Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Gujarati: મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી; Hindi: मोहन्दास करमचंद गांधी, Pronunciation-IPA: / / ) (October 2 1869 – January 30, 1948) was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer The Birth of Satyagraha : From The Story of my Experiments with Truth, by Mohandas K. Gandhi and perfector of Satyagraha — resistance through mass civil disobedience strongly founded upon ahimsa (total non-violence). Gandhi is commonly known and addressed in India and across the world as Mahatma Gandhi (Hindi: महात्मा, / /; from Sanskrit, Mahatma: Great Soul) and as Bapu (in many Indian languages, Father).

An English-educated lawyer, Gandhi first employed his ideas of peaceful civil disobedience in the Indian community's struggle for civil rights in South Africa. Upon his return to India, Gandhi organised poor farmers and labourers in India to protest oppressive taxation and extensive discrimination. Leading the Indian National Congress, Gandhi pioneered an all-India campaign for the alleviation of the poor, the liberation of Indian women, brotherhood amongst different religious and ethnic communities, an end to untouchability and caste discrimination, and for the economic self-sufficiency of the nation. But above all, Gandhi led the fight for Swaraj — the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led Indians in the disobedience of the salt tax through the 400 kilometer (248 miles) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and in an open call for the British to Quit India in 1942. He spent his final years fighting for communal peace and harmony amongst Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

Gandhi remained committed to non-violence and truth even in extreme situations. Gandhi was a student of Hindu philosophy and lived simply, organizing an ashram that was self-sufficient in its needs. He made his own clothes — the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with a charkha — and lived on a simple vegetarian diet. He used rigorous fasts — abstaining from food and water for long periods — for self-purification as well as a means of protest. Gandhi's life and teachings inspired Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Biko and Aung San Suu Kyi and respectively the American civil rights movement and the civil rights struggles in South Africa and Myanmar. His criticism towards many aspects of western modernity (such as modern technology and industrialization) has also earned him a reputation of development critic whose thinking has inspired many later political thinkers.

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