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Biography of Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) was born into a Hindu Modh family in Porbandar, Gujarat, India in 1869. He was the son of Karamchand Gandhi, the diwan (Chief Minister) of Porbandar, and Putlibai, Karamchand's fourth wife (his previous three wives had died in childbirth), a Hindu of the Pranami Vaishnava order. Growing up with a devout mother and surrounded by the Jain influences of Gujarat, Gandhi learned from an early age the tenets of non-injury to living beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance between members of various creeds and sects. He was born into the vaishya, or business, caste.

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In May 1883, at the age of 13, Gandhi was married through his parents' arrangement to Kasturba Makhanji (also spelled "Kasturbai" or known as "Ba"), who was the same age as he. They had four sons: Harilal Gandhi, born in 1888; Manilal Gandhi, born in 1892; Ramdas Gandhi, born in 1897; and Devdas Gandhi, born in 1900. Gandhi was a mediocre student in his youth at Porbandar and later Rajkot. He barely passed the matriculation exam for the University of Bombay in 1887, where he joined Samaldas College. He was also unhappy at the college, because his family wanted him to become a barrister. He leapt at the opportunity to study in England, which he viewed as "a land of philosophers and poets, the very centre of civilization." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India, and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer and perfector of Satyagraha - the resistance of tyranny through mass civil disobedience strongly founded upon ahimsa (total non-violence) - which led India to independence, and has inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

Gandhi is commonly known and addressed in India and across the world as Mahatma Gandhi and as Bapu....