Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi participated in numerous activities in South Africa against the government before becoming a leader for Indian independence.
Explanation:
Studied law in London, sailed to South Africa in 1893, when requested by a friend to be a lawyer for his cousin. Â Stayed in Africa for 21 years, where he developed his political views, ethics and politics. It was in South Africa where he led his first campaign of non - violent resistance for civil rights.
His campaigns:
1. Natal government's discriminatory proposal in South Africa to deny voting rights to Indians, led Gandhi to assist Indians in opposing the bill, a right which can be utilized only by the Europeans. Though unable to stop the passage of the bill, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa.
2. He helped in founding the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, moulding the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force.
3. During the Boer war in 1900, Gandhi served as a volunteer and formed a group of stretcher - bearers as the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps. Gandhi raised eleven hundred Indian volunteers, to support British combat troops against the Boers. The volunteers were trained and were medically certified to serve on the front lines.
4. His services (had to carry the wounded soldiers for miles to the hospital as the terrain was too rough for the ambulance at the battle of Spion Kop) earned him to receive the Queen's South Africa Medal.
5. Gandhi adopted the methodology of Satyagraha (non - violent protest) for the first time in 1906, when the Transvaal government promulgated a new Act compelling the registration of the colony's Indian and Chinese populations.
6. He focused on racial persecution of Indians in South Africa.
7. In 1906, when the Bristish declared war against the Zulu kingdom in Natal, Gandhi helped both the parties by volunteering as a stretcher - bearer corps to treat wounded British soldiers and the Zulu victims. His attitute for helping the Zulu victims was condemned by the British.
8. In 1910, Gandhi with the help of his friend Hermann Kallenbach established an idealistic community named as "Tolstoy Farm" near Johannesburg where he nurtured his policy of peaceful resistance.
9. In 1915, at the age of 45, he returned to India and started to organise peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land - tax and discrimination against the British rule in India.
In the years after the black South Africans gained the right to vote in South Africa (1994), Gandhi was proclaimed a national hero with numerous monuments.
Gandhi became the leader of the Indian National Congress in 1920.
