Mohandas Gandhi`s life and Accomplishments :: essays research papers

Mohandas GandhiLeo PetersSection 567-01Mid-Term PaperThis Essay will be about the life and accomplishments of MohandasKaramchand Gandhi. And will also discuss Civil Disobedience. passim history most national heroes have been warriors, but Gandhiended British rule over his native India without striking a single blow. A saplessman, he devoted his life to peace and brotherhood in order to achieve social andpolitical progress. further less than six months after his unbloody resistance toBritish rule won independence for India, he was assassinated by a religiousfanatic.Gandhi was one of the gentlest of men, a devout and almost mystic Hindu,but he had an iron core of determination. Nothing could change his convictions.This combination of traits made him the leader of Indias nationalist movement.Some observers called him a master politician. Others believed him a saint. Tomillions of Hindus he was their beloved Mahatma, meaning "great soul."Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on Oct. 2, 1869, in Porbandar, nearBombay. His family belonged to the Hindu merchant caste Vaisya. His father hadbeen prime minister of several weakened native states. Gandhi was married when hewas only 13 years old.When he was 19 he defied custom by going abroad to study. He canvas lawat University College in London. Fellow students snubbed him because he was anIndian. In his lonely hours he studied philosophy. In his reading he discoveredthe principle of nonviolence as enunciated in Henry David Thoreaus "CivilDisobedience," and he was persuaded by John Ruskins plea to give upindustrialism for farm life and traditional handicrafts--ideals similar to manyHindu religious ideas.In 1891 Gandhi returned to India. Unsuccessful in Bombay, he went toSouth Africa in 1893. At Natal he was the first so-called "colored" lawyeradmitted to the supreme court. He then built a large practice.His interest soon turned to the problem of fellow Indians who had cometo South Africa as la borers. He had seen how they were treated as inferiors inIndia, in England, and then in South Africa. In 1894 he founded the Natal IndianCongress to agitate for Indian rights. Yet he remained loyal to the BritishEmpire. In 1899, during the Boer War, he raised an ambulance corps and servedthe South African government. In 1906 he gave aid against the Zulu revolt.Later in 1906, however, Gandhi began his unruffled revolution. Hedeclared he would go to jail or even die before obeying an anti-Asian law.Thousands of Indians joined him in this civil disobedience campaign. He was detain twice. Yet in World War I he again organized an ambulance corps for