• 1888-1891 : Studied law in London 

• 1893 : Sailed for South Africa 

• 1906 : Began Satyagraha campaign in South Africa to protest the requirement that Indians be fingerprinted and carryidentification cards 

• 1915 : Returned to India from South Africa 

• 1917 : Initiated Champaran Satyagraha to alleviate the condition of indigo planters 

• 1919 : Instituted Satyagraha campaign in India to protest the Rowlatt Acts, which deprived all Indians of important civil liberties. 

• 1922 : Ended Non-Cooperation movement against British Raj after his followers were involved in a series of riots and disturbances that violated his policy of nonviolence. 

• 1924 : Became the president of congress at Belgam session. 

• 1930 : Led Dandi March to collect salt in protest of the British salt tax. 

• 1931 : Signed a pact with Lord Irwin to suspend the Civil Disobedience Movement and went to London to attend Round Table Conference. 

• 1932 : Fasted to protest the treatment of people who belonged to no Hindu caste, the Harijans or Untouchables 

• 1942 : Launched Quit India Movement against British Raj. 

• January 30, 1948 : Assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist. 

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar in Gujarat. After university, he went to London to train as a barrister. He returned to India in 1891 and in 1893 accepted a job at an Indian law firm in Durban, South Africa. Gandhi was appalled by the treatment of Indian immigrants there, and joined the struggle to obtain basic rights for them. During his 20 years in South Africa he was sent to prison many times. Influenced primarily by Hinduism, but also by elements of Jainism and Christianity as well as writers including Tolstoy and Thoreau, Gandhi developed the satyagraha ('devotion to truth'), a new non-violent way to redress wrongs. In 1914, the South African government conceded to many of Gandhi's demands. 

Gandhi returned to India shortly afterwards. In 1919, British plans to intern people suspected of sedition - the Rowlatt Acts - prompted Gandhi to announce a new satyagraha which attracted millions of followers. A demonstration against the acts resulted in the Amritsar Massacre by British troops. By 1920, Gandhi was a dominant figure in Indian politics. He transformed the Indian National Congress, and his programme of peaceful non- cooperation with the British included boycotts of British goods and institutions, leading to arrests of thousands. 

In 1922, Gandhi himself was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He was released after two years and withdrew from politics, devoting himself to trying to improve Hindu-Muslim relations, which had worsened. In 1930, Gandhi proclaimed a new campaign of civil disobedience in protest at a tax on salt, leading thousands on a 'March to the Sea' to symbolically make their own salt from seawater. 

In 1931, Gandhi attended the Round Table Conference in London, as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress, but resigned from the party in 1934 in protest at its use of non-violence as a political expedient. He was replaced as leader by Jawaharlal Nehru. 

In 1945, the British government began negotiations which culminated in the Mountbatten Plan of June 1947, and the formation of the two new independent states of India and Pakistan, divided along religious lines. Massive inter- communal violence marred the months before and after independence. Gandhi was opposed to partition, and now fasted in an attempt to bring calm in Calcutta and Delhi. On 30 January 1948, he was assassinated in Delhi by a Hindu fanatic. 

QUOTES 

• "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." 

• "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." 

• "An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind." 

• "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." 

• "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." 

• "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it-always." 

• "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win." 

• "Seven Deadly Sins Wealth without work Pleasure without conscience Science without humanity Knowledge without character Politics without principle Commerce without morality Worship without sacrifice." 

• "Where there is love there is life." 

• "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." 

• "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." 

• "God has no religion." 

• "Nobody can hurt me without my permission." 

• "Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart." 

• "Hate the sin, love the sinner." 

• "I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet." 

• "A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes." 

• "To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer." 

• "Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny." 

• "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." 

• "The future depends on what you do today." 

• "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." 

• "Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day: 

• I shall not fear anyone on Earth. 

• I shall fear only God. 

• I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. 

• I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. 

• I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering." 

• "Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning." 

• "Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn." 

• "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." 

• "To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest." 

• "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."