Other Forms of Resistance
From the early 1920s, Gandhi dominated the Indian National Congress and had achieved personal prestige so high, the title of Mahatma (great soul) was bestowed upon him.
The British imprisoned Gandhi in an act of retaliation but later released him. Because of increasing violence from India towards Britain, Gandhi, in 1924, was forced to call an end to his campaign of non-cooperation.
Salt Tax Protest
In 1930, in protest against the government's salt tax, Gandhi and his followers began their famous 200-mile march to extract salt from the sea. This drew the wrath of the British, who again imprisoned Gandhi. While imprisoned, Gandhi would begin to fast in protest. This drew anger and resentment from the British who knew that should Gandhi die while wrongly imprisoned, there would be far-reaching and grave repercussions from the people of India.
Read more in The Essential Gandhi (page 226).
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Gandhi was released from prison in 1931 to attend the London Round Table Conference on India as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. Gandhi resigned from politics in 1934 when the Congress refused to embrace his program in its entirety. So great had Gandhi's influence been, however, that his protege, Jawarhalal Nehru, was named leader of the organization.
ReplyDeleteIndia's Independence
Despite his withdrawal from the political arena, Gandhi continued with his program for a free and united India. In 1942, he proposed that India would fully cooperate with Britain in World War II if the British would grant immediate independence to India. This offer was rejected, and Gandhi thereby called for Satyagraha and launched the Quit India campaign. For this, he was interned until 1944.
At the close of WWII in 1945, Gandhi was a major figure in postwar conferences with the viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, and Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Gandhi's years of tireless campaigning reached a culmination in 1947 when India successfully gained its independence from Britain. Gandhi hoped secession from Britain would not lead to the ultimate partitioning of India: he believed those of Muslim and Hindu faith could coexist peacefully. Despite this, however, a separate Muslim state (Pakistan) was carved out as a result of India's independence and on January 30, 1948, while holding a prayer and pacification meeting in New Delhi, Gandhi was fatally shot by a Hindu fanatic. His assassin, Nathuram Godse, was angered by Gandhi's solicitude for the Muslims.
Following his death in 1948, Gandhi's methods of civil disobedience and non-violence were adopted by civil rights leaders in the United States (Martin Luther King, Jr.) and by many protest movements throughout the world (Daisaku Ikeda and Nelson Mandela).
Information you should also know
ReplyDelete• The first Satyagraha revolutions inspired by Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian Independence Movement occurred in Kheda district of Gujarat and the Champaran district of Bihar between the years of 1918 and 1919. Champaran Satyagraha was the first to be started but the word Satyagraha was used for the first time in Anti Rowlatt agitation. (The Essential Gandhi pages 121-127) and check your e-mail
• Gandhi’s fasting tactics in and out of jail (Read page 241 in The Essential).