Here is your paragraph on Mahatma Gandhi !
One of the distinguished political deities in the annals of Indian political thought in modern India is Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi or Bapu.
He was born on 2 October 1869, in Kathiawar district of Gujarat. After completing his schooling, he left for London to study Law in 1888. He studied law, and became a qualified lawyer certified by the Bar Council and returned to India. He began to practise law at Rajkot and Mumbai.
In 1893, he left for South Africa to defend a case for a Gujarati Muslim merchant. It was during his travel in South Africa that the social and economic situation of the people there moved him, especially the racial discrimination.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Since then, he spent nearly 20 years in South Africa and strived his best for the improvement in the conditions of the Indians. He was deeply affected by the brutal behaviour of the government against Asians and Africans and pleaded for legal equality and social justice.
After his return to India in 1914, he involved himself totally in the freedom struggle that demanded independence from the British rule. It is with his entry into politics that there had been a renewed vigour and vitality to the freedom movement. It was Gandhi who initiated a nation-wide hartal in the form of Satyagraha as against the Rowlett Act.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
In 1920, he was elected the first President of the All-India Home Rule Movement and since then, Gandhi initiated the historic non-cooperation movement against the British rule. However, the movement was unsuccessful in attaining its goal—Swaraj for the country. Next, Gandhi began the civil disobedience movement that had much greater space for activity compared to the earlier movements.
However, this movement too ended abruptly due to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. In 1942, he launched the Quit India Movement that was successful in putting some pressure on the British government for conceding Poorna Swaraj (Total Freedom) for India.
Further, the success of the Labour Party in taking over the reigns of the government in England also helped in recognizing India’s thirst for freedom. All these events eventually helped India in achieving independence under the leadership of Gandhi. However, on 30 January 1948, Nathuram Godse, a Hindu revivalist, assassinated Gandhi.
Gandhi was successfully associated with the freedom struggle from an early stage till India attained an independent nation status. Initially, the struggle began with a moderate approach wherein the action was taken in terms of petitions and prayers for social, economic and political reforms.
But with the entry of Gandhi, it all changed; the movement became much more intense and the freedom struggle took different shapes and shades from extremism to that of a non-violent approach. Gandhi’s approach to the freedom struggle of India ultimately resulted in freedom and liberation of the country from the alien British rule that extended for more than three centuries.