essay on mahatma gandhi for class 4th

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi – Contributions and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

500+ words essay on mahatma gandhi.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi – Mahatma Gandhi was a great patriotic Indian, if not the greatest. He was a man of an unbelievably great personality. He certainly does not need anyone like me praising him. Furthermore, his efforts for Indian independence are unparalleled. Most noteworthy, there would have been a significant delay in independence without him. Consequently, the British because of his pressure left India in 1947. In this essay on Mahatma Gandhi, we will see his contribution and legacy.

Contributions of Mahatma Gandhi

First of all, Mahatma Gandhi was a notable public figure. His role in social and political reform was instrumental. Above all, he rid the society of these social evils. Hence, many oppressed people felt great relief because of his efforts. Gandhi became a famous international figure because of these efforts. Furthermore, he became the topic of discussion in many international media outlets.

Mahatma Gandhi made significant contributions to environmental sustainability. Most noteworthy, he said that each person should consume according to his needs. The main question that he raised was “How much should a person consume?”. Gandhi certainly put forward this question.

Furthermore, this model of sustainability by Gandhi holds huge relevance in current India. This is because currently, India has a very high population . There has been the promotion of renewable energy and small-scale irrigation systems. This was due to Gandhiji’s campaigns against excessive industrial development.

Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence is probably his most important contribution. This philosophy of non-violence is known as Ahimsa. Most noteworthy, Gandhiji’s aim was to seek independence without violence. He decided to quit the Non-cooperation movement after the Chauri-Chaura incident . This was due to the violence at the Chauri Chaura incident. Consequently, many became upset at this decision. However, Gandhi was relentless in his philosophy of Ahimsa.

Secularism is yet another contribution of Gandhi. His belief was that no religion should have a monopoly on the truth. Mahatma Gandhi certainly encouraged friendship between different religions.

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Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi has influenced many international leaders around the world. His struggle certainly became an inspiration for leaders. Such leaders are Martin Luther King Jr., James Beve, and James Lawson. Furthermore, Gandhi influenced Nelson Mandela for his freedom struggle. Also, Lanza del Vasto came to India to live with Gandhi.

The awards given to Mahatma Gandhi are too many to discuss. Probably only a few nations remain which have not awarded Mahatma Gandhi.

In conclusion, Mahatma Gandhi was one of the greatest political icons ever. Most noteworthy, Indians revere by describing him as the “father of the nation”. His name will certainly remain immortal for all generations.

Essay Topics on Famous Leaders

Mahatma Gandhi
APJ Abdul Kalam
Jawaharlal Nehru
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Rabindranath Tagore
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
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Abraham Lincoln
Martin Luther King

FAQs on Mahatma Gandhi

Q.1 Why Mahatma Gandhi decided to stop Non-cooperation movement?

A.1 Mahatma Gandhi decided to stop the Non-cooperation movement. This was due to the infamous Chauri-Chaura incident. There was significant violence at this incident. Furthermore, Gandhiji was strictly against any kind of violence.

Q.2 Name any two leaders influenced by Mahatma Gandhi?

A.2 Two leaders influenced by Mahatma Gandhi are Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela.

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Best Mahatma Gandhi Essay for Kids

Mahatma Gandhi essay in English for kids provided here is provided to them as a sample to write a brief description of any famous Indian personality. Essay writing on a famous personality requires ample knowledge on the topic in comparison to other kinds of essay writing tasks.

An essay on a famous personality primarily focuses on the person’s struggles, sacrifices, success, achievements and their messages for society. So, when a kid wants to write an essay on a famous personality like Mahatma Gandhi, he/she should do complete research about that person and understand how to write about the legend in simple words.

This essay about Mahatma Gandhi would enrich their knowledge about the famous personality whom they should look up to for inspiration. This would enable them to write a wonderful essay on this interesting topic. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s explore!

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Mahatma gandhi essay in english.

Mahatma Gandhi, a follower of non-violence and a messenger of truth, was born on 2nd October, 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat. His full name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and he belonged to an affluent family. He was a good student with a shy nature. As he grew up, he went to England to study law and soon became a barrister. When he returned to India, he began practising law at the Bombay High Court.

Thereafter, he went to South Africa to practise law. However, he was not interested in the legal profession. He joined hands with the natives of that region and started a non-violent movement called Satyagraha, in order to fight against the oppression of the Europeans. Soon, he returned to India and joined the struggle for India’s Independence against the British.

Seeing the miserable plight of his fellow Indian brothers and sisters, he started the Non-Cooperation Movement and the Quit India Movement to revolt against British rule in India. He underwent a lot of suffering and made sacrifices to uproot the British from the Indian soil. He had a non-violent approach towards India’s fight for freedom from British rule.

Mahatma Gandhi was a noble soul who believed in simplicity. He propagated the use of Swadeshi (domestic) goods among the people and boycotted the use of foreign items. He was a secular preacher and treated people of different communities with equal respect. He used to wear simple clothes and encouraged the use of handspun fibres such as jute and khadi made with the help of the spinning wheel.

He was a man of strong conviction and played a crucial role in the struggle for India’s Independence. He was imprisoned several times but his love for India’s freedom remained his cherished goal. His birthday, 2nd October, is celebrated as ‘Gandhi Jayanti’, to offer homage to the veteran for his significant role in social and political reform towards India’s struggle for Independence. He is fondly remembered as the “Father of the Nation” in India for his undying efforts towards India’s fight for freedom.

10 Lines Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Kids

Mahatma Gandhi is famous as the father of the nation in India.
He was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat.
His father was Karamchand Gandhi, and his mother was Putlibai Gandhi.
Gandhi married Kasturba Makhangi Kapadia in 1883.
In the year 1888, he went to London to pursue his higher education.
Gandhi fought against racial discrimination and was a civil rights activist in South Africa.
Later, in 1915 he started the Indian National Congress party (INC).
He believed that ‘Ahimsa’ (not harming anyone) would win us freedom and also followed another principle of ‘Satya Vachan’ (Speaking the Truth).
In 1917, he began his first anti-British movement.
He was assassinated on 30th January 1948.

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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi In English for Students and Children

Key Points To Remember When Writing An Essay On Mahatma Gandhi

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Mahatma Gandhi is a popular historical figure. He is known as the father of our nation and is well-regarded by all the citizens of the country and people worldwide. Most Indian children are familiar with Gandhiji and learn about his contribution to the Indian freedom struggle in school. Students may be asked to write an essay on Gandhiji as a class exercise or for a test or competition. For this assignment, they will need to learn and remember facts about his life and how he fought for India’s independence. This may sound challenging for some children, but with guidance, they will be able to write this essay on their own. Here is an essay on Mahatma Gandhi for classes 1, 2 and 3 that will help school children with their assignments.

Writing an essay includes preparation and strategies. To begin with an essay, we need to understand the topic of the essay. When we are aware of the topic of the essay, we can write the essay easily. Whether you are planning to write a small essay, a long essay, or just a few lines about Mahatma Gandhi, gathering information firsthand will help you a lot. You begin your essay by giving an introduction of Mahatma Gandhi, his place of birth, his life and about his personal life. Next, you can talk about his professional life, his studies and achievements, and what contributions he made to the nation’s independence. Finally, you can conclude the essay with how his life teachings inspire today’s generations and how you can still use those teachings in today’s life and influence others.

The essay about Mahatma Gandhi is slightly different from essays on general topics. For these kinds of topics, children need to remember accurate facts and weave a good narrative. If you are looking for good facts and figures in the form of some lines on Mahatma Gandhi, then the following is for you. Here are some important points to remember:

Before starting the essay, it is important to remember facts such as names, places, events and dates accurately.

For short essays, stick to facts about Gandhi and do not dive deep into any specific topics.

For longer essays, start the introduction about the importance of the man in Indian history.

Talk about his early life and work and transition to the ideology of Gandhiji.

Finally, end the essay with his impact on the nation and how he inspired people.

Children of lower primary classes may be asked to write a short essay on Mahatma Gandhi. They can start by jotting down the facts they remember about him and writing them in simple sentences. Students will have to memorise a few dates and facts to be able to write this essay. Below are the top ten factual lines about Mahatma Gandhi that will help you write a perfect essay on Gandhiji, the national personality:

Mahatma Gandhi is well-known as a freedom fighter and the father of our nation. He is popularly called Bapu.

He was born in Porbandar, Gujarat on October 2, 1869.

His father’s name was Karamchand Gandhi, and his mother’s name was Putlibai Gandhi.

Gandhiji was married to Kasturba Kapadia.

He went to London to pursue his higher education.

He worked in South Africa as a civil rights activist and fought against racial discrimination.

In 1915 he started the Indian National Congress party.

Gandhiji was a firm believer in ahimsa , which means non-violence, and followed the path of satya vachan, which means being truthful.

As a leader of the freedom struggle, he began his first anti-British movement in 1917.

He was shot to death on January 30, 1948.

Before we begin with an essay in 100 or 200 words, we should first practice with paragraph writing. This is why we bring you a short paragraph on Mahatma Gandhi. Let’s look at the paragraph on this national personality.

Mahatma Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, is one of India’s most iconic historical figures. He has several monikers, such as ‘the Father of the Nation’, ‘Bapu’ , ‘Mahatma’, ‘Rashtrapita’ , and many more. Gandhiji is popular for his non-violence (Ahimsa) and civil disobedience philosophy. He is also known for his simplicity, truthfulness, and dedication to social justice. Lakhs of people joined Mahatma Gandhi in his journey to free India from the colonial rule. He and his supporters organised movements like the Dandi March (Salt March) and the Quit India Movement, which eventually led to India’s independence in 1947. He was assassinated on January 30, 1948, but his principles and message endure as a beacon of hope and unity.

When asked to write a short essay on Mahatma Gandhi, students can list the highlights they remember about Gandhiji’s life and weave them into a paragraph. Here is a sample essay on Mahatma Gandhi in 200 words:

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is the most popular historical figure in the nation. He was born in Porbandar, Gujarat, on October 2, 1869. His family was affluent, and he had a good reputation as a quiet-natured boy. He went to London for his higher education, where he studied law and became a Barrister. He practised law at the Bombay High Court upon his return to India.

Gandhiji later moved to South Africa to work but soon lost interest in law. Instead, he joined hands with the natives there to start satyagraha – a non-violent protest against the oppression of the Europeans. He soon returned to India and joined the struggle for independence from British rule.

He was a simple man who taught simplicity and self-reliance to the people in India. He encouraged them to boycott foreign goods and make their own swadeshi goods. He was loved and respected by people of all communities.

As a freedom fighter, Gandhi was a man of firm conviction. During his freedom struggle, the British had put him in jail several times, where he endured extreme hardships. To honour his role in the freedom struggle, his birthday is observed as a national holiday to pay homage to him and all others who stood with him.

A long essay on Gandhi requires students to know and remember several details on his life and write them with a good narrative. Writing a Mahatma Gandhi essay in English in 500 words and more is not a difficult task. Here is a sample essay for class 3 students on Mahatma Gandhi:

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also called Mahatma Gandhi, is the father of our nation. He was a freedom fighter, national leader, and social reformer who worked tirelessly to make India independent. Famous poet Rabindranath Tagore gave him the title of Mahatma. In Sanskrit, ‘Mahatma’ means ‘Great Soul’. He was given this name for his non-violent approach to the freedom movement, contributions to social reform, and convictions to lead a simple life. Since his time, Gandhiji and his philosophy have inspired all social reform movements.

Birth And Childhood

Mahatma Gandhi, aka Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was born on 2 October 1869 in the small town of Porbandar, Gujarat. His father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi, was the Diwan of Porbandar and Rajkot and also a court official in Porbandar. Born to a religious woman, Putlibai Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi became one of the top representatives in India’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule, known for his philosophy of non-violence (Ahimsa) and civil disobedience.

Marriage And Education

Gandhiji was raised with simplicity, although he was from an affluent family. He was a firm believer in non-violence, which was reflected in his approach to anything he did. Gandhiji went to England in 1888 to study law and become a barrister. After Gandhiji moved to Africa as a lawyer, he soon quit his profession to join the local people in their struggle against European oppression. He spent 20 years fighting discrimination in South Africa before returning to India.

Contribution To India’s Independence

The people who followed him loved his ideology of ‘ Ahimsa ‘ or non-violence. He realised early on that there was a great force in the philosophy of non-violence at a mass level for the freedom movement. He believed in self-reliance and made his own clothes, which started the ‘ Khadi movement’. He urged Indians to boycott foreign products and make their own instead to increase self-reliance. The British put him in jail many times because of his strong stand.

His efforts, combined with the sacrifices of all freedom fighters, were successful, and India gained independence. Mahatma Gandhi and his non-violent approach have been appreciated throughout history, and he became a global role model. His legacy extends beyond India’s borders, inspiring movements for civil rights, freedom, and social change worldwide. Bapu’s teachings and practices continue to be a model of inspiration for those advocating peace, justice, and human rights. He will continue to inspire people everywhere to build a better and more just world for generations to come.

Mahatma Gandhi led several successful campaigns and movements in his time to achieve independence from the colonial government, Let’s talk about some of the major movements of Gandhiji in detail:

1. Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha (1917 – 1918)

Gandhi’s early Satyagrahas (non-violent resistance) in Champaran and Kheda addressed issues faced by indigo and cotton farmers, respectively. Due to meagre agriculture production and crop failure due to unfavourable weather along with high taxation, the situation of farmers deteriorated drastically. Along with farmers and several supporters, Mahatma Gandhi started protests and strikes that eventually led to the British noting the farmers’ demands and doing what was needful for them.

2. Khilafat Movement (1919)

Mahatma Gandhi supported the Khilafat Movement, started by Ali brothers in Turkey against the unfair treatment of Turkey after the First World War, which aimed to protect the Ottoman Empire’s caliphate. He presided over the All India Conference in Delhi and even returned the awards he achieved in the British Empire’s South Africa. He came to the limelight of many Indians for his doings against the British empire, which eventually strengthened his position as a national leader.

3. Non-Cooperation Movement (1920)

The Civil Disobedience Movement aimed to fight unjust laws peacefully with the assistance from the Congress. Under the leadership of Gandhiji, several Indians refused to obey certain British laws and pay taxes. People began boycotting British goods and services, which resulted in mass arrests and heightened global awareness. However, after the Chauri Chaura incident with the killing of 23 police officers, Gandhiji put a stop to the movement.

4. Civil-Disobedience Movement (1930)

The Non-Cooperation Movement aimed at the boycotting of British institutions, schools, and goods by Indians. Several students dropped out of college, and many government employees quit their British jobs. People also boycotted imported clothing, refused to pay taxes, held protests, etc. Millions of people supported and participated in this movement, and it marked a turning point in India’s fight for independence.

5. Quit India Movement (1942)

The Quit India Movement in 1942 finally demanded to put an immediate end to British rule in India. Gandhiji started this movement on August 8, 1942, during World War II, calling it “Quit India”. Because of this movement, several representatives of the Indian National Congress were arrested by the British government, eventually leading to widespread protests and strikes. In the end, the British government decided to surrender control to India and exit from India.

Writing about Mahatma Gandhi in a school essay is an important assignment for children. Being one of India’s most regarded historical personalities, it is beneficial for them to learn about his life and role in India’s freedom struggle for academics and as a proud citizen of the country. This topic is more factual, so students will have to write based on their knowledge rather than their feelings or imagination. In this essay, children will learn how to memorise facts and write a composition on them for exams and assignments. They will learn how to weave a good story about a person in history and explain the relevance to the present.

Here are some facts about Mahatma Gandhi that will surely help your kids:

Although Mahatma Gandhiji’s real name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, people across the nation address him as ‘Bapu’ in Gujarati, as it is entitled as the ‘Father of the Nation.’

Before fighting for India’s independence, Mahatma Gandhi worked as a barrister.

Albert Einstein admired Gandhiji very much. After Bapu’s death, the scientist quotes, ‘Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.’

Gandhiji followed a simplistic life and wore hand-spun khadi cloth.

Mahatma Gandhi had four children – Manilal, Harilal, Devdas, and Ramdas.

There are several roads and streets named in honour of Gandhiji.

In 1930, Bapu was accredited with the Time Magazine Man of the Year.

To date, Indian currency notes bear the photo monogram of Mahatma Gandhi.

Inspired by Gandhiji’s non-violence philosophy, Martin Luther fought for civil rights peacefully in the United States.

On January 30, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was tragically assassinated by a man named Nathuram Godse.

1. How did Gandhi’s Philosophy Influence Other Leaders?

Gandhiji’s philosophy of non-violence (Ahimsa) and peaceful protests have a profound influence on leaders across the world. Martin Luther King Jr. Adopted Gandhiji’s principles to fight against racial segregation and discrimination peacefully in the United States. Similarly, Nelson Mandela from South Africa took inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s principles to seek justice against apartheid and racial oppression. Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi took Gandhi’s non-violence philosophy as a role model for her campaign for democratic reforms and human rights. Other world leaders who took inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi include Desmond Tutu (South Africa), Lech Wałęsa (Poland), Cesar Chavez (USA), and more.

2. How can Gandhi’s Ideals be Applied in Today’s World?

Children can adopt the philosophies of non-violence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), self-discipline (tapasya), and service to others (seva) from Gandhiji. Children can learn to always speak the truth, be kind to people, and always lend a helping hand to people in need.

3. What are Some Famous Books Written by Mahatma Gandhi?

‘ My Experiments With Truth’ is a renowned autobiography penned by Mahatma Gandhi. Other popular books written by him include ‘The Young India’, ‘Hind Swaraj’, and India of My Dreams.’

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Mahatma Gandhi Essay

Important Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Students in English

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, often called the 'Father of the Nation' , was a leader who fought for India's freedom from British rule. He believed in non-violence. Every year on October 2nd, Mahatma Gandhi's birthday is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti to honor his efforts in freeing India.

English Essay on Mahatma Gandhi

Rabindranath Tagore was the first to call Gandhiji 'Mahatma,' which means 'Great Soul' in Sanskrit. His wise ideas and beliefs led people to respect and call him 'Mahatma Gandhi.' His dedication to the country and efforts to turn his ideas into reality make Indians around the world very proud of him .

According to Mahatma Gandhi’s biography, he was born on October 2, 1869 , in Porbandar, a coastal town in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. He grew up in a Hindu family and ate basic vegetarian meals. His dad, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi, was an important leader in Porbandar State. In South Africa, he was the first to lead a peaceful protest movement, setting him apart from other demonstrators. Mahatma Gandhi also introduced the idea of Satyagraha, a nonviolent approach to opposing unfairness. He devoted 20 years of his life to battling discrimination in South Africa.

His idea of 'Ahimsa,' which means not hurting anyone, was widely admired and followed by many influential people worldwide. He became an indomitable figure who couldn't be defeated in any situation. Mahatma Gandhi initiated the 'Khadi Movement' to encourage the use of fabrics like khadi or jute. This movement was a crucial part of the larger 'Non-co-operation Movement,' which advocated for Indian goods and discouraged foreign ones. Gandhi strongly supported agriculture and encouraged people to engage in farming. He inspired Indians to embrace manual labor and emphasized self-reliance, urging them to provide for their needs and lead simple lives. He began weaving cotton clothes using the Charkha to reduce dependence on foreign goods and promote Swadeshi products among Indians.

During the fight for India's freedom, Gandhiji faced imprisonment several times along with his followers, but his main goal was always the freedom of his motherland. Even when he was in prison, he never chose the path of violence.

Mahatma Gandhi made significant contributions to various social issues. His efforts against 'untouchability' while he was in Yerwada Jail, where he went on a hunger strike against this ancient social evil, greatly helped uplift the oppressed community in modern times. He also emphasized the importance of education, cleanliness, health, and equality in society.

These qualities defined him as a person with a great soul and justified his transformation from Gandhi to Mahatma. He led many freedom movements, including the "Quit India Movement," which was highly successful. His death was a huge loss to the forces of peace and democracy, leaving a significant void in the nation's life.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a prominent Indian nationalist leader, significantly influenced Mahatma Gandhi's political ideology and leadership approach. Gandhi considered him his political teacher.

Mahatma Gandhi played a crucial role in India's fight for freedom from British rule. His life was dedicated to serving his country and its people, and he became an international symbol of Indian leadership. Even today, he continues to inspire and motivate young people worldwide with his values and principles.

