Q. Mahatma Gandhi was profoundly influenced by the writings of ____:
Answer: Leo Tolstoy
Notes: When Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi started to practice law in South Africa as a young barrister in the 1890s, he was confronted with glaring racial discrimination as well as various other injustices. It was then that he began to develop his satyagraha philosophy of nonviolence, through which he would later lead India to independence. Perhaps the most profound influence on Gandhi at this time were the ideas and living example of the Russian author Leo Tolstoy who, in the last year of his life, became Gandhi’s mentor on nonviolence. By directly influencing Mahatma Gandhi with this idea through his work The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Tolstoy has had a huge influence on the nonviolent resistance movement to this day.