In 1869, when was born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, had passed 11 years since the British Crown had taken over the direct rule of British Raj (comprising at that time almost all present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar), and in 1948, when he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist, just had taken place the partition of the British Indian Empire, which had resulted in the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan (later split into the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh) and the Union of India (later Republic of India). As though he came into the world just to destroy the British Raj and to bring independence to India. Known in the West as Mahatma (Great Soul in Sanskrit), name given by Rabindranath Tagore, and in India as Bapu (endearment for "father" in Gujarati), he was not only the man who led India to independence, but also the one who inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world, his rules about nonviolent civil disobedience being followed by other important leaders and activists, as Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Cesar Chavez, or Desmond Tutu.
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