Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Gujarat, educated as a lawyer in London, and worked for twenty years in South Africa, where he developed his political philosophy. He returned to India in 1915 and transformed the independence movement.

Gandhi's principles

• Satyagraha ("truth force" / "soul force"): nonviolent resistance combining satya (truth) and agraha (firmness). Active, disciplined refusal to cooperate with unjust laws.
• Ahimsa (nonviolence): refusing to inflict harm, drawn from Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and Christian traditions.
• Civil disobedience: deliberate, public, nonviolent breaking of unjust laws, accompanied by willingness to accept punishment to expose the law's injustice.
• Swaraj: self-rule. Initially within the British Empire; eventually full independence.
• Swadeshi (self-sufficiency): boycott of British goods and revival of Indian production. The spinning wheel (charkha) became Gandhi's symbol.
• Simple living: homespun cloth, third-class train travel, ashram life — both principle and political symbolism.

Major campaigns

• Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–1922): Indians withdrew from British schools, courts, and factories. Millions participated. Gandhi suspended the movement after the Chauri Chaura violence (1922) and spent two years in prison.
• Salt March (March–April 1930): Gandhi led a 240-mile march to the sea to make salt illegally in protest of the British salt monopoly. A masterpiece of political theater that mobilized the poorest Indians around the simplest grievance. ~60,000 Indians arrested during the broader Civil Disobedience movement that followed.
• Quit India Movement (August 1942): In the middle of WWII, Gandhi called on Britain to leave India immediately. The British arrested Gandhi and most Congress leaders, who spent most of the war in prison.