Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India, on 2 October 1869. Although his father was prime minister to the maharaja of Porbandar, the family came from the traditional grocer caste (the name Gandhi means grocer ). His mother's religion was Jainism, a Hindu religion in which the ideas of nonviolence and vegetarianism are very important. Gandhi said he was influenced above all by his mother, whose life was an endless chain of fasts and vows. When he secretly smoked, ate meat, told lies, or wore Western clothes in the company of childhood friends, he felt an intense sense of guilt. These feelings forced him to make decisions about his moral behavior that would accompany him for the rest of his life. Gandhi married at the age of 13. When he was 18 he went to London to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1891 and for a time was a lawyer in Bombay. From 1893 to 1914 he worked for an Indian company in South Africa. During these years Gandhi's humiliating experiences of open and official racial discrimination and afartheid pushed him to agitate on behalf of the Indian community of South Africa. He initiated protest campaigns and organized demonstrations, but never used violence. His philosophy was to never react to atrocities, but at the same time never retreat. This, he said, would lessen the hatred against him and his fellow believers, and increase the respect felt towards him. Gandhi's goal was that everyone - Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, whites and blacks - could live together in peace and harmony. Under the banner We are citizens of the empire he brought together Indians from all over South Africa for a freedom march. He gradually developed his techniques and principles of non-violent resistance and when he returned to India in January 1915 he was celebrated as a national hero. Soon he was asked to participate and organize India's freedom struggle, while fighting against the Aphatheids in South Africa. Then he began his journey to discover the real India, life in the 700,000 small villages and countryside with all the hard-working men and women. These were the ones he would represent in his fight for justice. As time passed, more and more people learned about Gandhi and his controversial views, and Gandhi's popularity grew incredibly fast, something that the viceroy and the British government did not approve of at all..