Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, called the Mahatma, or "great soul," was the leader of India's struggle for independence and one of the most influential moral and political figures of the twentieth century, revered worldwide as an apostle of nonviolence. Born in western India, he studied law in London and then worked in South Africa, where his experience of racial discrimination first roused him to political action.
In South Africa he developed his distinctive philosophy and method of "satyagraha" — nonviolent resistance, or the force of truth — leading campaigns against discriminatory laws. Returning to India in 1915, he transformed the independence movement from an elite affair into a mass struggle, mobilizing millions of ordinary Indians in disciplined, peaceful defiance of British rule.
Gandhi led a series of historic campaigns — the non-cooperation movement, the famous Salt March of 1930 in protest against the British salt monopoly, and the "Quit India" movement during the Second World War — and was imprisoned many times. He preached not only political freedom but also self-reliance, religious tolerance, the dignity of manual labor, and an end to the injustice of untouchability, living a life of conspicuous simplicity.
India won independence in 1947, but its partition into India and Pakistan unleashed terrible communal violence that grieved Gandhi deeply. In January 1948, while working to quell the bloodshed, he was assassinated by a Hindu extremist. His example of nonviolent resistance went on to inspire movements for civil rights and freedom around the world.