Gandhi is known as Mahatma (Great Soul) and Bapu (Father) in India and throughout the world. The Government of India honored him as the Father of the Indian Nation. His birthday on 2 October is celebrated in India with due dignity as Gandhi Jayanti. On June 15, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly declared October 2 as the International Day of Non-Violence. All member countries of the United Nations agree to observe this day.
As a British-educated lawyer, Gandhi first applied his ideology of non-violent peaceful civil society to the civil rights movement of oppressed Indian communities in South Africa. On his return to India he took with him some distressed peasant-day-labourers and started a movement against the discriminatory taxation system, widespread discrimination and started the Khilafat movement under the Deobandis. After coming to the leadership of the Indian National Congress, Gandhi started campaigning all over India on various issues including poverty alleviation, women’s freedom, establishment of brotherhood among different ethnic groups, elimination of apartheid, economic prosperity of the nation. But all these were aimed at swaraj i.e. freeing India from foreign rule. In 1930, Gandhi led the 400 km (248 mi) long Dundee Salt March to protest against the salt tax on Indians, which led to the Quit India Movement directly against British rule in 1942. He was imprisoned several times in South Africa and India for different reasons.
Mahatma Gandhi stood firm on the principle of non-violence and truth in all circumstances. He lived a simple life and established an autonomous ashram. Her own clothes were the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, which she wove herself on a spinning wheel. He ate simple vegetarian food. He used to eat more fruits in his last life. He fasted for a long time for self-purification and protest.