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, & in turn inspired movements for civil rights & freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: "great-souled", "venerable"), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world. Gandhi trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in June 1891. After two uncertain years in India, during which he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in 1893 (to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit), where he stayed for 21 years. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule. The same year Gandhi adopted the Indian loincloth, or short dhoti and, in the winter, a shawl, both woven with yarn hand-spun on a traditional Indian spinning wheel, or charkha, as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. Thereafter, he lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community, ate simple vegetarian food, and undertook long fasts as a means of self-purification and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km Dandi Salt March in 1930, & later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. Gandhi is commonly, though not formally, considered the Father of the Nation in India, & was commonly called Bapu. gandi ghandi mother teresa theresa rosa parks maya angelou counseling books black history hindu buddhist mahabharata muhammad ali men created equal leaders thinkers live forever die tomorrow greatest fear determination dr martin luther king jr MLK