Gandhi was born in 1869 in India and studied law in London. He faced discrimination in South Africa and began advocating for the rights of Indians there through nonviolent protests from 1893-1915. He returned to India in 1915 and advocated for independence through noncooperation with the British and civil disobedience such as boycotts and marches. Some of his most notable campaigns included the Salt March of 1930 and Quit India movement of 1942. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 but his ideals of nonviolence influenced India's independence movement and civil rights movements worldwide.

1. Series: Historical overview of nonviolence
Slides 2
Gandhi
Étienne Godinot
Translation : Claudia McKenny Engström
- 28.05.2015

2. Gandhi’s youth
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 - 30 January
1948), Indian political leader, spiritual guide and leader of the
independence movement in India, initiator of political nonviolence
in history.
Born in Pobandar, in Gujarat. Studies law in London, where he
opened up to rationality and western efficiency, deepens his
understanding of vegetarianism and Jainism (absolute respect for
life), discovers other religions and spiritualities.
Sent as lawyer in South Africa, English colony, he is kicked out of
a train because non-White travelling in First class.
Photos : - Student in London
- In South Africa, 1895

3. Gandhi in South Africa (1893-1915)
In 1894 he founds the Natal Indian Congress to defend the
rights of Indians in South Africa, namely the right to vote.
He creates an ambulance corps composed of volunteers
during the 2nd
Boers War, and creates in 1904 the
newspaper Indian Opinion.
Touched by John Ruskin’s Into this last, he creates the
Tolstoy Farm, starts wearing the khadi (Indian dress) and
participates in field work and latrines cleaning.
During a meeting in Johannesburg in 1906, he recommends
nonviolent resistance (satyagraha) against segregationist laws.
Photos :
-Gandhi and his wife Kasturbai in 1902
-John Ruskin.

4. Gandhi in South Africa (1893-1915)
The fight for Indians’ and non-White’s rights (Chinese, etc.)
lasts 7 years: strikes, refusal to register, destruction by fire
of registration cards, imprisonment, etc.
Civil disobedience culminates in 1913 with the minor’s strike
and the march of Indian women.
The victory of the anti-segregationists is acted on 30th
June
1914 by the Gandhi Smuts agreement, agreement
between Gandhi and General Smuts, governor of South
Africa.
Photos :
- Gandhi in Johannesburg
- General Jean Christiaan Smuts

5. Gandhi’s return to India (1915)
Back in India, Gandhi has become famous. He travels
around the country to encounter the Indian soul and know
its real needs. He founds the Sabarmati ashram, close to
Ahmedabad.
England dominates over 300 million Indians with 2000
Indian civil service civil servants, 10 000 officers and
60 000 British soldiers, reinforced by 200 000 Indian
soldiers, that is 1%.
Gandhi states that British presence is made possible only
thanks to the population’s collaboration: “Without our
support, 100 000 Europeans couldn’t even hold a seventh
of our villages”.
Photos :
-Indian civil service
-Rudyard Kipling : “ The mission to govern India has been placed, by some
impenetrable design of Providence, in the hands of the English race ”
(1889).

6. Gandhi’s first actions in India (1915-1919)
Gandhi organises the resistance of the landless farmers,
serfs, indigo growers in Champaran (Bihar) and
Kheda (Gujarat);
he recommends the farmers tax strike in the Bombay
region ruined by drought;
he takes the side of textile factory workers in
Ahmedabad.
That is when he is called Mahatma (“ great soul ”) or
Bapu (“ dad ”) and his celebrity grows in the whole
country.
Photos :
- Indigo growers in Champaran
- Gandhi in 1918 during the nonviolent actions in Champaran and Kheda

7. Gandhi’s first actions in India (1915-1919)
In reaction to the Rowlatt Act, new repressive
legislation imposed by the British in March
1919, he organises on 6th
April 1919 a
mourning day and total stop to all activities, a
hartal that paralyses the whole country.
- Publication of the Rowlatt Act in the press, repressive
legislation carried out by the Imperial legislative council,
inspired by commission presided by British judge Sydney
Rowlatt. It authorises imprisonment without trial, for two
years, of anyone suspected of terrorism or agitation. the
Rowlatt Act and press laws will be abrogated in 1922.
- Gandhi in 1922 at the Congress Party.

