247 Facts About Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and to later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

Gandhi adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with India's rural poor.

Gandhi began to live in a self-sufficient residential community, to eat simple food, and undertake long fasts as a means of both introspection and political protest.

Gandhi was imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India.

Abstaining from the official celebration of independence, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress.

Related searches

Gandhi is commonly, though not formally, considered the Father of the Nation in India and was commonly called Bapu.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 into a Gujarati Hindu Modh Bania family in Porbandar, a coastal town on the Kathiawar Peninsula and then part of the small princely state of Porbandar in the Kathiawar Agency of the British Raj.

Gandhi's family originated from the then village of Kutiana in what was then Junagadh State.

Gandhi's father was of Modh Baniya caste in the varna of Vaishya.

Gandhi's 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.

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.

Gandhi was an average student, won some prizes, but was a shy and tongue tied student, with no interest in games; his only companions were books and school lessons.

Gandhi's wedding was a joint event, where his brother and cousin were married.

The Gandhi couple had four more children, all sons: Harilal, born in 1888; Manilal, born in 1892; Ramdas, born in 1897; and Devdas, born in 1900.

Gandhi had dropped out of the cheapest college he could afford in Bombay.

Gandhi's mother was not comfortable about Gandhi leaving his wife and family, and going so far from home.

Gandhi attended University College, London, a constituent college of the University of London.

Gandhi retained these traits when he arrived in London, but joined a public speaking practice group and overcame his shyness sufficiently to practise law.

Gandhi demonstrated a keen interest in the welfare of London's impoverished dockland communities.

Gandhi tried to adopt "English" customs, including taking dancing lessons.

Gandhi had a friendly and productive relationship with Hills, but the two men took a different view on the continued LVS membership of fellow committee member Thomas Allinson.

Gandhi believed 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.

Gandhi bankrolled the LVS and was a captain of industry with his Thames Ironworks company employing more than 6,000 people in the East End of London.

Gandhi was a highly accomplished sportsman who later founded the football club West Ham United.

Related searches

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 him from reading out his arguments, so Hills, the President, asked another committee member to read them out for him.

Gandhi returned to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but he was forced to stop when he ran afoul of a British officer Sam Sunny.

Gandhi accepted it, knowing that it would be at least a one-year commitment in the Colony of Natal, South Africa, a part of the British Empire.

Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa, where he developed his political views, ethics and politics.

Immediately upon arriving in South Africa, Gandhi faced discrimination because of his skin colour and heritage, like all people of colour.

Gandhi was not allowed to sit with European passengers in the stagecoach and told to sit on the floor near the driver, then beaten when he refused; elsewhere he 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.

Gandhi sat in the train station, shivering all night and pondering if he should return to India or protest for his rights.

Gandhi chose to protest and was allowed to board the train the next day.

Gandhi was kicked by a police officer out of the footpath onto the street without warning.

When Gandhi arrived in South Africa, according to Herman, he thought of himself as "a Briton first, and an Indian second".

Gandhi found it humiliating, struggling to understand how some people can feel honour or superiority or pleasure in such inhumane practices.

Gandhi began to question his people's standing in the British Empire.

However, a new Natal government discriminatory proposal led to Gandhi extending his original period of stay in South Africa.

Gandhi planned to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote, a right then proposed to be an exclusive European right.

Gandhi asked Joseph Chamberlain, the British Colonial Secretary, to reconsider his position on this bill.

Gandhi helped found the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, and through this organisation, he 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 and he escaped only through the efforts of the wife of the police superintendent.

Gandhi raised eleven hundred Indian volunteers, to support British combat troops against the Boers.

Gandhi urged Indians to defy the new law and to suffer the punishments for doing so.

Related searches

Gandhi focused his attention on Indians while in South Africa.

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.

Medical unit commanded by Gandhi operated for less than two months before being disbanded.

In 1910, Gandhi established, with the help of his friend Hermann Kallenbach, an idealistic community they named Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg.

Gandhi 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.

Gandhi took Gokhale's liberal approach based on British Whiggish traditions and transformed it to make it look Indian.

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.

