On October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India, a region of Queen Victoria, Mohandas Gandhi was born to Kaba Gandhi and his wife. Although his father, Kaba, was the chief Minister for the Maharaja of Porbandar, he and his family lived in a small house and belonged to a Hindu caste of merchants called "banjas" (Iyer, 34) As he grew, Mohandas became a small, shy and skinny boy, afraid of others' opinions. At the age of thirteen, he was married to Kastaurbai, a pretty yet strong willed girl of the same caste. Kaba Gandhi died when Mohandas was sixteen.

At eighteen he traveled to England to study law and secretly to see for himself what made the English so powerful. In 1888, he traveled to England to become a barrister-at-law. There were several important influences that he encountered here: the West

ern material style of life, which he decided not to follow, and in the simple Russian way of living he found: the New Testament, and the Bhagavad-Gita, the bible of the Hare Krishna movement (Fischer, 54). It was here that he developed a sense of the presence of God in his life and the lives of men. Gandhi then returned to India and studied law in Bombay but quickly denounced it, feeling that it was immoral and could not satisfy one's conscience (Shirer, 69).

His personal experiences, including being ejected from a train in Maritzburg, of not being allowed the same rights as others lead him to begin a movement to help his people. While in South Africa, Gandhi made himself poor so that he could identify with the peasants. He then proceeded to start a colony that consisted of abused laborers. The colony became very large and many cities were crippled by the lack of laborers. The government reacted to this by jailing Gandhi several times along with many others of his followers.

In 1919, Gandhi called upon all Indians to engage in non-violent disobedience against the British Government by withdrawing from Government jobs and from schools and colleges. The magnitude of this act showed when many cities were held at a standstill, as the governmental system was unable to act (Iyer, 139). Such was the power of non-violent protest. When, in 1920, Gandhi became the leader of the Congress, more Indians gave up their governmental jobs to join the movement (Fischer, 213). After many of his follower's were put into prison and cruelly dealt with, some people engaged in violence.

Gandhi's death led to peace, as Hindus and Muslims alike joined in mourning for the slain Mahatma. Indeed, the entire world mourned flags were lowered to half-mast. Kings, popes, and presidents sent condolences to India (Palmer, 176).

After the law was passed that all Indians were required to carry an identity card with them at all times, Gandhi organized a group that resisted the government. In 1914, Gandhi and his followers received their first victory, the South African Government took away many of the laws that had no real purpose except to humiliate the Indian people. When Gandhi returned to India in 1914, the Indian population had heard of his accomplishments and he was given the name Mahatma, which means 'a man of great soul' (Reynolds, 143). For

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