Gandhi Ji was known for his strong sense of discipline. He emphasized the importance of self-discipline in achieving significant goals, a principle he applied in promoting his philosophy of Ahimsa (non-violence). Through his own life, he demonstrated that rigorous discipline can lead to the realization of any objective, provided we remain committed and dedicated. These qualities established him as a revered and respected leader whose influence extends far beyond his lifetime. His ideals continue to resonate not only in India but also around the world.

FAQs on Mahatma Gandhi Essay

1. What were the different movements that Gandhi started in order to bring Independence to India?

In order to bring freedom, Gandhi started the Satyagraha movement in 1919, the non-cooperation movement in 1921, and Civil Disobedience movement in 1930 and Quit India movement in 1942.

2. Who killed Mahatma Gandhi?

A young man named Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi when he was going to attend an evening prayer meeting.

3. Why is Gandhi known as the ‘Father of the Nation’?

Mahatma Gandhi is known as the ‘Father of the Nation’ because he laid the true foundation of independent India with his noble ideals and supreme sacrifice.

4. How do we commemorate Mahatma Gandhi’s contribution for our Nation?

His birthday on 2 nd October is celebrated as a National Holiday across the nation in order to commemorate his great contributions and sacrifices for the country’s independence.

5. What are the things we should learn from Mahatma Gandhi?

There are various things one can learn from Gandhiji. The principles that he followed and preached his entire generation and for generations to come are commendable. He believed in ‘Ahimsa’ and taught people how any war in the world can be won through non-violence. To simply state one can learn the following principles from Gandhiji -

Nonviolence,

Respect for elders,

Question and Answer forum for K12 Students

Mahatma Gandhi Essay | Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Students and Children in English

Mahatma Gandhi Essay: It wouldn’t be difficult for anyone to identify the great yet humble personality of Mahatma Gandhi. The man who faced one of the world’s biggest superpowers, the British Raj with daunting courage and perseverance through his principle of non-violence, was indeed a force to reckon with. – The Angel of ‘Ahimsa’

You can read more Essay Writing about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.

Long and Short Essays on Mahatma Gandhi for Kids and Students in English

Given below are two essays in English for students and children about the topic of ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ in both long and short form. The first essay is a long essay on Mahatma Gandhi of 400-500 words. This long essay about Mahatma Gandhi is suitable for students of class 7, 8, 9 and 10, and also for competitive exam aspirants. The second essay is a short essay on Mahatma Gandhi of 150-200 words. These are suitable for students and children in class 6 and below.

Long Essay on Mahatma Gandhi 500 Words in English

Below we have given a long essay on Mahatma Gandhi of 500 words is helpful for classes 7, 8, 9 and 10 and Competitive Exam Aspirants. This long essay on the topic is suitable for students of class 7 to class 10, and also for competitive exam aspirants.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2nd October, 1869, at Porbandar, a small town on the Western coast of India, which was then one of the many tiny states in Kathiawar. He was born in a middle class family of Vaishya caste. His grandfather had risen to become the Prime Minister of Porbandar and was succeeded by his son Karamchand who was the father of Mohandas. Putlibai, Mohandas’s mother was a saintly character, gentle and devout and left a deep impression on her son’s mind. She was Karam Chand’s fourth wife, the first three having died in childbirth. Mohandas went to an elementary school in Porbandar, where he found it difficult to master the multiplication tables. He had two brothers and a sister and was youngest of all.

He was seven when his family moved to Rajkot. There he attended a primary school and later joined a high school. Though conscientious, he was a ‘mediocre student’ and was excessively shy and timid. The stories of Shravan and Raja Harishchandra had a great impact on him. While he was still in high school, he was married, at the age of 13, to Kasturba who was also of the same age. A friend of the family suggested that if the young Gandhi hoped to take his father’s place in the state service, he had better become a barrister, which he could do in England in 3 years. Gandhi jumped at the idea. The mother’s objection to his going abroad was overcome by the son’s solemn vow not to touch wine, women and meat.

Gandhi went to Bombay to take the ship for England. In Bombay, the people of his caste, who looked upon crossing the ocean as contamination, threatened to excommunicate him if he persisted in going abroad. But Gandhi was adamant and was thus, formally excommunicated by his caste. Undeterred, he sailed on 4th September, 1888, for Southampton at the age of 18.

Having passed his examination, Gandhi was called to the Bar on 10th June, 1891 and sailed for India two days later. When he reached Bombay, he learnt to his profound sorrow that his mother had died. The news had been deliberately kept back from him to spare him from the shock in a distant land.

An offer from Dada Abdulla and Co. to proceed to South Africa on their behalf to instruct their counsel in a lawsuit, was a God-sent opportunity to young Gandhi, Gandhi jumped at it and sailed for South Africa in April 1893. It was in South Africa that this shy timid youth of 24, inexperienced, unaided, alone, came into clash with forces that obliged him to tap his hidden moral resources and turn misfortunes into creative spiritual experiences. After about a week’s stay in Durban, Gandhi left for Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, where his presence was needed in connection with a lawsuit.

A first class ticket was purchased for him by his client. When the train reached Maritzburg, the capital of Natal, at about 9 pm, a white passenger who boarded the train objected to the presence of a coloured man in the compartment and Gandhi was ordered by a railway official to shift to a third class. When he refused to do so, a constable pushed him out and his luggage was taken away by the railway authorities. It was winter and bitterly cold. This was the turning point in Gandhi’s life.

He extended his stay in South Africa to protest against the bill that denied Indians the right to vote. In 1910s, he established the Tolstoy farm for peaceful resistance. After the rights of the blacks were restored, Gandhi was hailed as a hero.

In January 1915, he finally returned to India, Mahatma, with no possessions and with only one ambition to serve his people.

At the end of his year’s wanderings, Gandhi settled down on the bank of the river Sabarmati, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, where he founded an Ashram in May 1915. He called it the ‘Satyagraha Ashram.’ The inmates, about 25 men and women, took the vows of truth, ahimsa, celibacy, non-stealing, non-possession and control of the palate and dedicated themselves to the service of the people.

It was the Rowlatt Act with its denial of civil liberties which finally brought Gandhi into active Indian politics. From 1919 to his death in 1948 he occupied the centre stage of the Indian politics and was the hero of the great historical drama which

culminated in the independence of our country. Like a magician, Gandhi roused a storm of enthusiasm in the country with his call for non-cooperation. He began the campaign by returning to the Viceroy, the medals and decorations he had received from the government for his war services and humanitarian works.

The anti-climax came suddenly in February 1922. An outbreak of mob violence in Chauri-Chaura shocked and pained Gandhi that he refused to continue the campaign and undertook a fast for five days to amne for a crime committed by others in a state of mob hysteria.

On 12th March, 1930, after having duly informed the Viceroy, Gandhi, followed by 78 members of his ashram, both men and women, began his historic 24 day march to the sea beach at Dandi to break the law which had deprived the poor man of his right to make his own salt. The rest is history how a single man shook the foundations of the British Empire and how at his single call the entire nation rose from slumbers to fight for their rights unanimously, forgetting all their differences. In 1942, he launched the Quit India Movement with the slogan ‘Do or Die’.

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” -Gandhiji

Short Essay on Mahatma Gandhi 200 Words in English

Below we have given a short essay on Mahatma Gandhi is for Classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. This short essay on the topic is suitable for students of class 6 and below.

On 15th August, 1947, India was partitioned and became free. Gandhi declined to attend the celebrations in the capital and went to Calcutta where communal riots were still raging. And then, on the day of independence, a miracle happened. A year old riot stopped as if by magic and Hindus and Muslims began to fraternise with one another. Gandhi spent the day in fast and prayer.

Unfortunately the communal frenzy broke loose again on 31 st August, and while he was staying in a Muslim house, the safety of his own life was threatened. On the following day, he went on a fast which was ‘to end if and only if sanity returns to Calcutta’. The effect was magical. Those who had indulged in loot, arson and murder amidst shouts of glee, came and knelt beside him and begged for forgiveness.

On 4th September, the leaders of all communities in the city brought him a signed pledge that Calcutta would see no more of such outrages. Then, Gandhi broke the fast. Calcutta kept the pledge even when many other cities were plunged in violence in the wake of partition. On 30th January 1948, ten days after the bomb incident, Gandhi hurriedly went up the few steps of the prayer ground in the large park of the Birla House. He had been delayed due to a meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and was late by a few minutes.

He loved punctuality and was worried that he had kept the congregation waiting. ‘I am late by ten minutes, he murmured. ‘I should have been here at the stroke of five’. He raised his hands and touched the palms together to greet the crowd that was waiting. Everyone returned the greeting. Many came forward wanting to touch his feet.

They were not allowed to do so, as Gandhi was already late. But a young Hindu from Poona forced his way forward and while seeming to do obeisance fired three point blank shots from a small automatic pistol aimed at the heart. Gandhi fell, his lips uttering the name of God (Hey Ram). Before medical aid could arrive the heart had ceased to beat-the heart that had beat only in love for humanity had ‘stopped’. Thus, died the Mahatma, at the hands of one of his own people, to the eternal glory of what he had lived for and to the eternal shame of those who failed to understand that he was the best representative of the religion for which he suffered martyrdom.

The nation’s feeling was best expressed by Prime Minister Nehru when with a trembling voice and a heart full of grief, he gave the news to the people on the radio.

“The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere”.

He was fondly called ‘Bapu’ and is the Father of the Nation. His birthday is a national holiday. His image appears on Indian currency notes. His death day is observed as Martyr’s day. For some, he was a saint or ‘fakir’, some called him a ‘leader’ and some a politician. But, he was in reality an extraordinary soul in an ordinary mortal’s body. That’s why he was called ‘Mahatma’.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay Word Meanings for Simple Understanding

Bespectacled – wearing eyeglasses
Agile – quick and well-coordinated in movement
Daunting – to lessen the courage of, dishearten
Conscientious – careful and painstaking, meticulous
Docile – obedient
Excommunicate – to exclude or expel from membership or participation in any group, association, etc
Undeterred – persevering with something despite setbacks
Profound – intense
Intrigue – a plot of crafty dealing
Lawsuit – a case in a court of law involving a claim, complaint, etc., by one party against another, suit at law
Intelligentsia – intellectuals considered as a group or class, especially as a cultural, social, or political elite
Palate – the sense of taste
Atone – to make amends for an offense or crime
Fraternise – to associate in a fraternal or friendly way
Arson – the act of intentionally or recklessly setting fire to another’s property or to one’s own property for some improper reason
Congregation – a gathered or assembled body
Obeisance – deference or homage

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Essay on mahatma gandhi: biography of mahatma gandhi | 800+ words.

Mahatma Gandhi, one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, is widely regarded as the Father of the Nation in India. He was a freedom fighter, political leader, and spiritual teacher who dedicated his life to nonviolent resistance and social justice. In this essay on Mahatma Gandhi biography in English, we will explore his life, legacy, and achievements. From his humble beginnings in Porbandar, Gujarat, to his leadership in India's independence movement, Gandhi's teachings and philosophy have had a profound impact on social and political movements around the world. This essay will delve into his life's work and highlight the enduring legacy of this remarkable individual.

In this article, we have shared 800+ words essay on mahatama gandhi, including all the birth, childhood, marriage and education of Mahatma Gandhi.

Essay On Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is also known as Mahatma Gandhi is considered to be the father of this country. In the fight for independence against British rule, he was the leader of the nationalist movement. He was an Indian lawyer, political ethicist, anti-colonial nationalist, writer, and a kind-hearted person.

Birth and Childhood

Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, the year 1869 in a place named Porbandar, Gujrat in northwest India. He was born in a Hindu Modh family. His father Karamchand Gandhi was a political figure and also the chief minister of Porbandar. His mother named Putlibai Gandhi was the fourth wife of his father, previous wives died during childbirth. Gandhi was born in a vaishya family that's why from an early age of life he learned a lot of things such as non-injury to living beings, tolerance and vegetarianism.

In May 1883, he was 13 years old when he got married to a girl named Kasturba Makhanji, who was also 13 years old, this marriage was arranged by their parents. They together had four sons, Harilal (1888), Manilal (1892), Ramdas (1897), Devdas (1900).

In this essay on Mahatma Gandhi, let's know about Mahatma Gandhi's education Porbandar did not have enough chance of education, all the children in school used to write in dust with their fingers. However, he was lucky that his father became the chief minister of another city named Rajkot. He was average in education. At the age of 13, he lost a year at school due to marriage. He was not a shining student in the classroom or playground, but he always obeyed the given order by elders.

That's why like other kids he did not go through all the teenage life. He wanted to eat meat but never did because of their parent's beliefs. In the year of 1887, Gandhi passed the matriculation examination from the University of Bombay and joined a college in Bhavnagar named Samaldas College. It was clear for him by then that if he has to maintain his family tradition and become a high office working person in the state of Gujarat, he would have to become a barrister.

At the age of 18, he was offered to continue his studies in London and he was not very happy at Samaldas College so he accepted the offer and sailed to London in September 1888. After reaching London, He was having difficulty understanding the culture and understanding the English language. Some days after arrival he joined a Law college named Inner Temple which was one of the four London law colleges.

The transformation of changing life from a city to India studying in a college in England was not easy for him but he took his study very seriously and started to brush up his English and Latin. His vegetarianism became a very problematic subject for him as everyone around him as eating meat and he started to feel embarrassed.

Some of his new friends in London said some of the things like not eating meat will make him weak physically and mentally. But eventually, he found a vegetarian restaurant and a book that helped him understand the reason to become a vegetarian. From childhood, he wanted to eat meat himself but never did because of his parents but now in London, he was convinced that he finally embraced vegetarianism and never again thought of eating meat.

After some time he became an active member of the society called London vegetarian society and started to attend all the conferences and journals. In England not only Gandhi met Food faddists but also met some men and women who had vast knowledge about Bhagavad-Gita, Bible, Mahabharata, etc. From them, he learned a lot about Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and many others.

Many people he met were rebels not supporting the Victorian establishment from these people Gandhi slowly absorbed politics, personality, and more importantly ideas. He passed his study from England and became a Barrister but there was some painful news was waiting for him back at home in India. In January 1891 Gandhi's mother died while Gandhi was still in London.

He came back to India in July 1891 and started to begin the legal career but he lost his very first case in India. He soon realized that the legal profession was heavily overcrowded and he changed his path. He then was offered to be a teacher in Bombay high school but he turned it down and returned to Rajkot. With the dream of living a good life, he started to draft petitions for litigants which soon ended with the dissatisfaction of a local British officer.

Fortunately in the year 1893, he got an offer to go to Natal, South Africa and work there in an Indian firm for 1 year as it was a contract basis.

Civil Right Movement in Africa

South Africa was waiting with a lot of challenges and opportunities for him. From there he started to grow a new leaf. In South Africa 2 of his four sons were born. He had to face many difficulties there too. Once he as advocating for his client and he had to flee from the court because he was so nervous, he wasn't able to talk properly. But the bigger problem was waiting for him, as he had to face racial discrimination in South Africa.

In the journey from Durban to Pretoria, he faced a lot from, being asked to take off the turban in a court to travel on a car footboard to make room for European passenger but he refused. He was beaten by a taxi driver and thrown out of a first-class compartment but these instances made him strong and gave him the strength to fight for justice.

He started to educate others about their rights and duties. When he learned about a bill to deprive Indians of the right to vote, it was that time when others begged him to take up the fight on behalf of them. Eventually at the age of 25 in July 1894 he became a proficient political campaigner.

He drafted petitions and got them signed by hundreds of compatriots. He was not able to stop the bill but succeeded in drawing the attention of the public in Natal, England, and India. He then built many societies in Durban. He planted the seed, spirit of solidarity in the Indian community.

Very well known newspapers of that time such as The Times of London and The Statesman and Englishman of Calcutta were writing about him from this his success could be measured. He began to wear white Indian dhoti in this time-period which later became his trademark. He started a non-violent protest against tax also known as "Satyagraha" where he led a march with more than 2000 people and later he was arrested and for nine-month he was in prison.

His contribution to India's Freedom struggle and Achievements

Back in India, in the year of 1919, the British started to arrest and imprison anyone they suspect of sedition that's when Gandhi stood up and started non-violent disobedience. Gandhi's goal about Indian's independence got cleared after a tragic incident when more than 20000 protesters were getting open fired by the British army in the city of Amritsar.

400 people were killed and 1000 injured. He started the mass boycotts of British goods and institutions and told everyone to stop working for the British. In 1992 he was again got arrested and got a 6-year prison sentence. In 1930 he started the salt march and a very well known campaign of walking 390km to the Arabian Sea shores.

The salt act protesters around 60,000 including Gandhi were imprisoned. At the time of World War II, Gandhi started his campaign if Quit India to banish British rule from the country, he was again arrested and sent to prison with many other well-known leaders of Indian Congress. He met King George V on behalf of the Indian National Congress, but there was not that much progress.

After the End of the war, Britain's government was changed and this time progress was made they were willing to discuss independence for India but a tragic event followed by it partition of the country into India and Pakistan. In 1947 India gained independence. In the year of 1948, a Hindu extremist killed Gandhi. In this essay on Mahatma Gandhi, learn about the contributions made by Mahatma Gandhi!

What he was famous for?

He was known for his silent protest, disobedience campaign in India, Satyagraha, and passive resistance. His death made India mourn for 13 days, His birthday 2nd October is celebrated as a national holiday in India.

Why he was called Mahatma?

The title Mahatma means "great- soul". It is a title that was given to him by Rabindranath Tagore but he thinks he is not worthy of this title so he never accepted it.

Books dedicated to him or written by him

He was a writer from an early age, he liked writing books and there are many books written by him. Some of the most famous of them is Autobiography of Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi, Hind Swaraj and other writings, the words of Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, and many more.

Many writers have written about Mahatma Gandhi some of them are Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld, Gandhi Before India by Ramachandra Guha, The Good Boatman by Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi: Prisoner of hope by Judith M. Brown, etc.

While writing an essay on mahatma gandhi you can include books dedicated to him or his autobiographies.

Mahatma Gandhi Struggled very much from his early life but regardless of all the suffering, he made his way. And he is a very important part of our history of independence. We hope we have covered all the detail in this essay on Mahatma Gandhi for you to write a perfect essay!

Short Essay On Mahatma Gandhi Biography In English

Mahatma Gandhi, also known as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was a prominent Indian leader who played a pivotal role in India's struggle for independence. This essay on Mahatma Gandhi biography in English will explore his life, legacy, and achievements.

Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat. After studying law in London, he moved to South Africa, where he fought against discrimination faced by the Indian community. His experiences in South Africa would later shape his philosophy of nonviolent resistance or Satyagraha.

Returning to India in 1915, Gandhi became a prominent leader in India's independence movement. He advocated for nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against British colonial rule. His leadership and vision played a crucial role in India's eventual independence in 1947.

Gandhi's teachings have had a profound impact on social and political movements around the world. His message of nonviolent resistance has inspired many leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. He was a spiritual leader who believed in the power of love and compassion to bring about social change.

In addition to his political achievements, Gandhi was also an advocate for social justice and equality. He fought against caste discrimination, championed the rights of women, and promoted communal harmony.

In conclusion, Mahatma Gandhi was a remarkable individual whose life and teachings continue to inspire people around the world. His philosophy of nonviolent resistance, his leadership in India's independence movement, and his advocacy for social justice and equality make him a true hero of our time. This essay on Mahatma Gandhi biography in English is a testament to his enduring legacy.

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Mahatma Gandhi Essay

Below we have provided very simple written essay on Mahatma Gandhi, a person who would always live in the heart of Indian people. Every kid and children of the India know him by the name of Bapu or Father of the Nation. Using following Mahatma Gandhi essay, you can help your kids and school going children to perform better in their school during any competition or exam.

Long and Short Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English

We have provided below short and long essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English for your information and knowledge.

The essays have been written in simple yet effective English so that you can easily grasp the information and present it whenever needed.

After going through these Mahatma Gandhi essay you will know about the life and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi; teachings of Mahatma Gandhi; what role did he played in the freedom struggle; why is he the most respected leader the world over; how his birthday is celebrated etc.

