When you hear the name, you probably picture a thin man in a white loincloth, peering through round spectacles. He looks peaceful. Maybe even a bit frail. But if you really want to know who was the Mahatma Gandhi, you have to look past the postage stamps and the statues. He wasn't just a "saint." Honestly, he would have probably hated that label. He was a lawyer who failed his first case because he was too shy to speak. He was a political strategist who used silence as a weapon. He was a man who spent 2,338 days of his life in prison.
He was human.
Most people know him as the leader of the Indian independence movement. That’s the "textbook" version. But the real story is messier, more interesting, and way more complicated than a three-sentence summary. Born as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1869 in a small coastal town called Porbandar, he grew up in a household where religion and politics were basically the same thing. His father was a local politician; his mother was deeply devout. But as a teenager? He wasn't exactly a revolutionary. He smoked on the sly. He ate meat—which was a huge "no-no" in his family—just to see what it felt like to be "strong" like the British. He even tried to commit suicide once because of some minor family guilt.
The South African "Glitch" That Changed Everything
You can't understand who was the Mahatma Gandhi without talking about South Africa. He went there in 1893 just to handle a legal case for a year. He stayed for twenty-one.
We’ve all heard the story of him being kicked off a train at Pietermaritzburg because he refused to move to the third-class carriage. It’s a cinematic moment. But it wasn't just a one-off insult. It was a wake-up call. Gandhi realized that his British education and his fancy suit didn't matter to the people in power. To them, he was just a "coolie."
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In South Africa, he started experimenting. He didn't just wake up one day and decide to be a "Mahatma." He practiced. He failed. He organized. This is where he developed Satyagraha. It’s a Sanskrit word that roughly translates to "truth-force" or "soul-force." It sounds soft, doesn't it? It wasn't. It was about making the opponent realize their own injustice by refusing to cooperate with it. He organized strikes. He led marches. He got beaten. And he learned that if you have enough people willing to suffer without hitting back, you eventually make the person hitting you feel ashamed.
The Myth of the Perfect Saint
Let’s be real for a second. Gandhi had flaws. Modern historians like Ramachandra Guha or Joseph Lelyveld have pointed out that in his early years in South Africa, he wasn't always the champion of all oppressed people. His early writings show a clear bias toward Indians over Black South Africans. He grew out of it, but it’s a part of his journey that people often ignore because it doesn't fit the "perfect" narrative.
He was also incredibly difficult to live with. Ask his wife, Kasturba. Or his sons. He expected his family to live by his rigid moral standards, which included giving up all private property and practicing brahmacharya (celibacy) even while married. He was obsessed with diet, often eating only raw vegetables or nuts to "purify" himself. He treated his body like a laboratory.
Returning to India: The Man with the Spinning Wheel
When he returned to India in 1915, he didn't jump into politics right away. His mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, told him to keep his mouth shut and travel the country for a year. So he did. He rode in third-class train cars. He saw the poverty. He realized that the wealthy urban elites who were "leading" the independence movement had no idea what the villages actually needed.
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This is when the transformation really happened. He ditched the Western suits for the dhoti. He started using a spinning wheel (charkha).
Why the wheel? Because it was a brilliant economic middle finger to the British Empire. The British would take Indian cotton, ship it to mills in Lancashire, turn it into cloth, and sell it back to Indians at a profit. Gandhi told everyone to spin their own clothes. "If you don't buy their stuff, they can't stay," he basically said. It was lifestyle as revolution.
Major Milestones in the Struggle
- The Salt March (1930): The British taxed salt. Salt is a basic human need. Gandhi walked 240 miles to the sea to pick up a handful of mud and salt. It was illegal. It was also genius. It made the British look ridiculous for arresting people over salt.
- The Quit India Movement (1942): World War II was raging. Gandhi told the British to leave India immediately. He was jailed, and the country erupted.
- The Fasts: Gandhi used his own life as a bargaining chip. He would stop eating until the violence stopped. And it worked. Even hardened rioters would lay down their weapons because they didn't want the "old man" to die on their watch.
What People Get Wrong About Non-Violence
Non-violence (Ahimsa) wasn't cowardice. For Gandhi, it was the highest form of bravery. He once said that if he had to choose between cowardice and violence, he would choose violence. But he believed non-violence was the "law of our species."
He wasn't just trying to win independence; he was trying to change the Indian soul. He spent as much time fighting against "untouchability" (the caste-based discrimination in India) as he did fighting the British. He called the marginalized people Harijans (Children of God). While he didn't advocate for the total destruction of the caste system—which led to famous disagreements with the brilliant Dr. B.R. Ambedkar—he did insist that everyone was equal in the eyes of God.
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The Tragic End and the Legacy
Gandhi didn't get the "happily ever after" people think he did. When India finally gained independence in 1947, it was partitioned into India and Pakistan. It was a bloodbath. Millions were displaced. Hundreds of thousands died.
Gandhi was heartbroken. On August 15, 1947, he wasn't at the celebrations in Delhi. He was in Calcutta, fasting and praying to stop the communal rioting. He felt he had failed. A few months later, in January 1948, he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist, Nathuram Godse, who thought Gandhi was being too soft on Muslims.
His last words were "He Ram" (Oh God).
How to Apply the "Gandhi Method" Today
You don't have to wear a loincloth to learn from him. Whether you're an activist or just someone trying to live a better life, his principles are surprisingly practical.
- The Power of "No": Gandhi proved that withdrawal of consent is the ultimate power. If everyone stops participating in an unjust system, the system collapses.
- Be the Change: This is his most famous (and often misquoted) idea. He believed that if you want a peaceful world, you have to be peaceful. If you want a clean neighborhood, you start by cleaning your own street.
- Radical Transparency: Gandhi never hid his mistakes. He wrote an entire autobiography called The Story of My Experiments with Truth where he admitted to his lusts, his failures, and his doubts. There is massive power in being vulnerable.
- Consistency over Intensity: The Salt March wasn't a quick protest. It was a 24-day walk. It was the grind that won the day.
To truly understand who was the Mahatma Gandhi, we have to see him as a man of action rather than a statue of peace. He was a constant "experimenter." He was someone who believed that truth was something you didn't just speak—you lived it, even if it cost you everything.
If you want to dive deeper into the nuances of his life and the specific impact he had on global civil rights, your next step should be to read his own words. Skip the summaries and pick up a copy of The Story of My Experiments with Truth. It’s a raw, honest, and sometimes strange look into the mind of a man who changed the world by changing himself. Afterward, compare his philosophy with that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who took Gandhi’s "soul-force" and applied it to the American South. Understanding the bridge between these two leaders provides the clearest picture of how non-violent resistance actually functions in the real world.