Tag: arrival of gandhiji in india

Gandhiji popularised the word “Harijan”‘ meaning “the people of God”. He spent a year for their welfare in 1926. he preached that all human beings are equal and hence the Harijans too have a right for social life along with other caste groups. He went and stayed with them in their colonies, shared meals and performed all the tasks of cleaning along with them.

The Khudai Khidmatgars (“Servants of God”) was a movement led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. It was non violently mobilized to oppose the British in India’s Northwest Frontier Province. The main goal of the Khudai Khidmatgar was to win Indian independence and reform the social, religious, political, and economic life of the Pashtuns.

Kasturba Gandhi was an Indian political activist married to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Following the 'Quit India' movement, Kasturba joined her husband in detention at the Aga Khan's Palace in Poona. It is there that she died in 1944.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale was the political guru of Mahatma Gandhi.  Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and founder of the Servants of India Society. On his suggestion, Gandhi had embarked on a tour of the country to observe and understand the life and miseries of ordinary Indians after his return from South Africa.

Gandhi first propagated the philosophy of Satyagraha  and propelled the country towards a no class discrimination society. The campaigners went on peaceful marches and presented themselves for arrest in protest against unjust laws. This form of action later became one of the great political tools of the 20th century.

In April 1917, the Champaran Satyagraha in Motihari, Bihar laid the foundation for Gandhi in India. It was the first peasant movement to have garnered nationwide attention. It was a struggle of the cultivators who were forced by Europeans to grow indigo, a blue dye.

Mahatma Gandhi was never the President of the Indian National Congress; he served as the president only once in 1924 at the Belgaum session.

The Indian Opinion was a newspaper established by Mahatma Gandhi. He decided in 1903 to launch the newspaper in response to the growing need in South Africa to voice effectively the feelings of Indians against racial intolerance of the white regime. 

Gandhi emphasized that ahimsa is an active force of love and soul-power, not merely passive tolerance or cowardice. It requires standing up against injustice, not accepting it.

Gandhi believed that students should use their free time to engage with the community and help the underprivileged, which he termed social service.