How did Hinduism influence Ghandi’s life?

Mohandas, or Mahatma, Gandhi was a famed civil rights and independence movement leader and a devout Hindu. Hinduism played the central role in his choice of tactics, lifestyle, and decision to change from a moderate reformer who was proud of being a citizen of the British Empire to arguing that British colonialism was inherently brutal and that only independence could bring liberation and prosperity to India.
Gandhi was the son of a mid-level bureaucrat of a princely state collaborating with the British and became a lawyer trained in England. In South Africa, he became the leader of the Indian community there, successfully using nonviolence to overturn some of the legal discrimination there. Similar tactics were greatly expanded in India with enormous success and eventual independence.
Gandhi was most of all influenced by his Hindu mother and regional Hindu temples and saints. But he was also influenced by the Jain faith, Henry Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, and Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. Based on all of these, he chose to live communally and simply, practicing and preaching nonviolence, vegetarianism, celibacy once one has had children, and communal economics.