Gandhi

Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar , a coastal town of the small princely state of Kathiawar , now in the state of Gujarat ( India ). He was the son of Karamchand Gandhi, the diwan (Prime Minister) of Porbandar. His family was of the caste Vaisya (merchant). His mother, Putlibai, the fourth wife of his father, had a great influence in his childhood, when Gandhi learned at an earlyage not to harm any living creature to be a vegetarian, fasting to purify and tolerance of other faiths have and religions.
At thirteen, her parents arranged her marriage to Kasturba Makhanji , with which would have four children.
Gandhi was a mediocre student in his youth at Porbandar and later Rajkot , barely managing to pass the entrance exam at the University of Bombay in1887 , enrolling inthe School of Samaldas in Bhavnagar . Not much time was there and took the opportunity presented to him to study in England, a country he considered the "cradle of philosophers and poets, the center of civilization." He studied law at University College London . He returned to India after attaining his degree to practice law in England.
He tried to establish himself as a lawyer in Bombay , but wasnot very successful, because at that time the legal profession was supersaturated and Gandhi was not a dynamic figure in the courts. He returned to practicing Rajkot modest task of preparing petitions for litigants. He had to leave this task after an altercation with a British officer in an incident in which he tried to plead his older brother.
[ edit ]Work in South Africa
In the year 1893 ,agreed to sign an employment contract for a year with an Indian company operating in Natal (South Africa) . He became interested in the situation of the 150,000 compatriots residing there, fighting the laws that discriminated against Indians in South Africa by passive resistance and civil disobedience .
However, the incident would serve as a catalyst for his political activism occurred several yearslater, when traveling to Pretoria was forced out of the train where the station traveling in Pietermaritzburg, after refusing to move from the first class where he traveled to the third class, which was intended for black people. Later, traveling in a stagecoach, he was beaten by the driver when he refused to give up her seat to a white passenger leather. Moreover, on this trip humiliationssuffered by not giving other accommodation in several hotels because of their race. This experience gave him much more in touch with the everyday problems experienced black people in South Africa. And in this country, having suffered racism, prejudice and injustice began to question the social situation of his countrymen and his same society.
When his contract ended, prepared to return to India. Atthe farewell party in his honor in Durban, leafing through a newspaper reported that a law was being developed in the Legislative Assembly of Natal, which would deny the vote to Indians. He postponed his return to India and set about the task of preparing several petitions to both the Natal Assembly as the British government trying to prevent this law is approved. While it did not succeed, since thelaw was enacted, did, however, draw attention to the problems of racial discrimination against Indians in South Africa.
He extended his stay in this country, founding the Party Natal Indian Congress in 1894 . Through this organization was able to unite the Indian community in South Africa into a homogeneous political force, flooding the press and the government with allegations of violation ofcivil rights of Indians and evidence of British discrimination in South Africa.
Gandhi returned to India briefly to take his wife and children to South Africa. On his return in January 1897, a group of white men attacked him and tried to lynch him. As a clear indication of the values ​​that keep for life, justice refused to denounce their attackers, saying it was one of his principles not to...