Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is an Indian lawyer, anti-colonialist nationalist and political ethicist who has used nonviolent resistance to successfully lead India's campaign for independence from British rule, and in turn inspire movements defense of civil rights and freedom around the world. Mahātmā honorific, which was first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is used all over the world. Born and raised to a Hindu family on the Gujarat coast in western India, Gandhi trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and was admitted to a bar at the age of 22 years old in June 1891. After two precarious years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law firm, he moved to South Africa in 1893, to represent an Indian businessman in a lawsuit. He continued to live in South Africa for 21 years. It was in South Africa that Gandhi raised a family and, for the first time, used nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915, at the age of 45, he returned to India.
India's nonviolent revolt (or Satyagraha) against the British Empire was headed by a passive resistance leader. He was a vocal opponent of India's caste system and campaigned tirelessly to eradicate segregation (or untouchability) in his nation.
