Mahatma Gandhi
Indian independence activist (1869–1948)
Mahatma Gandhi: organizing nonviolent resistance
Law and protest in South Africa
Trained as a lawyer, Mohandas Gandhi developed his political methods while working among Indian communities in South Africa. Resistance to the Transvaal registration law from 1907 became a sustained satyagraha campaign. Imprisonment, collective discipline and negotiation gave practical shape to a strategy that rejected physical violence.
Mass politics after his return to India
After returning to India in 1915, Gandhi brought nonviolent protest into campaigns against colonial rule. The 1930 Salt March made a tax on an everyday necessity the focus of public defiance. His emphasis on self-rule joined political independence to questions of village life, labour and social inequality.
War, independence and division
The Quit India resolution of August 1942 led to Gandhi and other Congress leaders being jailed. His insistence on nonviolence did not prevent all unrest during the crackdown. India gained independence in 1947 amid partition and communal violence, a painful outcome for a leader who had argued for coexistence. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948.
Data and sources
B. R. Nanda, Mahatma Gandhi Pictorial Biography — Satyagraha in South Africa ↗
B. R. Nanda, Mahatma Gandhi Pictorial Biography — Quit India ↗