In 1893, a young Indian man left his home to earn a living in South Africa. Soon after he arrived, he needed to travel to the capital, so his employer purchased a first-class train ticket for him. Mohandas Gandhi took his seat in the first-class compartment, but at one of the stations along the way, a white passenger boarded the train and refused to share the compartment with an Indian. The white man called the conductor, who told Gandhi to go to the luggage car. In his autobiography, Gandhi describes what happened:
"But, I have a first-class ticket," Gandhi protested.
"That doesn't matter," the conductor replied. "You must go to the luggage compartment."
"I tell you, I was permitted at Durban to travel in this compartment," Gandhi objected, "and I insist on staying in it."
When the conductor realized that Gandhi would not move, he called a police officer, and together, they threw him off the train.
This incident was the spark that began Gandhi's political activism. Humiliated and left by the side of the railroad tracks, Gandhi would one day lead India to independence and inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.
Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869. His parents were faithful Hindus and part of a well-respected caste of traders. The caste system divided India's population into different social classes. Some castes were held in high esteem; some were considered so low that their members were called "untouchables."
As a young man, Gandhi went to study law in London. Members of his caste, however, believed that by going to London, Gandhi was abandoning his faith, and they expelled him from the caste. While studying, Gandhi held true to his Hindu beliefs, but when he returned home, people avoided him anyway. He found he could not earn a living as a lawyer in India, so he decided to try his luck in South Africa.
South Africa had a large Indian community, and Gandhi was able to find work in the city of Durban in Natal province. Unfortunately, discrimination against Indians was common in South Africa. Indians could not leave their homes after 9:00 p.m., and businesses commonly refused to serve Indians. During Gandhi's time there, the government prepared legislation that would deny Indians the right to vote. Later, the government even decided to declare all Hindu marriages invalid.
In 1894, Gandhi founded the Natal Indian Congress in an effort to combat discrimination. For the next 12 years, Gandhi was politically active in South Africa, but he found that his attempts to protect Indians from prejudice largely failed. Letters, petitions, and protests did not help. Gandhi decided that the strategy behind the Indians' protests must change. He asked his protesters to embrace the idea of ahimsa─a Hindu word meaning "nonviolence." Gandhi realized that if Indians engaged in violent protest, the protest itself would be a reason for more oppression. Gandhi called his new method of protest satyagraha, or "devotion to truth." When faced with an unjust law, Gandhi and his followers would openly break the law, but not resist arrest. In 1906, when the government required all Indians to carry identity cards, Gandhi led his people in a satyagraha protest. South Africa's Indian citizens peacefully went on strike, refused to register, and burned their identity cards. Thousands were imprisoned, including Gandhi. Others were beaten, and some were shot. After seven years of brutally mistreating a population determined to be peaceful, the government faced a public outcry and was forced to compromise. The South African government had been shamed into doing the right thing.
When Gandhi returned to India in 1914, he arrived with the reputation of an influential political figure. He had also built a reputation as a spiritual leader who was deeply committed to peace. During his time in South Africa, whenever protesters fought back or resisted violently, Gandhi went on a hunger strike until his followers returned to the values of ahimsa. In India, he continued his fight against oppression and unjust rule.
At the time, India was ruled by the British. Many landless farmers worked for British landlords who paid them very little. They forced farmers to grow cash crops for export when the farmers themselves were desperately hungry. When Gandhi organized strikes against foreign landowners, he was quickly arrested. Thousands of his supporters protested, and the government yielded. They released Gandhi, and farmers were given more control over the land they farmed so that they could feed their families. After this, many Indians began to refer to Gandhi as Mahatma, which means "great soul."
Gandhi believed that the lives of Indians would not truly improve unless India gained independence. The political party most active in India's independence movement was the Congress Party, and although Gandhi never officially joined it, he became its unofficial spiritual leader. Over the next years, Gandhi led nonviolent protests designed to make British rule over India difficult.
One of Gandhi's most famous protests was the Salt March of 1930. Anyone in India who made salt was required to pay a tax, and Gandhi considered these "salt laws" to be a symbol of the injustice of British rule. Salt is a necessity of life and something that Indians could easily make or collect for free, but the salt laws forced them to pay for it. To protest this law, Gandhi began a march to the coastal town of Dandi. The 400─kilometer walk took him 28 days, and thousands joined him on his way to the sea. When they arrived, Gandhi walked to the edge of the ocean and made salt─an illegal act. The crowd followed his example of peaceful lawbreaking, and as the salt protest spread, over 60,000 were arrested. If the British wanted to rule India, they would have to imprison tens of thousands of people.
When Britain entered World War II in 1939, it unilaterally included India in the war without consulting India's leaders. Gandhi, however, believed his country could not help the British fight for their freedom when Britain was denying freedom to the Indian people. Unless India was granted immediate independence, the most Indians could offer was nonviolent moral support. As the war progressed, Gandhi increased his demands for independence, drafting a resolution calling for the British to "quit India."
The Quit India movement became massive. Unfortunately, sometimes ahimsa was forgotten in the excitement; both sides committed violent acts during the years of this struggle, and these troubled Gandhi deeply. Thousands died and hundreds of thousands were arrested, including Gandhi and the leaders of the Congress Party. The British held Gandhi for two years to separate him from his followers, but this strategy was not effective. Gandhi had become a symbol of Indian independence, and the protests only continued to grow. At the end of the war, the British announced that India would become an independent nation. Gandhi called off the struggle, and the Congress leadership and over 100,000 political prisoners were released. India became independent from British rule on August 15, 1947.
India was now free, but religious and ethnic differences led to the partition of the country, creating the state of Pakistan. Despite the partition, Gandhi worked tirelessly to promote peace. Sadly, on January 30, 1948, Gandhi was murdered by a religious extremist.
Gandhi's life and teachings have inspired leaders of freedom struggles around the world, including the civil rights movements in the United States and South Africa. Albert Einstein also believed that we should strive to follow in his footsteps: we should not use violence in fighting for our cause, and refuse to participate in anything we believe is evil. After Gandhi's death he said, "Generations to come will scarcely believe that such a one as this walked the earth." Mahatma Gandhi truly was a great soul.