The information given in the essays will be useful in speech giving, essay writing or speech giving competition on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 1 (100 words)

Mahatma Gandhi is very famous in India as “Bapu” or “Rastrapita”. The full name of him is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was a great freedom fighter who led India as a leader of the nationalism against British rule. He was born on 2 nd of October in 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat, India.

He died on 30 th of January in 1948. M.K. Gandhi was assassinated by the Hindu activist, Nathuram Godse, who was hanged later as a punishment by the government of India. He has been given another name by the Rabindranath Tagore as “Martyr of the Nation” since 1948.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 2 (150 words)

Mahatma Gandhi is called as Mahatma because of his great works and greatness all through the life. He was a great freedom fighter and non-violent activist who always followed non-violence all though his life while leading India for the independence from British rule.

He was born on 2 nd of October in 1869 at Porbandar in Gujarat, India. He was just 18 years old while studying law in the England. Later he went to British colony of South Africa to practice his law where he got differentiated from the light skin people because of being a dark skin person. That’s why he decided to became a political activist in order to do so some positive changes in such unfair laws.

Later he returned to India and started a powerful and non-violent movement to make India an independent country. He is the one who led the Salt March (Namak Satyagrah or Salt Satyagrah or Dandi March) in 1930. He inspired lots of Indians to work against British rule for their own independence.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 3 (200 words)

Mahatma Gandhi was a great and outstanding personality of the India who is still inspiring the people in the country as well as abroad through his legacy of greatness, idealness and noble life. Bapu was born in the Porbandar, Gujarat, India in a Hindu family on 2 nd of October in 1869. 2 nd of October was the great day for India when Bapu took birth. He paid his great and unforgettable role for the independence of India from the British rule. The full name of the Bapu is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He went to England for his law study just after passing his matriculation examination. Later he returned to India in as a lawyer in 1890.

After his arrival to India, he started helping Indian people facing various problems from the British rule. He started a Satyagraha movement against the British rule to help Indians. Other big movements started by the Bapu for the independence of India are Non-cooperation movement in the year 1920, Civil Disobedience movement in the year 1930 and Quit India movement in the year 1942. All the movements had shaken the British rule in India and inspired lots of common Indian citizens to fight for the freedom.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 4 (250 words)

Bapu, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was born in 1869 on 2 nd of October at Porbander in Gujarat, India. Mahatma Gandhi was a great Indian who led India with independence movement against British rule. He completed his schooling in India and went to England for further study of law. He returned to India as a lawyer and started practicing law. He started helping people of India who were humiliated and insulted by the British rule.

He started non-violence independence movement to fight against the injustice of Britishers. He got insulted many times but he continued his non-violent struggle for the Independence of India. After his return to India he joined Indian National Congress as a member. He was the great leader of the India independence movement who struggled a lot for the freedom of India. As a member of the Indian National Congress he started independence movements like Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience and later Quit India Movement which became successful a day and help India in getting freedom.

As a great freedom fighter, he got arrested and sent to jail many times but he continued fighting against British rule for the justice of Indians. He was a great believer in non-violence and unity of people of all religions which he followed all through his struggle for independence. After his lots of struggles with many Indians, finally he became successful in making India an independent country on 15 th of August in 1947. Later he was assassinated in 1948 on 30 th of January by the Nathuram Godse, a Hindu activist.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 5 (300 words)

Mahatma Gandhi was a great freedom fighter who spent his whole life in struggle for the independence of India. He was born in the Indian Hindu family on 2 nd of October in 1869 in the Porbander, Gujarat. He lived his whole as a leader of the Indian people. His whole life story is a great inspiration for us. He is called as the Bapu or Rashtrapita as he spent his life in fighting against British rule for the freedom of us. While fighting with Britishers he took help of his great weapons like non-violence and Satyagraha movements to achieve freedom. Many times he got arrested and sent to the jail but he never discourages himself and continued fighting for national freedom.

He is the real father of our nation who really used his all power to make us free from the British rule. He truly understood the power of unity in people (from different castes, religions, community, race, age or gender) which he used all through his independence movement. Finally he forced Britishers to quit India forever through his mass movements on 15 th of August in 1947. Since 1947, the 15 th of August is celebrated every year as the Independence Day in India.

He could not continue his life after the independence of India in 1947 as he was assassinated by one of the Hindu activists, Nathuram Godse in 1948 on 30 th of January. He was the great personality who served his whole life till death for the motherland. He enlightened our life with the true light of freedom from British rule. He proved that everything is possible with the non-violence and unity of people. Even after getting died many years ago, he is still alive in the heart of every Indian as a “Father of the Nation and Bapu”.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 6 (400 words)

Mahatma Gandhi is well known as the “Father of the Nation or Bapu” because of his greatest contributions towards the independence of our country. He was the one who believed in the non-violence and unity of the people and brought spirituality in the Indian politics. He worked hard for the removal of the untouchability in the Indian society , upliftment of the backward classes in India, raised voice to develop villages for social development, inspired Indian people to use swadeshi goods and other social issues. He brought common people in front to participate in the national movement and inspired them to fight for their true freedom.

He was one of the persons who converted people’s dream of independence into truth a day through his noble ideals and supreme sacrifices. He is still remembered between us for his great works and major virtues such as non-violence, truth, love and fraternity. He was not born as great but he made himself great through his hard struggles and works. He was highly influenced by the life of the King Harischandra from the play titled as Raja Harischandra. After his schooling, he completed his law degree from England and began his career as a lawyer. He faced many difficulties in his life but continued walking as a great leader.

He started many mass movements like Non-cooperation movement in 1920, civil disobedience movement in 1930 and finally the Quit India Movement in 1942 all through the way of independence of India. After lots of struggles and works, independence of India was granted finally by the British Government. He was a very simple person who worked to remove the colour barrier and caste barrier. He also worked hard for removing the untouchability in the Indian society and named untouchables as “Harijan” means the people of God.

He was a great social reformer and Indian freedom fighter who died a day after completing his aim of life. He inspired Indian people for the manual labour and said that arrange all the resource ownself for living a simple life and becoming self-dependent. He started weaving cotton clothes through the use of Charakha in order to avoid the use of videshi goods and promote the use of Swadeshi goods among Indians.

He was a strong supporter of the agriculture and motivated people to do agriculture works. He was a spiritual man who brought spirituality to the Indian politics. He died in 1948 on 30 th of January and his body was cremated at Raj Ghat, New Delhi. 30 th of January is celebrated every year as the Martyr Day in India in order to pay homage to him.

Essay on Non-violence of Mahatma Gandhi – Essay 7 (800 Words)

Introduction

Non-violence or ‘ahimsa’ is a practice of not hurting anyone intentionally or unintentionally. It is the practice professed by great saints like Gautam Buddha and Mahaveer. Mahatma Gandhi was one of the pioneer personalities to practice non-violence. He used non-violence as a weapon to fight the armed forces of the British Empire and helped us to get independence without lifting a single weapon.

Role of Non-violence in Indian Freedom Struggle

The role of non-violence in the Indian freedom struggle became prominent after the involvement of Mahatma Gandhi. There were many violent freedom struggles going on concurrently in the country and the importance of these cannot be neglected either. There were many sacrifices made by our freedom fighters battling against the British rule. But non-violence was a protest which was done in a very peaceful manner and was a great way to demand for the complete independence. Mahatma Gandhi used non-violence in every movement against British rule. The most important non-violence movements of Mahatma Gandhi which helped to shake the foundation of the British government are as follows.

Champaran and Kheda Agitations

In 1917 the farmers of Champaran were forced by the Britishers to grow indigo and again sell them at very cheap fixed prices. Mahatma Gandhi organized a non-violent protest against this practice and Britishers were forced to accept the demand of the farmers.

Kheda village was hit by floods in 1918 and created a major famine in the region. The Britishers were not ready to provide any concessions or relief in the taxes. Gandhiji organized a non-cooperation movement and led peaceful protests against the British administration for many months. Ultimately the administration was forced to provide relief in taxes and temporarily suspended the collection of revenue.

Non-cooperation Movement

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the harsh British policies lead to the Non-cooperation movement in 1920. It was the non-violence protest against the British rule. Gandhiji believed that the main reason of the Britishers flourishing in India is the support they are getting from Indians. He pleaded to boycott the use of British products and promoted the use of ‘Swadeshi’ products. Indians denied working for the Britishers and withdrew themselves from the British schools, civil services, government jobs etc. People started resigning from the prominent posts which highly affected the British administration. The Non-Cooperation movement shook the foundation of the British rule and all these without a single use of any weapon. The power of non-violence was more evident in the non-cooperation movement.

Salt Satyagrah or Salt March

Salt March or the ‘Namak Satyagrah’ was the non-violence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi against the salt monopoly of the Britishers. Britishers imposed a heavy taxation on the salt produce which affected the local salt production. Gandhiji started the 26 days non-violence march to Dandi village, Gujarat protesting against the salt monopoly of the British government. The Dandi march was started on 12 th March 1930 from Sabarmati Ashram and ended on 06 th April 1930 at Dandi, breaking the salt laws of the British government and starting the local production of salt. The Salt March was a non violent movement which got the international attention and which helped to concrete the foundation of Independent India.

Quit India Movement

After the successful movement of the Salt March, the foundation of British government shook completely. Quit India Movement was launched by Mahatma Gandhi on 8 th August 1942 which demanded the Britishers to quit India. It was the time of World War II when Britain was already in war with Germany and the Quit India Movement acted as a fuel in the fire. There was a mass non-violent civil disobedience launched across the country and Indians also demanded their separation from World War II. The effect of Quit India Movement was so intense that British government agreed to provide complete independence to India once the war gets over. The Quit India Movement was a final nail in the coffin of the British rule in India.

These movements led by Mahatma Gandhi were completely Non-violent and did not use any weapon. The power of truth and non-violence were the weapons used to fight the British rule. The effect of non-violence was so intense that it gained the immediate attention of the international community towards the Indian independence struggle. It helped to reveal the harsh policies and acts of the British rule to the international audience.

Mahatma Gandhi always believed that weapons are not the only answer for any problem; in fact they created more problems than they solved. It is a tool which spreads hatred, fear and anger. Non-violence is one of the best methods by which we can fight with much powerful enemies, without holding a single weapon. Apart from the independence struggle; there are many incidents of modern times which exhibited the importance of non-violence and how it helped in bringing changes in the society and all that without spilling a single drop of blood. Hope the day is not very far when there will be no violence and every conflict and dispute will be solved through peaceful dialogues without harming anyone and shedding blood and this would be a greatest tribute to Mahatma Gandhi.

Long Essay on Mahatma Gandhi – Essay 8 (1100 Words)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi aka ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ was one of the great sons of Indian soil who rose to become a great soul and gave major contribution in the great Indian freedom struggle against the British rule in India. He was a man of ideologies and a man with great patience and courage. His non-violence movements involved peaceful protests and non-cooperation with the British rule. These movements had a long term effects on the Britishers and it also helped India to grab the eye balls of global leaders and attracted the attention on the international platforms.

Family and Life of Mahatma Gandhi

Birth and Childhood

Mahatma Gandhi was born as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on 02 nd October, 1869 at Porbandar (which is in the current state of Gujarat). His father Karamchand Gandhi was working as the Chief Minister (diwan) of Porbandar at that time. His mother Putlibai was a very devotional and generous lady. Young Gandhi was a reflection of his mother and inherited high values, ethics and the feeling of sacrifice from her.

Marriage and Education

Mohandas was married to Kasturba Makanji at a very young age of 13. In 1888, they were blessed with a baby boy and after which he sailed to London for higher studies. In 1893, he went to South Africa to continue his practice of law where he faced strong racial discrimination by the Britishers. The major incident which completely changed the young Gandhi was when he was forcibly removed from the first class compartment of a train due to his race and color.

Civil Rights Movement in Africa

After the discrimination and embracement faced by Gandhi due to his race and color, he vowed to fight and challenge the racial discrimination of immigrants in South Africa. He formed Natal Indian Congress in 1894 and started fighting against racial discrimination. He fought for the civil rights of the immigrants in South Africa and spent around 21 years there.

Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian Freedom Struggle

Gandhi returned to India in 1915 and joined Indian National Congress and started to raise voice against the British rule in India and demanded the complete independence or ‘Purn Swaraj’ for India. He started many non-violent movements and protests against Britishers and was also imprisoned various times in his long quest of freedom. His campaigns were completely non-violent without the involvement of any force or weapons. His ideology of ‘ahimsa’ meaning not to injure anyone was highly appreciated and was also followed by many great personalities around the globe.

Why was Gandhi called Mahatma?

‘Mahatma’ is a Sanskrit word which means ‘great soul’. It is said that it was Rabindranth Tagore who first used ‘Mahatma’ for Gandhi. It was because of the great thoughts and ideologies of Gandhi which made people honour him by calling ‘Mahatma Gandhi’. The great feeling of sacrifice, love and help he showed throughout his life was a matter of great respect for each citizen of India.

Mahatma Gandhi showed a lifelong compassion towards the people affected with leprosy. He used to nurse the wounds of people with leprosy and take proper care of them. In the times when people used to ignore and discriminate people with leprosy, the humanitarian compassion of Gandhi towards them made him a person with great feelings and a person with great soul justifying himself as Mahatma.

Mahatma Gandhi’s contribution on various social issues could never be ignored. His campaign against untouchability during his imprisonment in the Yerwada Jail where he went on fast against the age old evil of untouchability in the society had highly helped the upliftment of the community in the modern era. Apart from this, he also advocated the importance of education, cleanliness, health and equality in the society. All these qualities made him a man with great soul and justify his journey from Gandhi to Mahatma.

What are Gandhi’s accomplishments?

Mahatma Gandhi was a man with mission who not only fought for the country’s independence but also gave his valuable contribution in uprooting various evils of the society. The accomplishments of Mahatma Gandhi is summarized below:

Fought against Racial Discrimination in South Africa

The racial discrimination in South Africa shocked Mahatma Gandhi and he vowed to fight against it. He challenged the law which denied the voting rights of the people not belonging to the European region. He continued to fight for the civil rights of the immigrants in South Africa and became a prominent face of a civil right activist.

Face of the Indian Freedom Struggle

Mahatma Gandhi was the liberal face of independence struggle. He challenged the British rule in India through his peaceful and non-violent protests. The Champaran Satyagrah, Civil Disobedience Movement, Salt March, Quit India Movement etc are just the few non-violent movements led by him which shook the foundation of the Britishers in India and grabbed the attention of the global audience to the Indian freedom struggle.

Uprooting the Evils of Society

Gandhi Ji also worked on uprooting various social evils in the society which prevailed at that time. He launched many campaigns to provide equal rights to the untouchables and improve their status in the society. He also worked on the women empowerment, education and opposed child marriage which had a long term effect on the Indian society.

What was Gandhi famous for?

Mahatma Gandhi was one of the great personalities of India. He was a man with simplicity and great ideologies. His non-violent way to fight a much powerful enemy without the use of a weapon or shedding a single drop of blood surprised the whole world. His patience, courage and disciplined life made him popular and attracted people from every corners of the world.

He was the man who majorly contributed in the independence of India from the British rule. He devoted his whole life for the country and its people. He was the face of the Indian leadership on international platform. He was the man with ethics, values and discipline which inspires the young generation around the globe even in the modern era.

Gandhi Ji was also famous for his strict discipline. He always professed the importance of self discipline in life. He believed that it helps to achieve bigger goals and the graces of ahimsa could only be achieved through hard discipline.

These qualities of the great leader made him famous not only in India but also across the world and inspired global personalities like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.

Mahatma Gandhi helped India to fulfill her dream of achieving ‘Purna Swaraj’ or complete independence and gave the country a global recognition. Though he left this world on 30 th January, 1948, but his ideologies and thoughts still prevail in the minds of his followers and act as a guiding light to lead their lives. He proved that everything is possible in the world if you have a strong will, courage and determination.

500 Words Mahatma Gandhi Essay for Class 1 to 12th

Find here short and long Mahatma Gandhi Essay for Class 3, 4, 5th to 12 th , this is the right place where you can find detail about Mahatma Gandhi history, their principles, why Mahatma Gandhi called Father of Nation? Mahatma Gandhi’s vision for the future of India and more information, keep reading.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay in English in 500 Words

Short Note on Mahatma Gandhi

The personality of Mahatma Gandhi was unique. He was a great political leader, a renowned statesman, a social reformer and a saint. He is called the Father of Indian Nation. We Celebrate Gandhi Jayanti on 2nd of October .

Mahatma Gandhi whose full name is Mohan Dass Karam Chand Gandhi was born on 2nd October 1869 at Porbandar in Gujarat. He was married to Kasturba at an early age. He went to England for higher studies and after passing his Bar-at-Law examination there, he returned to India where he started to practice as a lawyer.

10+ Lines on Mahatma Gandhi Essay for Kids

Mahatma Gandhi is known as the “Father of the Nation”
He preached the doctrine of no-violence.
He was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujurat.
Gandhiji received formal education at Rajkot & Bhavanagar.
He studied law in English and became the barrister in 1891.
Mahatma Gandhi protested against racial discrimination by the government in South Africa.
In 1917, he launched the first Satyagragh campaign in India at Champaran, Bihar.
Gandhiji propagated his ideas by editing the journals, Navajivan & Young India.
He led the non-cooperative movement in 1920.
Gandhiji campaigned intensively for khadi and swadeshi.
He started the civil disobedience movement in 1930.
The historic Dandi March, from Sabarmati to Dandi beach, took place to protect against salt Act.
Gandhiji launched the quit India Movement in 1942.
He was assassinated by a fanatic, Nathuram Godse on January 30, 1948.
He was in favour of co-operative & Panchayati Raj system.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay in English (LONG ESSAY)

Mahatma Gandhi was the greatest man of his time. He was born in Gujarat on 2nd October 1869. His father was the Diwan of the State and his mother was a homemaker.

After completing his education in India, he went to England to study Law. After coming back from there, he began his practice in South Africa.

But soon he started a non-violent agitation in order to improve the condition of the low and down-trodden Indian living there. He regarded truth and no-violence as the best weapons for the achievement of India’s Independence.

Gandhi in South Africa – Fight Against Law

Mahatma Gandhi’s public life began in South Africa. He saw the Indian being badly treated there by the Europeans. So he determined to fight against the injustice under which the Indians groaned.

He started Satyagraha against the unjust laws. All the Indians there took part in this movement. Gandhiji, after a great struggle, was successful in his mission. He became a political leader.

Gandhi in India Fought for freedom

When he returned to India, he decided to fight for the freedom of his country. He created awareness among Indian masses. He followed the slogan of Lokmanya Tilak, that the Swaraj was their birthright and that the British should quit.

Our foreign rulers did not like this. There were many clashes with British and Mahatma Gandhi went to jail many times. Many other political leaders like Motilal Nehru, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai and Subhash Chandra Bose joined him in this struggle. They were also put behind the bars several times. At last, we were able to win freedom for India in 1947.

I admire Mahatma Gandhi for his qualities of head and heart. He had full faith in God. In his daily prayers, he used to read out passages of Holy book of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians etc.

He taught the principle of truth and the love of fellowmen. He wanted to create oneness not only among the Indians but among the people of the world.

Gandhiji was a great social reformer. He worked for the uplifts of the Harijans. He had a deep love for the villagers and he revived cottage industries.

He wore simple cloth and chadar made of hand-spun cloth. He advised the Indians to boycott the British goods and encourage the use of Country made goods, especially hand-spun cloth.

He would never tell a lie. He believed in non-violence. He hated the killing of animals in all its forms. He believed in Hindu-Muslim unity, and for the end, he sacrificed his life.

Also read: Essay and Paragraph on Shivaji Maharaj

Mahatma Gandhi was a man of principle. He would rather die than give up his principles. He advocated the cause of the poor and the down-trodden. He was the greatest man of modern times.

Death of Gandhi

This is very sad that a fanatic named Godse who did not like his ideas or principles shot him dead on the 30th of January, 1948.

He was no more with us, but his teachings of truth, no-violence, peace and brotherhood would continue to inspire generations of people. His ideas enlighten the whole world and would continue to guide the misguided.

Mahatma Gandhi’s Speech (Unedited)

You can watch the following speech on Mahatma Gandhi for class 3 or higher.

