This day in History: January 30, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi assassinated

 

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, is assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu fanatic.

Born the son of an Indian official in 1869, Gandhi’s mother was deeply religious and early on exposed her son to Jainism, a morally rigorous Indian religion that advocated nonviolence.

Gandhi was an unremarkable student, but in 1888 was given an opportunity to study law in England. In 1891, he returned to India, but failing to find regular legal work he accepted in 1893 a one-year contract in South Africa.

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Settling in Natal, he witnessed South African laws that restricted the rights of Indian labourers. Gandhi later recalled an incident in which he was removed from the first-class compartment of a train, as a “moment of truth”.

From thereon, he decided to fight injustice and sought to defend his rights as an Indian and a man. When his contract expired, he decided to remain in South Africa and launched a campaign against legislation that would deprive Indians of the right to vote. He formed the Natal Indian Congress and drew attention to the plight of Indians in South Africa.

In 1906, the Transvaal government sought to further restrict the rights of Indians, and Gandhi organised his first campaign of satyagraha, or mass civil disobedience. After seven years of protest, he negotiated a compromise agreement with the South African government.

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In 1914, Gandhi returned to India and lived a life of abstinence and spirituality on the periphery of Indian politics. He supported Britain in the First World War but in 1919 launched a new satyagraha in protest at Britain’s military draft of Indians. Hundreds of thousands answered his call to resist, and by 1920 he was leader of the Indian movement for independence.

He reorganised the Indian National Congress as a political force and launched a boycott of British goods, services, and institutions in India. Then, in 1922, he abruptly called off the satyagraha when violence erupted. One month later, he was arrested by the colonial authorities for sedition, found guilty, and imprisoned.

After his release in 1924, he led an extended fast in protest at internecine Hindu-Muslim violence. In 1928, he returned to national politics when he demanded dominion status for India and in 1930 launched a mass protest against the British salt tax, which he said hurt India’s poor.

In his most famous campaign of civil disobedience, Gandhi and his followers marched to the Arabian Sea, where they made their own salt by evaporating sea water. The march, which resulted in the arrest of Gandhi and 60,000 others, earned new international support for the leader and his movement.

In 1931, Gandhi was released to attend the Round Table Conference on India in London as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The meeting was a disappointment, and after his return to India he was again imprisoned.

While in jail, he led another fast in protest at the British government’s treatment of the “untouchables”–the impoverished Indians who continue to occupy the lowest tiers of the caste system. In 1934, he left the Indian Congress Party to work for the economic development of India’s many poor. His protege, Jawaharlal Nehru, was named leader of the party in his place.

With the outbreak of World War II, Gandhi returned to politics and called for Indian co-operation with the British war effort in exchange for independence. Britain refused. In response, Gandhi launched the “Quit India” movement it 1942, which called for a total British withdrawal. Gandhi and other nationalist leaders were imprisoned until 1944.

In 1945, a new government came to power in Britain, and negotiations for India’s independence began in earnest. Gandhi sought a unified India, but the Muslim League, which had grown in influence during the war, disagreed.

After protracted talks, Britain agreed to create the two new independent states of India and Pakistan on August 15, 1947. Gandhi was greatly distressed by the partition, and bloody violence soon broke out between Hindus and Muslims in India.

In an effort to end India’s religious strife, he resorted to fasts and visits to the troubled areas. He was on one such vigil in New Delhi when Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist who objected to Gandhi’s tolerance for the Muslims, shot him dead. Known as Mahatma,or “the great soul,” during his lifetime, Gandhi’s persuasive methods of civil disobedience influenced leaders of civil rights movements around the world, such as Martin Luther King in the United States.

For a less favourable assessment of Gandhi’s life and work, watch this: