive-date=21 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721085014/https://books.google.com/books?id=UP7vmkFSJhIC&pg=PA268 |url-status=live }}</ref> The resulting public outcry forced the government, in consultations with Ambedkar, to replace the Communal Award with a compromise [[Poona Pact]].<ref name="yer">{{Cite book |last=Kamath, M. V. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7bRZgojbsPsC&pg=PA24 |title=Gandhi's Coolie: Life & Times of Ramkrishna Bajaj |publisher=Allied Publishers |year=1995 |isbn=81-7023-487-5 |page=24 |access-date=3 June 2020 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007230103/https://books.google.com/books?id=7bRZgojbsPsC&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>{{sfnp|McDermott |Gordon |Embree |Pritchett |2014 |pp=369–370}}

=== Congress politics ===
In 1934, Gandhi resigned from Congress party membership. He did not disagree with the party's position, but felt that if he resigned, Gandhi's popularity with Indians would cease to stifle the party's membership, which actually varied, including communists, socialists, trade unionists, students, religious conservatives, and those with pro-business convictions, and that these various voices would get a chance to make themselves heard. Gandhi also wanted to avoid being a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj.{{sfnp|Gandhi|1990|p=246}}

In 1936, Gandhi returned to active politics again with the Nehru presidency and the Lucknow session of the Congress. Although Gandhi wanted a total focus on the task of winning independence and not speculation about India's future, he did not restrain the Congress from adopting socialism as its goal. Gandhi had a clash with Subhas Chandra Bose, who had been elected president in 1938, and who had previously expressed a lack of faith in nonviolence as a means of protest.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ghose |first=Sankar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mzRuAAAAMAAJ |title=Jawaharlal Nehru, A Biography |publisher=Allied Publishers |year=1992 |isbn=8170233690 |page=137 |access-date=27 May 2023 |archive-date=27 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230527171235/https://books.google.com/books?id=mzRuAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> Despite Gandhi's opposition, Bose won a second term as Congress President, against Gandhi's nominee, [[Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya]]. Gandhi declared that Sitaramayya's defeat was his defeat.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dash |first=Siddhartha |date=January 2005 |title=Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose |url=http://orissa.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/jan2005/englishPdf/Gandhi_subhas.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121224061752/http://orissa.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/jan2005/englishPdf/Gandhi_subhas.pdf |archive-date=24 December 2012 |access-date=12 April 2012 |website=Orissa Review}}</ref> Bose later left the Congress when the All-India leaders resigned en masse in protest of his abandonment of the principles introduced by Gandhi.{{sfnp|Gandhi|1990|pp=277–281}}<ref name="Sarkar2006" />

=== World War II and ''Quit India movement'' ===

{{main|Quit India Movement}}

[[File:Gandhi and Nehru 1942.jpg|thumb|upright|Gandhi talking with [[Jawaharlal Nehru]], his designated political heir, during the drafting of the Quit India Resolution in Bombay, August 1942]]

Gandhi opposed helping the British war effort and campaigned against participation in [[World War II]].{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=467–470}} The British government arrested Gandhi and killed over 1,000 members of the movement.<ref name="auto">{{cite book |last=Marques |first=J. |year=2020 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vCrXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT403 |title=The Routledge Companion to Inclusive Leadership |series=Routledge Companions in Business, Management and Marketing |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-03965-8 |page=403 |access-date=8 December 2022 |archive-date=7 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307161050/https://books.google.com/books?id=vCrXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT403 |url-status=live}}</ref> Violent attacks were carried out by nationalists against the British.<ref name="Anderson"/> The movement played a role in weakening British control, and paved the way for Indian independence.{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=467–470}}<ref name="Anderson">{{cite book |last1=Anderson|first1=D.|last2=Killingray|first2=D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rni7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA51 |title=Policing and Decolonisation: Politics, Nationalism, and the Police, 1917-65 |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-7190-3033-8 |series=Studies in imperialism |page=51 |quote=Britain's hold over India weakened and an early resumption of Congress rule appeared inevitable |access-date=8 December 2022 |archive-date=7 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307161050/https://books.google.com/books?id=rni7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA51 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Gandhi was motivated by his belief that India could not be party to a war for democratic freedom while that freedom was denied to India.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bipan Chandra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0q7xH06NrFkC&pg=PT543 |title=India's Struggle for Independence |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-81-8475-183-3 |page=543}}</ref> He explicitly called for the British to ''Quit India'' in a 1942 speech in Mumbai.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002a|pp=74–75}}{{sfnp|Gandhi|1990|p=309}} The British government responded quickly, arresting Gandhi.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gurcharan Das |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IgbeMDKvkU0C&pg=PA49 |title=A Fine Family |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-14-012258-9 |pages=49–50}}</ref> Indians retaliated by damaging hundreds of government owned railway stations and police stations, and cutting telegraph wires.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002a|pp=205–211}}

In 1942, Gandhi urged his people to completely stop co-operating with the imperial government, again calling for non-violence.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002a|pp=74–75}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brock |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vRduAAAAMAAJ |title=The Mahatma and mother India: essays on Gandhiʼs nonviolence and nationalism |publisher=[[Navajivan Publishing House]] |year=1983 |page=34}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Limaye |first=Madhu |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WVIwAQAAIAAJ |title=Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru: a historic partnership |publisher=B.R. Publishing Corporation |year=1990 |isbn=81-7018-547-5 |page=11 |author-link=Madhu Limaye |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329133300/https://books.google.com/books?id=WVIwAQAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> He urged Indians to ''karo ya maro'' ("do or die") in the cause of their rights and freedoms.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002a|pp=74–75}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=von Pochhammer, Wilhelm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mHLB4m75pisC&pg=PA469 |title=India's Road to Nationhood: A Political History of the Subcontinent |publisher=Allied Publishers |year=2005 |isbn=81-7764-715-6 |page=469 |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329133128/https://books.google.com/books?id=mHLB4m75pisC&pg=PA469#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Gandhi writing 1942.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Gandhi in 1942, the year he launched the [[Quit India Movement]]]]

His arrest lasted two years.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002a|pp=205–211}} He was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. Gandhi and Jinnah had extensive correspondence and the two men met several times in September 1944. Jinnah rejected Gandhi's proposal for Hindu-Muslim coexistence, insisting on partitioning the subcontinent on religious lines to create a Muslim homeland (later Pakistan).<ref name="Khan2007-page1">{{Cite book |last=Khan |first=Yasmin |year=2007 |url=https://archive.org/details/greatpartitionma00khan/page/18 |title=The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-12078-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/greatpartitionma00khan/page/18 18] |access-date=1 September 2013 }}</ref> At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership.{{sfnp|Shashi|1996|p=13}}

=== Partition and independence ===
{{see also|Indian independence movement|Partition of India}}
[[File:Gandhi Jinnah 1944.jpg|thumb|left|Gandhi with [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah]] in September 1944]]
[[File:Gandhi Suhrawardy and Mujib.jpg|thumb|Gandhi with Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (left) and [[Sheikh Mujibur Rahman]] (far right) during [[Noakhali riots]] in October 1946]]
Gandhi [[opposition to the partition of India|opposed the partition of the Indian subcontinent]] along religious lines.<ref name="Khan2007-page1" />{{sfnp|Gandhi|2002|pp=106–108}}<ref name="autogenerated3">{{cite book |last=Khan |first=Yasmin |url=https://archive.org/details/greatpartitionma00khan |title=The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-300-12078-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/greatpartitionma00khan/page/n30 1] |access-date=1 September 2013 |url-access=registration | quote=South Asians learned that the British Indian Empire would be partitioned on 3 June 1947. They heard about it on the radio, from relations and friends, by reading newspapers and, later, through government pamphlets. Among a population of almost four hundred million, where the vast majority lived in the countryside, ..., it is hardly surprising that many ... did not hear the news for many weeks afterward. For some, the butchery and forced relocation of the summer months of 1947 may have been the first they know about the creation of the two new states rising from the fragmentary and terminally weakened British empire in India. | quote-page=1}}</ref> The Indian National Congress and Gandhi called for the [[British Empire|British]] to [[Quit India Movement|Quit India]]. However, the [[All-India Muslim League]] demanded "Divide and Quit India."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hermann Kulke |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RoW9GuFJ9GIC |title=A History of India |last2=Dietmar Rothermund |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-415-32920-0 |pages=311–12, context: 308–16 |access-date=6 June 2017 |archive-date=23 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231223185128/https://books.google.com/books?id=RoW9GuFJ9GIC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Penderel Moon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WpViCTc-YAgC |title=Divide and Quit |publisher=University of California Press |year=1962 |pages=11–28 |author-link=Penderel Moon}}</ref> Gandhi suggested an agreement which required the Congress and the Muslim League to co-operate and attain independence under a provisional government, thereafter, the question of partition could be resolved by a plebiscite in the districts with a Muslim majority.{{sfnp|Jack|1994|p=418}}

Jinnah rejected Gandhi's proposal and called for [[Direct Action Day]], on 16 August 1946, to press Muslims to publicly gather in cities and support his proposal for the partition of the Indian subcontinent into a Muslim state and non-Muslim state. [[Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy]], the Muslim League Chief Minister of Bengal – now [[Bangladesh]] and [[West Bengal]] (excluding [[Cooch Behar district|Cooch Behar]]), gave Calcutta's police special holiday to celebrate the Direct Action Day.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2009|pp=118–121}} The Direct Action Day triggered a mass murder of Calcutta Hindus and the torching of their property, and holidaying police were missing to contain or stop the conflict.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2001a}} The British government did not order its army to move in to contain the violence.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2009|pp=118–121}} The violence on Direct Action Day led to retaliatory violence against Muslims across India. Thousands of Hindus and Muslims were murdered, and tens of thousands were injured in the cycle of violence in the days that followed.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2009|pp=118–127}} Gandhi visited the most riot-prone areas to appeal a stop to the massacres.{{sfnp|Wolpert|2001a}}

[[File:Mountbattens with Gandhi (IND 5298).jpg|thumb|Gandhi (center) in 1947, with [[Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma|Louis Mountbatten]], Britain's last Viceroy of India, and his wife [[Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma|Edwina Mountbatten]]]]

[[Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell|Archibald Wavell]], the Viceroy and Governor-General of British India for three years through February 1947, had worked with Gandhi and Jinnah to find a common ground, before and after accepting Indian independence in principle. Wavell condemned Gandhi's character and motives as well as his ideas. Wavell accused Gandhi of harbouring the single-minded idea to "overthrow British rule and influence and to establish a Hindu raj", and called Gandhi a "malignant, malevolent, exceedingly shrewd" politician.{{sfnp|Dalton|2012a|pp=64–66}} Wavell feared a civil war on the Indian subcontinent, and doubted Gandhi would be able to stop it.{{sfnp|Dalton|2012a|pp=64–66}}

The British reluctantly agreed to grant independence to the people of the Indian subcontinent, but accepted Jinnah's proposal of partitioning the land into Pakistan and India. Gandhi was involved in the final negotiations, but [[Stanley Wolpert]] states the "plan to carve up British India was never approved of or accepted by Gandhi".{{sfnp|Wolpert|2002|p=7}}

