271 Facts About Mahatma 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.

Mahatma Gandhi inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

The honorific Mahatma Gandhi, first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is used throughout the world.

Mahatma Gandhi went on to live in South Africa for 21 years.

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

Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma Gandhi is considered the Father of the Nation in India and is commonly called Bapu.

Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma 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.

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

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

Mahatma 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, Mahatma 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.

At age 9, Mahatma Gandhi entered the local school in Rajkot, near his home.

Mahatma 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.

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

The Mahatma 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.

In November 1887, the 18-year-old Mahatma Gandhi graduated from high school in Ahmedabad.

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

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

Mahatma Gandhi enrolled at Inner Temple with the intention of becoming a barrister.

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

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

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

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma Gandhi believed vegetarianism to be a moral movement and that Allinson should therefore no longer remain a member of the LVS.

Mahatma Gandhi shared Hills' views on the dangers of birth control, but defended Allinson's right to differ.

Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma Gandhi's shyness was an obstacle to his defence of Allinson at the committee meeting.

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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.

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

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

Mahatma 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.

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

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

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

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

However, the prejudice against him and his fellow Indians from British people that Mahatma Gandhi experienced and observed deeply bothered him.

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

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

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

Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma 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 Mahatma 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.

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

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

Mahatma Gandhi focused his attention on Indians and Africans while he was in South Africa.

Mahatma Gandhi entered politics by forming the Natal Indian Congress.

Mahatma 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.

The medical unit commanded by Mahatma Gandhi operated for less than two months before being disbanded.

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

Mahatma Gandhi brought an international reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and community organiser.

Mahatma Gandhi joined the Indian National Congress and was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people primarily by Gokhale.

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

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

Mahatma Gandhi agreed to actively recruit Indians for the war effort.

In contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance Corps, this time Mahatma Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants.

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

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

In 1919, following World War I, Mahatma 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.

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

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

In February 1919, Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma 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.

Investigation committees were formed by the British, which Mahatma Gandhi asked Indians to boycott.

In 1921, Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of the Indian National Congress.

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

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

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

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

Mahatma 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.

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

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

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

However, other scholars such as Marilyn French state that Mahatma 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, Mahatma Gandhi asked the volunteers to get permissions of their guardians and only those women who can arrange child-care should join him.

Mahatma 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".

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

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

Mahatma 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.

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

Churchill often ridiculed Mahatma Gandhi, saying in a widely reported 1931 speech:.

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

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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.

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

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

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma Gandhi wanted to avoid being a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj.

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

Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi's speech arrested Mahatma Gandhi and all the members of the Congress Working Committee.

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

Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi was willing to make, comments that shocked his countrymen, the Congress workers and even Mahatma Gandhi.

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

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

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

The Indian National Congress and Mahatma Gandhi called for the British to Quit India.

Mahatma 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.

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

Wavell accused Mahatma Gandhi of harbouring the single minded idea to "overthrow British rule and influence and to establish a Hindu raj", and called Mahatma Gandhi a "malignant, malevolent, exceedingly shrewd" politician.

Wavell feared a civil war on the Indian subcontinent, and doubted Mahatma Gandhi would be able to stop it.

Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi".

Mahatma 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.

In other accounts, such as one prepared by an eyewitness journalist, Mahatma Gandhi was carried into the Birla House, into a bedroom.

Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma 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.

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

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

In 1997, Tushar Mahatma Gandhi immersed the contents of one urn, found in a bank vault and reclaimed through the courts, at the Sangam at Allahabad.

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

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

Mahatma 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.

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

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

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

The most profound influence on Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi was influenced by Hinduism and Jainism, and his studies of Sermon on the Mount of Christianity, Ruskin and Tolstoy.

Additional theories of possible influences on Mahatma Gandhi have been proposed.

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

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

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

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

Mahatma Gandhi was introduced to Shrimad by Dr Pranjivan Mehta.

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

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

Mahatma 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.

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

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

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

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

Mahatma 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".

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

Mahatma Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities.

Mahatma Gandhi summarised his beliefs first when he said "God is Truth".

For example, Muslim leaders such as Jinnah opposed the satyagraha idea, accused Mahatma Gandhi to be reviving Hinduism through political activism, and began effort to counter Mahatma Gandhi with Muslim nationalism and a demand for Muslim homeland.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the strategies Mahatma 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, Mahatma Gandhi gave another reason for why he had got involved in the Khilafat movement and the Middle East affairs between Britain and the Ottoman Empire.

Mahatma 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".

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi was neither a Christian figure nor mirrored a Christian saint.

Mahatma 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.

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

In 1938, Mahatma 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.

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

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

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

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

Mahatma 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".

Mahatma 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.

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

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

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

Food to Mahatma 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.

Mahatma Gandhi avoided not only meat, but eggs and milk.

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

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

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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, Mahatma Gandhi combined his own ideas with those found on diet in Indian yoga texts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mahatma Gandhi tried to test and prove to himself his brahmacharya.

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

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

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

However, Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi's sermons dealing with his experiments.

Mahatma Gandhi supported alcohol abstinence, advocating Prohibition as the only effective way to deal with alcohol usage.

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

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

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

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

Mahatma Gandhi rejected the colonial Western format of the education system.

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

Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi attempted to formulate the new system at the Sevagram ashram after 1937.

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

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

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

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

Tewari states that Mahatma 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 Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi to be Hindu nationalist or revivalist.

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

Andrews, Mahatma 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.

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

In Mahatma 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".

Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma 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".

Mahatma 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".

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

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

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

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

Mahatma 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.

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

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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.

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

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

Mahatma Gandhi is noted as the greatest figure of the successful Indian independence movement against the British rule.

Mahatma Gandhi is hailed as the greatest figure of modern India.

In 1999, Mahatma Gandhi was named "Asian of the century" by Asiaweek.

Mahatma Gandhi was publicly bestowed with the honorific title "Mahatma" in July 1914 at farewell meeting in Town Hall, Durban.

Florian asteroid 120461 Mahatma Gandhi was named in his honour in September 2020.

In October 2022, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi was installed in Astana on the embankment of the rowing canal, opposite the cult monument to the defenders of Kazakhstan.

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

Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent philosophy which he adopted in his campaign in British Somaliland.

Mahatma Gandhi inspired Dr King with his message of nonviolence.

Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi was a necessary reference to discuss morality in politics.

In 2011, Mahatma Gandhi topped the TIME's list of top 25 political icons of all time.

Mahatma 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.

Mahatma 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 Mahatma Gandhi was discussed and that the reference to no suitable living candidate was to Mahatma Gandhi.

Ben Kingsley portrayed him in Richard Attenborough's 1982 film Mahatma Gandhi, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The 1996 film The Making of the Mahatma documented Gandhi's time in South Africa and his transformation from an inexperienced barrister to recognised political leader.

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

In 1967, Mahatma Gandhi was set to be featured on the album cover of one of the best selling albums of The Beatles, Sgt.

The 1989 Marathi play Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy and the 1997 Hindi play Mahatma Gandhi Ambedkar criticised Mahatma Gandhi and his principles.

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

The 2019 play Bharat Bhagya Vidhata, inspired by Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai and produced by Sangeet Natak Akademi and Shrimad Rajchandra Mission Dharampur takes a look at how Mahatma Gandhi cultivated the values of truth and non-violence.

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