Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is born in Porbandar, in the Porbandar State of the British Raj.
Gandhi's father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi, leaves Porbandar for Rajkot to become a counsellor to its ruler; the family later rejoins him.
Karamchand becomes diwan of Rajkot, while Porbandar’s diwan post is taken by his brother; Gandhi’s family life stabilizes in Rajkot.
Gandhi in 1876 at the age of 7
The family moves into their home, Kaba Gandhi No Delo, in Rajkot.
Gandhi enters the local school in Rajkot, studying basic arithmetic, history, Gujarati, and geography.
At age 13, Gandhi marries 14-year-old Kasturba Gandhi in an arranged marriage, losing a year of schooling but later making it up.
Gandhi’s father dies; shortly afterward, Gandhi and Kasturba’s first child is born but survives only a few days, events Gandhi later described as deeply anguishing.
Gandhi (right) with his eldest brother Laxmidas in 1886
Gandhi graduates from high school in Ahmedabad.
He enrolls at Samaldas College in Bhavnagar State, but soon drops out and returns home.
Kasturba gives birth to Gandhi’s first surviving child, Harilal Gandhi.
Gandhi leaves Porbandar for Bombay (Mumbai) to begin the journey to England for legal studies; he is later excommunicated by caste elders in Bombay for going.
He sails from Bombay to London and begins studies, including classes at University College, London.
Commemorative plaque at 20 Baron's Court Road, Barons Court, London
Gandhi studies law at the Inner Temple (via the City Law School), works to overcome his shyness, and engages with social issues in London.
Gandhi in London as a law student
He joins the London Vegetarian Society, is elected to its executive committee, and becomes active in vegetarian advocacy and related debates.
Gandhi continues committee work and social networking through the vegetarian movement, interacting with figures associated with moral and social reform currents.
Gandhi with the Vegetarian Society on the Isle of Wight, 1890
Gandhi is called to the bar and returns to India, learning that his mother had died while he was abroad.
He attempts to establish a law practice in Bombay without success, then works in Rajkot drafting petitions until conflict with a British officer forces him to stop.
Gandhi sails to South Africa to work as a lawyer in the Colony of Natal, beginning a 21-year period during which his political and ethical views develop substantially.
He experiences racial discrimination, including being thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg, and decides to protest rather than return to India.
After the Abdullah legal case ends, Gandhi extends his stay and helps organise resistance to proposed disfranchisement, moving from legal work toward community political leadership.
He helps found the Natal Indian Congress, which becomes a key vehicle for organising Indians in South Africa.
Gandhi prepares a legal brief for the Natal Assembly seeking voting rights for Indians, using arguments about how Indians should be classified within the colonial racial order.
Gandhi and the founders of the Natal Indian Congress, 1895
On landing in Durban, Gandhi is attacked by a mob of white settlers; he refuses to press charges against the attackers.
During the Second Boer War, Gandhi forms the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps as a stretcher-bearer unit; he and others later receive the Queen's South Africa Medal.
Gandhi (middle, third from right) with the stretcher-bearers of the Indian Ambulance Corps during the Boer War
Gandhi briefly returns to India to mobilise support for the welfare of Indians in South Africa, then continues his work abroad.
Gandhi and his wife Kasturba Gandhi (1902)
He starts the newspaper Indian Opinion, publishing in multiple languages to advocate for the Indian community and discuss social and political issues.
Advertisement of the Indian Opinion, a newspaper founded by Gandhi
The Transvaal government introduces a registration act requiring fingerprinting and identity certificates for Indians and Chinese; Gandhi’s resistance helps shape his developing understanding of Satyagraha as a defense of dignity and autonomy.
Gandhi in South Africa, 1906
At a mass protest meeting in Johannesburg, Gandhi adopts satyagraha (nonviolent protest/insistence on truth) as a political method for the first time.
During the Bambatha Rebellion, Gandhi supports forming a volunteer stretcher-bearer unit; the mixed Indian and African medical unit operates briefly before being disbanded.
Gandhi publishes Hind Swaraj, arguing that British rule in India depends on Indian co-operation and would collapse if Indians refused to co-operate.
Gandhi photographed in South Africa (1909)
With Hermann Kallenbach, Gandhi establishes Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg as an idealistic community to support peaceful resistance.
At the request of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Gandhi returns to India and joins the Indian National Congress.
Welcome received at Karachi after Gandhi's (seated in carriage on the right) return to India (1916)
Gandhi leads the Champaran Satyagraha in Bihar, pressing for concessions for indigo peasants against plantation owners backed by the local administration.
Gandhi organises the Kheda Satyagraha after floods and famine, supporting peasant tax relief through non-co-operation and negotiation.
Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the Kheda and Champaran Satyagrahas
During World War I, Gandhi attends a war conference and attempts to recruit Indians for enlistment, while maintaining he personally would not kill or injure anyone.
Gandhi warns the Viceroy that the Rowlatt Act will provoke civil disobedience; the act is enacted, and tensions escalate.
Gandhi supports the Khilafat Movement to seek Hindu–Muslim co-operation, but communal tensions later re-emerge as the movement collapses and Gandhi is arrested.
Gandhi (wearing a Gandhi cap) with Rabindranath Tagore and Sharda Mehta, 1920
Gandhi takes leadership of the Indian National Congress and escalates mass politics through non-co-operation, swadeshi, and boycotts of British institutions.
During campaigning, Gandhi adopts the loin-cloth as a symbol of identification with India’s poor while travelling and mobilising support for non-co-operation.
Gandhi with Annie Besant en route to a meeting in Madras in September 1921; in Madurai on 21 September 1921 he adopted the loin-cloth for the first time
Gandhi is arrested, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.
After his release from prison, Gandhi continues pursuing swaraj and political independence through political organising and advocacy.
At the Calcutta Congress, Gandhi helps push a resolution demanding dominion status for India, warning of further non-co-operation if Britain does not respond.
The Congress declares Indian independence; Gandhi leads celebrations marking the day in Lahore.
Gandhi leads the Salt March from Ahmedabad to Dandi to defy the British salt tax, catalysing a major civil disobedience campaign.
Gandhi picking salt during Salt Satyagraha to defy colonial law giving salt collection monopoly to the British
Gandhi is interned under a regulation dating from 1827 in advance of planned protests; subsequent demonstrations proceed without him and face brutal suppression.
The Gandhi–Irwin Pact is signed: the government agrees to free political prisoners in exchange for suspending the civil disobedience movement, and Gandhi is invited to talks in London.
Gandhi attends the Round Table Conferences (India) in London as the sole Congress representative; he opposes separate electorates and communal division in constitutional reforms.
An admiring East End crowd gathers to witness the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi, 1931
After returning from London, Gandhi is arrested again and imprisoned at Yerwada Jail; he begins a fast-unto-death in protest of the Communal Award.
The crisis over separate electorates results in the Poona Pact, replacing the Communal Award with a compromise following negotiations and public pressure.