The partition was controversial and violently disputed. More than half a million were killed in religious riots as 10 million to 12 million non-Muslims (Hindus and Sikhs mostly) migrated from Pakistan into India, and Muslims migrated from India into Pakistan, across the newly created borders of India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan.<ref name="MetcalfMetcalf2006">{{Cite book |last1=Metcalf |first1=Barbara Daly |title=A concise history of modern India |last2=Metcalf |first2=Thomas R. |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-521-86362-9 |pages=221–22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iuESgYNYPl0C |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=2 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702122602/https://books.google.com/books?id=iuESgYNYPl0C |url-status=live }}</ref>

Gandhi spent the day of independence not celebrating the end of the British rule, but appealing for peace among his countrymen by fasting and spinning in Calcutta on 15 August 1947. The partition had gripped the Indian subcontinent with religious violence and the streets were filled with corpses.<ref name=gs /> Gandhi's fasting and protests are credited for stopping the religious riots and communal violence. His [[List of fasts undertaken by Mahatma Gandhi|final fast]] took place from 13–18 January 1948, just days before his assassination.{{sfnp|Dalton|2012a|pp=64–66}}<ref name="Brown1991-p380">{{harvp|Brown|1991|p=380}}: "Despite and indeed because of his sense of helplessness Delhi was to be the scene of what he called his greatest fast. ... His decision was made suddenly, though after considerable thought – he gave no hint of it even to Nehru and Patel who were with him shortly before he announced his intention at a prayer-meeting on 12 January 1948. He said he would fast until communal peace was restored, real peace rather than the calm of a dead city imposed by police and troops. Patel and the government took the fast partly as condemnation of their decision to withhold a considerable cash sum still outstanding to Pakistan as a result of the allocation of undivided India's assets because the hostilities that had broken out in Kashmir; ... But even when the government agreed to pay out the cash, Gandhi would not break his fast: that he would only do after a large number of important politicians and leaders of communal bodies agreed to a joint plan for restoration of normal life in the city."</ref><ref name="talbot-2016-gandhi-assets">{{Cite book |last=Talbot |first=Ian |title=A History of Modern South Asia, Politics, States, Diasporas |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-300-19694-8 |location=New Haven and London |page=183 |lccn=2015937886 |quote=Disputes over Kashmir and the division of assets and water in the aftermath of Partition increased Pakistan’s anxieties regarding its much larger neighbor. Kashmir’s significance for Pakistan far exceeded its strategic value; its "illegal" accession to India challenged the state’s ideological foundations and pointed to a lack of sovereign fulfillment. The "K" in Pakistan’s name stood for Kashmir. Of less symbolic significance was the division of post-Partition assets. Not until December 1947 was an agreement reached on Pakistan’s share of the sterling assets held by the undivided Government of India at the time of independence. The bulk of these (550 million rupees) was held back by New Delhi because of the Kashmir conflict and paid only following Gandhi’s intervention and fasting. India delivered Pakistan’s military equipment even more tardily, and less than a sixth of the 160,000 tons of ordnance allotted to Pakistan by the Joint Defence Council was actually delivered.}}</ref><ref name="elkins-pakistan-payment">{{Cite book |last=Elkins |first=Caroline |title=Violence: A History of the British Empire |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |year=2022 |isbn=9780307272423 |location=New York, NY |lccn=2021018550 |quote=A few months later, with war-fueled tensions over Kashmir mounting and India refusing to pay Pakistan 550 million rupees, Pakistan's share of Britain’s outstanding war debt, Gandhi began to fast. "This time my fast is not only against Hindus and Muslims," the Mahatma said, "but also against the Judases who put on false appearances and betray themselves, myself and society." The elderly and frail man who was India’s symbolic political and spiritual leader went three days without food before India’s cabinet agreed to pay Pakistan, something Nehru had long promised Jinnah he would do. |author-link=Caroline Elkins}}</ref><ref name="blinkenberg-patel-cash-payments">{{Cite book |last=Blinkenberg |first=Lars |title=India-Pakistan: The History of Unsolved Conflicts: Volume I |publisher=Lindhardt og Ringhof |year=2022 |isbn=9788726894707 |quote=Sardar Patel decided, in the middle of December 1947, that the recent financial agreements with Pakistan should not be followed, unless Pakistan ceased to support the raiders. ... Gandhi was not convinced and he felt—like Mountbatten and Nehru—that the agreed transfer to Pakistan of a cash amount of Rs. 550 million should be implemented despite the Kashmir crisis. Gandhi started a fast unto death, which was officially done to stop communal trouble, especially in Delhi, but "word went round that it was directed against Sardar Patel's decision to withhold the cash balances"... Only because of Gandhi's interference, which was soon to cause his death, Sardar Patel gave in and the money was handed over to Pakistan.}}</ref><ref name="sarkar-modern-india-jan48-1">{{Cite book |last=Sarkar |first=Sumit |title=Modern India: 1885–1947 |publisher=Pearson Education |year=2014 |isbn=9789332535749 |location=Delhi and Chennai |page=375 |quote=This last fast seems to have been directed in part also against Patel’s increasingly communal attitudes (the Home Minister had started thinking in terms of a total transfer of population in the Punjab, and was refusing to honour a prior agreement by which India was obliged to give 55 crores of pre-Partition Government of India financial assets to Pakistan). ‘You are not the Sardar I once knew,’ Gandhi is said to have remarked during the fast. |author-link=Sumit Sarkar}}</ref><ref name="gandhi-suhrud-patel">{{Cite book |last1=Gandhi |first1=Gopalkrishna |title=Scorching Love: Letters from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to his son, Devadas |last2=Suhrud |first2=Tridip |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2022 |location=Oxford, UK |quote=The national capital and its surrounding areas are gripped by massacres and the spewing of hate. The two Punjabs on either side of the border are aflame. On 1 January 1948, a Thai visitor comes and compliments him on India’s independence. "Today ... Indian fears his brother Indian. Is this independence?’, Gandhi asks in response. Gandhi smarts at the Government of India’s new cabinet headed by Jawaharlal Nehru deciding to withhold the transfer of Pakistan’s share (Rs 55 crores) of the ‘sterling balance’ that undivided India has held at independence. The attack on Kashmur is cited as a reason for this. Patel says India cannot give money to Pakistan ‘for making bullets to be shot at us’. Gandhi's intense agitation settles into an inner quiet on 12 January when the clear thought comes to him that he must fast. And indefinitely.}} ‘It will end when and if I am satisfied that there is a reunion of hearts of all communities...’</ref><ref name="gurharpal=-shani-patel">{{Cite book |last1=Singh |first1=Gurharpal |title=Sikh Nationalism: From a Dominant Minority to an Ethno-Religious Diaspora |last2=Shani |first2=Georgio |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-107-13654-0 |page=107 |lccn=2021017207 |quote=For further evidence of Patel’s involvement in the clearing of Muslims in north India, see Pandey (2001, 196). Against the background of the India-Pakistan conflict in Kashmir, the dispute between the two countries over the division of cash balances and Gandhi’s fast in early 1948, Mountbatten noted the following of his interview with Patel: 'He expressed the view that the only way to re-establish decent relationship between the Muslims and non-Muslim communities was to remove Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan and drive out the Muslims of the East Punjab and the affected neighbouring areas.' MB1/D76/1. Mountbatten Papers, University of Southampton.}}</ref><ref name="burton-stein-godse">{{Cite book |last1=Stein |first1=Burton |title=A History of India |last2=Arnold |first2=David |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4051-9509-6 |edition=2nd |series=Blackwell History of the World Series |pages=352–353 |quote=He undertook a fast not only to restrain those bent on communal reprisal but also to influence the powerful Home Minister, Sardar Patel, who was refusing to share out the assets of the former imperial treasury with Pakistan, as had been agreed. Gandhi's insistence on justice for Pakistan now that the partition was a fact ... had prompted Godse's fanatical action. |author-link=Burton Stein |author-link2=David Arnold (historian)}}</ref>

== Death ==
{{Main|Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi}}
[[File:Sushila Yawalkar 1.jpg|thumb|[[Sushila Yawalkar]] painting Gandhi in the year of his death]]
At 5:17&nbsp;p.m. on 30 January 1948, Gandhi was with his grandnieces in the garden of [[Birla House]] (now [[Gandhi Smriti]]), on his way to address a prayer meeting, when [[Nathuram Godse]], a Hindu nationalist, fired three bullets into Gandhi's chest from a pistol at close range.<ref name="ahmed-godse-assets">{{Cite book |last=Ahmed |first=Raja Qaiser |title=Pakistan Factor and the Competing Perspectives in India: Party Centric View |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2022 |isbn=978-981-16-7051-0 |page=11}}</ref><ref name="CushRobinson2008">{{Cite book |last1=Cush |first1=Denise |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i_T0HeWE-EAC&pg=PA544 |title=Encyclopedia of Hinduism |last2=Robinson |first2=Catherine |last3=York |first3=Michael |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-7007-1267-0 |page=544 |access-date=31 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012221104/http://books.google.com/books?id=i_T0HeWE-EAC&pg=PA544 |archive-date=12 October 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref> According to some accounts, Gandhi died instantly.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mahatma Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=USxWAAAAYAAJ |title=The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi |publisher=Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India |year=2000 |isbn=978-81-230-0154-8 |page=130}}</ref><ref name="Gandhi2007">{{Cite book |last=Gandhi |first=Tushar A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x-dsbNz7syQC&pg=PT12 |title="Let's Kill Gandhi !": A Chronicle of His Last Days, the Conspiracy, Murder, Investigation, and Trial |publisher=[[Rupa Publications|Rupa & Company]] |year=2007 |isbn=978-81-291-1094-7 |page=12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101071616/https://books.google.com/books?id=x-dsbNz7syQC&pg=PT12 |archive-date=1 January 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> In other accounts, such as one prepared by an eyewitness journalist, he was carried into the Birla House, into a bedroom. There, he died about 30 minutes later as a family member read verses from Hindu scriptures.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nicholas Henry Pronko |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VOBAAAAQBAJ |title=Empirical Foundations of Psychology |publisher=Routledge |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-136-32701-8 |pages=342–43}}</ref><ref name="spear-gandhi-1948-preconditions-fast">{{cite book |last=Spear |first=Percival |title=History of India, Volume 2: From the sixteenth century to the twentieth century |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.13362/page/n241/mode/2up |page=239 |year=1990 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-140-13836-8 |author-link=Percival Spear |orig-year=1978}}</ref>{{sfnp|McDermott |Gordon |Embree |Pritchett |2014 |p=344}}{{sfnp|Wolpert|2004|p=358}}<ref name="Brown1991-p380" />

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed his countrymen over the [[All-India Radio]] saying:{{sfnp|Ghose|1991|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=5l0BPnxN1h8C&pg=PA367 367]}}

<blockquote>Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that; nevertheless, we will not see him again, as we have seen him for these many years, we will not run to him for advice or seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for millions and millions in this country.<ref name="Jai1996">{{Cite book |last=Jai |first=Janak Raj |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Wrc1K0uJTgC&pg=PA45 |title=Commissions and Omissions by Indian Prime Ministers |date=July 2002 |publisher=Regency Publications |isbn=978-81-86030-25-7 |pages=45–47}}</ref></blockquote>

[[File:Mohandas K. Gandhi, Memorial assassination spot, 2013.jpg|left|thumb|Memorial at the location of Gandhi's assassination in 1948. His stylised footsteps lead to the memorial.]]