Tensions escalated until Gandhi demanded immediate independence in 1942 and the British responded by imprisoning him and tens of thousands of Congress leaders.

Gandhi agreed to actively recruit Indians for the war effort.

Gandhi moved his headquarters to Nadiad, organising scores of supporters and fresh volunteers from the region, the most notable being Vallabhbhai Patel.

Gandhi worked hard to win public support for the agitation across the country.

In 1919, following World War I, Gandhi sought political co-operation from Muslims in his fight against British imperialism by supporting the Ottoman Empire that had been defeated in the World War.

Gandhi had already supported the British crown with resources and by recruiting Indian soldiers to fight the war in Europe on the British side.

Gandhi felt that Hindu-Muslim co-operation was necessary for political progress against the British.

In February 1919, Gandhi cautioned the Viceroy of India with a cable communication that if the British were to pass the Rowlatt Act, he would appeal to Indians to start civil disobedience.

Gandhi emphasised the use of non-violence to the British and towards each other, even if the other side used violence.

Gandhi demanded that the Indian people stop all violence, stop all property destruction, and went on fast-to-death to pressure Indians to stop their rioting.

Gandhi expanded his nonviolent non-co-operation platform to include the swadeshi policy – the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods.

Gandhi exhorted Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning khadi in support of the independence movement.

Related searches

Gandhi thus began his journey aimed at crippling the British India government economically, politically and administratively.

Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment.

Gandhi was released in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only two years.

Gandhi pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominion status or face a new campaign of non-cooperation with complete independence for the country as its goal.

Gandhi led Congress in a celebration on 26 January 1930 of India's Independence Day in Lahore.

Gandhi then launched a new Satyagraha against the British salt tax in March 1930.

In complete silence the Gandhi men drew up and halted a hundred yards from the stockade.

However, other scholars such as Marilyn French state that Gandhi barred women from joining his civil disobedience movement because he feared he would be accused of using women as a political shield.

When women insisted on joining the movement and participating in public demonstrations, Gandhi asked the volunteers to get permissions of their guardians and only those women who can arrange child-care should join him.

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".

Gandhi captured the imagination of the people of his heritage with his ideas about winning "hate with love".

Gandhi campaigned hard going from one rural corner of the Indian subcontinent to another.

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.

Gandhi was again arrested, and the government tried and failed to negate his influence by completely isolating him from his followers.

Gandhi called Gandhi as the one who was "seditious in aim" whose evil genius and multiform menace was attacking the British empire.

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.

Gandhi declined the government's offer of accommodation in an expensive West End hotel, preferring to stay in the East End, to live among working-class people, as he did in India.

Gandhi based himself in a small cell-bedroom at Kingsley Hall for the three-month duration of his stay and was enthusiastically received by East Enders.

Gandhi was arrested and imprisoned at the Yerwada Jail, Pune.

In protest, Gandhi started a fast-unto-death, while he was held in prison.

Related searches

Gandhi did not disagree with the party's position but felt that if he resigned, his 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 wanted to avoid being a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj.

Gandhi returned to active politics again in 1936, with the Nehru presidency and the Lucknow session of the Congress.

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.

Gandhi opposed providing any help to the British war effort and he campaigned against any Indian participation in World War II.

Gandhi's campaign did not enjoy the support of the Indian population nor of many Indian leaders, such as Sardar Patel and Rajendra Prasad, and as such failed.

Gandhi condemned Nazism and Fascism, a view which won endorsement of other Indian leaders.

The British government responded quickly to the Quit India speech, and within hours after Gandhi's speech arrested Gandhi and all the members of the Congress Working Committee.

Gandhi's countrymen retaliated the arrests by damaging or burning down hundreds of government owned railway stations, police stations, and cutting down telegraph wires.

In 1942, Gandhi now nearing age 73, urged his people to completely stop co-operating with the imperial government.

Gandhi's arrest lasted two years, as he was held in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune.

Gelder then composed and released an interview summary, cabled it to the mainstream press, that announced sudden concessions Gandhi was willing to make, comments that shocked his countrymen, the Congress workers and even Gandhi.

The latter two claimed that it distorted what Gandhi actually said on a range of topics and falsely repudiated the Quit India movement.

