Mahatma Gandhi Manav Patel Mahatma Karamchand Gandhi was a humanitarian who used peaceful topics to fight for the freedom of India. He walked 250 miles from his Ashram to Dandi, a coast off of Eastern India. He then proceeded to pick up a lump of salt, thereby defying British Law. This story leads us to ask the question, why did Gandhi’s nonviolent movement work? Basically, he could convince the people to join him instead of killing off nonbelievers.
When India was in depression, the British East India company heavily taxed salt. Many civilians were not able to afford a necessity in cooking. In order to stand up for these monopolies, Mohandas Gandhi started the salt march. According to “Gandhi and the Salt March”, “Gandhi began a march from his communal village in western India to the coast to gather salt for free.” This explains how Gandhi stood up against the monopolies with his followers by walking through these marshes and boiling the water gained in order to produce salt which was illegal at the time.
When the British began taxing salt and not allowing Indians to manufacture and collect their own salt, Gandhi stepped in and wrote a letter to the British governor of India. He was determined to show the British what wrongs they have done to India and to convert them through nonviolence (Doc 1.) Even when Gandhi was in jail, he inspired his followers to march without the use violence. None of his followers fought back even when they were beaten (Doc 4.) Being in jail for a total of 2,338 days, he “never felt the slightest hesitation in entering the prisoner’s box.”
Gandhi convinced the Indians that he could get them their independence. They would get their independence long as they didn't cooperate. Gandhi used a couple of lines from the Declaration of Independence that in other words meant, “if a law is unjust, then it is not a law.” Gandhi also told his people that in order to pretext they had to be willing to get jail time. Gandhi's methods worked because both his people and him were uncooperative.
“..I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram [Community] as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws.” (Document A, Gandhi). Gandhi knew he had people to back him and fight, (nonviolently speaking), with him. Even before the Salt March truly began people lined up behind Gandhi and joined him in his march for freedom. The loyalty of these people is what really kept the movement alive.
In July 1846, Thoreau was arrested and spent a night in jail. This prompted Thoreau to write his famous essay,"Civil Disobedience". Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of the Indian Independence Movement against the British rule. In March 12, 1930, Gandhi led a nonviolent march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt. This was later known to the world.
Gandhi once said, “An eye-for-an-eye makes the whole world blind.” What he meant is that fighting violence with violence helped no one. During his lifetime, Gandhi fought against oppressive British rule in India, and his journey was known throughout the world. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela both shared Gandhi’s thirst for freedom, basing their respective movements for peace on Gandhi’s. All three men fought peacefully for equality, whether it was for India’s freedom from the British empire, emancipation from apartheid laws that prohibited black Africans from being truly free, or liberation from Jim Crow laws to keep black Americans inferior to whites.
At the time the only distributor of salt was the British as they were controlling it through their rule. The problem with this was that not only were they selling Indian salt, but they were also placing high taxes on the salt that they were distributing. Once the Indians had had enough of paying for their own salt, Gandhi had started a salt march, he marched all the way to the ocean’s shore and created his own salt, meaning the he wouldn’t have to buy it off the British. Then the rest of the Indians started doing this too, they would march all to the shore and make their own salt. The profits off salt for the British quickly declined, from the lack of purchases from the Indians.
Before the Salt March in 1930, Mohandas Gandhi wrote a letter to Lord Irwin, a representative of the British Crown. In the letter’s conclusion, Gandhi uses specific word choice, repetition, and a calm but firm tone to appeal to Lord Irwin and to present his case. Gandhi was very deliberate when it came to the words he used. This is especially true in his letter to Lord Irwin about the salt monopoly that the British had in India. In his letter, Gandhi uses words like “risk” and “evil” to present his argument.
This was to protest British rule in India. During this march that was led by Mohandas Gandhi, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi to the Arabian Sea coast, this distance was
Gandhi then led the Salt March, one of the largest civil disobedience acts of all
In the early 20th century there lived a very influential man that would soon help to change many people's lives for the better, Mahatma Gandhi. Not only did Gandhi see racial prejudice in India, but in South Africa as well. He showed people all over the world that the best way to get rights as human beings is fighting without violence. In South Africa, Gandhi saw how effective non-violence could be implementing social reform. These experiences in South Africa, later helped to shape his political activism in India.
On January 30, 1948 the world lost a great man or a "great soul" if you will. Without the ways and ideals of Mahatma "great soul" Gandhi the world wouldn't be the way it is today. There is no doubt in my mind that Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most inspirational figures of all time from his pursuit of non-violence to his stance on religion itself and legacy that he left behind. Gandhi took a very strong stance on what he believed in and did whatever it took to get his knowledge and opinion to others. His political stance was simple, no violence, Gandhi wanted to rid the world of violence.
In 1896, Gandhi started a campaign to end racial discrimination by whites toward the Indian people.(Gale) When Gandhi arrived in Africa again to bring his family there news of his campaign traveled and an angry mob stoned and attempted to lynch him. In 1931, Gandhi attended the Second Round Table Conference in London after establishing a pact with the viceroy, Lord Irwin, where civil disobedience would stop regarding the “salt march”. During the Conference, Churchill refused to see him only referring to Gandhi as a “half-naked fakir.”(Gale) In Gandhi’s time in Africa he helped pass a law declaring Indian marriages to be valid. Rather than other leaders that would enforce violence because of the situation India was in, Gandhi enforced Pacifism this influenced peaceful protesting against Britain’s rule.
At the sea, Gandhi picked up a handful of salt. This act went against the British law mandating that they buy salt from their government and this law did not allow them to collect their own salt. That act was made to let the British government know that the Indian people were tired of being under Britain’s rule and they were tired of following all of the unjust laws that were
