Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and

political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's
independence from British rule, and to later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom
across the world. Wikipedia

Born: 2 October 1869, Porbandar, India

Full name: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Assassinated: 30 January 1948, Birla House, New Delhi, India
Spouse: Kasturba Gandhi (m. 1883–1944)
Children: Harilal Gandhi, Devdas Gandhi, Manilal Gandhi, Ramdas Gandhi
Education: UCL Faculty of Laws (1888–1891)

Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became

the leader of the nationalist movement against the British
rule of India.

internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent

protest (satyagraha) to achieve political and social progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7bn0XH8OmQ

Beginning with the year 1934 over a period of 14 years on as many as six occasions
attempts were made to kill Gandhiji. The last one by Godse on 30-1-48 was successful. The
remaining five were made in 1934, during the months of July and September 1944,
September 1946 and on 20th January 1948. Godse was involved in two previous attempts.
When the unsuccessful attempts of 1934, 1944 and 1946 were made

-Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler, addressing him as "Dear Friend," and

beseeched him to stop the war. Hitler never wrote back.

Letter to Adolf Hitler, 1939

As AT WARDHA,
C.P.,
INDIA,
July 23, 1939

DEAR FRIEND,

Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of

humanity. But I have resisted their request, because of the
feeling that any letter from me would be an impertinence.
Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must
make my appeal for whatever it may be worth. It is quite clear
that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent
a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state. Must you
pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to
you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has
deliberately shunned the method of war not without
considerable success? Anyway I anticipate your forgiveness, if I
have erred in writing to you.

I remain,

Your sincere friend,

HERR HITLER

BERLIN GERMANY

Letter to Adolf Hitler, 1940

WARDHA,

December 24, 1940

DEAR FRIEND,

That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My

business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the
friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind,
irrespective of race, colour or creed. I hope you will have the
time and desire to know how a good portion of humanity who
have been living under the influence of that doctrine of
universal friendship view your action. We have no doubt about
your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe
that you are the monster described by your opponents. But your
own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and
admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are
monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the
estimation of men like me who believe in universal friendliness.
Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland
and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of
life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been
taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading
humanity. Hence we cannot possibly wish success to your arms.
But ours is a unique position. We resist British Imperialism no
less than Nazism. If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-
fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel
by means that will not bear scrutiny. Our resistance to it does
not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them,
not to defeat them on the battle-field. Ours is an unarmed revolt
against the British rule. But whether we convert them or not,
we are determined to make their rule impossible by non-violent
non-co-operation. It is a method in its nature indefensible. It is
based on the knowledge that no spoliator can compass his end
without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or compulsory,
of the victim. Our rulers may have our land and bodies but not
our souls. They can have the former only by complete
destruction of every Indian-man, woman and child. That all may
not rise to that degree of heroism and that a fair amount of
frightfulness can bend the back of revolt is true but the
argument would be beside the point. For, if a fair number of
men and women be found in India who would be prepared
without any ill will against the spoliators to lay down their lives
rather than bend the knee to them, they would have shown the
way to freedom from the tyranny of violence. I ask you to
believe me when I say that you will find an unexpected number
of such men and women in India. They have been having that
training for the past 20 years. We have been trying for the past
half a century to throw off the British rule. The movement of
independence has been never so strong as now. The most
powerful political organization, I mean the Indian National
Congress, is trying to achieve this end. We have attained a very
fair measure of success through nonviolent effort. We were
groping for the right means to combat the most organized
violence in the world which the British power represents. You
have challenged it. It remains to be seen which is the better
organized, the German or the British. We know what the British
heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But
we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid.
We have found in non-violence a force which, if organized, can
without doubt match itself against a combination of all the most
violent forces in the world. In nonviolent technique, as I have
said, there is no such thing as defeat. It is all ‘do or die’ without
killing or hurting. It can be used practically without money and
obviously without the aid of science of destruction which you
have brought to such perfection. It is a marvel to me that you
do not see that it is nobody’s monopoly. If not the British, some
other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat
you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your
people of which they would feel proud. They cannot take pride
in a recital of cruel deed, however skilfully planned. I,
therefore, appeal to you in the name of humanity to stop the
war. You will lose nothing by referring all the matters of
dispute between you and Great Britain to an international
tribunal of your joint choice. If you attain success in the war, it
will not prove that you were in the right. It will only prove that
your power of destruction was greater. Whereas an award by an
impartial tribunal will show as far as it is humanly possible
which party was in the right. You know that not long ago I made
an appeal to every Briton to accept my method of non-violent
resistance. I did it because the British know me as a friend
though a rebel. I am a stranger to you and your people. I have
not the courage to make you the appeal I made to every Briton.
Not that it would not apply to you with the same force as to the
British. But my present proposal is much simple because much
more practical and familiar. During this season when the hearts
of the peoples of Europe yearn for peace, we have suspended
even our own peaceful struggle. Is it too much to ask you to
make an effort for peace during a time which may mean nothing
to you personally but which must mean much to the millions of
Europeans whose dumb cry for peace I hear, for my ears are
attuned to hearing the dumb millions? I had intended to address
a joint appeal to you and Signor Mussolini, whom I had the
privilege of meeting when I was in Rome during my visit to
England as a delegate to the Round Table Conference. I hope
that he will take this as addressed to him also with the
necessary changes.

I am,

Your sincere friend,

M.K. GANDHI

Breakthroughs in Gandhi’s life

If a cowardly guy by nature suddenly turns into a great
fighter, the rule is that something must have happened in
between. Mohandas, who is today being celebrated as
Mahatma by the whole of India, is also no exception to this
rule. There are 3 incidents in his life which turned him
towards the people. What are they?
In fact, Gandhi was a British believer at first. and he
remained loyal to the British Empire despite the injustice
of racism there. He also led the ambulance brigade during
the Boer War.
But the first incident took place in 1893. The incident
happened when Gandhi was travelling by train from
Durban to Pretoria at night, a week after his arrival in
South Africa.
That was the true introduction of South Africa to Gandhi.
Gandhi recalled that even after forty years, this experience
used greatly in shaping his life.
Gandhi is going to Pretoria by train. Suddenly a white man
boarded the first-class compartment and he had travelled
in. Unexpectedly he ordered Gandhi to get out of first-
class and to go luggage compartment.
Even Gandhi had a ticket for the first class trip, he is
voiceless. When the train stopped at the next station
Maritzburg, the white man called a guard. At that
midnight Gandhi was thrown out of the train with his
baggage. This introduced the cruel racism to Gandhi.
Ten years after arriving in South Africa, another long-
distance train journey marked the second major turning
point in Gandhi’s life.
One evening in 1904, Gandhi was travelling from
Johannesburg to Durban. During that long journey, an
English friend read a book by John Ruskin entitled “And
This Lost”. and he gifted that book to Gandhi. The book
which totally transformed Gandhi towards thinking for all
living beings.
at that time South Africa introduces a new act that,
Indians above 8 years of age must register with the
government and as well their fingerprints also should be
registered. and every Indian in South Africa should get an
ID card from the SA government. This provided the
opportunity of protesting against the Government. and
obviously, Gandhi led that.
Gandhi, who appeared before the angry Indians at the
Empire Theater in Johannesburg on September 11, stated
that he was opposed to the law. This was Gandhi’s first
non-violent struggle. Later he went to jail for this and he
succeeded with that request.
This is how a man named Gandhi transformed into
Mahatma Gandhi…