Gandhi came out of detention to an altered political scene – the Muslim League for example, which a few years earlier had appeared marginal, "now occupied the centre of the political stage" and the topic of Muhammad Ali Jinnah's campaign for Pakistan was a major talking point.

At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership.

Gandhi opposed the partition of the Indian subcontinent along religious lines.

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.

Gandhi visited the most riot-prone areas to appeal a stop to the massacres.

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.

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".

Related searches

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.

Gandhi's 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 his body.

Gandhi linked Gandhi's assassination to politics of hatred and ill-will.

Gandhi's death helped marshal support for the new government and legitimise the Congress Party's control, leveraged by the massive outpouring of Hindu expressions of grief for a man who had inspired them for decades.

Years after the assassination, states Markovits, "Gandhi's shadow loomed large over the political life of the new Indian Republic".

Gandhi's ashes were poured into urns which were sent across India for memorial services.

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.

Some of Gandhi's ashes were scattered at the source of the Nile River near Jinja, Uganda, and a memorial plaque marks the event.

Birla House site where Gandhi was assassinated is a memorial called Gandhi Smriti.

Gandhi grew up in a Hindu and Jain religious atmosphere in his native Gujarat, which were his primary influences, but he was influenced by his personal reflections and literature of Hindu Bhakti saints, Advaita Vedanta, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and thinkers such as Tolstoy, Ruskin and Thoreau.

Gandhi was influenced by his devout Vaishnava Hindu mother, the regional Hindu temples and saint tradition which co-existed with Jain tradition in Gujarat.

Historian R B Cribb states that Gandhi's thought evolved over time, with his early ideas becoming the core or scaffolding for his mature philosophy.

Gandhi committed himself early to truthfulness, temperance, chastity, and vegetarianism.

The most profound influence on Gandhi were those from Hinduism, Christianity and Jainism, states Parekh, with his thoughts "in harmony with the classical Indian traditions, specially the Advaita or monistic tradition".

Balkrishna Gokhale states that Gandhi was influenced by Hinduism and Jainism, and his studies of Sermon on the Mount of Christianity, Ruskin and Tolstoy.

For example, in 1935, N A Toothi stated that Gandhi was influenced by the reforms and teachings of the Swaminarayan tradition of Hinduism.

In 1909, Gandhi wrote to Tolstoy seeking advice and permission to republish A Letter to a Hindu in Gujarati.

Gandhi saw himself a disciple of Tolstoy, for they agreed regarding opposition to state authority and colonialism; both hated violence and preached non-resistance.

Gandhi called for political involvement; he was a nationalist and was prepared to use nonviolent force.

Gandhi credited Shrimad Rajchandra, a poet and Jain philosopher, as his influential counsellor.

Related searches

In Modern Review, June 1930, Gandhi wrote about their first encounter in 1891 at Dr P J Mehta's residence in Bombay.

Gandhi exchanged letters with Rajchandra when he was in South Africa, referring to him as Kavi.

Gandhi had advised Gandhi to be patient and to study Hinduism deeply.

Gandhi joined them in their prayers and debated Christian theology with them, but refused conversion stating he did not accept the theology therein or that Christ was the only son of God.

Gandhi grew fond of Hinduism, and referred to the Bhagavad Gita as his spiritual dictionary and greatest single influence on his life.

Gandhi was acquainted with Sufi Islam's Chishti Order during his stay in South Africa.

Gandhi participated in forming the Indian Ambulance Corps in the South African war against the Boers, on the British side in 1899.

Gandhi encouraged Indian people to fight on one side of the war in Europe and Africa at the cost of their lives.

Pacifists criticised and questioned Gandhi, who defended these practices by stating, according to Sankar Ghose, "it would be madness for me to sever my connection with the society to which I belong".

In parallel, Gandhi's fellowmen became sceptical of his pacifist ideas and were inspired by the ideas of nationalism and anti-imperialism.

Gandhi's position was not supported by many Indian leaders, and his campaign against the British war effort was a failure.

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".

Gandhi based Satyagraha on the Vedantic ideal of self-realisation, ahimsa, vegetarianism, and universal love.

