Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist. Ghandi employed nonviolent resistance that led the successful campaign for India's independence from British Rule, and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.
First Years:
Gandhi studied law at the Inner Temple. After 2 unsettled years in India, he was unable to start a law practice, so he moved to South Africa. He went there to represent an Indian merchant suit. He stayed in South Africa for 21 years, during those years he raised a family and was also first employed in nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915 Gandhi returned to India . He set a protest against land-tax and discrimmination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule .
Protesting:
Also in 1921 Gandhi adopted the loincloth , he lived modestly in a self -sufficient community , and undertook long fasts as a means of self-purification and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British imposed salt tax with the Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India.
Prison:
On March 18, 1922, a British colonial court convicted Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi of sedition after a protest march led to violence. He was sentenced to six years.” I care so deeply about this matter that I'm willing to take on the legal penalties, to sit in this prison cell, to sacrifice my freedom, in order to show you how deeply I care. Because when you see the depth of my concern, and how civil I am in going about this, you're bound to change your mind about me, to abandon your rigid, unjust position, and to let me help you see the truth of my cause. “
-Mohandas Gandhi
Movement:
On March 12, Gandhi set out from Sabarmati with 78 followers on a 241-mile march to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea. There, Gandhi and his supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater. All along the way, Gandhi addressed large crowds, and with each passing day an increasing number of people joined the salt satyagraha. By the time they reached Dandi on April 5, Gandhi was at the head of a crowd of tens of thousands.
Assasination
Mohandas Gandhi was on his way to his daily prayer meeting in New Delhi when an assassin shot him on January 30, 1948. The 78-year-old activist was known around the world for leading India’s independence movement against the British Empire. His death came less than a year after India finally won its independence, leaving the country “stunned and bewildered,” as The New York Times put it, as to how it would navigate its new nationhood without him.
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