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1. Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known by his honorific Mahatma or simply Gandhi, was a revolutionary figure in independence movements in South Africa and India. Gandhi became renowned for his extensive use of non-violent resistance tactics in the effort to dismantle British colonial rule over India. He first employed these tactics in South Africa to aid a local Indian population that lacked civil rights under the Apartheid regime. It was South Africa that first gave him the honorific Mahatma, meaning venerable in Sanskrit.
In India, Gandhi used a variety of tactics including extreme fasting to encourage non-violent resistance to British rule. He also helped cross-religious cooperation with Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist Indians. He encouraged mass boycotts of all foreign-made goods, but especially those coming from Britain. The movement was successful, with India gaining independence in 1947, only a year before Gandhi’s assassination at the hands of a Hindu nationalist.
The popular image of Gandhi is as an old man in traditional Hindu robes. However, as a young man, he cut a striking figure in a tailored suit. He studied law in London in the early 1900s and adopted the current styles of the time. With neatly parted hair and a dapper mustache, Gandhi is barely recognizable as the shrunken older man of international renown.