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".

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.

Churchill stated that the civil disobedience movement spectacle of Gandhi only increased "the danger to which white people there [British India] are exposed".

Gandhi explains his philosophy and ideas about ahimsa as a political means in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth.

Gandhi was criticised for refusing to protest the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Udham Singh and Rajguru.

Gandhi was accused of accepting a deal with the King's representative Irwin that released civil disobedience leaders from prison and accepted the death sentence against the highly popular revolutionary Bhagat Singh, who at his trial had replied, "Revolution is the inalienable right of mankind".

Related searches

Gandhi's views came under heavy criticism in Britain when it was under attack from Nazi Germany, and later when the Holocaust was revealed.

Gandhi believed that Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism were traditions of Hinduism, with a shared history, rites and ideas.

Gandhi stated he knew Jainism much more, and he credited Jains to have profoundly influenced him.

Sikhism, to Gandhi, was an integral part of Hinduism, in the form of another reform movement.

Gandhi had generally positive and empathetic views of Islam, and he extensively studied the Quran.

Gandhi viewed Islam as a faith that proactively promoted peace, and felt that non-violence had a predominant place in the Quran.

Gandhi stated in 1925 that he did not criticise the teachings of the Quran, but he did criticise the interpreters of the Quran.

Gandhi believed that numerous interpreters have interpreted it to fit their preconceived notions.

Gandhi believed Muslims should welcome criticism of the Quran, because "every true scripture only gains from criticism".

Gandhi believed there were material contradictions between Hinduism and Islam, and he criticised Muslims along with communists that were quick to resort to violence.

One of the strategies Gandhi adopted was to work with Muslim leaders of pre-partition India, to oppose the British imperialism in and outside the Indian subcontinent.

In 1925, Gandhi gave another reason to why he got involved in the Khilafat movement and the Middle East affairs between Britain and the Ottoman Empire.

Gandhi explained to his co-religionists that he sympathised and campaigned for the Islamic cause, not because he cared for the Sultan, but because "I wanted to enlist the Mussalman's sympathy in the matter of cow protection".

Gandhi accepted this and began having Muslim prayers read in Hindu temples to play his part, but was unable to get Hindu prayers read in mosques.

Gandhi was critical of Christian missionary efforts in British India, because they mixed medical or education assistance with demands that the beneficiary convert to Christianity.

Gandhi did not support laws to prohibit missionary activity, but demanded that Christians should first understand the message of Jesus, and then strive to live without stereotyping and misrepresenting other religions.

Gandhi believed that his long acquaintance with Christianity had made him like it as well as find it imperfect.

Gandhi asked Christians to stop humiliating his country and his people as heathens, idolators and other abusive language, and to change their negative views of India.

Gandhi believed that Christians should introspect on the "true meaning of religion" and get a desire to study and learn from Indian religions in the spirit of universal brotherhood.

Recent scholars question these romantic biographies and state that Gandhi was neither a Christian figure nor mirrored a Christian saint.

Related searches

Gandhi's life is better viewed as exemplifying his belief in the "convergence of various spiritualities" of a Christian and a Hindu, states Michael de Saint-Cheron.

Gandhi justified this support by invoking Islam, stating that "non-Muslims cannot acquire sovereign jurisdiction" in Jazirat al-Arab.

In 1938, Gandhi spoke in favour of Jewish claims, and in March 1946, he said to the Member of British Parliament Sidney Silverman, "if the Arabs have a claim to Palestine, the Jews have a prior claim", a position very different from his earlier stance.

Gandhi discussed the persecution of the Jews in Germany and the emigration of Jews from Europe to Palestine through his lens of Satyagraha.

In 1937, Gandhi discussed Zionism with his close Jewish friend Hermann Kallenbach.

Gandhi said that Zionism was not the right answer to the problems faced by Jews and instead recommended Satyagraha.

Gandhi reiterated his stance that "the Jews seek to convert the Arab heart", and use "satyagraha in confronting the Arabs" in 1947.

Gandhi was brought up as a vegetarian by his devout Hindu mother.