Godse, a Hindu nationalist,<ref name="babb-godse-assets">{{Cite book |last=Babb |first=Lawrence A. |title=Religion in India: Past and Present |publisher=Dunedin Academic Press |year=2020 |isbn=9781780466231 |location=Edinburgh}}</ref><ref name="CushRobinson2008" /><ref name="sarkar-modern-india-jan48-2">{{Cite book |last=Sarkar |first=Sumit |title=Modern India: 1885–1947 |publisher=Pearson Education |year=2014 |isbn=9789332535749 |location=Delhi and Chennai |page=375 |quote=Three days later the Mahatma was dead, murdered by a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse, as a climax to a conspiracy hatched by a Poona Brahman group originally inspired by V.D. Savarkar—a conspiracy which, despite ample warnings, the police of Bombay and Delhi had done nothing to foil. |author-link=Sumit Sarkar}}</ref> with links to the [[Hindu Mahasabha]] and the [[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]],{{sfnp|Hardiman|2003a|pp=174–176}}<ref name="bell-savarkar">{{cite book |last=Bell |first=J. Bowyer |author-link=J. Bowyer Bell |title=Assassin: Theory and Practice of Political Violence |publisher=Routledge |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-4128-0509-4 |location=London |orig-year=2005}}</ref><ref name="geva-delhi-jan48">{{Cite book |last=Geva |first=Rotem |title=Delhi Reborn: Partition and Nation Building in India's Capital |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2022 |isbn=9781503631199 |pages=130–131 |lccn=2021051794}}</ref><ref name="talbot-singh-delhi">{{cite book |last1=Talbot |first1=Ian |last2=Singh |first2=Gurharpal |title=The Partition of India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utKmPQAACAAJ&pg=PA118 |pages=118–119 |year=2009 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-85661-4 |quote=It is now almost a cliché that the Partition transformed Delhi from a Mughal to a Punjabi city. The bitter experiences of the refugees encouraged them to support right-wing Hindu parties. ... Trouble began in September (1947) after the arrival from refugees from Pakistan who were determined on revenge and driving Muslims out of properties which they could then occupy. Gandhi in his prayer meetings in Birla House denounced the 'crooked and ungentlemanly' squeezing out of Muslims. Despite these exhortations, two-thirds of the city's Muslims were to eventually abandon India's capital. |access-date=2 December 2021 |archive-date=28 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240328154810/https://books.google.com/books?id=utKmPQAACAAJ&pg=PA118 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Brown1991-p380" /> made no attempt to escape; several other conspirators were soon arrested as well. The accused were [[Nathuram Godse|Nathuram Vinayak Godse]], [[Narayan Apte]], [[Vinayak Damodar Savarkar]], Shankar Kistayya, Dattatraya Parchure, Vishnu Karkare, Madanlal Pahwa, and [[Gopal Godse]].<ref name="Brown1991-p380" /><ref name="talbot-singh-delhi" />{{sfnp|Khosla|1965|p=15}}<ref name="Jain76">{{cite book |last=Jagdish Chandra Jain |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NurqxSttqjoC&pg=PA76 |title=Gandhi, the Forgotten Mahatma |publisher=Mittal Publications |year=1987 |isbn=978-81-7099-037-6 |pages=76–77}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Jay Robert Nash |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9aQlCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 |title=Almanac of World Crime |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |location=New York |year=1981 |isbn=978-1-4617-4768-0 |page=69}}</ref>{{sfnp|Khosla|1965|p=38}}

The trial began on 27{{nbsp}}May 1948 and ran for eight months before Justice Atma Charan passed his final order on 10{{nbsp}}February 1949. The prosecution called 149 witnesses, the defence none.{{sfnp|Khosla|1965|p=15–29}} The court found all of the defendants except one guilty as charged. Eight men were convicted for the murder conspiracy, and others were convicted for violation of the Explosive Substances Act. Savarkar was acquitted and set free. Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were sentenced to death by [[hanging]]<ref>{{cite web |date=30 July 2015 |title=Yakub Memon first to be hanged in Maharashtra after Ajmal Kasab |url=http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/yakub-memon-first-to-be-hanged-in-maharashtra-after-ajmal-kasab/?SocialMedia |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928031701/http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/yakub-memon-first-to-be-hanged-in-maharashtra-after-ajmal-kasab/?SocialMedia |archive-date=28 September 2015 |access-date=30 July 2015}}</ref> while the remaining six (including Godse's brother, Gopal) were sentenced to [[Life in prison|life imprisonment]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Menon |first=Vinod Kumar |date=30 January 2014 |title=Revealed: The secret room where Godse was kept after killing Gandh |publisher=Mid-Day |url=http://www.mid-day.com/articles/revealed-the-secret-room-where-godse-was-kept-after-killing-gandhi/15058009 |url-status=live |access-date=18 June 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140703144825/http://www.mid-day.com/articles/revealed-the-secret-room-where-godse-was-kept-after-killing-gandhi/15058009 |archive-date=3 July 2014}}</ref>

=== Funeral and memorials ===
[[File:Gandhi funeral (cropped).jpg|thumb|Gandhi's funeral was marked by millions of Indians.<ref name="Gandhi94">{{Cite book |last=Mahatma Gandhi |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhireadersou00gand/page/483 |title=The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings |publisher=Grove Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-8021-3161-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/gandhireadersou00gand/page/483 483–89]}}</ref>]]

Gandhi's death was mourned nationwide.<ref name="spear-gandhi-1948-preconditions-fast" />{{sfnp|McDermott |Gordon |Embree |Pritchett |2014 |p=344}}{{sfnp|Wolpert|2004|p=358}}<ref name="Brown1991-p380" /> Over a million people joined the five-mile-long funeral procession that took over five hours to reach Raj Ghat from Birla house, where Gandhi was assassinated, and another million watched the procession pass by.<ref name="Gandhi94" /> His body was transported on a weapons carrier, whose chassis was dismantled overnight to allow a high-floor to be installed so that people could catch a glimpse of Gandhi's body. The engine of the vehicle was not used; instead, four drag-ropes held by 50 people each pulled the vehicle.<ref name=ie48 /> All Indian-owned establishments in London remained closed in mourning as thousands of people from all faiths and denominations and Indians from all over Britain converged at [[India House, London|India House]] in London.<ref name=ie48pg5 />

[[File:Cremation at Rajghat.jpg|thumb|right|Cremation of Mahatma Gandhi at [[Raj Ghat and associated memorials|Rajghat]], 31 January 1948. It was attended by [[Jawaharlal Nehru]], [[Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma|Louis]] and [[Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma|Edwina Mountbatten]], [[Abul Kalam Azad|Maulana Azad]], [[Rajkumari Amrit Kaur]], [[Sarojini Naidu]] and other national leaders. His son [[Devdas Gandhi]] lit the pyre.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Michaels |first=James |date=31 January 1948 |title=Cremation of Gandhi's body |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1948/01/31/Cremation-of-Gandhis-body/1311719724408/ |access-date=20 February 2023 |website=United Press International |archive-date=4 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004072556/https://www.upi.com/Archives/1948/01/31/Cremation-of-Gandhis-body/1311719724408/ |url-status=live }}</ref>]]

Gandhi was cremated in accordance with Hindu tradition. His ashes were poured into urns which were sent across India for memorial services.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LEEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA76 |title=Life |date=15 March 1948 |page=76 |issn=0024-3019 |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329133744/https://books.google.com/books?id=LEEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA76#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> Most of the ashes were immersed at the [[Sangam at Allahabad]] on 12 February 1948, but some were secretly taken away. In 1997, [[Tushar Gandhi]] immersed the contents of one urn, found in a bank vault and reclaimed through the courts, at the Sangam at Allahabad.<ref name="Guardian-2008-ashes" /><ref name="Kumar2006" /> Some of Gandhi's ashes were scattered at the source of the [[Nile River]] near [[Jinja, Uganda]], and a memorial plaque marks the event. On 30 January 2008, the contents of another urn were immersed at [[Girgaum Chowpatty]]. Another urn is at the [[Aga Khan Palace|palace]] of the [[Aga Khan]] in [[Pune]] (where Gandhi was held as a political prisoner from 1942 to 1944<ref>{{cite book |last1=Desai |first1=Ian |title=The History of Reading, Volume 1 |chapter=Books Behind Bars: Mahatma Gandhi's Community of Captive Readers |date=2011 |pages=178–191 |doi=10.1057/9780230316782_12 |isbn=978-1-349-32005-9 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bakshi |first1=S. R. |title=Gandhi and Bhagat Singh |journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress |date=1982 |volume=43 |pages=679–686 |jstor=44141310 }}</ref>) and another in the [[Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine]] in Los Angeles.<ref name="Guardian-2008-ashes" /><ref name="GWPM" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Mahatma – Life Chronology |website=[[Sabarmati Ashram|Gandhi Ashram]] |url=https://gandhiashramsabarmati.org/en/the-mahatma/life-chronology.html |access-date=29 March 2024 |url-status=live |archive-date=23 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231223063304/https://gandhiashramsabarmati.org/en/the-mahatma/life-chronology.html}}</ref>

The Birla House site where Gandhi was assassinated is now a memorial called Gandhi Smriti. The place near Yamuna River where he was cremated is the [[Raj Ghat and other memorials|Rāj Ghāt]] memorial in New Delhi.<ref>{{cite book |last=Margot Bigg |title=Delhi |publisher=Avalon |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-61238-490-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/moonhandbookstaj0000bigg |page=[https://archive.org/details/moonhandbookstaj0000bigg/page/14 14] |url-access=registration}}</ref> A black marble platform, it bears the epigraph "Hē Rāma" ([[Devanagari]]: ''हे ! राम'' or, ''Hey [[Rama|Raam]]''). These are said to be Gandhi's last words after he was shot.<ref name="Misra">{{cite book |last=Misra |first=R.P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kp6x7zDLhfMC |title=Rediscovering Gandhi |publisher=Concept Publishing Company in collaboration with Gandhi Smriti & Darshan Samiti |year=2007 |isbn=978-81-8069-375-5 |series=Gandhian studies and peace research series |page=102 |language=mt |access-date=6 August 2023 |issue=v. 1 |archive-date=6 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806123136/https://books.google.com/books?id=kp6x7zDLhfMC |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Principles, practices, and beliefs ==
{{main|Practices and beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi}}
{{see also|Gandhism}}

