30 Years of Resistance · 6 Years in Prison · 400 Million Freed · 17 Fasts
Mahatma
GandhiFather of the Nation
October 2, 1869 - January 30, 1948 · Porbandar, India
He was a shy, mediocre law student who couldn't speak in court. He was thrown off a train in South Africa for being the wrong color, and it awakened something that would topple an empire. He wore homespun cloth, ate almost nothing, and fought with truth as his only weapon. The British Empire — the largest the world had ever known — broke against a frail man who refused to hit back.
Father of India
Satyagraha
Nonviolent Resistance
Indian Independence
Assassinated 1948
// The Chapters
From Porbandar to Partition
Six acts. Seventy-eight years. One empire dismantled by a man who owned almost nothing.
1869 - 1893 · The Formation
The Shy Boy from Gujarat
A timid, average student who was terrified of public speaking. Nothing about him suggested greatness.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a coastal town in Gujarat, India. His father Karamchand was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar. His mother Putlibai was deeply religious — a devout Jain whose practices of fasting, non-violence, and self-discipline would profoundly shape her son. Gandhi married Kasturba Makhanji at age 13 in an arranged marriage. At 18, he sailed to London to study law at University College London. He was so shy he could barely speak to strangers. He was called to the bar in 1891, returned to India, and failed spectacularly as a lawyer — in his first courtroom case, he froze and couldn't cross-examine a witness. In 1893, he accepted a contract to work for an Indian law firm in South Africa. It would change everything.
Child Marriage
May 1883 · Porbandar, India
Thirteen-year-old Mohandas marries thirteen-year-old Kasturba in an arranged ceremony. He later writes with shame about his "lustful" jealousy as a child husband. The marriage will last 62 years. Kasturba will become his closest advisor and die in his arms in a British prison.
The Train at Pietermaritzburg
June 7, 1893 · Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Gandhi, traveling first-class with a valid ticket, is thrown off the train at Pietermaritzburg because a white passenger objects to sharing a compartment with an Indian. He spends the night shivering on the station platform. By morning, he has decided: he will fight. This is the moment that creates the Mahatma.
Off the Record
In London, the shy Gujarati boy tried desperately to become an English gentleman — taking dancing lessons, violin lessons, and elocution classes. He spent more time and money on fashion than on law books. He later called this period "the time of my life I am most ashamed of." The transformation from dandy to ascetic is one of the great character arcs in human history.
1893 - 1914 · South Africa
Satyagraha is Born
In the crucible of South African racism, the timid lawyer invented a new form of warfare: truth-force.
Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa. He organized the Indian community against discriminatory laws, was beaten, imprisoned, and nearly killed. In 1906, he conceived satyagraha — "truth-force" or "soul-force" — a philosophy of nonviolent resistance that combined Hindu, Jain, Christian, and Tolstoyan ideas into something entirely new. Indians burned their registration passes. They marched illegally. They went to jail in thousands. The British compromised. Gandhi returned to India in 1915 as a 45-year-old hero. Rabindranath Tagore called him "Mahatma" — Great Soul. He spent his first year traveling India by third-class train, seeing his country for the first time through the eyes of the poorest.
The Birth of Satyagraha
September 11, 1906 · Empire Theatre, Johannesburg
3,000 Indians gather to protest the Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act. Gandhi proposes mass civil disobedience — not passive resistance, but active defiance through nonviolent suffering. He calls it satyagraha. The weapon that will break the British Empire is forged in a Johannesburg theatre.
3,000 attendees
1 new philosophy
The Great March
November 6, 1913 · Natal to Transvaal, South Africa
Gandhi leads 2,037 Indian miners and their families on a march from Natal across the Transvaal border in deliberate violation of the immigration laws. They are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned. The publicity forces Jan Smuts to negotiate. The Indian Relief Act follows. Satyagraha works.
1915 - 1930 · The Rise
Non-Cooperation
He asked 300 million Indians to stop cooperating with the empire. Millions did. The Raj trembled.
Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920, asking Indians to boycott British goods, schools, courts, and titles. Millions participated. He spun his own cloth — khadi — and turned the spinning wheel into a symbol of self-reliance. When violence erupted at Chauri Chaura in 1922 — a mob burned a police station, killing 22 officers — Gandhi immediately called off the entire movement. His followers were stunned. He was arrested and sentenced to six years. "I hold it to be a virtue to be discontented with the status quo," he told the judge. He served two years. When he emerged, he launched campaigns for Hindu-Muslim unity, the abolition of untouchability, and rural self-sufficiency. He was building a revolution from the bottom up.