Gandhi believed that any form of food inescapably harms some form of living organism, but one should seek to understand and reduce the violence in what one consumes because "there is essential unity of all life".

Gandhi believed that some life forms are more capable of suffering, and non-violence to him meant not having the intent as well as active efforts to minimise hurt, injury or suffering to all life forms.

Gandhi explored food sources that reduced violence to various life forms in the food chain.

Gandhi believed that slaughtering animals is unnecessary, as other sources of foods are available.

Gandhi consulted with vegetarianism campaigners during his lifetime, such as with Henry Stephens Salt.

Food to Gandhi was not only a source of sustaining one's body, but a source of his impact on other living beings, and one that affected his mind, character and spiritual well being.

Gandhi wrote the book The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism and wrote for the London Vegetarian Society's publication.

Beyond his religious beliefs, Gandhi stated another motivation for his experiments with diet.

Gandhi attempted to find the most non-violent vegetarian meal that the poorest human could afford, taking meticulous notes on vegetables and fruits, and his observations with his own body and his ashram in Gujarat.

Gandhi tried fresh and dry fruits, then just sun dried fruits, before resuming his prior vegetarian diet on advice of his doctor and concerns of his friends.

For some of these experiments, Gandhi combined his own ideas with those found on diet in Indian yoga texts.

Gandhi considered it a violence against animals, something that inflicted pain and suffering.

Related searches

Gandhi used fasting as a political device, often threatening suicide unless demands were met.

Gandhi fasted in 1932 to protest the voting scheme for separate political representation for Dalits; Gandhi did not want them segregated.

Gandhi was "profoundly skeptical of traditional Ayurveda", encouraging it to study the scientific method and adopt its progressive learning approach.

Gandhi believed that a healthy nutritional diet based on regional foods and hygiene were essential to good health.

Gandhi avoided modern medication and experimented extensively with water and earth healing.

At various occasions, Gandhi credited his orthodox Hindu mother, and his wife, for first lessons in satyagraha.

Gandhi used the legends of Hindu goddess Sita to expound women's innate strength, autonomy and "lioness in spirit" whose moral compass can make any demon "as helpless as a goat".

Women, to Gandhi, should be educated to be better in the domestic realm and educate the next generation.

Gandhi consulted the Jain scholar Rajchandra, whom he fondly called Raychandbhai.

Gandhi began abstaining from cow's milk in 1912, and did so even when doctors advised him to consume milk.

Gandhi tried to test and prove to himself his brahmacharya.

Gandhi later slept with women in the same bed but clothed, and finally, he slept naked with women.

Gandhi slept naked in the same bed with Manu with the bedroom doors open all night.

Gandhi shared his bed with 18-year-old Abha, wife of his grandnephew Kanu.

However, Gandhi said that if he would not let Manu sleep with him, it would be a sign of weakness.

Gandhi believed that individuals should freely intermarry whomever they wish, but that no one should expect everyone to be his friend: every individual, regardless of background, has a right to choose whom he will welcome into his home, whom he will befriend, and whom he will spend time with.

In 1932, Gandhi began a new campaign to improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he began to call harijans, "the children of god".

On 8 May 1933, Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a year-long campaign to help the harijan movement.

Gandhi accused Gandhi as someone who wished to retain the caste system.

Ambedkar and Gandhi debated their ideas and concerns, each trying to persuade the other.

Ambedkar's criticism of Gandhi continued to influence the Dalit movement past Gandhi's death.

Gandhi rejected the colonial Western format of the education system.

Gandhi stated that it led to disdain for manual work, generally created an elite administrative bureaucracy.

Gandhi favoured an education system with far greater emphasis on learning skills in practical and useful work, one that included physical, mental and spiritual studies.

Gandhi's methodology sought to treat all professions equal and pay everyone the same.

Gandhi believed that the Western style education violated and destroyed the indigenous cultures.

Nai Talim evolved out of his experiences at the Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, and Gandhi attempted to formulate the new system at the Sevagram ashram after 1937.

Gandhi believed that swaraj not only can be attained with non-violence, but it can be run with non-violence.

Gandhi emphasised a society where individuals believed more in learning about their duties and responsibilities, not demanded rights and privileges.

