Mohandas K. Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 into a family of moderate wealth in western India. Trained as a lawyer, he would go on to demonstrate against racism in South Africa and colonial rule in India, using a technique of satyagraha, or nonviolent resistance. A testament to the revolutionary power of nonviolence, Gandhi directly influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., who argued that "the Gandhian phi losophy of nonviolence is the only logical and moral approach to the solution of the race problem in the United States."
At the age of eighteen, Gandhi sailed to England to study law. He soon began to combine his legal studies with philosophical and intellectual pursuits, reading the Bhagavad Gita and the New Testament. In 1893, he accepted an offer to work in South Africa. There, through continued study, he developed a belief in the futility of violence and began his lifelong practice of fasting. It was also in South Africa where Gandhi was first exposed to blatant racial prejudice, leading him to explore ways of achieving social change. " South Africa gave me the start to my life's mission," he said.
In 1906, Gandhi called a meeting of 3,000 Indians in Johannesburg to discuss a strategy for defeating the Asiatic Registration Ordinance, a statute that required all Indian immigrants to register with the government. All those in attendance pledged to disobey the registration legislation and to accept the penalties that would result from their resistance. This meeting proved to be critical in the development of Gandhi's strategy and the formation of the concept of satyagraha.
It was not long after the Johannesburg meeting when Gandhi read Thoreau's Essay on Civil Disobedience, the same essay that would later influence King. The essay provided Gandhi with a means for articulating his concept for nonviolent resistance in English. Inspired by Thoreau's insistence on disobeying unjust policies, Gandhi spent the next seven years leading the struggle on behalf of the Indian minority in South Africa. This philosophy also influenced Gandhi's thinking about India, as expressed in Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule), a 1909 booklet outlining his early thoughts regarding Indian independence. Gandhi wrote that "violence was no remedy for India's ills” and that the country's civilization “required the use of a different and higher weapon for self-protection."
In 1914, at the age of forty-four, Gandhi returned to India. In 1919, British authorities announced the Rowlatt Bills, a policy that allowed for the incarceration of "dangerous" persons in India without trial or legal representation. Gandhi responded to the Rowlatt Bills by calling for a hartal—an extended demonstration or work stoppage—to raise consciousness and demonstrate the effectiveness of a massive general strike. Gandhi called for a national day of fasting, meetings, and suspension of work to take place on April 6. The hartal was to serve as a warning of what lay ahead if colonial authorities failed to show sensitivity to India, and it was the beginning of Gandhi's first nationwide satyagraha campaign.
Gandhi traveled throughout the country, educating the public about satyagraha. A pledge was published, stating that unless the legislation was withdrawn, "we shall refuse civilly to obey these laws . . . and will faithfully follow truth and refrain from violence to life, person or property." Despite careful planning, protestors responded to violent attacks by police, and Gandhi felt compelled to define more clearly his call for a national satyagraha. Satyagraha, he declared, "is pledged to nonviolence, and, unless people observe it in thought, word and deed, I cannot offer mass Satyagraha."
In December 1928, Gandhi attended a session of the Indian National Congress Party in Calcutta where the Congress called for Indian independence. On 10 January 1930, Gandhi drafted the declaration, which stated:
The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually. . . . Therefore . . . India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or complete independence.
The first step in the national disobedience campaign was to oppose the Salt Laws, laws which made it illegal to prepare salt from sea-water because it would deny the British colonial government its tax. The Congress passed a resolution giving Gandhi the power to organize the campaign. On 6 April 1930, Gandhi stepped on Dandi beach and evaporated sea water to obtain salt crystals, encouraging anyone willing to risk prosecution to do the same. There was also a national boycott of imports, specifically of British goods. Because the national press was forbidden to report news regarding government repression, the satyagrahis produced their own leaflets.
The Salt Laws satyagraha was an example of an effective nonviolent campaign that was not based on vengeance. The Indians sent a message to the British government that they were united and committed to the struggle for independence. Over 60,000 individuals subjected themselves to prison, many of whom were wounded or killed. After a full year of struggle, the government agreed to participate in negotiations with the Congress. Gandhi was released from jail and invited to meet with the British Government. As the sole representative of the Indian National Congress, Gandhi agreed to a truce and ended the civil disobedience campaign. The government made some concessions in the 'Gandhi–Irwin Pact' and further negotiations continued.
Following a change in British government in late 1931, however, Gandhi learned that his agreement with Lord Irwin had been abandoned by British authorities. Gandhi revived the satyagraha and was soon back in jail. He called for a number of civil disobedience acts against the colonial authorities, but the British made efforts to isolate him and neutralize his influence. In April 1932 the movement began losing momentum, and by 1933 the government claimed victory.
While in prison, Gandhi began a fast to protest the policy of separate electorates for untouchables—those who occupied India's lowest caste—within India's new constitution. The fast elicited public attention, helped to refocus attention on the problem of untouchability, and resulted in a major campaign. A resolution was passed by India's Constituent Assembly in 1947 making the practice of untouchability illegal. It was a historic decision that the New York Times compared with the abolition of slavery.
Despite Gandhi's urgings, on 15 August 1947, in the midst of violence and rioting, Britain transferred power to a partitioned India, creating the two independent states of India and Pakistan. Gandhi was dejected by the sacrifice of unity in India's independence, as he wrote, "it would be on the question of Hindu-Moslem unity that my Ahimsa [nonviolence] would be put to its severest test."
On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was assassinated while entering a prayer meeting in New Delhi. The man who demonstrated to the world the revolutionary power of nonviolence to counter racism in South Africa, colonial rule in India, and the economic exploitation of workers and peasants was gone; but Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence would go on to directly influence Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement, as well as many other nonviolent struggles throughout the world.