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Mahatma Gandhi was not only a great leader but also a great human being. He spread the message of peace and non-violence all across the world. It is his contribution to India’s freedom struggle that we call him the Father of the Nation. We also call him Bapu. He was born at Porbander in Gujarat on October 2, 1869.

After completing his schooling from his native town, he went to England for higher studies. He studied law there. After completing his studies he went to South Africa. He practised law there. When he saw injustice caused by the English to Indian labourers in South Africa, he decided to fight for their cause. He started his experiment with truth and non-violence. Finally, he made the English accept his demands. After returning to India, he joined the freedom struggle. He made Sabarmati, the centre of his activities. In a few years, he became the most popular leader in India. After a long fight, India got freedom from the British. Unfortunately, he was assassinated by a fanatic on January 30, 1948.

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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in 500 Words (English)- Short Essay

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English- Students from Class 1 to 12 search for a short essay on Mahatma Gandhi to complete their assignment or homework. Most of the times the common question in the term examinations is to write a Mahatma Gandhi essay in English in 500 words . Here, we have provided a 500 words essay on Mahatma Gandhi so that students can make a good compiling short essay about Mahatma Gandhi to get good marks in final exams. Students can get the idea on how to phrase the words to make a good essay on Mahatma Gandhi in 500 words. Below is the essay about Mahatma Gandhi.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in 250 words

Mahatma Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat, India, was a preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement against British colonial rule. Known for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance, Gandhi became a symbol of peace, truth, and justice.

Gandhi’s early life was marked by his experiences in South Africa, where he developed his principles of Satyagraha (truth force) and Ahimsa (nonviolence) while fighting against racial discrimination. Upon returning to India in 1915, Gandhi emerged as a prominent leader in the struggle for independence.

Gandhi’s approach to activism was rooted in nonviolent protest and civil disobedience. He led numerous campaigns and movements, including the Salt March in 1930, where he and his followers marched to the Arabian Sea to protest the British salt monopoly. Through his leadership and principles, Gandhi inspired millions of Indians to join the freedom struggle.

Despite facing imprisonment and persecution, Gandhi remained steadfast in his commitment to nonviolence and truth. He advocated for the rights of the oppressed, including the untouchables or Dalits, and promoted communal harmony and religious tolerance.

Gandhi’s efforts culminated in India’s independence from British rule on August 15, 1947. However, his vision of a united, secular, and peaceful India was marred by the partition of the country into India and Pakistan, leading to widespread violence and displacement.

Even after independence, Gandhi continued to advocate for social justice and equality. However, his life was tragically cut short when he was assassinated by a Hindu extremist on January 30, 1948.

Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy remains a source of inspiration for people around the world. His principles of nonviolence, truth, and compassion continue to guide movements for peace, justice, and human rights globally. Gandhi’s life and teachings remind us of the power of love, tolerance, and the pursuit of truth in the face of adversity.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in 500 Words (English)

Mahatma Gandhi, popularly known as Father of Nation, plays a vital role in the Independence struggle of India. His full name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. With his dedication and determination, he successfully led many freedom movements in India. He is majorly known for his “Dandi March”, also called as Salt Satyagraha, held from March 12, 1930 to April 6, 1930. It was a 24-days march starting from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi. In the era of violence, he supported the non-violence freedom movements. He was a great patriotic leader with an unbelievably attractive personality. His contributions in India’s independence is unforgettable.

Background of Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in a Gujarati family. His birthplace is Porbandar (also known as Sudamapuri). He is the fourth and youngest son of Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai. He has 2 elder brothers and 1 sister. At the age of 13 years, Mohandas Gandhi was married to a 14-year-old girl, Kasturbai Makhanji Kapadia. Mohandas and Kasturba had four sons: Harilal, Manilal, Ramdas, and Devdas.

Mahatma Gandhi Education

Mahatma Gandhi studied law from London and returned to India in June 1891. After his inability to cross-examine witnesses, he moved to South Africa to be a lawyer. During his 21 years of stay in South Africa, he developed political views.

Achievements of Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi received innumerable awards and recognition. However, people know only a few. Some of the main achievements are mentioned here.

Because of his continuous struggle, he successfully contributed in eliminating the British rule from India in 1947.
Gandhi received the Queen’s South Africa Medal along with thirty-seven other Indians.
Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi were appreciated and followed by many popular leaders including Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela.
Honoring Mahatma Gandhi, UN celebrates October 2 as “the International Day of Nonviolence.” Also, many countries observe January 30 as the School Day of Nonviolence and Peace.

Mahatma Gandhi Death

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948 by Nathuram Godse.

Conclusion – Mahatma Gandhi is remembered as the Father of Nation because of his unforgettable contribution in the freedom of India. He has devoted his entire life to the nation.

Short Essay on Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi, also known as the Father of the Nation in India, was a prominent leader of the Indian independence movement against British rule. Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat, Gandhi led India to independence through his philosophy of nonviolent resistance, Satyagraha.

Gandhi’s life was characterized by simplicity, humility, and a steadfast commitment to truth and nonviolence. He advocated for social justice, equality, and the rights of marginalized communities, including the untouchables or Dalits.

Through his principles of ahimsa (nonviolence) and civil disobedience, Gandhi inspired millions of people to join the freedom struggle. His leadership and teachings galvanized the nation and eventually led to India’s independence from British colonial rule on August 15, 1947.

Gandhi’s legacy extends far beyond India’s independence. His philosophy of nonviolence and Satyagraha influenced many other civil rights movements around the world, including the American civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.

Despite facing numerous challenges and enduring hardships, Gandhi remained committed to his principles and never wavered in his pursuit of truth and justice. His life and teachings continue to inspire generations of people to strive for peace, equality, and social harmony.

Mahatma Gandhi’s contributions to the world will always be remembered, cherished, and celebrated as a beacon of hope and inspiration for humanity. His message of love, compassion, and nonviolence remains as relevant today as it was during his lifetime.

10 Lines on Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi is known as “Father of Nation”, commonly called as Bapu.
He was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat.
His full name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Mohandas was married to Kasturbai Makhanji Kapadia, commonly known as Kasturba Gandhi.
His birthday is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti in India and International Day of Nonviolence worldwide.
Mahatma was a law graduate and worked as Civil rights activist in South Africa (1893–1914)
He wrote several books including his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa.
Mahatma Gandhi was an integral part of India’s independence. He followed the path of non-violence to eliminate the rule of Britishers in India.
He initiated several movements that lead to including Champaran agitation in Bihar (1917), Kheda Satyagraha (1918), Khilafat movement (1919), Salt Satyagraha or Dandi March (1930).
In 1930, Time magazine named Gandhi the Man of the Year.
Nathuram Godse assassinated Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948.

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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi

Freedom is the need of every living thing on this earth. However, this freedom does not come free of cost. We feel proud to say that our country India is an independent country but when we say this, we also remember the story behind this freedom. This freedom cost us millions lives and thousands of struggles. Many people fought tirelessly to make India an independent country. Moreover, when we talk about India’s independence movement, the first name that strikes our mind is “Mahatma Gandhi”. Every child of India is well aware of this name. So, to discover more about this famous personality, let us discuss Mahatma Gandhi in detail.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay in English

Here, we are presenting long and short essays on Mahatma Gandhi in English for students under word limits of 100 – 150 Words, 200 – 250 words, and 500 – 600 words. This topic is useful for students of classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 in English. These provided essays will also be helpful for students to write essay, speech, or paragraphs on this topic.

10 Lines Essay on Mahatma Gandhi (100 – 120 Words)

1) Mahatma Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, was an Indian political leader.

2) His mother was Putlibai and father was Karamchand Gandhi.

3) He played a vital role in India’s struggle for independence against British rule.

4) He led several peaceful protests and movements, including the famous Salt March.

5) His beliefs and teachings inspired many other civil rights leaders around the world.

6) He was imprisoned numerous times for his protests against violence and injustice.

7) Gandhi was against the British rule and he worked hard to get India’s freedom.

8) Gandhi is widely known for his philosophy of nonviolence and civil disobedience.

9) He was shot on 30 January 1948 at 5:17 pm by Nathuram Godse.

10) Gandhi inspires people worldwide to fight for peace, justice, and equality.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi (250 – 300 Words)

Introduction

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most important people in India’s movement for independence. Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi ji, father of the nation, bapu, etc are the various names of our beloved freedom fighter Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Mahatma Gandhi: The Father of the Nation

Mahatma Gandhi was born in Porbandar, Gujarat on 2 nd October 1869 to Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai. Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian writer, politician, lawyer, and social worker. Gandhi is often called the “Father of the Nation” in India, because his tireless efforts and selfless fight for freedom made him an advocate of the oppressed people. He supported civil resistance that didn’t involve violence and promoted the idea of Satyagraha, which means “the force of truth.”

Role of Gandhi in Independence Movement

Gandhi’s contribution to the Indian independence movement cannot be overstated. He believed that India could only achieve true freedom through non-violence and civil disobedience. In 1919, Gandhi called for a nationwide strike in protest against the Rowlatt Act. This led to widespread protests and marked the beginning of Gandhi’s mass civil disobedience campaigns. Gandhi organized several significant movements such as the Salt March in 1930. These movements got the attention and support of most Indians and were a key part of getting the country independence.

Gandhi’s ability to lead and his unwavering dedication to his cause have made him a true freedom fighter. His strategy of using nonviolence and civil disobedience to win freedom is still a great example of how peaceful resistance can change politics. As we remember and honor the “Father of the Nation,” let’s try to live by his values of truth, nonviolence, and social justice to make the world a better place for everyone.

Long Essay on Mahatma Gandhi (500 Words)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was also known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an important leader in India’s fight for freedom. Gandhi was not only a political leader but also a great thinker and philosopher. His nonviolent approach to fighting injustice inspired individuals and movements around the world and continues to be remembered as a symbol of peace and resistance.

Mahatma Gandhi: Early Life

Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat to Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai. In May 1883, Mohandas, who was 13 at the time, got married to Kasturba devi, who was 14. He received his formal education in India and later studied law in London. Gandhi faced discrimination during his time in South Africa, which became a turning point in his life. This experience prompted him to fight for justice and equality, not only for Indians but for all oppressed people. When he got back to India, he became a well-known leader of the Indian National Congress.

Principles or Ideology of Gandhi Ji

Gandhi’s thought was based on the ideas of nonviolence, truth, and not caring about yourself. He thought that Satyagraha, a movement of nonviolent protest, could bring about social and political change. Gandhi was sure that violence leads to more violence and that kindness and understanding are the only ways to solve problems without violence. His ideas highlighted the value of being kind, forgiving, and loving to one’s enemies.

Contributions of Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s contributions to the Indian independence movement were immense. He played a pivotal role in organizing mass protests, strikes, and boycotts against British rule. The Salt March, which he led in 1930, is widely regarded as one of his most significant accomplishments. This act of civil disobedience sparked international attention and brought the Indian independence movement to the forefront. Other than this, Gandhi ji also led Champaran and Kheda Agitations, Non-cooperation Movement, Quit India Movement, etc. He was also an advocate for women’s rights. He believed in gender equality and fought against social norms that oppressed women.

Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s idea of nonviolent resistance inspired leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela to fight for human rights and equality. Truth and sincerity are still seen as important values for people who want to live in a fair and peaceful society. However, we lost this gem on 30 January 1948. Nathuram Godse, an extremist Hindu, shot and killed Mahatma Gandhi. The news of his death was felt all throughout the world. In India, 2 nd October is seen as Gandhi Jayanti and is a national holiday.

Mahatma Gandhi’s effect on the world cannot be overestimated. His peaceful way of fighting for freedom not only led to India’s independence but also changed the course of history for oppressed people all over the world. Gandhi’s ideas and teachings continue to inspire people and groups that work for peace, justice, and equality. Mahatma Gandhi will always be remembered as a sign of hope and courage in the face of hardship.

I hope the above provided essay on Mahatma Gandhi will be helpful in understanding his contribution for this country.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions on Mahatma Gandhi

Ans. Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi, a spiritual leader known as the “Great Soul of India,” when he was 78 years old. “Hey Ram” were the last words Mahatma Gandhi spoke before he died from the gunshot.

Ans. On January 30, 1948, after a prayer gathering in New Delhi, Mahatma Gandhi was killed, he was 78 years old. At point-blank range, three bullets were shot into his chest and stomach.

Ans. Satyagraha was the most important tool Mahatma Gandhi used to fight the British and free India. The concept of Satyagraha was created by Mahatma Gandhi. It is a form of civil protest that doesn’t use violence.

Ans. “Mahatma,” which means “great soul,” was a name that people used to call Gandhi. Rabindranath Tagore, a poet and philosopher from Bengal, gave him this title.

Ans. Mahatma Gandhi hasn’t won either the Bharat Ratna or the Nobel Prize, but he was named 5 times for the Nobel Peace Prize between 1937 and 1948. The Court said that Gandhi Ji and the things he did will live on forever. Any award, including the Bharat Ratna, will hurt his reputation.

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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi [100, 150, 200, 300, 500 Words]

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English: In this article, you are going to read short and long essays on Mahatma Gandhi in English (100, 150, 200-250, 300, and 500 words). This article will be also helpful for you If you are looking for a speech on Mahatma Gandhi or Paragraph on Mahatma Gandhi in English. We’ve written this article for students of all classes (nursery to class 12). So, let’s get started.

Table of Contents

Short Essay on Mahatma Gandhi 100 Words

Mahatma Gandhi was one of the greatest leaders of our country. He was born in Porbandar, India, on October 2, 1869. His father Karamchand Gandhi was the Dewan and his mother Putlibai was a pious lady. Gandhiji went to England to become a barrister. In 1893 he went to South Africa and worked for the rights of our people.

He returned to India in 1915 and joined the freedom struggle. He started many political movements like Non-cooperation movement, Salt Satyagraha, Quit India Movement to fight against the British. Gandhiji worked for the ending of the caste system and the establishment of Hindu-Muslim unity. He was killed by Nathuram Godse On January 30, 1948.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay in English 150 Words

Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader. His full name was Mohandas and Gandhi. He was born on October 2, 1869 at Porbandar. His father was a Diwan. He was an average student. He went to England and returned as a barrister.

In South Africa, Gandhiji saw the bad condition of the Indians. There he raised his voice against it and organised a movement.

In India, he started the non-cooperation and Satyagraha movements to fight against the British Government. He went to jail many times. He wanted Hindu-Muslim unity. In 1947, he got freedom for us.

Gandhiji was a great social reformer. He worked for Dalits and lower-class people. He lived a very simple life. He wanted peace. He believed in Ahimsa.

On January 30, 1948, he was shot dead. We call him ‘Bapu’ out of love and respect. He is the Father of the Nation.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi 200-250 Words

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, freedom activist, and politician. Gandhiji was born on October 2, 1869 at Porbandar, Gujarat. His father Karamchand Gandhi was the Chief Minister (diwan) of Porbandar state. His mother Putlibai was a religious woman.

He went to England to study law at the age of 18 years. After his return to India, he started a practice as a lawyer in the Bombay High Court. He went to South Africa and started practicing law. There he protested against the injustice and harsh treatment of the white people towards the native Africans and Indians.

He returned to India in 1915 and started to take interest in politics. Mahatma Gandhi used the ideals of truth and non-violence as weapons to fight against British colonial rule. He worked for the upliftment of Harijans. He fought against untouchability and worked for Hindu-Muslim unity.

Through his freedom movements like Non-cooperation movement, Khilafat movement, and civil disobedience movement he fought for freedom against the British imperialists. 1942, he launched the Quit India movement to end the British rule. At last, India got freedom in 1947 at his initiative.

People affectionately call him ‘Bapu’ and the ‘Father of the Nation’. He was shot dead in 1948 by the Hindu fanatic Nathuram Godse. Gandhiji’s life is a true inspiration for all of us.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay in English 300 Words

Mahatma Gandhi was born at Porbandar in Gujarat on 2nd October, 1869. His father was the Diwan of the State. His name was Karam Chand Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi’s full name was Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi. His mother’s name was Putali Bai. Mahatma Gandhi went to school first at Porbandar then at Rajkot. Even as a child, Mahatma never told a lie. He passed his Matric examination at the age of 18.

Mohan Das was married to Kasturba at the age of thirteen. Mahatma Gandhi was sent to England to study law and became a Barrister. He lived a very simple life even in England. After getting his law degree, he returned to India.

Mr. Gandhi started his law practice. He went to South Africa in the course of a law suit. He saw the condition of the Indians living there. They were treated very badly by the white men. They were not allowed to travel in 1st class on the trains, also not allowed to enter certain localities, clubs, and so on. Once when Gandhiji was travelling in the 1st class compartment of the train, he was beaten and thrown out of the train. Then Mahatma decided to unite all Indians and started the Non-violence and Satyagrah Movement. In no time, the Movement picked up.

Mahatma Gandhi returned to India and joined Indian National Congress. He started the Non-violence, Non-cooperation Movements here also. He travelled all over India, especially the rural India to see the conditions of the poor.

Mahatma Gandhi started Satyagrah Movement to oppose the Rowlatt Act and there was the shoot-out at Jalian-Wala-Bagh. The Act was drawn after many people were killed. He then started the Salt Satyagraha and Quit India Movements. And finally, Gandhiji won freedom for us. India became free on 15th August, 1947. He is called as “Father of the Nation”. Unfortunately, Gandhiji was shot on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse.

Also Read: Gandhi Jayanti Speech 10 Lines

Mahatma Gandhi Essay in English 500 Words

Introduction:.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi was a politician, social activist, writer, and leader of the Indian national movement. He is a figure known all over the world. His name is a household word in India, rather, in all the world round. His creed of non-violence has placed him on the same par with Buddha, Sri Chaitanya, and Jesus Christ.

Family & Education:

Mahatma Gandhi was born in the small town of Porbandar in the Kathiwad state on October 2, 1869. His father Karamchand Gandhi was the prime minister of Rajkot State and his mother Putlibai was a pious lady. Her influence shaped the future life of Mahatma Gandhi.

He was sent to school at a very early age, but he was not a very bright student. After his Matriculation Examination, he went to England to study law and returned home as a barrister. He began to practice law in Bombay but he was not very successful.

Life in South Africa:

In 1893 Gandhiji went to South Africa in connection with a case. He found his own countrymen treated with contempt by the whites. Gandhiji started satyagraha against this color hated. It was a non-violent protest, yet hundreds were beaten up and thousands were sent to jail. But Gandhiji did not buzz an inch from his faith in truth and non-violence and at last, he succeeded in his mission. He was awarded the title of Mahatma.

Fight for India’s Independence:

In 1915 Gandhiji came back to India after twenty long years in South Africa. He joined the Indian National congress and championed the cause of India’s freedom movement. He asked people to unite for the cause of freedom. He used the weapons of truth and non-violence to fight against the mighty British.

The horrible massacre at Jalianwalabag in Punjab touched him and he resolved to face the brute force of the British Government with moral force. In 1920 he launched the Non-cooperation movement to oppose British rule in India.

He led the famous Dandi March on 12th March 1930. This march was meant to break the salt law. And as a result of this, the British rule in India had already started shaking and he had to go to London for a Round Table Conference in 1931. But this Conference proved abortive and the country was about to give a death blow to the foreign rule.

In 1942 Gandhiji launched his final bout for freedom. He started the ‘Quit India’ movement. At last, the British Government had to quit India in 1947, and India was declared a free country on August 15, 1947.

Social Works:

Mahatma Gandhi was a social activist who fought against the evils of society. He found the Satyagraha Ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati river in Gujarat. He preached against untouchability and worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. He fought tirelessly for the rights of Harijans.

Conclusion:

Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation was a generous, god-loving, and peace-loving person. But unfortunately, he was assassinated by Nathuram Godse on 30th January 1948 at the age of 78. To commemorate Gandhiji’s birth anniversary Gandhi Jayanti is celebrated every year on October 2. Gandhiji’s teachings and ideologies will continue to enlighten and encourage us in the future.

