How Mahatma Gandhi started a nonviolent revolution
As a young lawyer, Mohandas Gandhi wasn’t especially interested in politics—until 1894, when a law set out to disenfranchise Indians in South Africa. This is the story of how he became a global icon of resistance.
Born in 1869 into a professional, middle-class family in northwest India, Mohandas Gandhi followed in his father’s footsteps to become a lawyer. Thanks to his command of the English language (his second after Gujarati), Gandhi was able to study for his law degree in London, traveling there in 1888. He often reflected on his Hinduism and was influenced by radical British thinkers who were critical of Victorian society. After returning to India to poor job prospects, he accepted a legal post with an Indian firm in Natal, South Africa, in 1893. Many Indians had been brought to South Africa as indentured laborers and enslaved people by British and Dutch colonists, and, along with Africans, suffered grave discrimination. Once, Gandhi was thrown off a train for refusing to leave the “whites only” first-class carriage. Despite his indignation at the racism he encountered, Gandhi was not especially interested in politics until 1894 when the Natal Legislature introduced a bill to disenfranchise Indians. The new law sparked the young lawyer’s principle of nonviolent resistance, known as satyagraha. This led Gandhi to his first great struggle: the founding of the Natal Indian Congress and a campaign to fight for Indian rights.
The Salt March
In South Africa, Gandhi developed his theory and practice of nonviolent resistance. His study of Christianity and Islam also confirmed a lifelong belief in the necessity of peaceful coexistence among religions. Upon returning to India in 1915, Gandhi’s initial support of the British during World War I shifted to an increasingly critical stance. The 1919 Rowlatt Act, which allowed British authorities to imprison suspects without trial prompted Gandhi to organize a campaign of satyagraha. Although the call to peaceful activism was widely heeded, violent outbreaks did occur. British soldiers opened fire on unarmed protestors at Jallianwala Bagh in Punjab in April 1919, killing several hundred people. Gandhi was jailed for sedition in 1922, and by his release in 1924 was the most famous man in India. In 1930, he launched another satyagraha campaign against the British government’s new law to limit the Indian production and sale of salt, an important staple. Gandhi led the 240-mile Salt March in late March and early April of that year, destined for the coastal village of Dandi, where he collected salt in open violation of the law. By combining nonviolence with spectacle, and uniting Indians across caste and religion, Gandhi sealed his reputation as not only India’s leader but also a global icon of resistance.
International negotiator
The protests against the salt laws resulted in the imprisonment of tens of thousands of Indians, including many figures from the Indian National Congress. In March 1931, the British viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, signed a pact with Gandhi to neutralize some of the salt laws and to release political prisoners, in exchange for Gandhi calling off the campaign. In addition to these concessions, the pact was significant for its recognition of Gandhi as the central figure in negotiations. In September of that year, Gandhi was invited to London to attend the second Round Table Conference with the British government to discuss India’s future. In this photograph, a London crowd greets the famous Indian activist, whose loincloth and sandals caused a sensation. Although the conference achieved little, it proved to be a successful propaganda coup for the Indian national movement.
Spinning salvation
Gandhi repeatedly urged his fellow Indians to return to using spinning wheels in their homes, as he is doing in this image from the 1930s. The humble charkha, a wheel used to spin cotton into yarn, became a powerful symbol of Indian aspirations for independence. Just as the Salt March had used an economic grievance to make a powerful visual statement, people spinning at home would allow India to dispense with the imported British garments that were ruining the domestic textile industry and the Indian economy. Spinning, Gandhi asserted, instilled values of self-sufficiency, and was calming, meditative, and even spiritual: “Every day I spin for a time. While I spin, I think. I think of many things. But always from those thoughts I try to keep out bitterness. Study this spinning wheel of mine. It would teach you a great deal more than I can—patience, industry, simplicity. This spinning wheel is for India’s starving millions the symbol of salvation.”
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Fasting for freedom
Hinduism, interfaith dialogue, and activism all played roles in Gandhi’s political creed. Accustomed to fasting as a form of penance and purification, he came to believe that hunger strikes could also be an effective method of political struggle. “Fasting unto death,” Gandhi argued, “is an integral part of [the] satyagraha programme, and it is the greatest and most effective weapon in its armory.” In this photo, Gandhi lies in bed to conserve his energy during a 1939 hunger strike, which he held for several days until the British authorities agreed to release satyagraha prisoners. In January 1948, five months after India and the newly created Pakistan had achieved independence, Gandhi declared he would starve himself to death unless Hindu-Muslim-Sikh violence in Delhi was halted. Political leaders scrambled to act, and the killings stopped. To many in India, Gandhi was Mahatma, a Sanskrit title meaning “Great Soul.” Not all Indians, however, agreed: Nearly two weeks after his last hunger strike ended, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist. India was plunged into mourning, and one million people joined his funeral procession.
