Point to Ponder Destination India Mahatma You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of India’s independence move- ment and one of the most famous freedom fighters in the his- tory of mankind.

Gandhi was born on October 2nd, 1869 in Western India. At the age of 19 he left India to study law in London. After his studies, he accepted a job in South Africa where he was quickly appalled by the discrimination and racial segregation faced by Indian im- migrants at the hands of white British authorities. Although he was a peaceful man, Gandhi did not tolerate the racial discrimi- nation at the hands of white people. For as long as he stayed in South Africa, he encouraged people to fight against the injus- tice. Gandhi returned to India after almost twenty years. He became involved in India’s freedom struggle against British rulers, be- coming a leading figure in the Indian home-rule movement. He called for mass boycotts and urged government officials to stop working for the British Crown. He told students to stop attend- ing the British run schools and Indian soldiers to leave their posts in the British army. Gandhi also told citizens to stop pay- ing taxes and purchasing British goods. Rather than buy British-manufactured clothes, he began to use a portable spinning wheel to produce his own cloth, and the 1 ThePurplePrimer.com spinning wheel soon became a symbol of Indian independence and self-reliance. Gandhi assumed the leadership of the Indian National Congress and advocated a policy of non-violence and non-cooperation to achieve home-rule. Gandhi always preached and followed non-violent methods of protests like fasts and marches. His most famous march was in 1930 to protest Britain’s Salt Acts, which not only prohibited In- dians from collecting or selling salt, a staple of the Indian diet, but imposed a heavy tax that hit the country’s poorest especial- ly hard. Gandhi planned a 240 mile march to the Arabian Sea, where he would collect salt in symbolic defiance of the govern- ment monopoly. Wearing a homespun white shawl and sandals and carrying a walking stick, Gandhi set out from his religious retreat on March 12, 1930 with a few dozen followers. The number of marchers grew as he marched, and by the time he arrived 24 days later in the coastal town of Dandi 80,000 people joined him on the beach where he broke the law by making salt from evaporated seawater. The sparked similar protests, and approximately 60,000 Indians were jailed for breaking the Salt Acts, including Gandhi, who was also imprisoned. The protests against the Salt Acts elevated Gandhi into a global figure and he was named Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” for 1930. Gandhi left the Indian National Congress in 1934, and leadership passed to fellow advocate . Gandhi stepped away from politics to focus on education, poverty and the prob- lems facing India’s rural areas. Mahatma Gandhi later launched the ‘’ against the British. Indians asked the British to leave the coun-

2 ThePurplePrimer.com try. After several years of persuasion, finally, India received in- dependence on the 15th of August 1947 from the British. How- ever the country was divided into primarily Muslim Pakistan and Primarily Hindu India.

Although Gandhi was unhappy that India was divided he urged Hindus and Muslims to live together in peace. On January 30th, 1948 Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, upset at Gandhi’s toler- ance of Muslims shot and killed him. The violent act took the life of a pacifist who spent his life preaching non-violence.

Even after his death, Gandhi’s commitment to non-violence has been a beacon of hope for oppressed people throughout the world. Gandhi’s actions inspired future human rights move- ments around the globe, including those of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and in South Africa.

3 ThePurplePrimer.com Left: Mahatma Gandhi during the Salt March

Below: Mahatma Gandhi with his spinning wheel.

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