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Born in Porbandar, India, Gandhi studied law and organized boycotts against British institutions in peaceful forms of civil disobedience. Young Gandhi was a shy, unremarkable student who was so timid that he slept with the lights on even as a teenager.

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In the ensuing years, the teenager rebelled by smoking, eating meat and stealing change from household servants. Although Gandhi was interested in becoming a doctor, his father hoped he would also become a government minister and steered him to enter the legal profession. Upon returning to India in , Gandhi learned that his mother had died just weeks earlier.

He struggled to gain his footing as a lawyer. In his first courtroom case, a nervous Gandhi blanked when the time came to cross-examine a witness. He immediately fled the courtroom after reimbursing his client for his legal fees. Gandhi grew up worshiping the Hindu god Vishnu and following Jainism, a morally rigorous ancient Indian religion that espoused non-violence, fasting, meditation and vegetarianism.

He immersed himself in sacred Hindu spiritual texts and adopted a life of simplicity, austerity, fasting and celibacy that was free of material goods. After struggling to find work as a lawyer in India, Gandhi obtained a one-year contract to perform legal services in South Africa. When Gandhi arrived in South Africa, he was quickly appalled by the discrimination and racial segregation faced by Indian immigrants at the hands of white British and Boer authorities.

Upon his first appearance in a Durban courtroom, Gandhi was asked to remove his turban. He refused and left the court instead. Refusing to move to the back of the train, Gandhi was forcibly removed and thrown off the train at a station in Pietermaritzburg. From that night forward, the small, unassuming man would grow into a giant force for civil rights.

Gandhi prepared to return to India at the end of his year-long contract until he learned, at his farewell party, of a bill before the Natal Legislative Assembly that would deprive Indians of the right to vote.