Gandhi and his role in freedom movement of India Presented by CAAS. For more presentations ,Visit: www.caasgroup.net

1. MAHATMA GANDHI
1869-1948

2. Early Life/Background Info
• Born in Porbandar,
India
• Born on October 2,
1869
• Father was Diwan
(Prime Minister) of
Porbander
• Porbander was a small
state in the Kathiawar
Agency of British India

3. Early Life/Background Continued
• Mother was Putlibai
• Grew up with the Jain
traditions
• Jainism is an ancient
religion of India
• Traditions were
vegetarianism, religious
tolerance, fasting, and
compassion

4. Life As a Teenager
• Married Kasturbai
Makhanji at 13 years
old
• This was an arranged
child marriage
• Had 4 sons with
Kasturbai Makhanji

5. Education
• Average student in
school
• