Mahatma Gandhi

• Gandhi brought freedom to India :-

• Gandhi the national icon

• First major achievement in 1981

• Rowlatt Act 1919

• Gandhi criticize violence from Indian

• Elected president of All India Home Rule League in April 1920

• The boycott of foreign made goods

• On March 21 to April 6, the well-known Salt March

• Gandhi Criticize Subhas Chandra Bose

Movement for Indian Independence by Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (October 2, 1869вЂ"January 30, 1948) was a national icon who led the struggle for India's independence from British colonial rule, empowered by tens of millions of common Indians. Throughout his life he opposed any form of terrorism or violence, instead using only the highest moral standards. His philosophy of nonviolence, for which he coined the term satyagraha, has influenced national and international nonviolent resistance movements to this day, including the American Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King.

Gandhi's first major achievements came in 1918 with the Champaran agitation and Kheda Satyagraha, although in the latter he was involved at par with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who acted as his right-hand and leader of the rebels. In Champaran, a district in the state of Bihar, he organized civil resistance on the part of tens of thousands of landless farmers and serfs, and poor farmers with small lands, who were forced to grow indigo and other cash crops instead of the food crops necessary for their survival. Suppressed by the ruthless militias of the landlords (mostly British), they were given measly compensation, leaving them mired in extreme poverty. The villages were kept extremely dirty and unhygienic, and alcoholism was rampant. Now in the throes of a devastating famine, the British levied an oppressive tax which they insisted on increasing in rate.

Rowlatt Act of 1919, which empowered the government to imprison those accused of sedition without trial, was passed. Gandhi and the Congress Party organized major protests and strikes, all of a non-violent character around the nation. All major Indian cities and towns shut down, and the government machinery had to be taken over by the Army. Thousands of people were arrested, and martial law was imposed in many parts of the country.

Gandhi criticized both the actions of the British, and the retaliatory violence of Indians. He famously authored the resolution offering condolences to British civilian victims and condemning the riots, which after initial opposition in the party, was accepted after Gandhi made an emotional speech pushing forth his principle that all violence was evil and could not be justified. Indians should not become guilty of the racial hate carried by the British, and should not punish innocent British civilians.

In April 1920, Gandhi was elected president of the All-India Home Rule League. He was invested with executive authority on behalf of the Indian National Congress in December 1921. Under Gandhi's leadership, the Congress was reorganized and given a new constitution, with the goal of swaraj (independence). Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee. Gandhi expanded his non-violence platform to include the swadeshi policy вЂ" the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. Linked to this was his advocacy that khadi (homespun cloth) be worn by all Indians instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi exhorted Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning khadi in support of the independence movement. This was a strategy to inculcate discipline and dedication to weed out the unwilling and ambitious, and include women in the movement at a time when many thought that such activities were not 'respectable' for women. In addition to boycotting British products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions and law courts, to resign from government employment, to refuse to pay taxes, and to forsake British titles.

Gandhi stayed out of the limelight for most of the 1920s, preferring to resolve the wedge between the Swaraj Party and the Indian National Congress. He returned to the fore in 1928. The year before, the British government appointed a new constitutional reform commission under Sir John Simon numbering not a single Indian in its ranks. The result was a boycott of the commission by Indian political parties. Gandhi pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominion status within a year or face a new campaign of non-violence

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