Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, nicknamed "Mahatma" ( meaning the great soul or saint ), was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat province, India, to a conservative family with a long career in politics.
His grandfather-as well as his father - was the prime minister of the emirate of Porbandar. He got married at the age of 13 in response to local Indian traditions.
Gandhi traveled to Britain in 1888 to study law, and in 1891 he returned to India after obtaining a university degree entitling him to practice law.
Gandhi's intellectual orientation
Gandhi founded what was known in the world of politics as " peaceful resistance "or the Philosophy of Nonviolence ( Satyaraha ), a set of principles based on religious, political and economic foundations at the same time, summarized by" courage, truth and nonviolence", aimed at defeating the occupier through a deep awareness of the imminent danger and the formation of a force capable of confronting this danger first with nonviolence, and then with violence if there is no other option.
The policy of non-violence takes several methods to achieve its goals, such as fasting, boycott, sit-in, civil disobedience, acceptance of imprisonment and not being afraid that these methods will eventually lead to death.
Gandhi's condition for the success of this policy is that the opponent has a remnant of conscience and freedom that will eventually enable him to open an objective dialogue with the other party.
Gandhi's political experience
Gandhi traveled to South Africa in 1893 to work in a law firm in " Natal ", intending to stay only one year, but the conditions of the Indian community there made him stay for 22 years.
Gandhi returned from South Africa to India in 1915, and in a few years of patriotic work he became the most popular leader. Gandhi focused on the struggle of social injustice on the one hand and the struggle of colonialism on the other, and paid special attention to the problems of workers, peasants and the category of outcasts, and considered the latter category-which he called " Sons of God " a curse in the forehead of India and not befitting a nation seeking freedom, independence and deliverance from injustice.
In 1932, Gandhi decided to start fasting to death in protest against a bill enshrining caste discrimination in elections and marginalizing Indian Untouchables, which prompted political and religious leaders to negotiate and reach the " Poona Agreement ", which provided for an increase in the number of Deputies from The "Untouchables" and the abolition of the system of electoral discrimination.
Gandhi's positions on the British occupation of the Indian subcontinent in general were characterized by principled rigidity, which sometimes does not cancel tactical flexibility, and the reason for his movement between rigid nationalist positions and critical pacifying interim settlements with his opponents and supporters sometimes reached the point of betrayal and challenging the credibility of his national struggle by opponents of his style.
Gandhi's Political Activity
Gandhi collaborated with Britain in the First World War against the Axis powers, participated in 1918-at the request of the British governor in India - in the Delhi War Conference, then moved to direct opposition to British policy between 1918 and 1922 and demanded during that period the complete independence of India.
In 1922, Gandhi led a civil disobedience movement that escalated public anger, which sometimes led to a clash between the masses and the security forces and the British police, which prompted him to stop this movement, although the British authorities sentenced him to six years in prison and then returned and released him in 1924.
In 1934, Gandhi decided to resign from the Congress party and devote himself to the economic problems of rural India, and in 1937 he encouraged the party to participate in the elections, considering that the Constitution of 1935 was a sufficient guarantee and a minimum of credibility and neutrality.
In 1940, Gandhi returned to the insurrection campaigns again, launching a new campaign in protest at the British declaration of India as a state fighting the Axis armies without gaining independence. This disobedience lasted until 1941.
In the face of the imminent Japanese danger, the British authorities tried to reconcile with the Indian independence movement, sending in 1942 a mission known as the " Krebs mission " but failed in its endeavor, and as a result, Gandhi accepted in 1943-for the first time - the idea of India entering a full-scale war against the Axis countries in the hope of gaining independence afterwards.
During the Mumbai session of 1942, Gandhi addressed the English with his famous phrase "leave India and you are masters," but this speech did not like the British authorities, so they launched an arrest campaign and practiced colors of violent repression, Gandhi himself was one of the victims, as he remained detained in prison and was released only in 1944.
At the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, India approached independence and fears of separatist calls aimed at dividing it into two states between Muslims and Hindus increased, and Gandhi tried to convince Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who was at the head of the advocates of this separation, to change his directions, but he failed.
India was already divided on August 16, 1947, and as soon as the Partition was announced, religious unrest prevailed and reached a level of violence that exceeded all expectations, and more than five thousand people were killed in the city of Kolkata alone.
Gandhi's assassination
Gandhi's calls for respect for the rights of Muslims did not satisfy some fanatical Hindu groups and they considered it a great betrayal, so they decided to get rid of him
On January 30, 1948 in the Birla House complex ( Gandhi Smriti ), a large Palace Gandhi was walking with low steps to the raised garden behind Birla House, where he conducted interfaith prayer meetings every evening.
Nathuram Vinayak Godse walked out of the crowd surrounding the path leading to the podium and to Gandhi's path, where he fired three shots at close range, Gandhi immediately fell to the ground, Gandhi was carried to his room at Birla House where one of the people later appeared to announce that he was dead.
The Gandhi murder tribunal was inaugurated in May 1948 at the historic Red Fort in Delhi, with Godse as the main accused, his collaborator Narayan Apte and six others as co-accused.
In court, Godse accused Mahatma Gandhi of being biased towards Muslims, and Godse blamed Gandhi for continuing to appease Muslims and that Gandhi's approach of religious tolerance and non-violence had already caused India to abandon Pakistan to Muslims.
The trial was public, but the statement made by Godse during the trial about his motives and the reasons for his murder of Gandhi was immediately banned by the Indian government, and Godse and Apte were sentenced to death on November 8, 1949, and they were hanged in Ambala prison on November 15, 1949.
