It was there in South Africa that Gandhi realised how bad the white settlers hated the Indian people. He was often resented and once got thrown off a bus for refusing to give up his seat. It was that day that he decided he would no longer be pushed away. He would fight for the rights of his fellow people. He swore that he would fight for his people without violence.
Gandhi started up a project, ashram, which united people of all religions to live together in peace. He soon went back to India and was received by many crowds of people cheering him at the harbour. He did not like all the fame he had been getting; he wanted to live like the poor people of India, out in the country. He started travelling through India on the train and third class wagons. Doing this, he saw what the real life was like for the less fortunate people of India.
From then on, Gandhi led the way to India’s independence. He soon became the Indian leader for home-rule, encouraging people to not buy British clothes. He realised that Britain got a lot of wealth from India buying clothes from them. He told people to burn all British clothes, and spin their own. He had been doing this for years.
His plan was a success, people made clothes for themselves. All clothes in India were made, and sold in India. Many people now realised that they no longer needed Britain for anything. Many products were rejected and factories were shut down making many British workers unemployed. This was the first important step to independence.
Britain however, wasn’t convinced that anything was going to happen until he asked India to go on a strike for a day, and they did. Everything stopped. The most important feature of this was the telegraph lines, they were closed. British people in India were cut off from their home country. It was then that Britain began to realise the power of Gandhi.
Gandhi was thrown in prison many times, quite a few times in South Africa and a lot in India. Spending a lot of time in a cell just gave him plenty of chances to think up new plans and ideas. He continued to lead the way to independence from Britain. Many of his plans led the enemy into confusion; Britain didn’t know how to fight someone using non-violence. Someone once told him that surely they had the right to kill someone if they killed their wife or child. He then replied “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”.
After the Second World War, in 1947, India became independent. Britain was pushed out completely.
Gandhi however was not pleased. Many religious fights broke out; he gave many non-violence and peace talks. With these speeches, people began to see peace and stop fighting. Indian was in union again.
A few months later, a Hindu fanatic shot him at his daily prayer.
I think that Mohandas Gandhi was one of the most influential people of the 20th century. He was the one that proved that non-violence works.
There are many organisations that have followed his footsteps. Greenpeace operates in the same way and many nuclear waste protestors never use violence. Another great weapon used by Gandhi is the strike. This year, many work forces have gone on strike because of things like conditions or pay.
He also showed the rest of the world that the biggest empire was pushed away without violence. This led to many countries becoming independent. In the 1960’s many of the African colonies also pushed out Britain.
Independence wasn’t the only thing that people realised could be done. People like Martin Luther King saw that fighting for the minorities rights could be done. Another example of this is the fights in South Africa under Ché Guevara.
Fights for rights still happen all over the world right now, I think we have to thank Gandhi for this. He started the fight for humanity in today’s world. He was the catalyst in a series of marches and protests. I think he was the most significant person in the fight for equal rights and independence.