How Effective was Gandhi?
“It was inevitable that Britain should some day refuse to rule India and that India should some day refuse to be ruled.” Mahatma Gandhi is known as one of the 20th century’s most influential people and is seen in India as the Father of the Nation. How he achieved such status was through his attempts at protest, negotiation and non cooperation through his philosophy of Satyagraha to better the lives of the Indian people. While in the end his policies got the job done, one can ask if unwavering nonviolence really was the most effective way at ousting the British from India. Though failed non cooperation movements show Gandhi’s policy as being somewhat ineffective, analysis of the of the Salt March, its results and the way that Gandhi was able to rally followers show its importance. Gandhi’s policy of Satyagraha was in fact the most effective method of gaining India’s independence from Britain. Through the analysis of failed non cooperation movements, it can be seen that Gandhi’s policy of Satyagraha was not very effective. While Gandhi did a superb job at keeping his followers nonviolent, there were times when these attempts failed. After only four days, the joint Khalifat/Non Cooperation Movement of 1922 had to be called off because of the violence that ensued. During this tax strike, police fired on the crowd leading to the formation of a mob which burned down a police station, leading to twentyfive total deaths. Not only did the protest become