Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once described Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as “a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace.”
An icon of peace and tolerance, Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement once helped wrest the nation from the hands of the British. Gandhi, who was born in Porbandar in Gujarat on October 2, 1869, was at the forefront of the non-violent struggle for freedom from the colonizers.
As India celebrates his birth anniversary today amidst worrying reports of communal violence and rising religious intolerance, here are some snapshots from his life that will remind its citizens of his legacy of harmony and acceptance.