Indian history of the first half of the twentieth century is in fact the biography of the last fifty years of Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi, widely known as
Mahatma Gandhi or
Gandhiji. ‘Mahatma’ is a
Sanskrit term, also used in
Hindi and almost all other Indian languages, and it means ‘Great Soul’. For
India, officially, he is the Father of the Nation. For the World he is the modern apostle of
non-violence and a role model for morality and in public life, a great soul.