Swaraj to Gandhi did not mean transferring colonial era British power brokering system, favours-driven, bureaucratic, class exploitative structure and mindset into Indian hands.

Gandhi warned such a transfer would still be English rule, just without the Englishman.

Tewari states that Gandhi saw democracy as more than a system of government; it meant promoting both individuality and the self-discipline of the community.

Some scholars state Gandhi supported a religiously diverse India, while others state that the Muslim leaders who championed the partition and creation of a separate Muslim Pakistan considered Gandhi to be Hindu nationalist or revivalist.

For example, in his letters to Mohammad Iqbal, Jinnah accused Gandhi to be favouring a Hindu rule and revivalism, that Gandhi led Indian National Congress was a fascist party.

Andrews, Gandhi stated that if we believe all religions teach the same message of love and peace between all human beings, then there is neither any rationale nor need for proselytisation or attempts to convert people from one religion to another.

Gandhi opposed missionary organisations who criticised Indian religions then attempted to convert followers of Indian religions to Islam or Christianity.

In Gandhi's view, those who attempt to convert a Hindu, "they must harbour in their breasts the belief that Hinduism is an error" and that their own religion is "the only true religion".

Gandhi believed that people who demand religious respect and rights must show the same respect and grant the same rights to followers of other religions.

Gandhi believed in the sarvodaya economic model, which literally means "welfare, upliftment of all".

Gandhi believed that the best economic system not only cared to lift the "poor, less skilled, of impoverished background" but empowered to lift the "rich, highly skilled, of capital means and landlords".

Gandhi stated that the mandate theory of majoritarian democracy should not be pushed to absurd extremes, individual freedoms should never be denied, and no person should ever be made a social or economic slave to the "resolutions of majorities".

Gandhi challenged Nehru and the modernisers in the late 1930s who called for rapid industrialisation on the Soviet model; Gandhi denounced that as dehumanising and contrary to the needs of the villages where the great majority of the people lived.

Gandhi called for ending poverty through improved agriculture and small-scale cottage rural industries.

Gandhi's economic thinking disagreed with Marx, according to the political theory scholar and economist Bhikhu Parekh.

Gandhi refused to endorse the view that economic forces are best understood as "antagonistic class interests".

Gandhi argued that no man can degrade or brutalise the other without degrading and brutalising himself and that sustainable economic growth comes from service, not from exploitation.

Gandhi believed that a better economic system is one which does not impoverish one's culture and spiritual pursuits.

Gandhi wrote several books including his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, of which he bought the entire first edition to make sure it was reprinted.

Gandhi's 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.

Gandhi wrote extensively on vegetarianism, diet and health, religion, social reforms, etc.

Gandhi usually wrote in Gujarati, though he revised the Hindi and English translations of his books.

In 1931, notable European physicist Albert Einstein exchanged written letters with Gandhi, and called him "a role model for the generations to come" in a letter writing about him.

Gandhi has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion.

Farah Omar, a political activist from Somaliland visited India in 1930, where he met Mahatma Gandhi and was influenced by Gandhi's non-violent philosophy which he adopted in his campaign in British Somaliland.

Gandhi ended up doing so much and changed the world just by the power of his ethics.

Since then philosophers including Hannah Arendt, Etienne Balibar and Slavoj Zizek found that Gandhi was a necessary reference to discuss morality in politics.

Gandhi did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize, although he was nominated five times between 1937 and 1948, including the first-ever nomination by the American Friends Service Committee, though he made the short list only twice, in 1937 and 1947.

Gandhi was nominated in 1948 but was assassinated before nominations closed.

That year, the committee chose not to award the peace prize stating that "there was no suitable living candidate" and later research shows that the possibility of awarding the prize posthumously to Gandhi was discussed and that the reference to no suitable living candidate was to Gandhi.

Gandhi was a central figure in the 2006 Bollywood comedy film Lage Raho Munna Bhai.

The 2014 film Welcome Back Gandhi takes a fictionalised look at how Gandhi might react to modern day India.

Gandhi's image appears on paper currency of all denominations issued by Reserve Bank of India, except for the one rupee note.