Gandhi's spirituality was greatly based on his embracement of the five great vows of Jainism and Hindu Yoga philosophy, viz. ''Satya'' (truth), ''ahimsa'' (nonviolence), ''brahmacharya'' (celibacy), ''asteya'' (non-stealing), and ''aparigraha'' (non-attachment).<ref name="Marbaniang">{{cite book |last1=Marbaniang |first1=Domenic |title=Asian Spiritualities and Social Transformation |chapter=Gandhian Pluralist Spirituality and the Anticorruption Mission of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi |date=2023 |pages=247–261 |doi=10.1007/978-981-99-2641-1_14 |isbn=978-981-99-2640-4 }}</ref> He stated that "Unless you impose on yourselves the five vows you may not embark on the experiment at all."<ref name="Marbaniang"/> Gandhi's statements, letters and life have attracted much political and scholarly analysis of his principles, practices and beliefs, including what influenced him. Some writers present Gandhi as a paragon of ethical living and pacifism, while others present him as a more complex, contradictory and evolving character influenced by his culture and circumstances.{{sfnp|Borman|1986|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=U6DE9OUvrTEC&pg=PA192 192]–195, 208–229}}<ref>{{harvp|Dalton|2012|pp=30–35}}. "Yet he [Gandhi] must bear some of the responsibility for losing his followers along the way. The sheer vagueness and contradictions recurrent throughout his writing made it easier to accept him as a saint than to fathom the challenge posed by his demanding beliefs. Gandhi saw no harm in self-contradictions: life was a series of experiments, and any principle might change if Truth so dictated."</ref>

=== Truth and Satyagraha ===

[[File:Mahatma Gandhi on Rumours.jpg|thumb|Plaque displaying one of Gandhi's quotes on rumour]]

Gandhi dedicated his life to discovering and pursuing truth, or ''[[Satya]]'', and called his movement [[satyagraha]], which means "appeal to, insistence on, or reliance on the Truth."<ref>{{cite book |last=Sharp |first=Gene |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhiwieldsweap00shar |title=Gandhi Wields the Weapon of Moral Power: Three Case Histories |publisher=Navajivan |year=1960 |page=[https://archive.org/details/gandhiwieldsweap00shar/page/4 4]}}</ref> The first formulation of the ''satyagraha'' as a political movement and principle occurred in 1920, which Gandhi tabled as "Resolution on Non-cooperation" in September that year before a session of the Indian Congress. It was the ''satyagraha'' formulation and step, states Dennis Dalton, that deeply resonated with beliefs and culture of his people, embedded him into the popular consciousness, transforming him quickly into Mahatma.{{sfnp|Dalton|2012|pp=30–32}}

[[File:God is Truth.jpg|thumb|left|"God is Truth. The way to Truth lies through [[ahimsa]] (nonviolence)" – [[Sabarmati Ashram|Sabarmati]], 13 March 1927]]

Gandhi based ''Satyagraha'' on the Vedantic ideal of self-realisation, ahimsa (nonviolence), vegetarianism, and universal love. William Borman states that the key to his ''satyagraha'' is rooted in the Hindu [[Upanishads|Upanishadic]] texts.{{sfnp|Borman|1986|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=U6DE9OUvrTEC&pg=PA26 26]–34}} According to Indira Carr, Gandhi's ideas on ''ahimsa'' and ''satyagraha'' were founded on the philosophical foundations of Advaita Vedanta.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Indira Carr |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UZQqBgAAQBAJ |title=Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers |publisher=Routledge |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-134-92796-8 |editor-last=Stuart Brown |page=264 |display-editors=etal}}</ref> I. Bruce Watson states that some of these ideas are found not only in traditions within Hinduism, but also in Jainism or Buddhism, particularly those about non-violence, vegetarianism and universal love, but Gandhi's synthesis was to politicise these ideas.<ref name="Watson">{{Cite journal |last=Watson |first=I. Bruce |year=1977 |title=Satyagraha: The Gandhian Synthesis |journal=Journal of Indian History |volume=55 |issue=1/2 |pages=325–35}}</ref> His concept of ''satya'' as a civil movement, states Glyn Richards, are best understood in the context of the Hindu terminology of [[Dharma]] and ''[[Ṛta]]''.<ref name="richards1">{{cite journal |last=Richards |first=Glyn |date=1986 |title=Gandhi's Concept of Truth and the Advaita Tradition |journal=Religious Studies |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=1–14 |doi=10.1017/S0034412500017996 |jstor=20006253 }}</ref>

Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities. Gandhi summarised his beliefs first when he said, "God is Truth." Gandhi would later change this statement to "Truth is God." Thus, ''satya'' (truth) in Gandhi's philosophy is "God".<ref name="Parel2006">{{cite book |last=Parel, Anthony |title=Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-521-86715-3 |page=195 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQhz0fW0HZUC&pg=PA195 |access-date=13 January 2012 |archive-date=21 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721073617/https://books.google.com/books?id=MQhz0fW0HZUC&pg=PA195 |url-status=live }}</ref> Gandhi, states Richards, described the term "God" not as a separate power, but as the Being (Brahman, Atman) of the [[Advaita Vedanta]] tradition, a nondual universal that pervades in all things, in each person and all life.<ref name="richards1" /> According to Nicholas Gier, this to Gandhi meant the unity of God and humans, that all beings have the same one soul and therefore equality, that ''atman'' exists and is same as everything in the universe, ahimsa (non-violence) is the very nature of this ''atman''.<ref name=gier40>{{cite book|author=Nicholas F. Gier|title=The Virtue of Nonviolence: From Gautama to Gandhi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tVLt99uleLwC&pg=PA40|year=2004|publisher=[[State University of New York Press]]|isbn=978-0-7914-5949-2|pages=40–42|access-date=1 June 2017|archive-date=21 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721073707/https://books.google.com/books?id=tVLt99uleLwC&pg=PA40|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Gandhi at Dandi, 5 April 1930.jpg|thumb|upright|Gandhi picking salt during [[Salt March|Salt Satyagraha]] to defy colonial law giving salt collection monopoly to the British.<ref>{{cite web|title=Salt March &#124; Definition, Causes, History, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Salt-March|access-date=20 February 2023|website=Britannica |first1=Kenneth |last1=Pletcher |archive-date=21 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191121121103/https://www.britannica.com/event/Salt-March|url-status=live}}</ref> His ''satyagraha'' attracted vast numbers of Indian men and women.<ref>{{cite book|author=Sita Anantha Raman|title=Women in India: A Social and Cultural History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KwKrCQAAQBAJ |year=2009|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-313-01440-6|pages=164–166}}</ref>]]

The essence of [[Satyagraha]] is "soul force" as a political means, refusing to use brute force against the oppressor, seeking to eliminate antagonisms between the oppressor and the oppressed, aiming to transform or "purify" the oppressor. It is not inaction but determined passive resistance and non-co-operation where, states Arthur Herman, "love conquers hate".{{sfnp|Herman|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tquxD6dk914C&pg=PA176 176]}} A euphemism sometimes used for Satyagraha is that it is a "silent force" or a "soul force" (a term also used by Martin Luther King Jr. during his "[[I Have a Dream]]" speech). It arms the individual with moral power rather than physical power. Satyagraha is also termed a "universal force", as it essentially "makes no distinction between kinsmen and strangers, young and old, man and woman, friend and foe."{{efn|name="rules"|<ref>{{cite book |last=Gandhi |first=M.K. |contribution=Some Rules of Satyagraha ''Young India (Navajivan)'' 23 February 1930 |title=The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi |volume=48 |page=340}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Misra |first=Bijoy |date=18 October 2017 |title=Mahatma Gandhi's Rules for Satyagraha |website=www.lokvani.com |url=https://www.lokvani.com/lokvani/article.php?article_id=13907 |access-date=5 July 2024 |archive-date=30 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230730054534/https://www.lokvani.com/lokvani/article.php?article_id=13907 |url-status=usurped }} (Young India, 27 February 1930, The Gujarati original of this appeared in Navajivan, 23 February 1930)</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Yadav |first=Yogendra |date=9 January 2013 |title=Some Rules of Satyagraha |website=The Gandhi-King Community |url=https://gandhiking.ning.com/profiles/blogs/some-rules-of-satyagraha-1 |access-date=5 July 2024 |archive-date=11 August 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240811213050/https://gandhiking.ning.com/profiles/blogs/some-rules-of-satyagraha-1 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Gandhi wrote: "There must be no impatience, no barbarity, no insolence, no undue pressure. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy, we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause."<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Prabhu |editor1-first=R.K. |editor2-last=Rao |editor2-first=U.R. |year=1967 |chapter=Power of Satyagraha |chapter-url=http://www.mkgandhi.org/momgandhi/chap34.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070902015645/http://www.mkgandhi.org/momgandhi/chap34.htm |archive-date=2 September 2007 |title=The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi |location=Ahemadabad |publisher=Navajivan Mudranalaya |isbn=81-7229-149-3}}</ref> [[Civil disobedience]] and non-co-operation as practised under Satyagraha are based on the "law of suffering",<ref name="CollectedWorks20">{{cite book |title=Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi |chapter=156. The Law of Suffering |last=Gandhi |first=M.K. |volume=20 |year=1982 |orig-year=Young India, 16 June 1920 |publisher=Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India |location=New Delhi |edition=electronic |pages=396–99 |chapter-url=http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL020.PDF |access-date=14 January 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128150127/http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL020.PDF |archive-date=28 January 2012}}</ref> a doctrine that ''the endurance of suffering is a means to an end''. This end usually implies a moral upliftment or progress of an individual or society. Therefore, non-co-operation in Satyagraha is in fact a means to secure the co-operation of the opponent consistently with [[truth]] and [[justice]].<ref name="Sharma2008">{{cite book|last=Sharma|first=Jai Narain|year=2008 |title=Satyagraha: Gandhi's approach to conflict resolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XxJvoBWTAXoC&pg=PA17|access-date=26 January 2012|publisher=Concept Publishing Company|isbn=978-81-8069-480-6|page=17|archive-date=21 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721073713/https://books.google.com/books?id=XxJvoBWTAXoC&pg=PA17|url-status=live}}</ref>

While Gandhi's idea of ''satyagraha'' as a political means attracted a widespread following among Indians, the support was not universal. For example, Muslim leaders such as Jinnah opposed the ''satyagraha'' idea, accused Gandhi to be reviving Hinduism through political activism, and began effort to counter Gandhi with Muslim nationalism and a demand for Muslim homeland.<ref>{{cite book|author=R. Taras|title=Liberal and Illiberal Nationalisms|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Npt_DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA91|year= 2002|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0-230-59640-5|page=91 | quote=In 1920 Jinnah opposed satyagraha and resigned from the Congress, boosting the fortunes of the Muslim League.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Yasmin Khan |year=2007 |title=The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan |url=https://archive.org/details/greatpartitionma00khan/page/11 |publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-12078-3|pages=[https://archive.org/details/greatpartitionma00khan/page/11 11–22]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Rafiq Zakaria|title=The Man who Divided India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2RdITXUpyVgC |year=2002|publisher=Popular Prakashan|isbn=978-81-7991-145-7|pages=83–85}}</ref> The untouchability leader [[B. R. Ambedkar|Ambedkar]], in June 1945, after his decision to convert to Buddhism and the first [[Ministry of Law and Justice (India)|Law and Justice minister]] of modern India, dismissed Gandhi's ideas as loved by "blind Hindu devotees", primitive, influenced by spurious brew of Tolstoy and Ruskin, and "there is always some simpleton to preach them".{{sfnp|Herman|2008|p=586}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cháirez-Garza |first1=Jesús Francisco |title=Touching space: Ambedkar on the spatial features of untouchability |journal=Contemporary South Asia |date=2 January 2014 |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=37–50 |doi=10.1080/09584935.2013.870978 }}</ref><ref>Ambedkar, B. R. (1945), [https://archive.org/stream/Dr.BabasahebAmbedkarWritingsAndSpeechespdfsAllVolumes/Volume_09#page/n15/mode/2up/search/ahimsa What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables], Thacker & Co. Editions, First Edition, pp. v, 282–297.</ref> [[Winston Churchill]] caricatured Gandhi as a "cunning huckster" seeking selfish gain, an "aspiring dictator", and an "atavistic spokesman of a pagan Hinduism." Churchill stated that the civil disobedience movement spectacle of Gandhi only increased "the danger to which white people there [British India] are exposed."{{sfnp|Herman|2008|pp=359, 378–380}}

=== Nonviolence ===

[[File:Gandhi at Darwen with women.jpg|thumb|upright|Gandhi with textile workers at [[Darwen]], Lancashire, 26 September 1931]]

Although Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of nonviolence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a large scale.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Asirvatham |first=Eddy |title=Political Theory |publisher=S.chand |isbn=81-219-0346-7 |year=1995}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Parel |first=Anthony J. |title=Pax Gandhiana: The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bMGSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA202 |pages=202– |year=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-049146-8 |access-date=21 July 2019 |archive-date=21 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721073651/https://books.google.com/books?id=bMGSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA202 |url-status=live |quote=Gandhi staked his reputation as an original political thinker on this specific issue. Hitherto, violence had been used in the name of political rights, such as in street riots, regicide, or armed revolutions. Gandhi believes there is a better way of securing political rights, that of nonviolence, and that this new way marks an advance in political ethics.}}</ref> The concept of nonviolence (''[[ahimsa]]'') has a long history in Indian religious thought, and is considered the highest dharma (ethical value/virtue), a precept to be observed towards all living beings (''sarvbhuta''), at all times (''sarvada''), in all respects (''sarvatha''), in action, words and thought.<ref>{{cite book |author=Christopher Chapple|title=Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Y00Q0_mOkAC |year=1993|publisher=[[State University of New York Press]] |isbn=978-0-7914-1497-2|pages=16–18, 54–57}}</ref> Gandhi explains his philosophy and ideas about ''ahimsa'' as a political means in his autobiography ''[[The Story of My Experiments with Truth]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gandhi |first=Mohandis K. |date=11 August 1920 |journal=Young India |publisher=M. K. Gandhi |page=3 |title=The Doctrine of the Sword |url=https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/datalink/files/ghp_journals/journal_image_3/young_india_vol2_img251.jpg |access-date=3 May 2017 |url-status=live |archive-date=19 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019152536/https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/datalink/files/ghp_journals/journal_image_3/young_india_vol2_img251.jpg}} Cited from {{harvp|Borman|1986|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=U6DE9OUvrTEC&pg=PA253 253]}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Faisal |last=Devji |title=The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence |publisher=Harvard University Press |date=2012}} {{ISBN?}}</ref>{{sfnp|Johnson|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=dRQcKsx-YgQC&pg=PR11 xi]}}<ref name="Stein20102">{{cite book |last=Stein |first=Burton |title=A History of India |pages=289– |year=2010 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4443-2351-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QY4zdTDwMAQC&pg=GBS.PA289 |quote=Gandhi was the leading genius of the later, and ultimately successful, campaign for India's independence. |author-link=Burton Stein |access-date=21 July 2019|archive-date=21 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721074132/https://books.google.com/books?id=QY4zdTDwMAQC&pg=GBS.PA289 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Although Gandhi considered non-violence to be "infinitely superior to violence", he preferred violence to cowardice.<ref name="Gupta">{{cite web | last=Gupta | first=Sourabh | title=Gandhi Jayanti: Why non-violent Mahatma Gandhi preferred violence to cowardice | website=India Today | date=2 October 2013 | url=https://www.indiatoday.in/featured/story/gandhi-jayanti-non-violent-mahatma-gandhi-preferred-violence-over-cowardice-212996-2013-10-01 | access-date=6 August 2023 | archive-date=6 August 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806103121/https://www.indiatoday.in/featured/story/gandhi-jayanti-non-violent-mahatma-gandhi-preferred-violence-over-cowardice-212996-2013-10-01 | url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Jahanbegloo 2020"/> Gandhi added that he "would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor."<ref name="Jahanbegloo 2020">{{cite book | last=Jahanbegloo | first=R. | title=Mahatma Gandhi: A Nonviolent Perspective on Peace | publisher=Taylor & Francis | series=Peacemakers | year=2020 | isbn=978-1-000-22313-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BBIHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 | page=69 | access-date=6 August 2023 | archive-date=6 August 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806124828/https://books.google.com/books?id=BBIHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 | url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Brahmacharya: abstinence from sex and food ===
Along with many other texts, Gandhi studied the Bhagavad Gita while in South Africa.<ref name="apsharma154">{{cite book|author=A. P. Sharma|title=Indian & Western Educational Philosophy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2o4bTpFQtdIC |year=2010|publisher=Pustak Mahal|isbn=978-81-7806-201-3|pages=154–56}}</ref> This Hindu scripture discusses [[jnana yoga]], [[bhakti yoga]] and [[karma yoga]] along with virtues such as non-violence, patience, integrity, lack of hypocrisy, self restraint and abstinence.<ref>{{cite book|author=Winthrop Sargeant|editor=Christopher Key Chapple|title=The Bhagavad Gita: Twenty-fifth–Anniversary Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=COuy5CDAqt4C|year=2010|publisher=[[State University of New York Press]]|isbn=978-1-4384-2840-6|pages=x–xviii, 285 (verse 6.14), 415 (verse 10.5), 535 (verse 13.7)|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170415012931/https://books.google.com/books?id=COuy5CDAqt4C|archive-date=15 April 2017}}</ref> Gandhi began experiments with these, and in 1906 at age 37, although married, he vowed to abstain from sexual relations.<ref name="apsharma154" />

Gandhi's experiment with abstinence went beyond sex, and extended to food. He consulted the [[Jain]] scholar [[Shrimad Rajchandra]], whom he fondly called Raychandbhai.<ref>{{cite book|author=Thomas Weber|title=Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhiasdisciple0000webe |url-access=registration|year=2004|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-1-139-45657-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/gandhiasdisciple0000webe/page/33 33]}}</ref> Rajchandra advised him that milk stimulated sexual passion. Gandhi began abstaining from cow's milk in 1912, and did so even when doctors advised him to consume milk.<ref>{{cite book|author=Mahatma Gandhi|title=An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth|url=https://archive.org/details/autobiographyst00gand/page/262|access-date=23 November 2016|volume=39|year=1957|publisher=[[Beacon Press]]|isbn=978-0-8070-5909-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/autobiographyst00gand/page/328 328]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Sankar Ghose|title= Mahatma Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5l0BPnxN1h8C |year=1991|publisher= Allied Publishers|isbn=978-81-7023-205-6|pages=66–67}}</ref> According to Sankar Ghose, Tagore described Gandhi as someone who did not abhor sex or women, but considered sexual life as inconsistent with his moral goals.<ref name=ghose354>{{cite book|author=Sankar Ghose|title= Mahatma Gandhi |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=5l0BPnxN1h8C |year= 1991|publisher= Allied Publishers|isbn= 978-81-7023-205-6|pages=354–57}}</ref>

Gandhi tried to test and prove to himself his ''brahmacharya''. The experiments began some time after the death of his wife in February 1944. At the start of his experiment, he had women sleep in the same room but in different beds. He later slept with women in the same bed, often naked. In April 1945, Gandhi referenced sleeping with several "women or girls" in a letter to Birla as part of the experiments.<ref name=parekh210>{{cite book|author=Bhikhu C. Parekh|title=Colonialism, tradition, and reform: an analysis of Gandhi's political discourse|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eXhuAAAAMAAJ|year=1999|publisher=Sage Publications|isbn=978-0-7619-9382-7|pages=210–21|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140629120818/http://books.google.com/books?id=exhuAAAAMAAJ|archive-date=29 June 2014}}</ref> According to the 1960s memoir of his grandniece Manu, Gandhi feared in early 1947 that he and she may be killed by Muslims in the run-up to India's independence in August 1947, and asked her when she was 18 years old if she wanted to help him with his experiments to test their "purity", for which she readily accepted.<ref name="jadadams2012">{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/thrill-of-the-chaste-the-truth-about-gandhis-sex-life-1937411.html|title=Thrill of the chaste: The truth about Gandhi's sex life|date=2 January 2012|work=[[The Independent]]|author=Jad Adams|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130603033106/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/thrill-of-the-chaste-the-truth-about-gandhis-sex-life-1937411.html|archive-date=3 June 2013}}</ref> Gandhi also shared his bed with 18-year-old Abha, wife of his grandnephew Kanu. Gandhi would sleep with both Manu and Abha at the same time to test his celibacy.<ref name="jadadams2012" /><ref name=majumdar224>{{cite book|author=Uma Majmudar|title=Gandhi's Pilgrimage of Faith: From Darkness to Light|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3XombmM30kAC&pg=PA224 |year=2012 |publisher= [[State University of New York Press]]|isbn=978-0-7914-8351-0|pages=224–25}}</ref>

According to Sean Scalmer, Gandhi in his final year of life was an [[ascetic]], and his sickly skeletal figure was caricatured in Western media.<ref>{{cite book|author=Sean Scalmer|title=Gandhi in the West: The Mahatma and the Rise of Radical Protest|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oDcXJxRR4TUC&pg=PA16|year=2011|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=12–17 with footnotes|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101071616/https://books.google.com/books?id=oDcXJxRR4TUC&pg=PA16|archive-date=1 January 2016|isbn=978-1-139-49457-1}}</ref> In February 1947, he asked his confidants such as Birla and Ramakrishna if it was wrong for him to test his ''brahmacharya'' oath<!--as detailed in paragraph above-->.<ref name=ghose354 /> Gandhi's public experiments, as they progressed, were widely discussed and criticised by his family members and leading politicians. However, Gandhi said that if he would not let Manu sleep with him, it would be a sign of weakness. Some of his staff resigned, including two of his newspaper's editors who had refused to print some of Gandhi's sermons dealing with his experiments.<ref name="jadadams2012" /> Nirmalkumar Bose, Gandhi's Bengali interpreter, for example, criticised Gandhi, not because Gandhi did anything wrong, but because Bose was concerned about the psychological effect on the women who participated in his experiments.<ref name=majumdar224 /> Veena Howard states Gandhi's views on brahmacharya and religious renunciation experiments were a method to confront women's issues in his times.<ref name=howard2013>{{cite journal |author=Howard, Veena R. |year=2013|title=Rethinking Gandhi's celibacy: Ascetic power and women's empowerment|journal=[[Journal of the American Academy of Religion]] |volume=81 |issue=1 |pages=130–61 [130, 137] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |doi= 10.1093/jaarel/lfs103 }}</ref>

Gandhi also supported [[alcohol abstinence]], advocating [[prohibition]] as the only effective way to deal with alcohol usage.<ref>{{cite book |title=Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History An International Encyclopedia · Volume 1 |date=2003 |publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]] |page=692}}</ref>

