On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten up by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give up his seat for a European passenger.

Communal riots between Hindus and Muslims broke out in the country in the aftermath of partition. Born in a family in Kathiawar, Gujarat, his real name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (M.K. Gandhi). Gandhiji was arrested on May 4. He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust.

Over the following years, he worked hard to preserve Hindu-Muslim relations, and in 1924 he observed, from his prison cell, a 21-day fast when Hindu-Muslim riots broke out at Kohat, a military barracks on the Northwest Frontier. These were some of the concerns most prominent in Gandhi’s mind, but he was also to initiate a constructive programme for social reform.

Aspirations of the people for freedom under Gandhi’s leadership were rising high. He broke the law, which had deprived the poor man of his right to make salt .This simple act was immediately followed by a nation-wide defiance of the law. He decided to fight for the rights of Indians. We can still derive inspiration from the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi who wanted us to remember the age old saying, “In spite of death, life persists, and in spite of hatred, love persists.” Rabindranath Tagore addressed him as ‘Mahatma’ and the latter called the poet “Gurudev’.

Gandhiji's struggle bore fruit and in 1914 in an agreement between Gandhiji and South African Government, the main Indian demands were conceded.   Gandhiji returned to India in 1915 and on the advice of his political guru Gopal Krishna Gokhale, spent the first year touring throughout the country to know the real India.

But he was ‘a good man’ and good men are rare.