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Home Essay Examples History Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi: As Apostle Of Truth, Non-violence And Tolerance

Category History
Subcategory Historical Figures
Topic Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is known to the world as Mahatma Gandhi and Father of the Nation through the outstanding contribution to the humanity. Like all great men in the annuls of history, he was a man of paradoxes, contradictions, prejudices, peculiarities but against these human frailties, he was standing as a colossus in the political arena of the 20th century with his infinite goodness, as the seeker of truth, as the follower of non-violence and tolerance and as the harvester of the greatest gift of mankind, love. Gandhiji had sharpened his moral weapon of non-violence against in India and successfully driven them out through his strangest peaceful revolution. For this purpose, he had honed his people through the organized and disciplined campaign of non-violent civil disobedience against the guns, bayonets and lathi sticks of rulers.

It is really strangest revolution for the people of the other countries. How can change the mindset of the enemies through a peaceful, unarmed and passive resistance? William L. Shirer said, “Our time had never seen anyone like him: a charismatic leader who had aroused a whole continent and indeed the consciousness of the world; a shrewd, tough politician, but also a deeply religious man, a Christ like figure in homespun loincloth, who lived humbly in poverty, practised what he preached and who was regarded by tens of millions of his people as a saint.”

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Gandhiji was an orthodox Hindu in his way of living but he had actually followed the moral principle of Christ in his spiritual life. He was the stronger follower of Christ than rulers. He may be the first politician in the world to apply the moral principles of the Gospel of Matthew.

“You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your heavenly Father.” Gandhiji had successfully implemented the moral weapon of unarmed resistance in his freedom struggle. His moral strategy was suited to the Indian masses. Because Indians basic nature is tolerant and non-violent. A sheep cannot behave like a tiger. His democratic unarmed resistance against rule had brought miracle in the history like an anti-biotic to the body of the subcontinent. His strategy and logic was impeccable. He said, “The want us to put the struggle on the plane of machine guns where they have the weapons and we do not. Our only assurance of beating them is putting the struggle on a plane where we have weapons and they have not.”

Gandhiji always spoke very calmly and without any bitterness against the lawless repression of the enemies. had practised many barbarities on the Indians and also imprisoned him without any legal prosecution. He never showed any slightest trace of bitterness against the English men. Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in 1919 had again convinced Gandhiji about the mighty power of and need to prepare his organization and the people of India in line with non-violent disobedience. He said, “It gives you an idea of the atrocities perpetrated on the people of the Punjab. It shows you to what length government is capable of going, and what inhumanities and barbarities it is capable of perpetrating in order to maintain its power.” Gandhiji did not want to pull his people towards the calamity of death. He had passionately loved his country and countrymen.

Gandhiji was very hopeful and had full confidence in solving the socio-economic problems, communal problems between Hindus and Muslims and also the problems of the millions of depressed classes. He strongly believed that truth, tolerance and love could amicably resolve all the internal problems when Indians become the masters of their own land. In a question to William L Shirer, Gandhi said, “All these problems will be fairly easy to settle when we are our own masters. I know there will be difficulties, but I have faith in our ultimate capacity to solve them and not by following your Western models but by evolving along the lines of non-violence and truth, on which our movement is based and which must constitute the bedrock of our future constitution.” Gandhiji’s philosophy was panacea in the independent movement and also could be panacea to post-independent India. But his unexpected assassination had put the whole country into the darkness. Therefore, then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru in his extempore broadcast on All India Radio announcing the news of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination on 30 January 1948 in a choked voice with deep grief. “The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere. Our beloved leader … the father of our nation, is no more.”

Mahatma Gandhi was the light, life and truth to the India. His intellectual courage and radiance were always reflected in his words. In 1922, he was convicted under section 124-A of Indian Penal Code with sedition charges. At the time of the prosecution, he was asked to make a statement by the English judge. He proved himself as a true patriot, true prophet of truth and non-violence and true lawyer to defend his country and countrymen and accepting the sedition charges obediently and made strongest statement in the court. His statement had reflected the intellectual radiance of Mahatma Gandhi and also reflected his truthful understanding and courageous expression. “The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to believe that at least ninety-five per cent convictions were wholly bad. My experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion that in nine out of every ten the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the courts of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my own opinion, the administration of law is thus prostituted consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter… Section 124-A, under which I am happily charged, is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite to violence. But the section under which I am charged is one under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases under it, and I know that some of the most loved of India’s patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege, therefore, to be charged under that section. I have endeavoured to give in their briefest outline the reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill-will against any single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection toward the King’s persons. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected toward a government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system.”

Gandhi’s integrity, nobility and overall greatness had reflected in his arguments in the court. He was not fighting against the English men in individual level but he was fiercely fighting against imperialism. He was absolutely fighting against system but he was loving the English persons in system.

Gandhiji’s genius was noticed by the people in the 45th annual convention of the Indian National Congress at Karachi in 1931. While drafting the resolution for the congress in collaboration with Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru had seen in Gandhi a political genius at his best. Karachi congress had witnessed his marvellous spirit of leadership and magnificent control over the masses. He was the chief architect of the resolution for the convention in which he had earmarked the concept of the future constitution of the independent India. The congress adopted this resolution on fundamental rights and economic policy. This resolution on fundamental rights passed by the Karachi session of congress had many socialistic provisions. The resolution was the product of heart to heart talk between the Gandhi and Nehru. Karachi resolution had definitely influenced the Constituent Assembly in drawing up the Indian Constitution. It was envisaged the spirit of the independent India’s constitution. He was not only the father of the nation but also he was really the father of the Indian Constitution.

Gandhiji in his continuous meetings with other leaders of the minorities and depressed classes pleaded before them to submerge their differences and unitedly demand the freedom from. As the staunch follower of tolerance, he strongly believed that the internal differences could be settled either by an impartial tribunal or by a special convention of Indian leaders elected by their constituencies. He made his last appeal to the infighting countrymen.

“It is absurd for us to quarrel among ourselves before we know what we are going to get from government. If we knew definitely that we were going to get what we want, then we would hesitate fifty times before we threw it away in a sinful wrangle. The communal solution can be the crown of the national constitution, not its foundation, if only because our differences are hardened by reason of foreign domination. I have no shadow of doubt that the iceberg of communal differences would melt under the warmth of the sun of freedom.”

Lord Mountbatten offered liberation package with a dividing idea. Gandhiji warned him, “You’ll have to divide my body before you divide India.” The ageing leader in his 78 age felt severe isolation politically and emotionally. His close aides like Patel and Nehru also proved more practical in their approach and renounced their master. With this isolated situation Gandhiji said, “I find myself alone, even Patel and Nehru think I’m wrong…They wonder if I have not deteriorated with age, May be they are right and I alone am floundering in darkness.”

At the stroke of midnight on August 14, 1947, when Prime Minister, Nehru from the Red Fort proclaimed India’s independence and the whole nation was in great celebration, Gandhi slept in a slum in Calcutta. He was silent in the next day and spent most of his time in prayer. He made no public statement. It was a great tragedy in his life and also in the life of this nation. He was disheartened, saddened and humiliated by his own people. He had lived, worked and taught the people for non-violence, truth, tolerance and love. He had seen in his period the failure his principles and failed to take root among his own countrymen.

William L. Shirer recorded this tragedy, “He was utterly crushed by the terrible bloodshed that swept India, just as self-government was won, provoked this time not by but by the savage quarrels of his fellow Indians. Fleeing by the millions across the new boundaries, the Muslims from India, the Hindus from Pakistan, a half million of them had been slain in cold blood before they could reach safely. Desperately and with heavy heart, and at the risk of his life, Gandhiji had gone among them, into the blood socked streets of Calcutta and the lanes of smaller towns and villages, littered with corpses and the debris of burning buildings, and beseeched them to stop the slaughter. He had fasted twice to induce the Hindus and the Muslims to make peace. But, except for temporary truces that were quickly broken, too little avail. All his lifelong teaching and practice of non-violence, which had been so successful in the struggle against, had come to nought. The realization that it had failed to keep his fellow Indians from flying at one another’s throats the moment they were free from shattered him.” For 78 year old Gandhi, it was a great shock and bewilderment to his philosophy of non-violence, truth, tolerance and love.

Gandhiji was betrayed by his own countrymen and he was assassinated by his own religious man. His assassin had successfully silenced Gandhi physically with three bullets. But bullets cannot destroy his truth, non-violence and tolerance. His spirit of principles will shine for centuries to come. It was illumined the life of great men like Nelson Mandela in South Africa and Martin Luther King in United States of America and peace loving millions of the world. Gandhiji’s martyrdom itself is caused to resurrect his principles and shine all over the world in eternity. Thus, his position as an apostle of truth, non-violence and tolerance in the political arena of 20th century is in its zenith.

Works Cited

Copley, Antony, Gandhi against the Tide, 1987, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
Kapoor, Virender, Leadership the Gandhi Way, 2014, Rupa & Co, New Delhi.
Kasturi, Bhashyam, Walking Alone Gandhi and India’s Partition, 2007, Vision Books, New Delhi.
Rao, U.R., Prabhu, R.K., The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, 1967, Navajivan Trust, Ahmadabad.
Shirer, William L., Gandhi A Memoir, 1993, Rupa & Co, New Delhi.

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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English | 100, 150, 200, 300 and 400 + Words

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English- 100 words

Mahatma Gandhi was an important leader in the Indian independence movement. He is best known for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance, which helped India to gain independence from British rule. Gandhi was also a deeply religious man, and he used his beliefs to guide his actions. In this essay, we will discuss Gandhi’s life, his teaching, and his legacy. He advocated for a non-violent approach to resistance, and his tactics helped lead to India’s freedom in 1947. Gandhi was also a prolific writer, and his essays contained powerful messages of equality, justice, and democracy. His words continue to inspire people around the world today.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English- 150 words

Mahatma Gandhi was an influential political leader in India who is best known for leading the country’s non-violent resistance movement against British colonialism. In this essay, we will explore some of Gandhi’s life and accomplishments. Gandhi was born in 1869 in what is now Gujarat, India. He was educated in England and later returned to India to begin his law practice. In 1893, he was thrown off a train for being in a first-class compartment with a second-class ticket. This incident sparked his lifelong commitment to social justice and equality. Gandhi became a leader of the Indian National Congress and fought for India’s independence from British rule. He advocated for non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. His philosophy of satyagraha, or “truth force,” inspired many people around the world. In 1947, India finally gained its independence from Britain. After years of peaceful protests and civil disobedience, Gandhi had helped lead his country to freedom.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English- 200 words

Mahatma Gandhi was an inspiring figure who fought for India’s independence from British rule. He is also celebrated for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance. In this essay, we will examine Gandhi’s life, his work for Indian independence, and his legacy. Gandhiji (paragraph on mahatma gandhi) was born in 1869 in what is now Gujarat, India. He studied law in London and later returned to India to begin practicing. However, he soon became involved in the nationalist movement fighting for India’s independence. Gandhi(essay on mahatma gandhi) believed in using peaceful methods to achieve political goals, and he became the leader of the Indian National Congress party. Under Gandhi’s leadership, the Indian National Congress protested against British policies through mass campaigns of civil disobedience. One of the most famous campaigns was the Salt March, during which protesters walked 240 miles to the sea to collect salt, defying British laws that taxed salt production. This campaign and others like it earned Gandhi international respect as a leader of peaceful resistance.In 1947, after years of struggle, India finally gained its independence from Britain. However, the new nation was immediately plunged into religious violence between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi worked tirelessly to promote religious tolerance and peace.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English- 300 words

Introduction.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the leader of the nationalist non-violence movement against British rule in India and as such was known for his doctrine of Satyagraha. He was referred to as “Mahatma” or “Great-Souled” by his followers.

Youth life of Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi was born to his father’s 4th wife. He was born in Porbandar, the chief minister of his father. As a child he was restless, roaming and playing a lot. But as he got older he began to see he had been labelled short and spindly which prevented him from participating in athletics. Gandhi was very religious and would spend time reading Bhagavad-Gita, Tolstoy, and the Bible with great enthusiasm.

Education of Gandhi Ji

Soon after his graduation, Gandhi tried to open a law practice with very little success. He got a job in the South African Company and experienced widespread prejudice. Gandhi attended the University of Bombay and UCL. He was admitted to the bar exam in England. After traveling to South Africa, he experienced discrimination and racism.

Contribution of Gandhi ji

Gandhi refused to join in Indian politics, but he supported the British by recruiting soldiers and denouncing violence. In 1919, the British pushed through a law that empowered authorities to imprison Indians without trial. Today, people are unaware of the Indian Independence movement and of Gandhi’s actions in it. In response, he declares a satyagraha struggle to protest against the British Raj. This is a virtual political earthquake since many violent outbreaks follow, with the massacre at Amritsar being especially important. Mahatma Gandhi’s influence in India was never seen before, and in 1922 he was arrested for sedition with a 6-year sentence. Gandhi became the president of Congress Party in 1924. Mahatma began the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930, which was a practice where the individuals refused to obey orders but faced violence and brutality. Mahatma Gandhi was a prominent independence activist, who has inspired many.

Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. His philosophy of nonviolent resistance helped to end British rule in India and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom around the world. Gandhi’s life and teachings continue to be an inspiration to people all over the world who are striving for justice and equality.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English 500 words

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most influential figures in modern history. Born in India in 1869, Gandhi was a lawyer who fought for Indian independence from British rule. He is best known for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance, which helped lead India to independence in 1947. Gandhi also played a key role in improving relations between Hindus and Muslims. After his death in 1948, he remains an inspiration for people all over the world who are fighting for justice.

Who was Mahatma Gandhi?

Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian political leader who fought for India’s independence from British rule. After years of peaceful protests and civil disobedience, Gandhi helped lead India to independence in 1947. He is also celebrated for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance.

Early Life of Mahatma Gandhi

Born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the youngest of three sons. His father, Karamchand Gandhi, served as the diwan (chief minister) of Porbandar state. His mother, Putlibai, was a devout Hindu who fasted regularly. As a child, Gandhi was shy and thoughtful. He excelled in his studies and was popular among his classmates. At the age of thirteen, Gandhi married Kasturbai Makhanji in an arranged marriage. The couple had four children, but only two survived infancy. In 1888, Gandhi traveled to England to study law. While there, he was profoundly influenced by the works of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy. After returning to India in 1891, Gandhi began practicing law in Bombay (now Mumbai). In 1893, Gandhi was thrown off a first-class train compartment after refusing to give up his seat to a white man. This incident made him realize the depth of discrimination against Indians in South Africa. He stayed in South Africa for twenty years, fighting for the rights of Indian immigrants. In 1915, he returned to India and continued his work for social

Key Events in Mahatma Gandhi’s Life

1869- Gandhi is born in Porbandar, India
1893- Gandhi finishes his law studies in London and returns to India
1899- 1901- Gandhi works as a lawyer in South Africa
1906- Gandhi returns to India
1915- Gandhi is arrested for the first time in his life
1920- Gandhi launches the Non-Cooperation Movement
1930- Gandhi leads the Salt March
1942- Gandhi is arrested again, this time for leading the Quit India Movement
1948- Gandhi is assassinated by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse

The Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi is considered one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. His philosophy of nonviolent resistance helped lead India to independence from British rule, and has been an inspiration for social and political activists around the world. Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance is based on the belief that violence only begets more violence, and that true change can only be achieved through peaceful means. This philosophy was put into practice during Gandhi’s years leading the Indian independence movement, when he advocated for peaceful protests and civil disobedience against the British government. Although Gandhi’s philosophy has been criticized by some as being too idealistic, his legacy continues to inspire people who are fighting for social change. In a world that often seems dominated by violence, Gandhi’s message of peace and nonviolence is more relevant than ever.

The Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most influential political figures of the 20th century. He is best known for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance, which helped lead India to independence from British rule. After his death, Gandhi’s legacy continued to inspire people around the world who were struggling for social justice. Today, on the anniversary of Gandhi’s birth, we remember his life and work. We also reflect on how his example continues to challenge and inspire us in our own quest for justice.

What did he do?

Mahatma Gandhi was an influential political leader in India who is best known for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance. He played a pivotal role in leading the country to independence from British rule, and he also advocated for the rights of minorities and the poor. After his assassination in 1948, Gandhi became an icon for peace and justice around the world.

Why is he important?

Mahatma Gandhi is considered one of the most important figures in history. He is known for his non-violent resistance movement against British colonialism in India. He also played a key role in the Indian independence movement. After years of peaceful protests and civil disobedience, Gandhi helped lead India to independence in 1947. He is also celebrated for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance, which inspired other freedom fighters across the world, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

How has he influenced the world?

Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian independence leader who fought against British colonial rule. He is also celebrated as a champion of non-violent protest and civil disobedience. His legacy continues to inspire people around the world who are seeking social justice.

The essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English has shown us that he was a great leader who fought for the rights of his people. He was a man of peace and always strived to bring people together. He is an inspiration to all of us and we should strive to follow his example.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English for Students

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi: Mahatma Gandhi is a major figure in India's quest for independence. Mahatma Gandhi is highly esteemed as an emblem of peace, equity, and nonviolent opposition.

November 14, 2023

Table of Contents

The essay on Mahatma Gandhi focuses on the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as Father of Nation. Every year, on October 2nd, we observe Gandhi Jayanti to honour his efforts and beliefs. Schools and colleges mark this day by organising writing competitions and delivering patriotic speeches about Mahatma Gandhi. It is a national holiday, and all banks remain closed. This essay sheds light on his remarkable contributions and lasting legacy.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English

Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, Mahatma Gandhi led India’s fight against British rule. His legacy centres on nonviolence, civil disobedience, and social justice, impacting the world and inspiring many movements globally.

At 18, Gandhi journeyed to London to pursue law, initiating his exposure to Western thought and culture and sparking a profound interest in philosophy, ethics, and nonviolent resistance. His activism commenced in South Africa, where he spent over two decades combating racial discrimination and injustice. It was in this crucible that he first experimented with satyagraha, a nonviolent resistance rooted in truth and moral force.

Gandhi’s South African experiences profoundly influenced his philosophy, laying the groundwork for his pivotal role in India’s quest for independence. His life and teachings continue to inspire individuals and movements worldwide.

In 1915, Gandhi came back to India, swiftly rising as a key figure in the Indian National Congress. His philosophy, centred on nonviolence (ahimsa), became the cornerstone of the Indian independence movement. Gandhi believed that genuine independence could only be attained through nonviolent methods, highlighting the transformative force of love and compassion.

A pivotal moment in Gandhi’s civil disobedience was the Salt March of 1930. Protesting the British salt monopoly, he led a 240-mile march to the Arabian Sea. There, he and his followers definitely broke salt laws by gathering natural salt from the shores. This symbolic gesture rallied the masses and drew global attention to India’s pursuit of freedom.

Gandhi’s dedication to nonviolence extended beyond politics to encompass all facets of life. He championed communal harmony, religious tolerance, and the empowerment of the oppressed. His teachings left a lasting impact on leaders who embraced nonviolent resistance in their quests for justice.

Gandhi’s life tragically ended on January 30, 1948, when a Hindu nationalist assassinated him. Despite his early demise, Gandhi’s legacy persists. His nonviolence philosophy still influences global change, guiding individuals and movements morally. The United Nations marks October 2, Gandhi’s birthday, as the International Day of Non-Violence, recognizing his lasting impact on peace and justice.

Mahatma Gandhi, the advocate of nonviolent resistance, looms large in history. His life and teachings keep inspiring millions, emphasising the transformative strength of love, truth, and moral force. Reflecting on his legacy challenges us to embrace nonviolence principles in our lives and contribute to a more just and compassionate world.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi 200 words

Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, Mahatma Gandhi is globally revered. His life and teachings left an enduring mark on human civilization. Gandhi, India’s Father of the Nation, led the country to independence using non-violent civil disobedience, which he termed Satyagraha.

Gandhi’s early life emphasised morality and commitment to truth. His parents instilled simplicity, honesty, and service values. After law education in England, Gandhi worked as a lawyer in South Africa, where he witnessed Indian community discrimination, sparking his dedication to social justice.

Gandhi’s philosophy centred on non-violence or Ahimsa. He believed means must match the purity of goals. Violence, he argued, perpetuated hatred; instead, he endorsed passive resistance and civil disobedience for social and political change. His Satyagraha campaigns in South Africa and India showcased non-violent protest’s effectiveness.

During India’s independence struggle, Gandhi’s leadership was crucial. The 1930 Salt March protested the British salt monopoly, highlighting non-violent resistance’s power. Gandhi’s principles influenced global civil rights movements, inspiring leaders like Martin Luther King Jr.

