Short and Simple Paper on Mohandas Ghandi

Following World War One, Great Britain was still one of the top world military powers. Due to Britain's powerful Navy sailing the seven seas, Great Britain had vast control over the world through its many colonies. Although none of the colonies were able to challenge Great Britain military, one particular colony, India, was able to relieve itself from the control of Great Britain. This was possible through India's revolutionary leader, Mohandas Gandhi and his philosophy of Satygraha which means truth and firmness. Under this philosophy, Gandhi led India to nonviolent protests that revolved around a lack of cooperation with the British monarchy and economic attacks to the British economy.

Mohandas Gandhi grew up in a prosperous Hindu family. He was married at thirteen and left his hometown to pursue a career of law in London. After getting a profound law degree, he went to South Africa to work in an Indian firm where he began involved with organizing the Indian to unite against the system of racial segregation that put the Indian race as second-class citizens. Through the twenty-five years in South Africa practicing law and encouraging people to rise against the social segregation, he developed a moral philosophy of tolerance and of nonviolence.

Since India's economy and military were nowhere near as developed or powerful as Great Britain, a military or violent revolution to Great Britain would have undoubtedly failed. So instead, Gandhi used his principle of Satyagraha, which involved nonviolent protest and lack of cooperation, which proved to be an extremely effective method of going against Great Britain because the British could not do anything about the nonviolence. Most importantly were the economic protests, Gandhi proposed a boycott of all British goods, including schooling, and a refusal to taxpaying. The British could not do anything about the boycotts and had no way of enforcing their taxes. The most well known example of an effective boycott was the Salt March of 1930. Since Great Britain had a monopoly on salt, Gandhi lead his followers 165 miles to the Indian Sea, where he showed the Indians that they did not need the British for salt, all they had to do was boil seawater. Normally, a refusal to pay taxes would lead to imprisonment; however, when the protestors are not afraid of prison, throwing people in jail does nothing to help bring in taxes. As a result of the ineffectiveness of jailing the British tried a violent approach, but this did not have positive results. One such example of this violent approach is in Amritsar, when British troops fired into a crowd of unarmed people, killing 379 (117 History 20). Violence from the British gives the Indian people a sense of moral superiority, and portrayed the British as uncivilized, which gained the Indian people much public support. Since the British had no way to overcome Gandhi's Satyagraha, they eventually gave into the Indian's demands and passed the Indian Act, which went into effect in 1939, granting India the institutions of a self-governing state.

The legislation was a complete disaster because it gave the Hindus more power than the Muslim. The power divide between Hindu and Muslim was already in favor of Hindu before the legislation was passed. When the legislation was passed, it gave more legislative and economic power to Hindu. As the Great Depression hit the Indians, Muslims were becoming more and more unable to pay for their rents, food and other necessities to the Hindu landlord or business owners. As a result, the tension between the Muslims and Hindus worsened that led to a great divide. A brilliant Muslim lawyer, Muhammad Ali Jinnah who focused on the rights of the Muslims, proposed that the Indians split into two states. One would be India that was majority Hindus and another is Pakistan that was majority Muslims.

History 20 by Professor Roger Ransom's Lectures