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The family and extended relatives of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He pioneered satyagraha. This is defined as resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, a philosophy firmly founded upon ahimsa, or total nonviolence. This concept helped India to gain independence, and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is sometimes referred to as Mahatma Gandhi ([m%C9%99%C9%A6a%CB%90t%CC%AAma%CB%90]; Sanskrit: महात्मा mahātmā or "Great Soul", an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore),. In India he is also called Bapu (Gujarati: બાપુ, 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. During this time, he wrote articles for Indian newspapers about black people that some modern readers consider racist. After his return to India in 1915, he organised protests by peasants, 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.
Relatives include
- Kasturba Gandhi (Makhanji) - wife of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
- Karamchand Gandhi
- Chakravarti Rajagopalachari - Indian lawyer, Indian independence activist, politician, writer, statesman and leader of the Indian National Congress who served as the last Governor-General of India
- Devdas Gandhi - Gandhi's youngest son and prominent journalist, serving as editor of Hindustan Times
- Ramdas Gandhi - another one of Gandhi's sons; was active in his father's Indian independence movement
- Manilal Mohandas Gandhi - editor and activist
- Arun Gandhi - grandson of Gandhi through his second son Manilal; he is also a socio-political activist
- Sita Dhairyabala Dhupelia (Gandhi) - Manilal's daughter
- Harilal Mohandas Gandhi