8. The campaign for independence
After the Amritsar massacre by British soldiers in 1919, he
launches the swaraj movement for economic and political
independence, and becomes, in December 1921,
executive leader of the Congress Party.
He asks Indians to weave and wear the khadi, traditional
dress, and boycott and burn English textile, courts,
schools and soldiers, renounce titles and honours received
from the coloniser.
Millions of Indians answer his call, 50 000 are thrown into
prison.
•Photos
- Amritsar massacre on 13th
April 1919 by General Dyer’s soldiers: 379 dead, 1137
wounded for 1650 bullets shot…
- Gandhi giving the example by weaving his clothes at home. The spinning wheel will
become a symbol printed on the Indian flag.

9. For a transformation of Indian society
After the massacre of 22 policemen in Chauri-Chaura by angry
demonstrators, Gandhi stops the civil disobedience movement. He
is tried and sentenced to 6 years imprisonment in 1922, a sentence
he will not complete.
From 1922 to 1928, he works to resolve the differences between
Hindus and Muslims and within the Congress Party (fast for 3
weeks in 1924).
But more importantly, he multiplies initiatives against segregation of
the untouchables, the caste system, children’s marriage,
alcoholism, ignorance and poverty, lack of hygiene.
Photos
- 3 weeks fast in 1924, next to Indira, Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter.
- Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), defender on the untouchables (dalits).
Opposed to Gandhi because he believes the cast system is co-substantial to
Hinduism, he converts to Buddhism and invites dalits to do the same.

10. From the Salt March to the independence
From 12th
March to 6th
April 1930, Gandhi led the “Salt
March” from Ahmedabad to Dandi (400 km) to protest
against taxes on salt, incite Indians to collect salt
themselves, pacifically invest salt mines. 60 000 Indians
were imprisoned.
In October 1930, the Congress decides a tax strike.
In January 1931, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, liberated Congress
leaders and invited Gandhi to negotiate. In April, he freed all
political prisoners and abolished laws on salt. Gandhi ends
civil disobedience.
Photos
- Salt March
- The Gandhi-Irwin Pact
Cf. Detailed Slides on the same subject in the series “Nonviolent Marches”.

11. From the Salt March to the independence
In September 1931, Gandhi went to London to participate in
the Round Table Conference, but came back “empty
handed”.
Some months later, the new conservative government in
London, led by Winston Churchill, gave the order to crush
the Congress.
Again, 100 000 Indians were imprisoned.
In May 1933, Gandhi started a fast that would last 21 days to
support the Untouchables.
Photos
- Round Table Conference in 1931
- During his 3 months stay in Europe after the Round Table Conference,
Gandhi met Romain Rolland

12. De la marche du sel à l’indépendance
In 1936, the Congress (independence party) largely
wins Parliament elections.
In 1942, while England in engaged in the Second World
War, Gandhi organises a new civil disobedience
campaign and calls to “ Quit India ! ”.
As for all Congress leaders, he is arrested on 9th
August
1942 and is detained for 2 years in the Agha Khan
Palace in Poona.
He will have spent 6 years of his life in prison.
Photos
- A demonstration during the Quit India! Campaign
- Gandhi at the end of his life.

13. India’s independence
Lord Mountbatten, new viceroy, is charged after the war,
by Prime Minister Clement Atlee, to grant India
independence.
It is celebrated on 15th
August 1947, but two States,
Pakistan (Muslim) and the secular Indian Union. This
“vivisection”, achieved by Muslim Muhammad Ali Jinnah
(photo above), but which Gandhi opposes. It will lead to
new popular movements and massacres of incredible
savagery.
On 13th
January 1948, at the age of 78, Gandhi launches
his last fast in Delhi to ask for the end of violence
between religious communities.

14. Gandhi’s assassination – His heritage
On 30th
January 1948, Gandhi is shot down in Delhi by
nationalist Hindu Nathuram Godse. Two million
Indians take part in his funeral.
When Nehru’s and other leaders’ objective was to get rid
of the British and achieve national independence,
Gandhi wanted to free the Indians from all forms of
alienation and oppression that weighed on them, and
that was not due to British occupation.
Photos
- Gandhi before his incineration
- Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

15. The choice of “modern” India
Very soon, namely because it did not follow the
Mahatma’s recommendations, the Congress
becomes a despotic party and India a bureaucracy, and at
the same time, a nuclear and military power.
Nehru axes India’s growth on industry, an economy
that does not suit a population rural at 82%.
Jayaprakash Narajan, “JP”, tries to remind leaders and the
population of Gandhi’s ideals and will become the true
political conscience of India.
He is imprisoned by Indira Gandhi in 1975…
Photos :
-Indian Nuclear trials in May 1974 in the Thar desert in Rajasthan
-- JP Narayan

16. Gandhi : a few quotes
Nonviolence, a means and not an end
“ Nonviolence is my credo, the breath of my life. But I
have never presented it in India or elsewhere as
such, except during informal conversation. I have
proposed it to the Congress as political method,
destined to solve political issues. It is possible that it
is a new method, but it does not make it loose its
political traits ”.
The new resistance movement “ is not so much about
taking the power from the British but to organise
Indian’s power ”.