== Literary works ==
[[File:Young India.png|thumb|upright|''[[Young India]]'', a weekly journal published by Gandhi from 1919 to 1932]]
Gandhi was a prolific writer. His signature style was simple, precise, clear and devoid of artificialities.<ref>{{Cite web|title=M.K. Gandhi as a Author {{!}} M.K. Gandhi: Author, Journalist, Printer-Publisher {{!}} Journalist Gandhi|url=https://www.mkgandhi.org/j.a.p/author.htm|access-date=25 January 2022|website=www.mkgandhi.org|archive-date=25 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125084617/https://www.mkgandhi.org/j.a.p/author.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> One of Gandhi's earliest publications, ''Hind Swaraj'', published in Gujarati in 1909, became "the intellectual blueprint" for India's independence movement. The book was translated into English the next year, with a copyright legend that read "No Rights Reserved".<ref name=ie12>{{cite news|title=Would Gandhi have been a Wikipedian?|url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/would-gandhi-have-been-a-wikipedian/900506/0|access-date=26 January 2012|work=[[The Indian Express]]|date=17 January 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121209021916/http://www.indianexpress.com/news/would-gandhi-have-been-a-wikipedian/900506/0|archive-date=9 December 2012}}</ref> For decades, Gandhi edited several newspapers including ''[[Harijan]]'' in Gujarati, in [[Hindi]] and in the English language; ''[[Indian Opinion]]'' while in South Africa and, ''[[Young India]]'', in English, and ''Navajivan'', a Gujarati monthly, on his return to India. Later, ''Navajivan'' was also published in Hindi. Gandhi also wrote letters almost every day to individuals and newspapers.<ref>[http://www.lifepositive.com/Spirit/masters/mahatma-gandhi/journalist.asp "Peerless Communicator"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070804022748/http://www.lifepositive.com/Spirit/masters/mahatma-gandhi/journalist.asp |date=4 August 2007}} by V. N. Narayanan. Life Positive Plus, October–December 2002.</ref>

Gandhi also wrote several books, including his autobiography, ''[[The Story of My Experiments with Truth]]'' ({{Langx|gu|સત્યના પ્રયોગો અથવા આત્મકથા}}), of which Gandhi bought the entire first edition to make sure it was reprinted.<ref name="GreatSoulReview" /> His other autobiographies included: ''Satyagraha in South Africa'' about his struggle there, ''[[Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule]]'', a political pamphlet, and a paraphrase in Gujarati of [[John Ruskin]]'s ''[[Unto This Last]]'' which was an early [[critique of political economy]].<ref name="Unto this last">{{cite book |last=Gandhi |first=M.K. |title=Unto this Last: A paraphrase |url=http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/Unto_This_Last_%E2%80%94_M._K._Gandhi |publisher=Navajivan Publishing House |location=Ahmedabad |isbn=81-7229-076-4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121030070419/http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/Unto_This_Last_%E2%80%94_M._K._Gandhi |archive-date=30 October 2012 |url-status=usurped |access-date=21 July 2012}}</ref> This last essay can be considered his programme on economics. Gandhi also wrote extensively on vegetarianism, diet and health, religion, social reforms, etc. Gandhi usually wrote in Gujarati, though he also revised the Hindi and English translations of his books.<ref name="Pareku">{{cite book |last=Pareku |first=Bhikhu |title=Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0chB4q7XeHcC&pg=PT159 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-160667-0 |page=159 |year=2001 |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134137/https://books.google.com/books?id=0chB4q7XeHcC&pg=PT159#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1934, Gandhi wrote ''Songs from Prison'' while prisoned in [[Yerawada Central Jail|Yerawada jail]] in Maharashtra.<ref>{{cite book |last=M.K. Gandhi |url=http://archive.org/details/songsfromprison00mkga |title=Songs From Prison |date=1934 |others=Public Resource}}</ref>

Gandhi's complete works were published by the Indian government under the name ''[[s:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi|The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi]]'' in the 1960s. The writings comprise about 50,000 pages published in about 100 volumes. In 2000, a revised edition of the complete works sparked a controversy, as it contained a large number of errors and omissions.<ref>{{cite news|title=Revised edition of Bapu's works to be withdrawn |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Revised-edition-of-Bapus-works-to-be-withdrawn/articleshow/1298101.cms|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121029052020/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2005-11-16/india/27838774_1_second-edition-bapu-gujarat-vidyapith|archive-date=29 October 2012|access-date=25 March 2012|newspaper=[[The Times of India]]|url-status=live |date=16 November 2005}}</ref> The Indian government later withdrew the revised edition.<ref>{{cite web |author=Peter Rühe |url=http://www.gandhiserve.org/e/cwmg/cwmg_controversy.htm |title=Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG) Controversy |publisher=Gandhiserve.org |access-date=12 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160907204816/http://www.gandhiserve.org/e/cwmg/cwmg_controversy.htm |archive-date=7 September 2016 }}</ref>

== Legacy ==

{{main|Gandhi's legacy}}

[[File:Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury.jpg|thumb|Indian sculptor [[D. P. Roy Choudhury|Devi Prasad Roy Choudhury]] with his sculpture of Gandhi]]

Gandhi is noted as the greatest figure of the successful [[Indian independence movement]] against the British rule. He is also hailed as the greatest figure of modern India. Accordingly he has left [[Gandhi's legacy|a substantial cultural legacy]].{{efn|<ref name="Vilanilam">{{cite book |last=Vilanilam |first=J.V. |title=Mass Communication In India: A Sociological Perspective |publisher=SAGE Publications |year=2005 |isbn=978-93-5280-570-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0oFjDwAAQBAJ |quote=The greatest of all national leaders (and journalists) of the independence movement was Mahatma Gandhi. |page=68 |access-date=17 March 2023 |archive-date=17 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317163650/https://books.google.com/books?id=0oFjDwAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Parker">{{cite book |last=Parker |first=Geoffrey |title=The Times Illustrated History of the World |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-06-270010-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bj0sAQAAIAAJ |quote=The hero of Indian independence from the British, and the greatest figure in decolonization, was Mahatma Gandhi |page=290 |access-date=17 March 2023 |archive-date=17 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317163654/https://books.google.com/books?id=Bj0sAQAAIAAJ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Douglas">{{cite book |last=Douglas |first=R. |title=The World War 1939–1945: The Cartoonists' Vision |publisher=Routledge |series=Routledge Library Editions: WW2 |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-000-46048-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PpJFEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT192 |quote=Mahatma Gandhi was the most influential of all the Indian politicians in the campaign for independence |page=192 |access-date=17 March 2023 |archive-date=17 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317163648/https://books.google.com/books?id=PpJFEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT192 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Prashad |first1=G. |last2=Nawani |first2=A. |title=Writings on Nehru: Some Reflections on Indian Thoughts and Related Essays |publisher=Northern Book Centre |year=2006 |isbn=978-81-7211-204-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iXjvbI4ZswIC |quote=Mahatma Gandhi was the greatest absorbant [sic] and the greatest personality of modern India |page=92 |access-date=17 March 2023 |archive-date=20 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230220154726/https://books.google.com/books?id=iXjvbI4ZswIC |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Blamberger |first1=G. |last2=Kakar |first2=S. |title=Imaginations of Death and the Beyond in India and Europe |publisher=Springer Nature Singapore |year=2018 |isbn=978-981-10-6707-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mH1TDwAAQBAJ |quote=Mahatma Gandhi, modern India's greatest icon, elevated his search for moksha above any of his social or political goals, including India's freedom from colonial rule. |page=3 |access-date=17 March 2023 |archive-date=20 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230220154357/https://books.google.com/books?id=mH1TDwAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Carson |first=C. |title=The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-7595-2037-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PTI7AQAAQBAJ |quote=Gandhi is not only the greatest figure in India's history, but his influence is felt in almost every aspect of life and public policy. |page=108 |access-date=17 March 2023 |archive-date=20 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230220155912/https://books.google.com/books?id=PTI7AQAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}</ref>}}

== See also ==
{{Portal|Religion|Hinduism|India|Philosophy}}
* {{annotated link|Abdul Ghaffar Khan}}
* {{annotated link|Composite nationalism}}
* {{annotated link|Gandhi cap}}
* [[Gandhi Teerth]] – Gandhi International Research Institute and Museum for Gandhian study, research on Mahatma Gandhi and dialogue
* {{annotated link|Gandhian socialism}}
* [[Gandhi's legacy]]
* [[Inclusive Christianity]]
* [[List of civil rights leaders]]
* [[List of peace activists]]
* [[NCERT textbook controversies]] – Rationalisation on topics related to Gandhi
* {{annotated link|Seven Social Sins}}
* [[Trikaranasuddhi]]

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}<references group="pron" />

== References ==
{{Reflist|refs=

<ref name="Brown1974">{{cite book|last=Brown|first=Judith M. |year=1974|title=Gandhi's Rise to Power: Indian Politics 1915–1922 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HUo4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA94 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-09873-1 |pages=94–102}}</ref>

<ref name="Desai2015p26">{{cite book |last1=Desai |first1=Ashwin |last2=Vahed |first2=Goolem |title=The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lZZ1CgAAQBAJ |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |year=2015 |pages=22–26, 33–38 |isbn=978-0-8047-9717-7}}</ref>

<ref name=gs>{{cite book|last=Lelyveld|first=Joseph|author-link=Joseph Lelyveld|title=Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India |publisher=Random House Digital, Inc. |url=https://archive.org/details/greatsoulmahatma0000lely/page/278 |year=2011|isbn=978-0-307-26958-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/greatsoulmahatma0000lely/page/278 278–81]}}</ref>

<ref name="GWPM">{{cite news |id={{ProQuest|421687420}} |last1=Ferrell |first1=David |title='A Little Serenity in a City of Madness' |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-sep-27-me-52096-story.html |work=Los Angeles Times |date=27 September 2001 |page =B 2 }}</ref>

<ref name="GreatSoulReview">{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703529004576160371482469358 |title=Among the Hagiographers (A book review of "Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India" by Joseph Lelyveld) |author=Roberts, Andrew |author-link=Andrew Roberts (historian) |date=26 March 2011 |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |access-date=14 January 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120103114003/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703529004576160371482469358.html |archive-date=3 January 2012 }}</ref>

<ref name="Guardian-2008-ashes">{{cite news |title=Gandhi's ashes to rest at sea, not in a museum |author=Ramesh, Randeep |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/16/india.international |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=16 January 2008 |access-date=14 January 2012 |location=London |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130901110713/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/16/india.international |archive-date=1 September 2013 }}</ref>

<ref name="Hardiman2001">{{cite journal|title=Champaran and Gandhi: Planters, Peasants and Gandhian Politics by Jacques Pouchepadass (Review) |first=David|last=Hardiman|journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society|volume=11|issue=1|date=April 2001 |pages=99–101|jstor=25188108 |doi=10.1017/S1356186301450152 }}</ref>

<ref name=ie48pg5>{{cite news|title=Of all faiths and races, together they shed their silent tears|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4cU-AAAAIBAJ&pg=2964%2C2759742|access-date=19 January 2012|work=[[The Indian Express]]|date=31 January 1948|page=5 (top centre)|archive-date=25 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225055655/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4cU-AAAAIBAJ&pg=2964%2C2759742|url-status=live}}</ref>

