Gandhi soon became an outspoken critic of South Africa's discrimination policies. This so angered the Boer population that at one point a white mob almost lynched him. At the turn of the century, the British fought the Boers over control of South Africa with its rich gold and diamond mines. Gandhi sympathized with the Boers, but sided with Britain because he then believed that the British Empire ";existed for the benefit of the world. In , the Boer legislature passed a law requiring that all Indians register with the police and be fingerprinted.
Gandhi, along with many other Indians, refused to obey this law. He was arrested and put in jail, the first of many times he would be imprisoned for disobeying what he believed to be unjust laws. Gandhi adopted the term "civil disobedience" to describe his strategy of non-violently refusing to cooperate with injustice, but he preferred the Sanskrit word satyagraha devotion to truth.
Following his release from jail, he continued to protest the registration law by supporting labor strikes and organizing a massive non-violent march. Finally, the Boer government agreed to a compromise that ended the most objectionable parts of the registration law. Having spent more than 20 years in South Africa, Gandhi decided that his remaining life's work awaited him in India. As he left South Africa in , the leader of the Boer government remarked, The saint has left our shores, I sincerely hope forever.
When Gandhi returned to India, he was already a hero in his native land. He had abandoned his western clothing for the simple homespun dress of the poor people.
This was his way of announcing that the time had come for Indians to assert their independence from British domination. He preached to the Indian masses to spin and weave in lieu of buying British cloth.
The British had controlled India since about the time of the American Revolution. Gaining independence would be difficult, because Indians were far from united. Although most Indians were Hindus, a sizeable minority were Muslims. The relationship between the two groups was always uneasy and sometimes violent.
One of Britain's main economic interests in India was to sell its manufactured cloth to the Indian people. As Britain flooded India with cheap cotton textiles, the village hand-spinning and weaving economy in India was crippled. Millions of Indians were thrown out of work and into poverty.
Gandhi struggled throughout his life against what he considered three great evils afflicting India. One was British rule, which Gandhi believed impoverished the Indian people by destroying their village-based cloth-making industry. The second evil was Hindu-Muslim disunity caused by years of religious hatred. The last evil was the Hindu tradition of classifying millions of Indians as a caste of " untouchables ".
Untouchables, those Indians born into the lowest social class, faced severe discrimination and could only practice the lowest occupations. In , while Britain was fighting in World War I , Gandhi supported peasants protesting unfair taxes imposed by wealthy landowners in the Bihar province in northeastern India. Huge crowds followed him wherever he went. Gandhi declared that the peasants were living "under a reign of terror.
The British arrested Gandhi and put him on trial. But under pressure from Gandhi's crowds of supporters, British authorities released him and eventually abolished the unjust tax system. Gandhi later said, "I declared that the British could not order me around in my own country. Despite his differences with Britain, Gandhi actually supported the recruitment of Indian soldiers to help the British war effort.
He believed that Britain would return the favor by granting independence to India after the war. Instead of granting India independence after World War I, Britain continued its colonial regime and tightened restrictions on civil liberties. Gandhi responded by calling for strikes and other acts of peaceful civil disobedience. During one protest assembly held in defiance of British orders, colonial troops fired into the crowd, killing more than people.
A British general then carried out public floggings and a humiliating "crawling order. The massacre and crawling order turned Gandhi against any further cooperation with the British government. In August , he urged Indians to withdraw their children from British-run schools, boycott the law courts, quit their colonial government jobs, and continue to refuse to buy imported cloth.
Now called "Mahatma," meaning "Great Soul," Gandhi spoke to large crowds throughout the country. Many answered Gandhi's call.
But as the movement spread, Indians started rioting in some places. When India finally gained independence, the problem became how Hindus and Muslims would share power. Distrust spilled over into violence. Gandhi spoke out for peace and forgiveness.
He opposed dividing the country into Hindu and Muslim nations, believing in one unified India. In May , British, Hindu, and Muslim political leaders, but not Gandhi, reached an agreement for independence that created a Hindu-dominated India and a Muslim Pakistan. As Independence Day August 15, approached, an explosion of Hindu and Muslim looting, rape, and murder erupted throughout the land. Millions of Hindus and Muslims fled their homes, crossing the borders into India or Pakistan.
An old man, he weakened rapidly, but he did not break his fast until Hindu and Muslim leaders came to him pledging peace. Days later, an assassin shot and killed Gandhi. The assassin was a Hindu who believed Gandhi had sold out to the Muslims.
Gandhi and others like Martin Luther King Jr. Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma. Massachusetts: Beacon Press. Alumni Volunteers The Boardroom Alumni. Curriculum Materials. Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil.
It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt?
Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Documents of Freedom — Civil Discourse and Petitioning. American Portraits — Henry David Thoreau. Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau full version.
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