2. Mohandas Gandhi Mohandas Gandhi was born in the seaside town of Porbandar. Gandhi learned basic ideas of nonviolence from Hinduism, and Jainism.

3. Mohandas Gandhi (cont.) As Gandhi grew older, his family suggested he study law in London. In the fall of 1888, Gandhi left for London. His wife Kasturbai and son, Harilal, stayed with his parents.

4. Mohandas Gandhi (cont.) In London, Gandhi first read the Bhagavad-Gita, the wisdom of Hinduism. From this he took its ideal of the active but selfless human being. Gandhi obtained his law degree in 1891, then returned to India. Accepted an offer to work in South Africa.

5. Mohandas Gandhi (cont.) Gandhi first employed civil disobedience while in South Africa, during the resident Indian community’s struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he organized protests by peasants, farmers, and urban laborers concerning excessive land-tax and discrimination. After assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns to: ease poverty, expand women’s rights, build religious and ethnic amity, end “untouchability”, and increase economic self-reliance. Above all, he aimed to achieve Swaraj or the independence of India from foreign domination. Untouchables

6. Mohandas Gandhi (cont.) Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved in public service should lead a simple life. He first displayed this principle when he gave up wearing western-style clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. He renounces the western lifestyle he led in South Africa, never wearing anything else again.

7. Mohandas Gandhi (cont.) Gandhi famously led his followers in the Non-cooperation movement that protested the British-imposed salt tax with the 240 mile Dandi Salt March in 1930. (sounds like a civil rights march?) He launched the “Quit India” Movement in 1942, demanding immediate independence for India.

8. Mohandas Gandhi Gandhi dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India, advocating the use of homespun cloth (khadi). He and his followers adopted the practice of weaving their own clothes. The Swadeshi movement held that if Indians made their own clothes, it would deal an economic blow to the British establishment in India. Consequently, the charkha was later incorporated into the flag of the Indian National Congress.

9. Gandhi and Nonviolence Throughout this time in Gandhi’s life he was imprisoned repeatedly by the British. Despite this, Gandhi insisted that his followers continued to remain nonviolent. Gandhi believed that nonviolence gave a great moral power to its followers, as well as possibly sway the thoughts and actions of those who were viewed as cruel, thoughtless, and violent.

10. Gandhi and Nonviolence Gandhi named this power satyagraha (“reality force” or “holding onto truth”). Gandhi made use of every nonviolent technique imaginable. These techniques included marches, hunger strikes, and demonstrations.

11. Independence WWII, as well as all the efforts by Gandhi left the British government weakened. British forces finally agreed to leave India in 1947.

12. Mahatma Gandhi “Gandhi believed so much in loving tolerance that he hoped it could keep a newly independent India free of religious battles”(Molloy, 112). Muslim leaders feared oppression from the Hindu majority. Muslim leaders worked to create the new separate Muslim state of Pakistan. As a result of this, some Hindu militants wished for revenge.

13. Gandhi’s End In a fit of rage, one of the Hindu militants shot and killed Gandhi in 1948.