Gandhi envisioned a society based on truth, equality, and non-violence, extending beyond political freedom. Swaraj, or self-rule, included individual self-discipline, a decentralised economy, and uplifting the downtrodden.

His commitment to communal harmony and religious tolerance aimed to bridge gaps between Hindus and Muslims. His assassination in 1948 marked a tragic end to a life dedicated to truth and harmony.

Gandhi’s impact transcends India’s borders. His teachings on non-violence, truth, and social justice inspire global movements. The UN declared his birthday, October 2, as the International Day of Non-Violence.

In conclusion, Gandhi’s life exemplifies non-violence and moral strength’s transformative power. Satyagraha, Ahimsa, and Swaraj remain beacons for those aspiring to a just and peaceful world. Gandhi’s legacy urges us to pursue truth and justice, bringing change even amid challenges.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi 150 Words

Born in Porbandar, India, on October 2, 1869, Mahatma Gandhi played a crucial role in India’s fight for independence and gained global recognition for promoting nonviolent resistance.

Encountering racial discrimination in South Africa during his early years strengthened Gandhi’s dedication to combating injustice through nonviolent means. Guided by his spiritual convictions, he advocated for the philosophy of “ahimsa,” or nonviolence, viewing it as a potent catalyst for bringing about social and political transformations.

Gandhi led iconic acts, like the Salt March in 1930 and adopting “Satyagraha” (insisting on truth) as a political strategy, crucial for India’s independence.India got independence on August 15, 1947, fulfilling Gandhi’s vision of a united, free nation.

Gandhi’s impact spans the globe, shaping civil rights icons like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. His beliefs in truth, simplicity, and justice persist, fueling global efforts for peace, fairness, and human rights.

In brief, Mahatma Gandhi’s existence and lessons underscore the far-reaching power of nonviolence, forming an enduring heritage experienced worldwide, transcending cultures and time.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi 400 Words

Mahatma Gandhi, India’s “Father of the Nation,” was a significant leader in the country’s fight for independence. Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat, he grew up in a devout Hindu family and became a key figure in India’s history.

Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence, called “Satyagraha,” played a crucial role in India’s independence struggle against British rule. He developed this approach during his time in South Africa, facing racial discrimination and using nonviolent civil disobedience against injustice.

Returning to India, Gandhi became a leader advocating for Indian rights, emphasising truth and nonviolence for social and political change. His unique leadership style involved living a simple life, reflected in his clothing – a loincloth and shawl, a contrast to the opulence of other leaders.

Gandhi addressed social issues such as untouchability, poverty, and education, envisioning a harmonious society without discrimination. His campaign against untouchability aimed at abolishing this social evil, promoting equality.

The Salt March in 1930 was a defining moment. In protest of British salt monopoly, Gandhi walked 240 miles to the Arabian Sea, producing salt illegally. This nonviolent act gained global attention, inspiring others to join the fight for independence.

Gandhi’s commitment to nonviolence was tested during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. Despite British brutality, he urged peaceful protests, upholding his principles.

His impact extended beyond politics, addressing social issues like untouchability, poverty, and education. He envisioned a society where all individuals could live together harmoniously, regardless of caste or creed.

The Salt March in 1930 symbolised nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against British salt monopoly. Gandhi and followers walked 240 miles, producing salt illegally, capturing global attention and inspiring others.

Gandhi’s commitment to nonviolence faced challenges, notably during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. Despite British violence, he advocated peaceful protests.

Gandhi’s teachings continue to inspire civil rights movements worldwide. His emphasis on individual responsibility, self-discipline, and moral courage resonates across ages. Gandhi’s legacy influenced leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, applying his principles in their struggles against injustice.

In conclusion, Mahatma Gandhi’s life and philosophy made a lasting impact. His commitment to truth, nonviolence, and social justice earned him global respect. Even at the elementary level, students can draw inspiration, learning about peaceful resistance, equality, and individual convictions. Gandhi’s teachings remain relevant, guiding movements toward a just and compassionate world.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Class 4

Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, Mahatma Gandhi is hailed as the Father of the Nation. His ideas shaped global movements for civil rights and freedom. This essay introduces Gandhi’s life and legacy.

Gandhi’s early years were marked by simplicity. Raised in a devout Hindu family, he learned values like truth and non-violence early on. Despite being an average student, he showed an early interest in social issues. At 19, he went to London to study law, a decision influencing his leadership in India’s fight for independence.

Returning to India, Gandhi faced racial discrimination in South Africa, sparking his passion for justice and shaping his philosophy of nonviolent resistance. He believed in satyagraha, a passive resistance rooted in truth and nonviolence, realising its power for social and political change.

Leading India against British rule, Gandhi united millions across caste, religion, and class. The iconic Salt March in 1930 symbolised self-reliance and showcased nonviolent resistance’s strength.

Gandhi’s commitment to nonviolence was a lifestyle, emphasising simplicity, self-reliance, and truthfulness. His influence extended globally, inspiring figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela in their fights for civil rights and against apartheid.

In conclusion, Gandhi’s life and teachings remain relevant and inspirational. His dedication to truth and justice played a crucial role in India’s independence and influenced the global fight against oppression. Introducing Gandhi’s principles to the youth ensures his legacy lives on, fostering a world built on love, compassion, and justice. Mahatma Gandhi will be remembered as a guiding light in the quest for a better, more just world.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Class 5

Mahatma Gandhi, or Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, led India to independence through nonviolent resistance. Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat, he embodied civil disobedience, earning the title “Mahatma” or great soul.

Gandhi’s childhood was simple, raised in a devout Hindu family with his father as Porbandar’s prime minister. Despite privilege, he was a reserved child, educated in Porbandar and Rajkot, developing an interest in law. At 18, in 1888, he began his transformative journey by studying law in London.

Returning to India in 1891, Gandhi practised law, but his focus shifted to social and political issues. Working as a lawyer in South Africa from 1893, he encountered racial discrimination, inspiring nonviolent protests and the philosophy of Satyagraha, emphasising truth’s force.

Gandhi’s return to India in 1915 marked a pivotal moment in the independence struggle. Leading the Indian National Congress, he championed nonviolence and self-rule. His influence grew with movements like Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience, challenging British rule through peaceful means.

The Salt March of 1930, a protest against the British salt tax, gained global attention, highlighting the power of nonviolent resistance. Gandhi’s unwavering commitment to nonviolence influenced not only India’s independence but also global civil rights movements, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s in the U.S.

Gandhi faced challenges, yet he stood strong, convinced that love and compassion could conquer oppression. His death on January 30, 1948, marked the era’s close, but his influence persists. Gandhi’s lessons on nonviolence, truth, and justice still motivate positive change through peaceful methods. His life proves the lasting power of principles that surpass time and borders.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Class 6

Mahatma Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, was a pivotal figure in the Indian independence movement and a global advocate for nonviolent resistance.

Gandhi’s early experiences with racial discrimination in South Africa fueled his commitment to fighting injustice through nonviolence. Rooted in his spiritual beliefs, he championed the philosophy of “ahimsa,” or nonviolence, as a powerful force for social and political change.

Raised in a devout Hindu family with a political history, Gandhi studied law in London and faced discrimination in South Africa, shaping his commitment to social justice and non-violence. His philosophy, grounded in “Ahimsa” or non-violence, believed in love and compassion as tools for change. Satyagraha, meaning “truth force,” guided his fight against injustice and colonial oppression.

A pivotal moment was the 1930 Salt March, a 240-mile protest against British salt monopoly. This act of civil disobedience showcased the power of nonviolent protest, drawing global attention and advancing India’s fight for independence.

Gandhi, beyond a political leader, advocated communal harmony and religious tolerance. His commitment to non-violence extended to resolving Hindu-Muslim conflicts during heightened tensions. His teachings influenced leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Cesar Chavez, shaping civil rights movements globally.

Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy transcends India’s struggle for independence. His life and philosophy emphasise the transformative potential of non-violence, individual conscience, and moral courage in the pursuit of justice and freedom. Gandhi’s principles remain relevant, inspiring generations worldwide toward a more just and compassionate world.

Essay on Mahatma Gandhi FAQs

Mahatma Gandhi, born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), was a key leader in India's struggle for independence against British rule. He was a prominent advocate for nonviolent civil disobedience and played a crucial role in shaping India's destiny.

Gandhi is called "Mahatma," which means "Great Soul" in Sanskrit, as a term of respect and admiration. The title reflects his moral and spiritual leadership, as well as his commitment to nonviolence, truth, and the welfare of humanity.

Gandhiji is of immense importance due to his role in India's independence. His teachings on truth, nonviolence, and social justice continue to inspire movements worldwide. Gandhi's impact extends beyond political realms, influencing ideas of civil rights, freedom, and peaceful protest.

Mahatma Gandhi is often referred to as the "Father of the Nation" in India for his pivotal role in the country's struggle for independence and his enduring influence on its values and principles.

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Mahatma Gandhi: English essay for students & children

admin September 26, 2017 Essays in English 76,659 Views

The Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, was born as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on 2nd October, 1869, at Porbander. He was married to Kasturba when he was 12. He went to England for higher studies. He became a barrister and came back to India in 1891.

Gandhiji went to South Africa in 1893 and stayed there for 12 years. He first practiced his non-violent agitation there. He was fighting for the cause of the Indians who were getting unjust treatment.

Back in India in 1915, he met Lokmanya Tilak and Gopal Krishna Gokhale and joined the freedom struggle. Gandhiji launched the non-cooperation movement against the British . All the people of India were with him.

Gandhiji was totally opposed to violence. He was an apostle of peace. With his iron-will and kind manner, he united the people of India in their struggle for freedom. He went to jail many times. Without firing a single bullet, he won independence for India on 15th August,1947.

The partition of India and the death of millions of people in the riots left Gandhiji deeply shattered. He began a fast unto death to stop the killing and succeeded in his aim.

On January 30, 1948, while going for a prayer meeting, Gandhiji was short dead by Nathu Ram Godse. The beloved leader of the nation had passed away, leaving the people of India alone.

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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English for Children and Students

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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English: Mahatma Gandhi was an influential political leader in India who is best known for leading the country’s nonviolent resistance movement against British colonialism. After studying law in England, Gandhi returned to India and became a prominent leader of the Indian National Congress. He advocated for India’s independence from British rule and promoted a philosophy of non-violent resistance. Gandhi was arrested numerous times by the British authorities, but he continued to lead protests and campaigns against British rule. In 1947, India finally achieved independence, and Gandhi played a key role in the country’s transition to democracy. He was assassinated in 1948 by a Hindu extremist.

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Below, we have provided simple essays on Mahatma Gandhi , a person who would always live in the heart of the Indian people. Every kid and child of India knows him by the name of Bapu, or Father of the Nation. Using the following Mahatma Gandhi essay, you can help your kids, and school-going children perform better in school during any competition or exam.

Long and Short Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in English

Below are short and long essays on Mahatma Gandhi in English for your information and knowledge.

The essays have been written in simple yet effective English so that you can quickly grasp and present the information whenever needed.

After going through these Mahatma Gandhi essays, you will learn about the life and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, what role he played in the freedom struggle, and why is he the most respected leader in the world over; how his birthday is celebrated, etc.

The information given in the essays will be helpful in speech giving, essay writing, or speech-providing competition on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti.

Also Read: Independence Day Speech for Students

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 1 (100 words)

Mahatma Gandhi is famous in India as “Bapu” or “Rastrapita.” His full name of him is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was a great freedom fighter who led India as a leader of nationalism against British rule. He was born on the 2 nd of October in 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat, India.

He died on the 30 th of January in 1948. M.K. Gandhi was assassinated by the Hindu activist Nathuram Godse, who was hanged later as a punishment by the government of India. Rabindranath Tagore has given him another name, “Martyr of the Nation,” since 1948.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 2 (150 words)

Mahatma Gandhi is called Mahatma because of his great works and greatness throughout his life. He was a great freedom fighter and non-violent activist who always followed non-violence throughout his life while leading India to independence from British rule.

He was born on the 2 nd of October 1869 at Porbandar in Gujarat, India. He was just 18 years old while studying law in England. Later he went to the British colony of South Africa to practice his law, where he got differentiated from the light skin people because of being a dark skin person. That’s why he decided to become a political activist to make some positive changes in such unfair laws.

Later he returned to India and started a powerful and non-violent movement to make India an independent country. He was the one who led the Salt March (Namak Satyagrah or Salt Satyagrah or Dandi March) in 1930. He inspired many Indians to work against British rule for their independence.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 3 (200 words)

Mahatma Gandhi was an outstanding personality in India who still inspires the people in the country and abroad through his legacy of greatness, idealness, and dignified life. Bapu was born in a Hindu family in Porbandar, Gujarat, India, on the 2 nd of October in 1869. The 2 nd of October was the great day for India when Bapu took birth. He paid an incredible and unforgettable role in the independence of India from British rule. The full name of the Bapu is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He went to England for his law study just after passing his matriculation examination. Later he returned to India as a lawyer in 1890.

After he arrived in India, he started helping Indian people facing various problems from British rule. He started a Satyagraha movement against the British government to help Indians. Other significant movements initiated by the Bapu for the independence of India are the Non-cooperation movement in 1920, the Civil Dis the obedience movement in 1930, and the Quit India movement in 1942. All the movements had shaken the British rule in India and inspired many everyday Indian citizens to fight for freedom.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 4 (250 words)

Bapu, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was born 1869 on the 2 nd of October at Porbander in Gujarat, India. Mahatma Gandhi was a great Indian who led India in the independence movement against British rule. He completed his schooling in India and went to England for further study of law. He returned to India as a lawyer and started practicing law. He started helping the people of India who were humiliated and insulted by British rule.

He started the non-violence independence movement to fight against the injustice of Britishers. He was insulted many times but continued his non-violent struggle for the Independence of India. After his return to India, he joined Indian National Congress as a member. He was the great leader of the Indian independence movement who struggled a lot for the freedom of India. As a member of the Indian National Congress, he started independence movements like Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience, and later Quit India Movement, which became successful a day and helped India get freedom.

As a great freedom fighter, he got arrested and sent to jail many times, but he continued fighting against British rule for the justice of Indians. He was a great believer in non-violence and unity of people of all religions, which he followed through his struggle for independence. After many battles with many Indians, he finally became successful in making India an independent country on the 15 th of August in 1947. Later he was assassinated in 1948 on the 30 th of January by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu activist.

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 5 (300 words)

Mahatma Gandhi was a great freedom fighter who spent his whole life in a struggle for the independence of India. He was born in an Indian Hindu family on the 2 nd of October in 1869 in Porbander, Gujarat. He lived his whole as a leader of the Indian people. His whole life story is a great inspiration for us. He is called the Bapu or Rashtrapita as he spent his life fighting against British rule for our freedom of us. While fighting with Britishers, he took the help of his great weapons like non-violence and Satyagraha movements to achieve independence. He was arrested and sent to jail many times but never discouraged himself and continued fighting for national freedom.

He is the birth father of our nation who used all his power to make us free from British rule. He understood the power of unity in people (from different castes, religions, communities, races, ages, or gender), which he used throughout his independence movement. Finally, he forced Britishers to quit India forever through his mass movements on the 15 th of August in 1947. Since 1947, India’s 15th of August has been celebrated as Independence Day th of August has been celebrated as Independence Day in India.

He could not continue his life after the independence of India in 1947 as he was assassinated by one of the Hindu activists, Nathuram Godse, in 1948 on the 30 th of January. He was a great personality who served his whole life till death for the motherland. He enlightened our life with the true light of freedom from British rule. He proved that everything is possible with the non-violence and unity of people. Even after dying many years ago, he is still alive in the heart of every Indian as a “Father of the Nation and Bapu.”

Mahatma Gandhi Essay 6 (400 words)

Mahatma Gandhi is well known as the “Father of the Nation or Bapu” because of his most significant contributions toward our country’s independence. He was the one who believed in the non-violence and unity of the people and brought spirituality to Indian politics. He worked hard the remove the untouchability in the Indian society , upliftment of the backward classes in India, raised his voice to develop villages for social development, and inspired Indian people to use swadeshi goods and other social issues. He brought familiar people in front to participate in the national movement and encouraged them to fight for their actual freedom.

He was one of the persons who converted people’s dream of independence into truth day through his noble ideals and supreme sacrifices. He is remembered for his wondrous works and primary virtues such as non-violence, truth, love, and fraternity. He was not born as excellent, but he made himself great through his hard struggles and work. The life of King Harischandra highly influenced him from the play titled Raja Harischandra. After schooling, he completed his law degree in England and began his career as a lawyer. He faced many difficulties in his life but continued walking as a great leader.

He started many mass movements like the Non-cooperation movement in 1920, the civil disobedience movement in 1930, and finally the Quit India Movement in 1942, throughout the way to independence of India. After many struggles and work, the British Government finally granted independence to India. He was a straightforward person who worked to remove the color barrier and caste barrier. He also worked hard to remove the untouchability in the Indian society and named untouchables as “Harijan” means the people of God.

Essay on Non-violence of Mahatma Gandhi – Essay 7 (800 Words)

Introduction

Role of Non-violence in Indian Freedom Struggle

Champaran and Kheda Agitations

Non-cooperation Movement

Salt Satyagrah or Salt March

Quit India Movement

Long Essay on Mahatma Gandhi – Essay 8 (1100 Words)

Family and Life of Mahatma Gandhi

Birth and Childhood

Marriage and Education

Civil Rights Movement in Africa

Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian Freedom Struggle

Why was Gandhi called Mahatma?

What are Gandhi’s accomplishments?

Fought against Racial Discrimination in South Africa

Face of the Indian Freedom Struggle

Uprooting the Evils of Society

What was Gandhi famous for?

These qualities of the great leader made him famous not only in India but also across the world and inspired global personalities like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.

Get More Information About Mahatma Gandhi and his involvement

FAQs on Mahatma Gandhi

Who is Mahatma Gandhi?

Mahatma Gandhi was an influential political leader in India who is best known for leading the country's non-violent resistance movement against British colonialism.

Write Mahatma Gandhi essay in english?

Mahatma Gandhi was a man with mission who not only fought for the country’s independence but also gave his valuable contribution in uprooting various evils of the society.

When is Gandhi Jayanti?

The birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti. It is on 2nd October.

Who was Kasturba?

Kasturba was Gandhi's wife. He was married to Kasturba at a very young age of 13.

10 Lines on Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was the greatest leader of his time and millions of people used to respect and follow him. He completely changed his attire and wore a simple loincloth, which, he thought, would let him connect to the Indian poor. He took an active part in the Indian Independence Movement and led India to the path of Independence through truth and righteousness.

Ten Lines on Mahatma Gandhi in English

I have provided here 10 lines, 5 lines, 20 lines, a few lines, and sentences on Mahatma Gandhi for my dear children and students of Classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Just go through these lines to find the best one for you:

1) Mahatma Gandhi had born in a Hindu family on 2nd October 1869 at Porbandar in Gujarat.

2) His father Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi was Diwan of Porbandar.

3) Mahatma Gandhi married Kasturbai Makhanji Kapadia in May 1883.

4) On 4th September 1888, he left for London for higher studies.

5) He was a civil right activist in South Africa from 1893 to 1914, fighting against color discrimination.

6) He returned to India in 1915 and joined the Indian National Congress.

7) Gandhi ji started the first movement against British rule, Champaran Satyagraha in 1917.

8) He launched the non-cooperation movement on 01 August 1920 after Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.

9) He started Salt/Dandi March on 12th March 1930 and continued till 06th April 1930.

10) Nathuram Godse, a right-wing advocate of Hindu Nationalism, assassinated Gandhi on 30th January 1948 at Birla House, New Delhi.

10 Lines and Sentences on Mahatma Gandhi

1) Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of the Indian Independence Movement against British rule.

2) He inspired civil rights and freedom movements across the world.

3) The title “Mahatma” was given to him in South Africa in 1914.

4) In India, Mahatma Gandhi was fondly called Bapu and Gandhi Ji.

5) Mahatma Gandhi belonged to a merchant caste family from coastal Gujarat in India.

6) He returned to India in 1915 and started mobilizing farmers against excessive taxes.

