NAME: ____________________________ PERIOD: ___ DATE: _________MR. XIAO / MRS. BRANFORD GLOBAL HISTORY 10

~ GANDHI REVIEW ~

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in India in 1869. He went to the University College of London, and studied law. During this period of his life, Gandhi considered himself to be a Briton first, and an Indian second.

In 1893, Gandhi traveled to South Africa for his job as a lawyer, and although he always thought of himself as being British, he was discriminated against due to his skin color and heritage. He was not allowed to sit in train cars and was asked to sit on the floor; was kicked by a police officer onto the street as Indians were not allowed to walk on the footpaths; and was kicked into the gutter for walking near a house.

Having witnessed the cruel treatment of the Indians by the British colonial government, Gandhi carried out a campaign of nonviolent resistance, or civil disobedience.

After the passage of the Rowlatt Acts and the subsequent Amritsar Massacre, Gandhi was convinced that Indians would never be treated fairly as long as the British Empire was in charge. However, he also urged all people to put a stop to the violence, and find peace ways to resist.

The first action taken by Gandhi and his followers was the Homespun Movement. Indians boycotted British-made clothing, and instead spun clothing in their own households. As a result, Gandhi was arrested and sentenced to six years of prison in 1922.

Under the rule of the British Empire, the local Indian population was not allowed to produce its own salt, and had to rely on British imports. Gandhi wrote to the viceroy (British governor) of India, and informed him that Gandhi and his followers will not obey these laws. In April 1930, Indians led by Gandhi marched to the sea to make salt themselves, in what is known as the Salt March. More than 60,000 Indians were imprisoned as a result.

However, due to the actions of Gandhi and his followers, the British Empire passed the Government of India Act in 1935, which allowed for more autonomy for the Indian subcontinent under British rule.__________________________________________________________________________________________

In WWII, India again fought on the side of the Allies, and more than 2.5 million Indian soldiers saw combat during the war. Indian troops fought against Nazi Germany in Europe and against Japan in Asia.

During the war, India also suffered terrible food shortages. In the Bengal Famine (1940-1943), between 2.1 to 3 million Indians perished. The famine was partly caused by the war itself, but also because Britain was actively exporting food despite the starvation. In addition, Britain refused help from America and Canada. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill denied requests to stop exporting food, and even the British officials in India compared his cruelty to that of Hitler.

“If the famine was so horrible, why had Gandhi not died of starvation?” He asked.

__________________________________________________________________________________________During WWII, Gandhi opposed any Indian involvement. While he condemned fascism and Nazism,

Gandhi believed that Indians could not truly fight for freedom and democracy when they were denied of them themselves. He was once more jailed for two years.

After the end of the war, the British Empire was ready to give up its colony in the Indian subcontinent. While Gandhi’s party, the Indian National Congress, wanted independence, the Muslim League wanted a partition (separation). The Muslim League was concerned about being in a country with a Hindu majority, and wanted a separate state for Muslims. In the end, the British Empire granted independence to the Indian subcontinent in 1947, but also divided the region into what is now Indian and Pakistan. The partition led to mass immigration between the two borders, as Hindus moved to India and Muslims to Pakistan. Problems left by the partition continue to this day, and India and Pakistan often engage in conflicts from border incidents to full-on wars since the 1947.