Mahatma Gandhi: Satyagraha, Civil Disobedience, and Legacy

Introduction: Gandhi's Life and Early Influences

Mahatma Gandhi — born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi — was a charismatic leader who brought the cause of India's independence from British colonial rule to the attention of the world. He was a pacifist, a human rights activist, and the moral leader of the Indian independence movement, which in 1947 introduced the concept of nonviolent resistance to end British colonial rule. Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence, which he termed satyagraha, influenced nationalist and international movements for peaceful change. His principle, often translated as "way of truth," inspired other democratic figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, and the 14th Dalai Lama. Gandhi's values were simple and drawn from his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth.

Mohandas was the fourth son of Karamchand Gandhi and his fourth wife, Putlibai, a devout Vaishnava. He grew up with Jain influences and learned early about the tenets of non-injury to living beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance among members of different creeds and sects. He married Kasturba Makharji when both were 13 years old, and they had four sons. He studied law in London and worked as an attorney in Bombay upon his return. Unsuccessful in his law practice and teaching, he accepted a year's work contract for a firm in Natal, South Africa.

It was his humiliating experiences of oppression in South Africa that changed him dramatically. He was thrown off a train for refusing to transfer from a first-class to a third-class coach, beaten by a driver for refusing to make room for a European passenger, and barred from many hotels because of his race. At that time, a bill was being considered by the Natal Legislative Assembly to deny suffrage to Indians. He solicited the support of his hosts, and though they were unable to prevent the passage of the bill, his campaign drew attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He founded the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 and led a protest march in November 1913. He solidified the Indian community of South Africa, extensively expressing Indian grievances and evidence of British discrimination. When a mob tried to lynch him in 1897, he refused to press charges, saying that it was his principle not to seek redress for a personal wrong in a court of law.

When the South African War broke out, he argued that Indians must support it in order to legitimize their claim to full citizenship (Wikipedia, 2005). He organized a volunteer ambulance corps of 300 free Indians and 800 indentured laborers. In response to the Transvaal government's new act compelling the registration of the colony's Indian population, a mass protest meeting was held in Johannesburg, with Gandhi adopting his platform of satyagraha — nonviolent protest. He called on his fellow Indians to disobey the new law and suffer the penalty rather than resist through violent means. A seven-year struggle followed during which thousands of Indians were imprisoned, flogged, or even shot for striking, refusing to register, or engaging in other nonviolent forms of resistance. Although the government succeeded in repressing the Indian protesters, the public outcry over the harsh measures applied against peaceful protesters compelled South African General Jan Christian Smuts to reach a compromise with Gandhi.