<ref name=ie48>{{cite news|title=Over a million get last darshan|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4cU-AAAAIBAJ&pg=2273%2C2717510|page=1 (bottom left)|access-date=19 January 2012|work=[[The Indian Express]]|date=1 February 1948|archive-date=4 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201204152021/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4cU-AAAAIBAJ&pg=2273,2717510|url-status=live}}</ref>

<ref name="Kumar2006">{{cite book|last=Kumar|first=Shanti|title=Gandhi meets primetime: globalization and nationalism in Indian television|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=abPsWgqrmMMC&pg=PA170|year=2006|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-07244-4|page=170}}</ref>

<ref name="Mbeki2006">{{cite web|url=http://www.polity.org.za/article/mbeki-mahatma-gandhi-satyagraha-100th-anniversary-01102006-2006-10-01|title=Mbeki: Mahatma Gandhi Satyagraha 100th Anniversary (01/10/2006)|last=Smith|first=Colleen|date=1 October 2006|work=Speeches |publisher=Polityorg.za|access-date=20 January 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502050531/http://www.polity.org.za/article/mbeki-mahatma-gandhi-satyagraha-100th-anniversary-01102006-2006-10-01|archive-date=2 May 2013}}</ref>

<ref name="Mohanty2011">{{cite journal |last=Mohanty |first=Rekha |year=2011 |title=From Satya to Sadbhavna |journal=Orissa Review |issue=January 2011 |pages=45–49 |url=http://odisha.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/2011/Jan/engpdf/46-50.pdf#page=58 |access-date=23 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101071619/http://odisha.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/2011/Jan/engpdf/46-50.pdf#page=58 |archive-date=1 January 2016}}</ref>

<ref name="Murali1985">{{cite journal |last=Murali |first=Atlury |date=January 1985 |title=Non-Cooperation in Andhra in 1920–22: Nationalist Intelligentsia and the Mobilization of Peasantry |journal=Indian Historical Review |volume=12 |issue=1/2 |pages=188–217 |issn= 0376-9836}}</ref>

<ref name="Parekh2001">{{cite book|last=Parekh|first=Bhikhu C.|title=Gandhi: a very short introduction|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=0chB4q7XeHcC|isbn=978-0-19-285457-5|year=2001|page=7}}</ref>

<ref name="Sarkar2006">{{cite journal|title=Power, Hegemony and Politics: Leadership Struggle in Congress in the 1930s|last=Sarkar|first=Jayabrata|journal=[[Modern Asian Studies]]|date=18 April 2006|volume=40|issue=2|pages=333–70|doi=10.1017/S0026749X0600179X }}</ref>

<ref name="Sorokin2002">{{cite book|last=Sorokin|first=Pitirim Aleksandrovich|title=The Ways and Power of Love: types, factors, and techniques of moral transformation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DGCleCxTkbIC&pg=PA169|year=2002|publisher=Templeton Foundation Press|isbn=978-1-890151-86-7|page=169}}</ref>

<ref name="Tendulkar1951">{{cite book|last=Tendulkar|first=D. G.|title=Mahatma; life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LHJuAAAAMAAJ|year=1951|publisher=Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India|location=Delhi}}</ref>

<ref name="Whiggism">{{cite journal |last1=Prashad |first1=Ganesh |date=September 1966 |title=Whiggism in India|journal=[[Political Science Quarterly]] |volume=81 |issue=3|pages= 412–31 |jstor=2147642 |doi=10.2307/2147642}}</ref>

<ref name="wikilivres.ca">{{cite book|author=Desai, Mahadev Haribhai |year=2009|orig-year=1930 |title=Day-to-day with Gandhi: secretary's diary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iDQKAQAAIAAJ |publisher=Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan|chapter=Preface|chapter-url=http://www.wikilivres.ca/wiki/Day_to_Day_with_Gandhi/Volume_1/Preface|translator=Hemantkumar Nilkanth|isbn=978-81-906237-2-8}} {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20121030070451/http://www.wikilivres.ca/wiki/Day_to_Day_with_Gandhi Alt URL]}}</ref>
}}

== General and cited references ==

'''Books'''
{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}
* Ahmed, Talat (2018). ''Mohandas Gandhi: Experiments in Civil Disobedience''. {{ISBN|0-7453-3429-6}}.
* {{cite book|last=Barr|first=F. Mary|title=Bapu: Conversations and Correspondence with Mahatma Gandhi|date=1956|edition=2nd |publisher=International Book House|location=Bombay|oclc=8372568 |title-link=Bapu (book)}} (see [[Bapu (book)|book article]])
* {{cite book|last=Bondurant|first=Joan Valérie|author-link=Joan Bondurant|title=Conquest of Violence: the Gandhian philosophy of conflict |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4hcf8jPrSKYC |year=1971|publisher=[[University of California Press]]}}{{ISBN?}}
* {{Cite book |last=Borman |first=William |title=Gandhi and Non-Violence |publisher=[[State University of New York Press]] |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-88706-331-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6DE9OUvrTEC}}
* {{cite book|last=Brown|first=Judith Margaret |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhi00judi |year=1991 |title=Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0-300-05125-4}}<!--used-->
* Brown, Judith M. (2004). "Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand [Mahatma Gandhi] (1869–1948)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press.{{ISBN?}}
* Brown, Judith M., and Anthony Parel, eds. (2012). ''The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi''; 14 essays by scholars.{{ISBN?}}
* {{cite book|last=Chadha|first=Yogesh|title=Gandhi: a life |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhilife0000chad|url-access=registration |year=1997|publisher=John Wiley|isbn=978-0-471-24378-6}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book |last1=Dwivedi |first1=Divya |last2=Mohan |first2=Shaj |last3=Nancy |first3=Jean-Luc |title=Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theological Anti-politics |year=2019 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4MB2DwAAQBAJ&q=gandhi+and+philosophy |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic, UK |isbn=978-1-4742-2173-3}}<!--used-->
<!--*{{cite book|author=Chakrabarty, Bidyut |title=Social and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4x34We-mY40C|year=2006|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-36096-8}}-->
* {{Cite book |last=Dalton |first=Dennis |title=Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-231-15959-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KxUp1igCL_0C}}
* {{Cite book |last=Dalton |first=Dennis |title=Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |year=2012a |isbn=978-0-231-53039-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=shCQVfWixiAC}}
* {{cite book |last=Dhiman |first=S. |title=Gandhi and Leadership: New Horizons in Exemplary Leadership |publisher=Springer |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-137-49235-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Y2kCgAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book|last=Easwaran|first=Eknath|author-link=Eknath Easwaran|title=[[Gandhi the Man|Gandhi the Man: How One Man Changed Himself to Change the World]]|url=|year=2011 |publisher=Nilgiri Press|isbn=978-1-58638-055-7}}
* {{cite book|last=Hook|first=Sue Vander|title=Mahatma Gandhi: Proponent of Peace|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KMmI6FZYNcIC&pg=PA18 |year=2010|publisher=ABDO|isbn=978-1-61758-813-6}}
* {{cite book |last=Gandhi |first=Rajmohan |title=Patel, A Life |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ayZuAAAAMAAJ |year=1990 |publisher=Navajivan Pub. House}}
* {{Cite book|last1=Gandhi|first1=Rajmohan|date=2007a |title=Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People, and an Empire|publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-14-310411-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TEyXCoc76AEC}}
* {{cite book|last=Gandhi|first=Rajmohan|title=Mohandas: True Story of a Man, His People, and an Empire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-FDI8LkGsIAC&pg=PT10 |year=2007b|publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |isbn=978-81-8475-317-2 |author-link=Rajmohan Gandhi}}
* {{cite book|last=Gandhi|first=Rajmohan|title=Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FauJL7LKXmkC |author-link=Rajmohan Gandhi|year=2008|publisher=[[University of California Press]]|isbn=978-0-520-25570-8}}
* {{cite book|last=Gangrade|first=K.D.|title=Moral Lessons From Gandhi's Autobiography And Other Essays |year=2004 |publisher=Concept Publishing Company |isbn=978-81-8069-084-6 |chapter=Role of Shanti Sainiks in the Global Race for Armaments |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UODB6R_LmWsC}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book|last=Ghose|first=Sankar|title=Mahatma Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5l0BPnxN1h8C|year=1991 |publisher=Allied Publishers|isbn=978-81-7023-205-6}}
* {{cite book|last=Guha|first=Ramachandra|title=[[Gandhi Before India]]|year=2013|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=978-0-385-53230-3 |author-link=Ramachandra Guha}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |url=http://archive.org/details/gandhibeforeindia |title=Gandhi Before India |year=2013a |isbn=978-0-670-08387-9 |publisher=Allen Lane}}
* {{cite book|last=Guha|first=Ramachandra|title=[[Gandhi Before India]]|year=2013x|publisher=[[Penguin Books Limited]]|isbn=978-93-5118-322-8}}
* {{cite book |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XS7UAAAAQBAJ&q=%22the+subcaste+the+Gandhis+belonged+to+was+known+as+Modh+Bania,+the+prefix%22&pg=PP42 |title=Gandhi before India |date=15 October 2014a |publisher=[[Penguin Books Limited]] |isbn=978-93-5118-322-8 |access-date=24 October 2021 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329130511/https://books.google.com/books?id=XS7UAAAAQBAJ&q=%22the+subcaste+the+Gandhis+belonged+to+was+known+as+Modh+Bania,+the+prefix%22&pg=PP42 |url-status=live }}{{verify source|date=July 2024 |reason=Another "phantom" book on Google, ISBN is not in any database. There is a 2014 edition by another publisher.}}
* {{cite book |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |title=Gandhi before India |year=2015 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-0-385-53230-3}}
* {{cite book|last=Hardiman|first=David|title=Gandhi in His Time and Ours: the global legacy of his ideas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UWYV5qYZ3-oC|year=2003 |publisher=C. Hurst & Co.|isbn=978-1-85065-711-8}}<!--used-->
* {{Cite book |last=Hardiman |first=David |title=Gandhi in His Time and Ours: The Global Legacy of His Ideas |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |year=2003a |isbn=978-0-231-13114-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XwStR-MUwPQC |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329133801/https://books.google.com/books?id=XwStR-MUwPQC |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book|last=Hatt|first=Christine|title=Mahatma Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f6vvy-J7vhcC|year=2002 |publisher=Evans Brothers|isbn=978-0-237-52308-4}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book|last=Herman|first=Arthur|title=Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tquxD6dk914C |year=2008|publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-553-90504-5}} Ebook: {{ISBN|978-0-553-80463-8}}.<!--used-->
* {{cite book|last=Jai|first=Janak Raj|year=1996|title=Commissions and Omissions by Indian Prime Ministers: 1947–1980 |publisher=Regency Publications |isbn=978-81-86030-23-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Wrc1K0uJTgC}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book|last=Majmudar|first=Uma|title=Gandhi's Pilgrimage of Faith: from darkness to light|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xM4paHEq5oQC|year=2005|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-6405-2}}<!--used-->
* {{Cite book |editor-last=Markovits |editor-first=Claude |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uzOmy2y0Zh4C |title=A History of Modern India, 1480–1950 |publisher=Anthem Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-1-84331-004-4}}
* {{Cite book |editor-last=McDermott |editor-first=Rachel Fell |editor-last2=Gordon |editor-first2=Leonard A. |editor-link2=Leonard A. Gordon |editor-last3=Embree |editor-first3=Ainslie T. |editor-link3=Ainslie T. Embree |editor-last4=Pritchett |editor-first4=Frances W. |editor-last5=Dalton |editor-first5=Dennis |editor-link5=Dennis Dalton |year=2014 |title=Sources of Indian Traditions, Volume 2: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-13830-7 |edition=3rd |location=New York}}
* {{cite book|last=Miller|first=Jake C.|title=Prophets of a just society|url=https://archive.org/details/prophetsofjustso0000mill|url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Nova Publishers|isbn=978-1-59033-068-5}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book |last=Minault |first=Gail |date=1982 |title=The Khilafat Movement Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |isbn=0-231-05072-0}}
* {{cite book |last=Muldoon |first=Andrew |title=Empire, Politics and the Creation of the 1935 India Act: Last Act of the Raj |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-317-14431-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D1gfDAAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book|last=Pāṇḍeya|first=Viśva Mohana|title=Historiography of India's Partition: an analysis of imperialist writings |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vu2lu-ZI-vQC|year=2003 |publisher=Atlantic Publishers & Dist|isbn=978-81-269-0314-6}}
* {{cite book|author-link1=Marc Pilisuk|last1=Pilisuk|first1=Marc |last2=Nagler|first2=Michael N.|title=Peace Movements Worldwide: Players and practices in resistance to war |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GTJV2UcZVHcC |year=2011|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-313-36482-2}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book|last=Rühe|first=Peter|title=Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-9fWAAAACAAJ|year=2004 |publisher=Phaidon|isbn=978-0-7148-4459-6}}
* {{cite book|last=Schouten|first=Jan Peter|title=Jesus as Guru: the image of Christ among Hindus and Christians in India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pIoKdTH7KPsC |year=2008|publisher=Rodopi|isbn=978-90-420-2443-4}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book|last=Sharp|first=Gene|title=Gandhi as a Political Strategist: with essays on ethics and politics |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhiaspolitica0000shar |url-access=registration|year=1979|publisher=P. Sargent Publishers |isbn=978-0-87558-090-6}}
* {{cite book|last=Shashi|first=S. S.|title=Encyclopaedia Indica: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh|year=1996|publisher=Anmol Publications |isbn=978-81-7041-859-7}}<!--used-->
* {{Cite book|last=Sinha|first=Satya|title=The Dialectic of God: The Theosophical Views Of Tagore and Gandhi|date=2015 |publisher=Partridge Publishing India|isbn=978-1-4828-4748-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qTU_CQAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book|last=Sofri|first=Gianni|title=Gandhi and India: a century in focus|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QbCN4R_ZBCUC|year=1999|publisher=Windrush Press|isbn=978-1-900624-12-1}}
* {{cite book|last=Thacker|first=Dhirubhai|editor=Amaresh Datta|title=The Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature (Volume Two) (Devraj To Jyoti) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zB4n3MVozbUC&pg=PA1345|year=2006|publisher=Sahitya Akademi|isbn=978-81-260-1194-0|page=1345 |chapter=Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book|last=Todd|first=Anne M.|year=2004|title=Mohandas Gandhi |url=https://archive.org/details/mohandasgandhi0000todd |publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-0-7910-7864-8}}; short biography for children
* {{cite book|last=Todd|first=Anne M.|year=2009|title=Mohandas Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=svxDMQZ7fakC&pg=PA7 |publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-0662-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Wolpert |first=Stanley |title=Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-19-515634-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KpBy6BCupe4C |access-date=3 June 2017 |archive-date=21 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721084554/https://books.google.com/books?id=KpBy6BCupe4C |url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |last=Wolpert |first=Stanley |chapter=Midnight in Calcutta |title=Gandhi's Passion: The life and legacy of Mahatma Gandhi |chapter-url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wolpert-gandhi.html |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2001a |isbn=0-19-515634-X |access-date=20 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160321161002/http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wolpert-gandhi.html |archive-date=21 March 2016 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Wolpert |first=Stanley |author-link=Stanley Wolpert |title=Gandhi's Passion: the life and legacy of Mahatma Gandhi |year=2002 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ih1VCqkUr4gC&pg=PA197 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-972872-5}}
* {{Cite book |last=Wolpert |first=Stanley |title=Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi |year=2002a |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KpBy6BCupe4C |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-515634-8 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170219190635/https://books.google.com/books?id=KpBy6BCupe4C |archive-date=19 February 2017 |url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |last=Wolpert |first=Stanley |title=A New History of India |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |edition=7th |isbn=0195166787 |location=New York |author-link=Stanley Wolpert}}
* {{Cite book |last=Wolpert |first=Stanley |title=Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-19-539394-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zuoMsBWCTBUC |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131001210558/http://books.google.com/books?id=zuoMsBWCTBUC |archive-date=1 October 2013 |url-status=live}}
{{refend}}

