Post date: Sep 06, 2010 1:53:58 AM

Greatest Gujarati Remembered Gandhi Jayanti - 2nd October========================= Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He pioneered satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, a philosophy firmly founded upon ahimsa:, or total nonviolence., which helped India to gain independence, and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is often referred to as Mahatma Gandhi (Sanskrit: mahātmā or "Great Soul", an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore), and in India also as Bapu (Gujarati: bāpu or "Father").  He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Gandhi first employed civil disobedience while an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, during the resident Indian community's struggle there for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he organised protests bypeasants, farmers, and urban labourers concerning excessive land-tax and

discrimination. After assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns to ease poverty, expand women's rights, build religious and ethnic amity, end untouchability, and increase economic self-reliance. Above all, he aimed to achieve Swaraj: or the

independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led his followers in the Non-cooperation movement that protested the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (240 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930.Later, in 1942, he launched the Quit India civil disobedience movement

demanding immediate independence for India. Gandhi spent a number of years in jail in both South Africa and India.

As a practitioner of ahimsa:, Gandhi swore to speak the truth and advocated that others do the same. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven from yarn that he had spun by hand himself. He ate simple vegetarian food,

experimented for a time with a fruitarian diet, and undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest.

Gandhi was born 2 October 1869, at the coastal town of Porbandar in the state of Gujarat and remains the greatest Gujarati of all times.