17. Nonviolence, a state of mind and a strength
“ It is not so much the British weapons that our responsible
for our submission as our voluntary cooperation ”.
“ There exists the same intangible link between means and
end as in seed and tree ”.
“ In face with convincing arguments or not, Great-Britain
will defend its interest with all the strength it disposes of.
India, in consequence, must accumulate enough strength
to free itself from death’s embrace ”.
Photos :
-Departure of the Larzac-Paris march in November 1978
-Janadesh March, Ekta Parishad Movement in 2007.

18. Nonviolence : from persuasion to constraint
according to Gandhi
“ If, in spite of all efforts, we cannot obtain from the
richest that they protect the poor, if the latter are more
and more oppressed to the point they die of hunger,
what to do ?
It is by trying to find an answer to this question that
means of non-cooperation and civil disobedience
came to me as the only ones that are just and
efficient ”.
Photos :
- The Salt March in 1930
- Gandhi in London, explained to English workers why he boycotted
textile produced in Great-Britain.

19. Alter growth
according to Gandhi
• “ The Earth can produce enough to satisfy every man’s
needs, but it will never produce enough to satisfy every
man’s greed ”.
• “ Living simply for all to live simply ”.
• “ Get rid of misery, cultivate sobriety ! ”
• “ Do not promote mass production, but production for
masses ”.

20. Worrying for the poorest
according to Gandhi
The cow’s protection is “ the protection of all
life, of everything in this world that is weak and
harmless ”.
“ Remember the face of the poorest and
weakest man you ever met, and ask yourself if
the action you intend to commit would be useful
to him (…).
Will that lead to the liberation of the multitude
who starves, in body and spirit ? ”

21. Personal transformation and societal change
according to Gandhi
“ Be the change you want to see in the world ! ”
“True independence will not be achieved by a
handful, but by the power of all those who
oppose abuse of power. In other words, we
will reach independence by convincing the
masses that they have the possibility to
exercise power and hold it in respect ”.
Photo : Boycott of South African oranges during the
apartheid.

22. Pragmatism in action
Recognising one’s errors
according to Gandhi
“ It is my love for truth that has taught me the beauty
of compromise ”.
“ This error seemed to me, in its size, big like the
Himalayas. Before a people can proceed with civil
disobedience, it must understand fully its intimate
meaning ”.
Photos :
-Gandhi picking salt on a beach in Dandi
-Montgomerry bus boycott in 1955 by civil rights movement led by
Martin Luther King.

23. The place of women
according to Gandhi
“ If we mean by strength moral strength, then
women are infinitely superior to men. Don’t they
have greater intuition, an increased sense of
sacrifice, greater capacity for endurance, greater
courage ? (…).
If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future
belongs to women.”

24. Religion and spirituality
according to Gandhi
“ Make of us better Hindus, that will be more Christian than
trying to convert us ! ”
“ It is more just to say that truth is God, than to say God is
truth ”.
“ Religion is one tree with many branches. If we only see the
branches, we are tempted to say there are many religions;
but if we look at the tree as a whole, we understand there is
only one religion ”.
“ The best way to know God is to practice nonviolence ”.
Photos :
- Henri le Saux, Dominican who, after having met spiritual Tamul
Gnanananda, tookthe name Abhishiktananda (“the one who pouts joy in
ointment”)
- Symbols of the great religions and spiritualities.

25. The relation between Man and animal
according to Gandhi
“ The cow is a poem of compassion. When I see a
cow, I do not see an animal that must be eaten (…).
I worship it and will defend this worshipping
throughout the world. I believe in the cow’s
protection in a wider meaning than the one given to
it today (…). It is the protection of all life that is
weak and harmless. The cow’s protection means
the protection of all mute creatures created by God.
Inferior species’ call is louder because it is mute…
The cow’s protection means fraternity between men
and animals ”.

26. Gandhi’s vision of history
according to Gandhi
“ When I despair, I remember that throughout history, the paths
to freedom and goodness have always triumphed. There
have been tyrants and murderers, who sometimes have
seemed invincible, but in the end, they always fell ”.
This ideal, he said with humour, is “ the one of a fool ”…
Photos
- Nelson Mandela
- Aung San Suu Kyi
▪

27. Books writen by Gandhi

28. Books about Gandhi

29. Livres about Gandhi