Chauri Chaura
February 4, 1922 · Chauri Chaura, United Provinces
A mob of Non-Cooperation protesters attack a police station and burn it, killing 22 police officers trapped inside. Gandhi is devastated. He calls off the entire nationwide movement — millions of participants — because violence violated satyagraha's core principle. His followers rage. He fasts. The movement stops. Discipline, he proves, matters more than momentum.
The Spinning Wheel
1920s · Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad
Gandhi spins khadi daily and insists every Congress member do the same. The spinning wheel becomes the symbol of Indian self-reliance — a rejection of British manufactured goods. He turns cloth into politics. The charkha appears on the Indian National Congress flag. A hand-spun revolution.
1930 - 1942 · The Confrontation
Salt and Defiance
He walked 241 miles to pick up a handful of salt. The British Empire shook.
On March 12, 1930, Gandhi and 78 followers left Sabarmati Ashram on a 241-mile march to the coastal village of Dandi. Their goal: to make salt from seawater in defiance of the British salt tax. The march took 24 days. Thousands joined along the route. On April 6, Gandhi reached the shore, picked up a handful of salt, and broke the law. Millions across India followed. 60,000 were arrested. At the Dharasana Salt Works on May 21, satyagrahis marched in rows toward the guards, who beat them with steel-tipped lathis. Not one marcher raised a hand in defense. American journalist Webb Miller's account appeared in 1,350 newspapers worldwide. The moral authority of the British Empire was shattered in a single day.
The Salt March
March 12 - April 6, 1930 · Sabarmati to Dandi
A 61-year-old man with a bamboo staff walks 241 miles to the sea. 78 followers grow to thousands. Every village along the route empties to join. On April 6, he bends down at Dandi beach and picks up a fistful of salt. He has just broken the law. Millions will follow. 60,000 will go to jail. An empire begins to crumble.
241 miles
24 days
60,000 arrested
Dharasana Salt Works
May 21, 1930 · Dharasana, Gujarat
Rows of satyagrahis walk toward the salt works. Guards beat them with steel-tipped lathis. They fall. The next row steps forward. They are beaten. They fall. The next row steps forward. Not a single hand is raised in defense. Webb Miller files his report: "In eighteen years of reporting I have never seen such harrowing scenes." 1,350 newspapers publish it worldwide.
"Quit India"
August 8, 1942 · Bombay
"I am asking you to do or die." Gandhi launches the Quit India Movement demanding immediate British withdrawal. The entire Congress leadership is arrested within hours. The movement erupts anyway — strikes, protests, and sabotage across India. The British jail 100,000 people. Gandhi spends the next two years in the Aga Khan Palace, where Kasturba will die in his arms.
Off the Record
During the Round Table Conference in London in 1931, Churchill refused to meet Gandhi and called him "a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace." Gandhi, when informed of the insult, laughed and said Churchill was "an old friend who has yet to learn the value of friendship." The exchange perfectly captures both men — and the empire's inability to comprehend what it was dealing with.
1947 - 1948 · Independence & Partition
Freedom at Midnight
India was free. India was divided. The Father of the Nation wept.
On August 15, 1947, India became independent. But it was partitioned — divided into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. The partition triggered the largest mass migration in human history: 15 million people displaced, one to two million killed in communal violence. Gandhi was not in Delhi celebrating. He was in Calcutta, walking through riot-torn neighborhoods, trying to stop Hindus and Muslims from killing each other. He fasted for five days. The violence in Calcutta stopped. Lord Mountbatten called it "the one-man boundary force." On January 30, 1948, Gandhi walked to his evening prayer meeting at Birla House in New Delhi. Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist who believed Gandhi had been too sympathetic to Muslims, stepped forward and shot him three times at point-blank range. Gandhi fell, saying "He Ram" — "Oh God." He was 78.
The Calcutta Fast
September 1-4, 1947 · Calcutta
While India celebrates independence, Calcutta burns with Hindu-Muslim riots. Gandhi fasts. For five days he takes only water. Gang leaders come to his bedside and lay down their weapons. The riots stop. Mountbatten calls it "the miracle of Calcutta." One frail old man accomplished what an army could not.
The Assassination
January 30, 1948 · 5:17 PM · Birla House, New Delhi
Gandhi walks to his evening prayer meeting, leaning on his grandnieces. Nathuram Godse steps from the crowd, folds his hands in greeting, and fires three bullets from a Beretta pistol into Gandhi's chest and abdomen. Gandhi falls, whispering "He Ram." He dies within minutes. The man who spent his life preaching nonviolence is killed by violence. He was 78 years old.
The Funeral Pyre
January 31, 1948 · Raj Ghat, New Delhi
Two million people line the five-mile funeral procession. Gandhi's body is placed on a sandalwood pyre at Raj Ghat on the banks of the Yamuna River. His son Ramdas lights the fire. Einstein writes: "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."