Mahatma Gandhi was born
On this day · 2 October 1869
On October 2, 1869, in a coastal town in western India, a future barrister was born who would make nonviolence a political force.
On October 2, 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, a small port town on the Kathiawar coast of western India. His father served as a local chief minister, and the household was devout — influences that would shape a lifelong fascination with conscience and self-discipline.
Trained as a barrister in London, Gandhi sharpened his political methods not in India but in South Africa, where decades of campaigning against racial injustice forged his philosophy of satyagraha — disciplined, nonviolent resistance to unjust laws.
Returning home, he became the moral center of India’s struggle for independence from British rule, leading mass campaigns such as the 1930 Salt March. India won independence in 1947; Gandhi was assassinated the following January.
His birthday is now observed worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.
Sources & references
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