Wenever anyone mentions Gandhi, the one thing that comes to mind was his nonviolent philosophy or passive resistance. Known to many followers as Mahatma, this name means “the great-souled one.” Becoming the leading figure in India’s struggle to gain independence from Great Britain, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation. He undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India’s poorest classes. January 30, marked the 63rd year anniversary of his assassination in Delhi by a Hindu fundamentalist.
Born on October 2, 1869 in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat, Gandhi had a father who was a chief minister of Porbandar and a mother who was a devoted practitioner of worshiping the Hindu god Vishnu. At 19 years old, he left home to study in London at the Inner Temple. Returning to India in mid-1891, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. Accepting a position with an Indian firm in South Africa, he moved there with his wife and children, living there for nearly 20 years.
Appalled by the discrimination he experienced because he was an Indian immigrant in South Africa, Gandhi began developing and teaching the concept of passive resistance. This was a method of non-cooperation with authorities. The first test of this concept came in 1906, when the Transvaal government passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian population. Gandhi led the campaign of civil disobedience, lasting for eight years. Hundreds of Indians went to jail and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged, and shot. Finally, the government accepted a compromise.
In 1914, Gandhi returned to India. As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain. Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress Party), Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools. However, after violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the movement and was arrested by British authorities in March 1922. Sentenced to six years in prison, he was, however, released in 1924 due to an operation for appendicitis.
Refraining from politics for the next several years, Gandhi returned in 1930 with a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government’s tax on salt. This resistance was called off in 1931 after the British authorizes made some concessions. However, Gandhi was arrested upon his return by a newly aggressive colonial government and began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India’s so-called “untouchables” (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or “children of God.” The fasting caused uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government. In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics.
After the Labor Party took power in Britain in 1947, negotiations began over Indian home rule between the British, the Congress Party, and the Muslim League. Britain granted India its independence, but split the country into India and Pakistan. Strongly opposing the partition, Gandhi still agreed hoping that they could achieve peace internally. However, massive riots followed, and resulted in Gandhi to undertake another hunger strike until the riots ceased.
In January 1948, Gandhi carried out another strike to bring out peace in Delhi. On January 20, 12 days after this fast had ended, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi, when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma’s efforts to negotiate with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi’s body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.