7) He was imprisoned on several occasions for many years in South Africa and India.

8) Mahatma Gandhi wore simple yarn clothes woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha.

9) He was strict a vegetarian and undertook fasts for protests and self-purification.

10) Mahatma Gandhi undertook his last fast on 12th January 1948 at the age of 78.

5 Lines on Mahatma Gandhi

1) Mahatma Gandhi was a great Indian freedom fighter.

2) He started many freedom movements in India.

3) He was a supporter of Ahinsa (non-violence).

4) He is also renowned as the “Father of the Nation”.

5) Today also, people follow his teachings and beliefs.

20 Lines on Mahatma Gandhi

1) He was a great follower of truth and non-violence and supported them throughout his life.

2) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, active politician, and freedom fighter.

3) The main campaign run by Gandhi Ji during freedom struggles are Champaran Satyagraha, Kheda Satyagraha, Non-cooperation Movement, Salt Satyagraha, etc.

4) Gandhi Ji pursued his degree in law from London University.

5) Mahatma Gandhi joined the Indian National Congress in 1920.

6) Despite being nominated 5 times, Gandhi Ji had never won the Nobel (Peace) Prize.

7) Gandhi Ji was the winner of the ‘ Time Magazine of the Year ’ award in 1930.

8) Gandhi Ji had died at Gandhi Smriti formerly known as Birla House.

9) India celebrates his birthday as the Gandhi Jayanti every year.

10) The Indian Government has declared 30 January as Martyrs’ Day.

11) Mahatma Gandhi was the greatest freedom fighter of India ever born.

12) His policy of non-violence made him an instant hit among the Indian masses.

13) The policy of non-violence gave people a way to fight for freedom without being subject to violence.

14) His simple living and high thinking made him fondly called Bapu.

15) Though he went to imprisonment several times, it couldn’t deter him from his freedom struggle.

16) Gandhi Ji’s last fast was to pressurize India for handing over cash assets to Pakistan.

17) Kasturbai Makhanji Kapadia was 1-year older than Mahatma Gandhi.

18) Mahatma Gandhi had four sons – Harilal, Manilal, Ramdas, and Devdas.

19) Before leaving for Africa, Gandhi promised his mother that he would abstain from liquor and women.

20) His birthday on 2nd October is observed worldwide as the international day of non-violence.

Mahatma Gandhi had shown the path to millions towards independence and self-rule using policies of non-violence and civil disobedience. He was the greatest freedom fighter who proved to the world that the greatest of battles could be fought and won by applying peaceful methods. We all must take active participation in celebrating Gandhi Jayanti, commemorating the birth of India’s Greatest Leader and freedom fighter, and must remember his teachings and beliefs.

Related Information:

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10 Lines on Mahatma Gandhi’s Educational Philosophy

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Illustration of a missile made from words.

In the campus protests over the war in Gaza, language and rhetoric are—as they have always been when it comes to Israel and Palestine—weapons of mass destruction.

By Zadie Smith

A philosophy without a politics is common enough. Aesthetes, ethicists, novelists—all may be easily critiqued and found wanting on this basis. But there is also the danger of a politics without a philosophy. A politics unmoored, unprincipled, which holds as its most fundamental commitment its own perpetuation. A Realpolitik that believes itself too subtle—or too pragmatic—to deal with such ethical platitudes as thou shalt not kill. Or: rape is a crime, everywhere and always. But sometimes ethical philosophy reënters the arena, as is happening right now on college campuses all over America. I understand the ethics underpinning the protests to be based on two widely recognized principles:

There is an ethical duty to express solidarity with the weak in any situation that involves oppressive power.

If the machinery of oppressive power is to be trained on the weak, then there is a duty to stop the gears by any means necessary.

The first principle sometimes takes the “weak” to mean “whoever has the least power,” and sometimes “whoever suffers most,” but most often a combination of both. The second principle, meanwhile, may be used to defend revolutionary violence, although this interpretation has just as often been repudiated by pacifistic radicals, among whom two of the most famous are, of course, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr . In the pacifist’s interpretation, the body that we must place between the gears is not that of our enemy but our own. In doing this, we may pay the ultimate price with our actual bodies, in the non-metaphorical sense. More usually, the risk is to our livelihoods, our reputations, our futures. Before these most recent campus protests began, we had an example of this kind of action in the climate movement. For several years now, many people have been protesting the economic and political machinery that perpetuates climate change, by blocking roads, throwing paint, interrupting plays, and committing many other arrestable offenses that can appear ridiculous to skeptics (or, at the very least, performative), but which in truth represent a level of personal sacrifice unimaginable to many of us.

I experienced this not long ago while participating in an XR climate rally in London. When it came to the point in the proceedings where I was asked by my fellow-protesters whether I’d be willing to commit an arrestable offense—one that would likely lead to a conviction and thus make travelling to the United States difficult or even impossible—I’m ashamed to say that I declined that offer. Turns out, I could not give up my relationship with New York City for the future of the planet. I’d just about managed to stop buying plastic bottles (except when very thirsty) and was trying to fly less. But never to see New York again? What pitiful ethical creatures we are (I am)! Falling at the first hurdle! Anyone who finds themselves rolling their eyes at any young person willing to put their own future into jeopardy for an ethical principle should ask themselves where the limits of their own commitments lie—also whether they’ve bought a plastic bottle or booked a flight recently. A humbling inquiry.

It is difficult to look at the recent Columbia University protests in particular without being reminded of the campus protests of the nineteen-sixties and seventies, some of which happened on the very same lawns. At that time, a cynical political class was forced to observe the spectacle of its own privileged youth standing in solidarity with the weakest historical actors of the moment, a group that included, but was not restricted to, African Americans and the Vietnamese. By placing such people within their ethical zone of interest, young Americans risked both their own academic and personal futures and—in the infamous case of Kent State—their lives. I imagine that the students at Columbia—and protesters on other campuses—fully intend this echo, and, in their unequivocal demand for both a ceasefire and financial divestment from this terrible war, to a certain extent they have achieved it.

But, when I open newspapers and see students dismissing the idea that some of their fellow-students feel, at this particular moment, unsafe on campus, or arguing that such a feeling is simply not worth attending to, given the magnitude of what is occurring in Gaza, I find such sentiments cynical and unworthy of this movement. For it may well be—within the ethical zone of interest that is a campus, which was not so long ago defined as a safe space, delineated by the boundary of a generation’s ethical ideas— it may well be that a Jewish student walking past the tents, who finds herself referred to as a Zionist, and then is warned to keep her distance, is, in that moment, the weakest participant in the zone. If the concept of safety is foundational to these students’ ethical philosophy (as I take it to be), and, if the protests are committed to reinserting ethical principles into a cynical and corrupt politics, it is not right to divest from these same ethics at the very moment they come into conflict with other imperatives. The point of a foundational ethics is that it is not contingent but foundational. That is precisely its challenge to a corrupt politics.

Practicing our ethics in the real world involves a constant testing of them, a recognition that our zones of ethical interest have no fixed boundaries and may need to widen and shrink moment by moment as the situation demands. (Those brave students who—in supporting the ethical necessity of a ceasefire—find themselves at painful odds with family, friends, faith, or community have already made this calculation.) This flexibility can also have the positive long-term political effect of allowing us to comprehend that, although our duty to the weakest is permanent, the role of “the weakest” is not an existential matter independent of time and space but, rather, a contingent situation, continually subject to change. By contrast, there is a dangerous rigidity to be found in the idea that concern for the dreadful situation of the hostages is somehow in opposition to, or incompatible with, the demand for a ceasefire. Surely a ceasefire—as well as being an ethical necessity—is also in the immediate absolute interest of the hostages, a fact that cannot be erased by tearing their posters off walls.

Part of the significance of a student protest is the ways in which it gives young people the opportunity to insist upon an ethical principle while still being, comparatively speaking, a more rational force than the supposed adults in the room, against whose crazed magical thinking they have been forced to define themselves. The equality of all human life was never a self-evident truth in racially segregated America. There was no way to “win” in Vietnam. Hamas will not be “eliminated.” The more than seven million Jewish human beings who live in the gap between the river and the sea will not simply vanish because you think that they should. All of that is just rhetoric. Words. Cathartic to chant, perhaps, but essentially meaningless. A ceasefire, meanwhile, is both a potential reality and an ethical necessity. The monstrous and brutal mass murder of more than eleven hundred people, the majority of them civilians, dozens of them children, on October 7th, has been followed by the monstrous and brutal mass murder (at the time of writing) of a reported fourteen thousand five hundred children. And many more human beings besides, but it’s impossible not to notice that the sort of people who take at face value phrases like “surgical strikes” and “controlled military operation” sometimes need to look at and/or think about dead children specifically in order to refocus their minds on reality.

To send the police in to arrest young people peacefully insisting upon a ceasefire represents a moral injury to us all. To do it with violence is a scandal. How could they do less than protest, in this moment? They are putting their own bodies into the machine. They deserve our support and praise. As to which postwar political arrangement any of these students may favor, and on what basis they favor it—that is all an argument for the day after a ceasefire. One state, two states, river to the sea—in my view, their views have no real weight in this particular moment, or very little weight next to the significance of their collective action, which (if I understand it correctly) is focussed on stopping the flow of money that is funding bloody murder, and calling for a ceasefire, the political euphemism that we use to mark the end of bloody murder. After a ceasefire, the criminal events of the past seven months should be tried and judged, and the infinitely difficult business of creating just, humane, and habitable political structures in the region must begin anew. Right now: ceasefire. And, as we make this demand, we might remind ourselves that a ceasefire is not, primarily, a political demand. Primarily, it is an ethical one.

But it is in the nature of the political that we cannot even attend to such ethical imperatives unless we first know the political position of whoever is speaking. (“Where do you stand on Israel/Palestine?”) In these constructed narratives, there are always a series of shibboleths, that is, phrases that can’t be said, or, conversely, phrases that must be said. Once these words or phrases have been spoken ( river to the sea, existential threat, right to defend, one state, two states, Zionist, colonialist, imperialist, terrorist ) and one’s positionality established, then and only then will the ethics of the question be attended to (or absolutely ignored). The objection may be raised at this point that I am behaving like a novelist, expressing a philosophy without a politics, or making some rarefied point about language and rhetoric while people commit bloody murder. This would normally be my own view, but, in the case of Israel/Palestine, language and rhetoric are and always have been weapons of mass destruction.

It is in fact perhaps the most acute example in the world of the use of words to justify bloody murder, to flatten and erase unbelievably labyrinthine histories, and to deliver the atavistic pleasure of violent simplicity to the many people who seem to believe that merely by saying something they make it so. It is no doubt a great relief to say the word “Hamas” as if it purely and solely described a terrorist entity. A great relief to say “There is no such thing as the Palestinian people” as they stand in front of you. A great relief to say “Zionist colonialist state” and accept those three words as a full and unimpeachable definition of the state of Israel, not only under the disastrous leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu but at every stage of its long and complex history, and also to hear them as a perfectly sufficient description of every man, woman, and child who has ever lived in Israel or happened to find themselves born within it. It is perhaps because we know these simplifications to be impossible that we insist upon them so passionately. They are shibboleths; they describe a people, by defining them against other people—but the people being described are ourselves. The person who says “We must eliminate Hamas” says this not necessarily because she thinks this is a possible outcome on this earth but because this sentence is the shibboleth that marks her membership in the community that says that. The person who uses the word “Zionist” as if that word were an unchanged and unchangeable monolith, meaning exactly the same thing in 2024 and 1948 as it meant in 1890 or 1901 or 1920—that person does not so much bring definitive clarity to the entangled history of Jews and Palestinians as they successfully and soothingly draw a line to mark their own zone of interest and where it ends. And while we all talk, carefully curating our shibboleths, presenting them to others and waiting for them to reveal themselves as with us or against us—while we do all that, bloody murder.

And now here we are, almost at the end of this little stream of words. We’ve arrived at the point at which I must state clearly “where I stand on the issue,” that is, which particular political settlement should, in my own, personal view, occur on the other side of a ceasefire. This is the point wherein—by my stating of a position—you are at once liberated into the simple pleasure of placing me firmly on one side or the other, putting me over there with those who lisp or those who don’t, with the Ephraimites, or with the people of Gilead. Yes, this is the point at which I stake my rhetorical flag in that fantastical, linguistical, conceptual, unreal place—built with words—where rapes are minimized as needs be, and the definition of genocide quibbled over, where the killing of babies is denied, and the precision of drones glorified, where histories are reconsidered or rewritten or analogized or simply ignored, and “Jew” and “colonialist” are synonymous, and “Palestinian” and “terrorist” are synonymous, and language is your accomplice and alibi in all of it. Language euphemized, instrumentalized, and abused, put to work for your cause and only for your cause, so that it does exactly and only what you want it to do. Let me make it easy for you. Put me wherever you want: misguided socialist, toothless humanist, naïve novelist, useful idiot, apologist, denier, ally, contrarian, collaborator, traitor, inexcusable coward. It is my view that my personal views have no more weight than an ear of corn in this particular essay. The only thing that has any weight in this particular essay is the dead. ♦

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How Columbia’s Campus Was Torn Apart Over Gaza

By Andrew Marantz

A Student Journalist Explains the Protests at Yale

By Isaac Chotiner

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An illustration of 3 older people inside a small walled-off beach. Outside the wall are a mass of people who can’t get inside.

Was the 401(k) a Mistake?

How an obscure, 45-year old tax change transformed retirement and left so many Americans out in the cold.

Credit... Illustration by Tim Enthoven

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By Michael Steinberger

Michael Steinberger is a contributing writer for the magazine. He writes periodically about the economy and the markets.

May 8, 2024

Jen Forbus turned 50 this year. She is in good health and says her life has only gotten better as she has grown older. Forbus resides in Lorain, Ohio, not far from Cleveland; she is single and has no children, but her parents and sisters are nearby. She works, remotely, as an editorial supervisor for an educational publishing company, a job that she loves. She is on track to pay off her mortgage in the next 10 years, and having recently made her last car payment, she is otherwise debt-free. By almost any measure, Forbus is middle class.

Listen to this article, read by Malcolm Hillgartner

Still, she worries about her future. Forbus would like to stop working when she is 65. She has no big retirement dreams — she is not planning to move to Florida or to take extravagant vacations. She hopes to spend her later years enjoying family and friends and pursuing different hobbies. But she knows that she hasn’t set aside enough money to ensure that she can realize even this modest ambition.

A former high school teacher, Forbus says she has around $200,000 in total savings. She earns a high five-figure salary and contributes 9 percent of it to the 401(k) plan that she has through her employer. The company also makes a matching contribution that is equivalent to 5 percent of her salary. A widely accepted rule of thumb among personal-finance experts is that your retirement income needs to be close to 80 percent of what you earned before retiring if you hope to maintain your lifestyle. Forbus figures that she can retire comfortably on around $1 million, although if her house is paid off, she might be able to get by with a bit less. She is not factoring Social Security benefits into her calculations. “I feel like it’s too uncertain and not something I can depend on,” she says.

But even if the stock market delivers blockbuster returns over the next 15 years, her goal is going to be difficult to reach — and this assumes that she doesn’t have a catastrophic setback, like losing her job or suffering a debilitating illness.

She also knows that markets don’t always go up. During the 2008 global financial crisis, her 401(k) lost a third of its value, which was a scarring experience. From the extensive research that she has done, Forbus has become a fairly savvy investor; she’s familiar with all of the major funds and has 60 percent of her money in stocks and the rest in fixed income, which is generally the recommended ratio for people who are some years away from retiring. Still, Forbus would prefer that her retirement prospects weren’t so dependent on her own investing acumen. “It makes me very nervous,” she concedes. She and her friends speak with envy of the pensions that their parents and grandparents had. “I wish that were an option for us,” she says.

The sentiment is understandable. With pensions, otherwise known as defined-benefit plans, your employer invests on your behalf, and you are promised a fixed monthly income upon retirement. With 401(k)s, which are named after a section of the tax code, you choose from investment options that your company gives you, and there is no guarantee of what you will get back, only limits on what you can put in. This is why they are known as defined-contribution plans. Pensions still exist but mainly for unionized jobs. In the private sector, they have largely been replaced by 401(k)s, which came along in the early 1980s. Generally, contributions to 401(k)s are pretax dollars — you pay income tax when you withdraw the money — and these savings vehicles have been a bonanza for a lot of Americans.

Not all companies offer 401(k)s, however, and millions of private-sector employees lack access to workplace retirement plans. Availability is just one problem; contributing is another. Many people who have 401(k)s put little if any money into their accounts. With Americans now aging out of the work force in record numbers — according to the Alliance for Lifetime Income, a nonprofit founded by a group of financial-services companies, 4.1 million people will turn 65 this year, part of what the AARP and others have called the “silver tsunami” — the holes in the retirement system are becoming starkly apparent. U.S. Census Bureau data indicates that in 2017 49 percent of Americans ages 55 to 66 had “no personal retirement savings.”

The savings shortfall is no surprise to Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist at the New School in New York. She has long predicted that the shift to 401(k)s would leave vast numbers of Americans without enough money to retire on, reducing many of them to poverty or forcing them to continue working into their late 60s and beyond. That so many people still do not have 401(k)s or find themselves, like Jen Forbus, in such tenuous circumstances when they do, is proof that what she refers to as this “40-year experiment with do-it-yourself pensions” has been “an utter failure.”

It certainly appears to be failing a large segment of the working population, and while Ghilarducci has been making that case for years, more and more people are now coming around to her view. Her latest book, “Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy,” which was published in March, is drawing a lot of attention: She has been interviewed on NPR and C-SPAN and has testified on Capitol Hill.

It is no longer just fellow progressives who are receptive to her message. Ghilarducci used to be an object of scorn on the right, once drawing the megaphonic wrath of Rush Limbaugh. Today, though, even some conservatives admit that her assessment of the retirement system is basically correct. Indeed, Kevin Hassett, who was a senior economic adviser to President Trump, teamed up with Ghilarducci not long ago to devise a plan that would help low- and middle-income Americans save more for retirement. Their proposal is the basis for legislation currently before Congress.

And Ghilarducci recently found her critique being echoed by one of the most powerful figures on Wall Street. In his annual letter to investors, Larry Fink , the chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset-management companies, wrote that the United States was facing a retirement crisis due in no small part to self-directed retirement financing. Fink said that for most Americans, replacing defined-benefit plans with defined-contribution plans had been “a shift from financial certainly to financial uncertainty” and suggested that it was time to abandon the “you’re on your own” approach.

While that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon, it seems fair to ask whether the country as a whole has been well served by the 401(k) revolution. The main beneficiaries have been higher-income workers; instead of making an economically secure retirement possible for more people, 401(k)s have arguably become another driver of the inequality that is a defining feature of American life.

An illustration of two people taking a brisk walk in an enclosed nature space with a mass of people outside the wall.

When it comes to generating wealth, 401(k)s have been an extraordinary success. The Investment Company Institute, a financial-industry trade group, calculates that the roughly 700,000 401(k) plans now in existence hold more than $7 trillion in assets. But the gains have gone primarily to those who were already at or near the top. According to the Federal Reserve, the value of the median retirement-saving account for households in the 90th to 100th income percentile has more than quintupled during the last 30 years and is currently more than $500,000. In one sense, it is not surprising that the affluent have profited to this degree from 401(k)s: The more money you can invest, the more money you stand to make.

In 2024, annual pretax contributions for employees are capped at $23,000, but with an employer match and possibly also an after-tax contribution (which is permitted under some plans), the maximum can reach $69,000. Workers 50 and over are also allowed to kick in an additional $7,500, potentially pushing the total to $76,500. Needless to say, only a sliver of the U.S. work force can contribute anything like that to their 401(k)s.

The withdrawal rules have evolved in a way that also favors high earners. You are generally not supposed to begin taking money from a 401(k) before you are 59½; doing so could incur a 10 percent penalty (on top of the income-tax hit). What’s more, you can now put off withdrawing money until age 73; previously, you had to begin drawing down 401(k)s by 70½. Those extra years are an added tax benefit for retirees who are in no rush to tap their 401(k)s.

People in lower-income brackets may have also made money from 401(k)s but hardly enough to retire on with Social Security. In 2022, the median retirement account for households in the 20th through 39th percentile held just $20,000. For this segment of the working population, 401(k)s sometimes end up serving a very different purpose. They become a source of emergency funds, not retirement income. But then, for many of these people, retirement seems like an impossibility.

