Gandhi was born in 1869. He went to London to study aw and went on to become a barrister. He developed ideas of Satyagraha meaning ‘firmness to truth’. This basically means he would protest passively. He practised this method on South Africa for 21 years fighting for the right of Indians over there. After he returned to India and joined the I.N.C (Indian. National. Congress). This party was founded by the new Indian Middle Class. All these spoke English and most were lawyers. The first meeting was held on the 28th of December 1885.
Gandhi’s ideas of swaraj, (self-rule) came about as he thought that his people had fallen victim to Western ideology and need to return to simple village life. The I.N.C believed India should gain dominion status, an independent country within an empire, like Canada. This made independence more likely because a lot of people respected Gandhi and so would follow his lead. He formed Ashrams, small communities where people revived old Indian crafts. This meant less Indians would rely on new British crafts and so the wealth, which Britain thought it would make, would not be so. Gandhi used Satyagraha many a times. Even when faced with fierce policemen with sticks all those who believed in it would simply not fight back. If these harmless Indians were viciously attacked, and this was reported around the world, it would cast the British in a bad light. This meant public opinion would shift on the side of the Indians and so Britain would be pressurised to move out of India.
Gandhi’s personal actions such as homespun showed he was not above ordinary Indians. This unified them and in doing so became a greater problem for the British Empire, as they knew they all had the same common problem.
In 1920, Gandhi launched his first civil disobedience campaign, Homespun. He told Indians to weave their own cotton so not to buy British textiles. He encouraged Indians to burn their British made clothes. The cotton, which was grown in India, was sent to Britain to be manufactured then sent back to India for Indians to buy. If nobody bought British made clothes India would more likely get independence as Britain would find it hard to keep this industry going and so would pull out of India, as no profit would be made.
Another civil disobedience campaign was the salt march where thousands led by Gandhi marched to the Gujarat coast. Gandhi boiled sea water to make salt. This was a protest against the British monopoly of the salt trade. This took place in 1930. Gandhi idea was that the British authorities could not arrest 100 000 marchers. If the British acted it would look foolish on their part, as they would be arresting a man for making a pinch of salt. The world would se this as insignificant and so the British would be seen as unjust. This led to the first round table conference but no members of congress took part. Still this would go onto further conferences concerning India’s independence.
Civil disobedience campaigns were bound to fail as the British saw them as irrelevant and irritating. Gandhi spent a lot of years in prison and so his followers would change opinion and resort to violence.
His own beliefs would make him unpopular, as he did not like divisions. According to the Hindu religion, no caste could mix with another and yet Gandhi associated with the untouchables and even adopted a Harijan child. This would mean he would loose respect from higher classes. He also congregated with Muslims. By doing this it would split up his unified India and the one great enemy of the British Empire would become a few small ones.
India did not have independence in 1939. This was a problem for the British Empire as it had a whole country to control and on top of that a war with Germany. All ministers resigned so one British official from each province was left in charge. Indians asked for independence soon after the war and that Indians were to be placed on the Viceroy’s government. Britain did not give this power and if they did not accept India’s help under these serious conditions, when they really needed help, when would they?
Gandhi’s passive resistance did allow India to gain self-rule during the years 1918-1939, as it showed the brutal side to the British Empire against its unarmed subjects. Reported around the world were horrific scenes of violence which casted the British in a bad light. This allowed the world to see what the British were really like.
A more violent approach I think would have caused Britain to think the Indians could not control themselves and so would still be ruling them now, but on the other hand a more savage approach could have led the British into backing off. But this I think would have led to serious casualties. So in all I think Gandhi’s work made it more likely for India to gain independence from Britain.