'''Scholarly articles'''
{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}
* Danielson, Leilah C. {{"'}}In My Extremity I Turned to Gandhi': American Pacifists, Christianity, and Gandhian Nonviolence, 1915–1941". ''Church History'' 72.2 (2003): 361–388.
* Du Toit, Brian M. "The Mahatma Gandhi and South Africa." ''Journal of Modern African Studies'' 34#4 (1996): 643–660. {{JSTOR|161593}}.
* Gokhale, B. G. "Gandhi and the British Empire", ''History Today'' (Nov 1969), 19#11 pp 744–751 online.
* Juergensmeyer, Mark. "The Gandhi Revival – A Review Article." ''The Journal of Asian Studies'' 43#2 (Feb. 1984), pp.&nbsp;293–298. {{JSTOR|2055315}}
* {{cite book |last=Khosla |first=G.D. |year=1965 |title=The Murder of the Mahatma (proceedings by the Chief Justice of Punjab) |publisher=Jaico Publishers |url=http://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/The-Murder-of-the-Mahatma.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921232029/http://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/the-murder-of-the-mahatma.pdf |archive-date=21 September 2015}}
* Kishwar, Madhu. "Gandhi on Women." ''Economic and Political Weekly'' 20, no. 41 (1985): 1753–758. {{JSTOR|4374920}}.
* Mohammed, Fevin "Gandhi the Great". (2013) (PhD in Historical Research, Coordinated under Prof. Ram Prasad Sharma).
* Murthy, C. S. H. N., Oinam Bedajit Meitei, and Dapkupar Tariang. "The Tale Of Gandhi Through The Lens: An Inter-Textual Analytical Study Of Three Major Films-Gandhi, The Making Of The Mahatma, And Gandhi, My Father." ''CINEJ Cinema Journal'' 2.2 (2013): 4–37. [https://cinej.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cinej/article/download/66/239 online]
* Power, Paul F. "Toward a Revaluation of Gandhi's Political Thought." ''Western Political Quarterly'' 16.1 (1963): 99–108 excerpt.
* Rudolph, Lloyd I. "Gandhi in the Mind of America." ''Economic and Political Weekly'' 45, no. 47 (2010): 23–26. {{JSTOR|25764146}}.
{{Refend}}

'''Primary sources'''
{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}
* {{cite book|author=Abel M|title=Glimpses of Indian National Movement|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ox3WE2GCbNAC&pg=PA125 |year=2005 |publisher=ICFAI Books|isbn=978-81-7881-420-9}}
* {{cite book|last=Andrews|first=C. F.|title=Mahatma Gandhi's Ideas Including Selections from His Writings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3EAV6JhQmgkC|year=2008|publisher=Pierides Press|isbn=978-1-4437-3309-0|chapter=VII – The Teaching of Ahimsa|orig-year=1930}}
* {{cite book|editor=Dalton, Dennis|year=1996|title=Mahatma Gandhi: Selected Political Writings|publisher=Hackett Publishing |url=https://archive.org/details/mahatmagandhisel00maha |url-access=registration|isbn=978-0-87220-330-3}}
* {{cite book|editor=Duncan, Ronald|title=Selected Writings of Mahatma Gandhi|url=https://www.questia.com/read/54615149/selected-writings-of-mahatma-gandhi|year=2011|publisher=Literary Licensing, LLC|isbn=978-1-258-00907-6|access-date=4 September 2017|archive-date=1 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001171306/https://www.questia.com/read/54615149/selected-writings-of-mahatma-gandhi}}
* {{cite book|last=Gandhi|first=Mohandas Karamchand|year=1928 |title=Satyagraha in South Africa |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.209598 |publisher=Navajivan Publishing House |location=Ahmedabad |edition=1st |language=gu|translator=Valji G. Desai}}
* {{cite book|last=Gandhi|first=Mohandas Karamchand|year=1994 |title=The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi|publisher=Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India|isbn=978-81-230-0239-2}} (100 volumes). Free online access from Gandhiserve.
* {{cite journal|last1=Gandhi|first1=Mohandas Karamchand|year=1928 |title=Drain Inspector's Report|journal=The United States of India |volume=5|issue=6–8|pages=3–4|url=http://www.saadigitalarchive.org/item/20111212-545}}
* {{cite book|last=Gandhi|first=Mohandas Karamchand|year=1990a |editor=Desai, Mahadev H. |title=Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth |publisher=Dover |location=Mineola, N.Y. |isbn=0-486-24593-4|title-link=The Story of My Experiments With Truth}}
* {{cite book|last=Gandhi|first=Mohandas Karamchand|year=2002 |editor=Fischer, Louis |title=[[The Essential Gandhi|The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work and Ideas]] |publisher=Vintage Books|edition=2nd|isbn=978-1-4000-3050-7}}
* {{cite book|editor-last=Jack|editor-first=Homer A.|year=1994 |title=The Gandhi Reader: A Source Book of His Life and Writings |url=https://archive.org/details/gandhireadersou00gand |publisher=Grove Press|isbn=978-0-8021-3161-4}}
* {{cite book|editor-last=Johnson|editor-first=Richard L. |year=2006 |title=Gandhi's Experiments with Truth: Essential Writings by and about Mahatma Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dRQcKsx-YgQC |publisher=Lexington Books|isbn=978-0-7391-1143-7}}<!--used-->
* {{cite book|editor=Parel, Anthony J.|year=2009|title=Gandhi: "Hind Swaraj" and Other Writings Centenary Edition |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oc47gUOPZfcC |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-14602-9}}
{{Refend}}

== External links ==
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{{Sister project links|Mohandas K. Gandhi|display=Mahatma Gandhi|wikt=no|v=no|voy=no|n=no|b=no|author=yes|d=Q1001}}
* [https://indianculture.gov.in/other-collections/gandhijis-correspondence-government-1944-47 Gandhi's correspondence with the Indian government 1942–1944]
* {{URL|https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/|About Mahatma Gandhi}}
* {{URL|www.gandhiashramsabarmati.org/|Gandhi at Sabarmati Ashram}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=3490| name=Mahatma Gandhi}}<!--See also a single book at {{Gutenberg author |id=Gandhi,+M.+K.}}-->
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Gandhi}}
* {{Librivox author |id=622}}
* {{PM20|FID=pe/005823}}

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