Prominent Figures of the 20th Century...Prominent Figures of the 20th Century...

                                             Struggle For Independence

Self-government     

   Gandhi wanted self-government for India but he believed that all Indians must work for it as one hand. Trying to overcome the urban-rural divide, he transformed the Indian National Congress, which was confined on the upper and middle class to a strong national organization thus joining large sections of the -till then- excluded groups as women, merchants, the peasantry and youth. Gandhi also promoted among his countrymen national self-respect and confidence in their ability to put an end to British rule.

He then perfected the method of satyagraha that he had discovered in South Africa, and developed what he called the “new science of non-violence” involving moral conversion of the adversary by a delicate “surgery of the soul”.   

   "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good."                Gandhi                                                                                   

The Untouchables                                                                           In his trial to consolidate all Indians, Gandhi paid special attention to the 'untouchables'; the lowest rank in the Hindu religion that were terribly humiliated and were not allowed to do but the lowest work. When a family of Untouchables asked to join Gandhi's religious group (the Ashram), Gandhi welcomed them but then the neighbours threatened that they would boycott them and the wealthy Hindus who shared in supporting the group with money stopped their support.  

Instead of blenching, wise Gandhi decided to move the whole group to the part of the city where the Untouchables lived and planned that the whole group would earn its living by doing the low work that the Untouchables did. While carrying out his courageous plans, he was called aside by a Moslem merchant who told him he wanted to help the group and asked him if he would accept money from him. The following day after Gandhi approved, the merchant returned back with so much money that Gandhi said "God has sent us help at the last moment."   

                "Democracy is an impossible thing until the power is shared by all, but let not democracy degenerate into mobocracy."                                                          Gandhi                                     

    Gandhi was repeatedly imprisoned and resorted to hunger strikes as part of his civil disobedience. When World War II broke out, both the Congress Party and Gandhi decided not to support Britain unless the British grant them complete independence (the "Quit India" movement). He was again imprisoned (that was his final imprisonment) in 1942, but was released two years later, in 1944, because of failing health.

  By 1944 the British government had agreed to withdrawal from India on condition that the Congress Party and the Muslim League solve the problems between them. Despite of Gandhi's refusal and resistance to the idea of partition, India and Pakistan became separate states when the British withdrew from India in 1947.  (See video for Gandhi with Lord and Lady Mountbatten
of Burma at the Viceroy's Palace New Delhi.)

   In 1946 and 1947 severe fights broke out in many parts of India especially where Hindus and Muslims lived side by side. Gandhi lived among them alone and unprotected. In the parts where he lived, peace came sooner because when the two sides started fighting, Gandhi said he wouldn't eat until they stopped fighting. Both Hindus and Moslems respected him so much that they stopped.

  When the government of independent India decided, with public support, to break its promise of transferring to Pakistan its share of assets, he opposed the whole country, and successfully awakened its sense of honour and moral obligation through fasting. This wise and courageous act maddened some Hindu nationalists who could not understand him and thought he was harming the Hindus.