MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi pronunciation (helpinfo) (pronounced: [mondas krmtnd andi]; 2 October 1869[1] 30 January 1948), commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.[2][3] The son of a senior government official, Gandhi was born and raised in a Hindu Bania community in coastal Gujarat, and trained in law in London. Gandhi became famous by fighting for the civil rights of Muslim and Hindu Indians in South Africa, using new techniques of non-violent civil disobedience that he developed. Returning to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants to protest excessive land-taxes. A lifelong opponent of "communalism" (i.e. basing politics on religion) he reached out widely to all religious groups. He became a leader of Muslims protesting the declining status of the Caliphate. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, and above all for achieving Swarajthe independence of India from British domination. Gandhi led Indians in protesting the national salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in demanding the British to immediately Quit India in 1942, during World War II. He was imprisoned for that and for numerous other political offenses over the years. Gandhi sought to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He saw the villages as the core of the true India and promoted self-sufficiency; he did not support the industrialization programs of his disciple Jawaharlal Nehru. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. His chief political enemy in Britain was Winston Churchill,[4] who ridiculed him as a "half-naked fakir."[5] He was a dedicated vegetarian, and undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and political mobilization.

Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose ( listen (helpinfo); 23 January 1897 unknown) also known as Netaji (Bengali/Oriya/Hindi): Respected Leader), was one of the most prominent Indian nationalist leaders who attempted to gain India's independence from British rule by force during the waning years of World War II with the help of the Axis powers. Bose, who had been ousted from the Indian National Congress in 1939 following differences with the more conservative high command,[1] and subsequently placed under house arrest by the British, escaped from India in early 1941.[2] He turned to the Axis powers for help in gaining India's independence by force.[3] With Japanese support, he organised the Indian National Army (INA), composed largely of Indian soldiers of the British Indian army who had been captured in the Battle of Singapore by the Japanese. As the war turned against them, the Japanese came to support a number of countries to form provisional governments in the captured regions, including those in Burma, the Philippines and Vietnam, and in addition, the Provisional Government of Azad Hind, presided by Bose.[3] Bose's effort, however, was short lived; in 1945 the British army first halted and then reversed the Japanese U Go offensive, beginning the successful part of the Burma Campaign. The INA was driven down the Malay Peninsula, and surrendered with the recapture of Singapore. It was reported that Bose died soon thereafter from third degree burns received after attempting to escape in an overloaded Japanese plane which crashed in Taiwan,[4] which is disputed.[5] The trials of the INA soldiers at Red Fort, Delhi, in late 1945 caused huge public response in India.[6][7] Clement Attlee, the British Prime Minister during whose rule India became independent, mentioned that INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (which weakened the Indian Army the very foundation of the British Empire in India) and the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in 1946[8][9][10][11] were major reasons that made the British realise that they were no longer in a position to rule India.[12]

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (Hindustani: [darlal neru] (

listen); 14 November 1889 27 May 1964) was the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics for much of the 20th century. He emerged as the paramount leader of the Indian Independence Movement under the tutelage of Mahatma Gandhi and ruled India from its establishment as an independent nation in 1947 until his death in office in 1964.[4] Nehru is considered to be the architect of the modern Indian nation-state; a sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic.[5] He was the father of Indira Gandhi and the maternal grandfather of Rajiv Gandhi, who were to later serve as the third and sixth Prime Ministers of India, respectively. The son of a prominent lawyer and nationalist statesman, Nehru was a graduate of Cambridge University and the Inner Temple, where he trained to be a barrister. Upon his return to India, he enrolled at the Allahabad High Court while taking an interest in national politics. Nehru's involvement in politics would gradually replace his legal practice. A committed nationalist since his teenage years, Nehru became a rising figure in Indian politics during the upheavals of the 1910s. He became the preeminent leader of the leftwing factions of the Indian National Congress during the 1920s, and eventually of the entire Congress, with the tacit approval of his mentor, Gandhi. As Congress President, Nehru called for complete independence from Britain, and initiated a decisive shift towards the left in Indian politics. He was the principal author of the Indian Declaration of Independence (1929). Nehru and the Congress dominated Indian politics during the 1930s as the country moved towards independence. His idea of a secular nation state was seemingly validated when the Congress under his leadership swept the provincial elections in 1937 while the separatist Muslim League failed to form a government in any of the Indian provinces. But, these achievements were seriously compromised in the aftermath of the Quit India Movement in 1942 which saw the British effectively crush the Congress as a political organisation. Nehru, who had reluctantly heeded Gandhi's call for immediate independence, for he had desired to support the Allied war effort during the World War II, came out of a lengthy prison term to a much altered political landscape. The Muslim League under his old Congress colleague and now bte noire, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had come to dominate Muslim politics in India. Negotiations between Nehru and Jinnah for power sharing failed and gave way to the independence and bloody partition of India in 1947.

INDIRA PRIYADARSHINI GANDHI (Hindustani: [ndr

andi] ( listen); ne Nehru; 19 November 1917 31 October 1984) was the third Prime Minister of India and a central figure of the Indian National Congress party. Gandhi is the second-longest-serving Prime Minister (first 196677 and then from 1980 until her assassination in 1984) and the only woman to hold the office Indira Gandhi was the only child of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. She served as the Chief of Staff of her father's highly centralized administration between 1947 and 1964 and came to wield considerable unofficial influence in government. Elected Congress President in 1959, she was offered the premiership in succession to her father. Gandhi refused and instead chose to become a cabinet minister in the government. She finally consented to become Prime Minister in succession to Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966. As Prime Minister, Gandhi became known for her political ruthlessness and unprecedented centralisation of power. She presided over a period where India emerged with greater power than before to become the regional hegemon of South Asia with considerable political, economic, and military developments. Gandhi also presided over a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977 during which she ruled by decree and made lasting changes to the constitution of India. She was assassinated in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star. In 2001, Gandhi was voted the greatest Indian Prime Minister in a poll organised by India Today. She also came first in the "Woman of the Millennium" poll organised by the BBC in 1999.[1]

GOPAL KRISHNA GOKHALE,

CIE pronunciation (helpinfo)(Marathi: ) (9 May 1866 19 February 1915) was one of the founding social and political leaders during the Indian Independence Movement against the British Empire in India. Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and founder of the Servants of India Society. Through the Society as well as the Congress and other legislative bodies he served in, Gokhale promoted not only primarily independence from the British Empire but also social reform. To achieve his goals, Gokhale followed two overarching principles: non-violence and reform within existing government institutions. Background and education Gopal Krishna Gokhale was born on May 09, 1866 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, a state on the western coast of India that was then part of the Bombay Presidency. Although they were Chitpavan Brahmins, Gokhales family was relatively poor. Even so, they ensured that Gokhale received an English education, which would place Gokhale in a position to obtain employment as a clerk or minor official in the British Raj. Being one of the first generations of Indians to receive a university education, Gokhale graduated from Elphinstone College in 1884. Gokhales education tremendously influenced the course of his future career in addition to learning English, he was exposed to western political thought and became a great admirer of theorists such as John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke.[1] Although he would come to criticize unhesitatingly many aspects of the English colonial regime, the respect for English political theory and institutions that Gokhale acquired in his college years would remain with him for the rest of his life. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, was one of the founding social and political leaders during the Indian Independence Movement against the British Empire in India. Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and founder of the Servants of India Society. Through the Society as well as the Congress and other legislative bodies he served in, Gokhale promoted not only primarily independence from the British Empire but also social reform. To achieve his goals, Gokhale followed two overarching principles: non-violence and reform within existing government institutions.