Laura Gendreau directs a program called Stand by Me, a joint venture between the United Way of Delaware and the state government that provides free financial counseling. She says that when she asks clients if they are putting aside any money for retirement, they often look at her in disbelief: “They say, ‘How do you expect me to save for retirement when I’m living paycheck to paycheck?’” She and her colleagues try to identify expenditures that can be eliminated or reduced so that people can start saving at least a small portion of what they earn. But she says that some clients are having such a hard time just getting by that they can’t fathom being able to retire. Sometimes it does not even occur to them to look into whether their employers offer 401(k)s. “They have no idea,” Gendreau says.

Ghilarducci has been hearing this sort of thing for years. Her career in academia began around the time that 401(k)s first emerged, and from the start, she regarded these savings plans with skepticism. For one thing, she feared that a lot of people would never have access to them. But she also felt that 401(k)s were unsuitable for lower-income Americans, who often struggled to save money or who might not have either the time or the knowledge to manage their own investments. In her judgment, the offloading of retirement risk onto workers was worse than just an economic misstep — it represented a betrayal of the social contract.

Ghilarducci, who is 66, has the unusual distinction of being a high school dropout with a Ph.D. in economics. She also has firsthand experience of economic hardship, and her working-class roots have shaped her worldview. She was raised by a single mother in Roseville, Calif., and money was always tight. Despite a turbulent home life, she excelled academically and was able to take advantage of a program that allowed California students with strong grades and test scores to attend schools within the California university system without charge.

After being accepted at the University of California, San Diego, she stopped going to high school — it bored her — and never graduated. A year later, she transferred to the University of California, Berkeley. Neither university knew that she had not completed high school. “They didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell,” she says with a laugh. She majored in economics at Berkeley and also obtained her doctorate there. She then taught at the University of Notre Dame for 25 years (she joined the faculty of the New School in 2008). During that time, she acquired a national reputation for her expertise on retirement.

In 2008, Ghilarducci proposed replacing 401(k)s with “guaranteed retirement accounts,” a program that would combine mandatory individual and employer contributions with tax credits and that would guarantee at least a 3 percent annual return, adjusted for inflation. Her plan drew the wrath of voices on the right — the conservative pundit James Pethokoukis called her “the most dangerous woman in America.”

But her timing proved to be apt: That year, the global financial crisis imperiled the retirement plans of millions of Americans. Ghilarducci suggested that if the government was going to bail out the banks, it also had an obligation to help people whose 401(k)s had tanked. Her idea inflamed the right: Rush Limbaugh attacked her during his daily radio show, which brought her a wave of hate mail.

Her hostility to 401(k)s is partly anchored in a belief that when it comes to retirement, the country was on a better path in the past. In the 1950s and 1960s, many Americans could count on pensions and Social Security to provide them with a decent retirement. It was a different era, of course — back then, men (and it was almost always men) often spent their entire careers with the same companies. And even at their peak, pensions were not available to everyone; only around half of all employees ever had one. Still, in Ghilarducci’s view, it was a time when the United States put more emphasis on the interests of working-class Americans, including ensuring that they could retire with some degree of economic security.

She portrays the move to defined contribution retirement plans as part of the sharp rightward turn that the United States took under President Ronald Reagan, when the notion of individual responsibility became economic dogma — what the Yale University political scientist Jacob Hacker has called “the great risk shift.” The downside of this shift was laid bare by the great recession. Many older Americans lost their savings and were forced to scavenge for work.

This was the subject of the journalist Jessica Bruder’s book “Nomadland,” for which Ghilarducci was interviewed and that was the basis for the Oscar-winning film of the same title. To Ghilarducci, the portraits in “Nomadland” — of lives upended, of the indignity of being old and having to scramble for food and shelter — presaged the insecure future that awaited millions of other older Americans. And Ghilarducci believes that with record numbers of people now reaching retirement age, that grim future is arriving.

Her new book makes a powerful case for why all working people deserve a comfortable, dignified retirement and why, for so many Americans, the current retirement system is incapable of providing that. Her nationwide book tour has had the feel of a victory lap, although the vindication she can plausibly claim is no cause for celebration. “It’s the pinnacle of my career because what I told people would happen is happening,” she says. “So it’s a big told-you-so, and that told-you-so is on the backs of around 40 million middle-class workers who will be poor or near-poor elders.”

Ghilarducci finds it outrageous that Americans who don’t have enough money set aside for retirement are now being told that the solution to their financial woes is to just keep working. Forcing senior citizens to stay on the job is cruel, she says, and especially so if it involves physically demanding labor. She has observed that older workers often have “a shame hunch” — their body language suggests embarrassment. They are spending their last years in quiet humiliation.

To Ghilarducci, all of this represents a retreat from the ideals that fueled America’s prosperity and made the United States a beacon of opportunity. As she writes in her book, “A signature achievement of the postwar period — the democratization of who has control over the pace and content of their time after a lifetime of work — is being reversed.”

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, many companies, in addition to providing their employees with pensions, offered tax-deferred profit-sharing programs, which were available mostly to executives. But there was a lot of murkiness surrounding these defined-contribution plans — and a lot of concern that the I.R.S. might eventually ban them. When Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1978, it included an addition to the Internal Revenue Code that was intended to provide greater clarity about how these plans were to be structured and who could participate. The provision, which took effect in 1980, was called Section 401(k). According to a 2014 Bloomberg article, the staff members who drafted it thought it was a minor regulatory tweak, of no particular consequence. One former senior congressional aide was quoted as saying it was “an insignificant provision in a very large bill. It took on a life of its own afterwards.”

That’s because Ted Benna saw something in that new section of the Internal Revenue Code that had eluded the people who wrote it. Benna, a retirement-benefits consultant, was in his suburban Philadelphia office on a Saturday afternoon in 1979, trying to figure out how to devise a deferred-compensation plan for one of his firm’s clients, a local bank. At the time, the top marginal tax rate was 70 percent, and the bank wanted to see if there was a way to award bonuses to its executives that could limit their tax bill.

As Benna read the provisions of section 401(k), a solution dawned on him: The language seemed to indicate that he could create a plan in which the bonuses were put in a tax-deferred retirement plan. There was a catch, though. Under the terms of 401(k), this could be done only if rank-and-file employees participated in the plan. Benna knew that getting them to agree to set aside some of their pay would not be easy, so he came up with a sweetener — he proposed that the bank would partly match the contributions of its employees.

The bank balked at Benna’s proposal; it was concerned that regulators would rule the scheme illegal. Benna’s own firm decided to implement the idea, however, and it proved wildly popular with the company’s 50 or so employees. Benna and his colleagues called the plan “cash-op,” but the name never caught on, and instead came to be known as the 401(k). The new savings vehicle eventually did run into government resistance, when the Reagan administration, concerned about the lost tax revenues, tried to eliminate 401(k)s in 1986 — this notwithstanding the fact that 401(k)s, with their promise of individual empowerment, seemed emblematic of the so-called Reagan Revolution. But by then it was too late. A number of companies were already offering 401(k)s to their employees, and the financial industry, eyeing a lucrative new revenue stream, threw its lobbying muscle behind these investment plans.

Benna is 82 now, and I recently met with him in York, Pa. (He was there visiting family; he lives near Williamsport, Pa.) He is still working. He told me that his religious faith had compelled him to put off his own retirement. “The Creator didn’t create us to spend 30 years doing nothing,” he said. A tall, unassuming man, Benna suggested that we meet at the Cracker Barrel in York. There, over iced tea and coffee, we talked about the trillion-dollar business that resulted from his close reading of section 401(k). Benna had been quoted in the past voicing some misgivings about these savings plans. He told the magazine Smart Money in 2011, for instance, that he had given rise to a “monster.”

But he explained to me that the remorse he expressed had nothing to do with 401(k)s themselves, which he said had helped convert millions of Americans from “spenders into savers.” Rather, what he regretted was the complexity of many plans — he thought a lot of employees were overwhelmed by all the investment options — and the fact that the financial-services industry profited from them to the degree that it did. Benna said that the advent of the 401(k) turned the mutual-fund industry into the colossus that it is today and that too many fund managers charged what he considers unjustifiably high fees. “Over the life of an investment, it is a real hit — it is gigantic,” he says.

Yet Benna rejects the idea that 401(k)s took the country in the wrong direction. He contends that traditional pensions were doomed with or without 401(k)s. He recalls visiting Bethlehem Steel in the 1980s to talk about 401(k)s. “I told them that they had to start helping their employees save for retirement, and their H.R. person said, ‘Our employees don’t need to do that because we take care of them for life.’ And what happened to that?” (Bethlehem Steel filed for bankruptcy in 2001, and the government had to fulfill its pension obligations.) Likewise, he doesn’t think it is true that 401(k)s have really only benefited the well-off. He mentioned his brother-in-law, who lived in York and worked as a supervisor at Caterpillar, the construction-equipment manufacturer. When Caterpillar announced in 1996 that it was relocating its York plant to Illinois, he chose to take early retirement rather than uproot his family. “He told me that was only possible because of his 401(k),” Benna said. But he conceded that too many people are being let down by the retirement system and that something needs to be done to help them save for their later years.

Benna is one of a number of experts who believe that mandates will ultimately be needed to improve retirement financing — that the voluntary approach, in which companies decide whether they want to sponsor 401(k)s and employees decide whether they wish to participate, is leaving too many gaps. He thinks all companies above a certain size should have to offer employees 401(k)s or alternative retirement-savings options. (Starting next year, employers that establish new 401(k) plans will be required to automatically enroll workers in those plans. There is still no obligation, however, to actually provide the plans themselves.)

Other countries go further. Australia’s Superannuation Guarantee requires companies to contribute the equivalent of 11 percent of an employee’s monthly pay to an investment account that is controlled by the worker, who can also put in additional money. The “Super,” as it is known, includes full-time and part-time workers and has proved to be enormously successful. With its relatively small population — just 27 million — Australia now has the world’s fourth-highest per capita contributions to a pension system, and almost 80 percent of its work force is covered. BlackRock’s Larry Fink says that “Australia’s experience with Supers could be a good model for American policymakers to study and build on.”

The desire to give less affluent Americans the chance to build a decent nest egg is one that is shared across ideological lines. That in itself is a big change from, say, the debate about health care reform, which bitterly divided liberals and conservatives. (It is worth recalling that the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010 without a single Republican vote.) In fact, concern about the retirement-savings shortfall has become a rare source of bipartisan cooperation in Washington, and it has also yielded some unlikely alliances.

A few years ago, Kevin Hassett, who was chairman of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers for a portion of Donald Trump’s presidency, became familiar with Ghilarducci’s work and sent her, unsolicited, the draft of a paper he was writing about the retirement-savings gap. She replied enthusiastically, and he suggested that she write the paper with him. Their partnership eventually yielded a plan for helping lower- and middle-income Americans save for retirement.

The idea they hatched was to make the Thrift Savings Plan, a government-sponsored retirement program for federal employees and members of the uniformed services, open to all Americans. T.S.P., which in total assets is the largest defined-contribution program in the country, includes automatic enrollment and matching contributions from the government. A number of states now offer retirement-savings plans for people whose employers don’t provide 401(k)s, but none of these include matching contributions, which many experts believe are an important incentive for getting workers to set aside a portion of their own salaries.

Ghilarducci and Hassett think that only a federal program in which savings accounts of eligible workers are topped up with government money will significantly increase the participation and savings rates of low-income Americans. Their proposal is the basis for the Retirement Savings for Americans Act, a bill recently introduced by the U.S. senators John Hickenlooper and Thom Tillis and the U.S. representatives Terri Sewell and Lloyd Smucker. Two are Democrats; two are Republicans.

This past January, another bipartisan collaboration — between Alicia Munnell, who was an economist in the Clinton administration and who now serves as the director of Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, and Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank — published a paper calling for a reduction or an end to the 401(k) tax benefit.

Their research showed that it had not led to more participation in the program nor had it significantly increased the amount that Americans in the aggregate were saving for retirement. It was mostly just a giveaway to upper-income investors and a costly one at that. They estimated that it deprived the Treasury of almost $200 billion in revenue annually. They proposed reducing or even ending the tax-deferred status of 401(k)s and using the added revenue to shore up Social Security.

When I spoke to Biggs, he emphasized that he was not against 401(k)s. On balance, he thinks that they have worked well, and he also says that some of the criticism aimed at them is no longer valid. For instance, the do-it-yourself aspect is overstated: Most plans, for instance, now offer target-date funds, which automatically adjust your asset allocation depending on your age and goals, freeing you from having to continuously readjust your portfolio yourself. He acknowledges that rescinding the tax preferences could be tricky politically: The people who have chiefly benefited from them are also the people who write checks to campaigns. But he is confident that Americans can ultimately be persuaded to give up the tax advantages. “If we say to people, ‘Look, we can slash your Social Security benefits or increase your Social Security taxes, or we can reduce this useless subsidy that goes to rich people who don’t need the money’ — well, that’s a little more compelling.”

Hassett told me that his work with Ghilarducci does not represent any softening of his faith in the free market. Quite the opposite: He sees government intervention to boost retirement savings as a necessary step to preserving American capitalism. Hassett has been concerned for some time that the country is drifting toward socialism — the subject of his most recent book — and part of the reason is that too many Americans are economically marginalized and have come to feel that the system doesn’t work to their benefit.

“They feel disconnected, and they are disconnected,” Hassett says. Having the government help them save for retirement would be prudent. “It would give them more of a stake in the success of the free-enterprise system,” he says. “I think it’s important for long-run political stability that everybody gets a stake.”

Jen Forbus is not economically marginalized, but many in her community struggle. Lorain, a city of about 65,000 on the shore of Lake Erie, has never recovered from the loss of a Ford assembly plant and two steel plants. Around 28 percent of Lorain’s residents now live in poverty. By the grim standards of her area, Forbus is doing well. “I’m definitely privileged,” she says. Even so, she knows that despite her diligent saving and careful budgeting, there is a good chance that she will not be able to retire at 65. She dreads the prospect of having to remain in the labor market as an elderly person. “Something like waitressing — past a certain age, that’s really difficult,” she says. And she admits that she finds it jarring that even for someone like her, retirement may be an unachievable objective. “I do feel our system fails too many people,” she says.

Read by Malcolm Hillgartner

Narration produced by Tanya Pérez

Engineered by Steven Szczesniak

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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi
500+ Words Essay on Mahatma Gandhi. Essay on Mahatma Gandhi - Mahatma Gandhi was a great patriotic Indian, if not the greatest. He was a man of an unbelievably great personality. He certainly does not need anyone like me praising him. Furthermore, his efforts for Indian independence are unparalleled. Most noteworthy, there would have been a ...
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10 Lines Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Kids. Mahatma Gandhi is famous as the father of the nation in India. He was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat. His father was Karamchand Gandhi, and his mother was Putlibai Gandhi. Gandhi married Kasturba Makhangi Kapadia in 1883.
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Here is a sample essay for class 3 students on Mahatma Gandhi: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also called Mahatma Gandhi, is the father of our nation. He was a freedom fighter, national leader, and social reformer who worked tirelessly to make India independent. Famous poet Rabindranath Tagore gave him the title of Mahatma.
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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, often called the 'Father of the Nation', was a leader who fought for India's freedom from British rule.He believed in non-violence. Every year on October 2nd, Mahatma Gandhi's birthday is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti to honor his efforts in freeing India.. English Essay on Mahatma Gandhi. Rabindranath Tagore was the first to call Gandhiji 'Mahatma,' which means ...
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500 Words Essay On Mahatma Gandhi. In India, Mahatma Gandhi is known as "Bapu" or "Rastrapita." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is his full name. And, like the title conferred upon him, his sacrifices for the country and attempts to make his principles a reality are a source of immense pride for Indians worldwide. Gandhi's Childhood
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Mahatma Gandhi Essay in English (महात्मा गांधी एसे इंग्लिश में): Mahatma Gandhi, an apostle of non-violence and preacher of truth, was born on October 2nd, 1869 in Gujarat. He belonged to a well-to-do family. Throughout his school days, he remained a shy boy but was a good and regular student. He later went to England […]
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Mohandas Gandhi was a leader of India 's independence movement. When India was a colony of Great Britain, Gandhi used nonviolent methods to protest against British rule. His efforts earned him the title Mahatma. Mahatma means "great soul."
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The first essay is a long essay on Mahatma Gandhi of 400-500 words. This long essay about Mahatma Gandhi is suitable for students of class 7, 8, 9 and 10, and also for competitive exam aspirants. The second essay is a short essay on Mahatma Gandhi of 150-200 words. These are suitable for students and children in class 6 and below. Long Essay on ...
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Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, the year 1869 in a place named Porbandar, Gujrat in northwest India. He was born in a Hindu Modh family. His father Karamchand Gandhi was a political figure and also the chief minister of Porbandar. His mother named Putlibai Gandhi was the fourth wife of his father, previous wives died during childbirth.
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Mahatma Gandhi Essay 1 (100 words) Mahatma Gandhi is very famous in India as "Bapu" or "Rastrapita". The full name of him is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was a great freedom fighter who led India as a leader of the nationalism against British rule. He was born on 2 nd of October in 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat, India.
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He was a great political leader, a renowned statesman, a social reformer and a saint. He is called the Father of Indian Nation. We Celebrate Gandhi Jayanti on 2nd of October. Mahatma Gandhi whose full name is Mohan Dass Karam Chand Gandhi was born on 2nd October 1869 at Porbandar in Gujarat. He was married to Kasturba at an early age.
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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi in 250 words. Mahatma Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat, India, was a preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement against British colonial rule. Known for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance, Gandhi became a symbol of peace, truth, and justice. Gandhi's early life was marked by his ...
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10 Lines Essay on Mahatma Gandhi (100 - 120 Words) 1) Mahatma Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, was an Indian political leader. 2) His mother was Putlibai and father was Karamchand Gandhi. 3) He played a vital role in India's struggle for independence against British rule. 4) He led several peaceful protests and movements, including the ...
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Also Read: 10 Lines on Mahatma Gandhi. Essay on Mahatma Gandhi 200-250 Words. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, freedom activist, and politician. Gandhiji was born on October 2, 1869 at Porbandar, Gujarat. His father Karamchand Gandhi was the Chief Minister (diwan) of Porbandar state.
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The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, 1967, Navajivan Trust, Ahmadabad. Shirer, William L., Gandhi A Memoir, 1993, Rupa & Co, New Delhi. We have 98 writers available online to start working on your essay just NOW!
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Mahatma Gandhi was an inspiring figure who fought for India's independence from British rule. He is also celebrated for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance. In this essay, we will examine Gandhi's life, his work for Indian independence, and his legacy. Gandhiji (paragraph on mahatma gandhi) was born in 1869 in what is now Gujarat, India.
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Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Class 6. Mahatma Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, was a pivotal figure in the Indian independence movement and a global advocate for nonviolent resistance. Gandhi's early experiences with racial discrimination in South Africa fueled his commitment to fighting injustice through nonviolence.
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Published: Thursday, September 30, 2021, 15:29 [IST] Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, often known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born in Gujarat on October 2, 1869. The father of the nation, a social reformer, and a freedom warrior worked relentlessly to free Bharat from the shackles of the British Raj, based on the principles of ahimsa (non-violence). We ...
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The Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, was born as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on 2nd October, 1869, at Porbander. He was married to Kasturba when he was 12. He went to England for higher studies. He became a barrister and came back to India in 1891. Gandhiji went to South Africa in 1893 and stayed there for 12 years.
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Mahatma Gandhi Essay 1 (100 words) Mahatma Gandhi is famous in India as "Bapu" or "Rastrapita.". His full name of him is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was a great freedom fighter who led India as a leader of nationalism against British rule. He was born on the 2 nd of October in 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat, India.
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10 Lines and Sentences on Mahatma Gandhi. 1) Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of the Indian Independence Movement against British rule. 2) He inspired civil rights and freedom movements across the world. 3) The title "Mahatma" was given to him in South Africa in 1914. 4) In India, Mahatma Gandhi was fondly called Bapu and Gandhi Ji.
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Contribution To India’s Independence

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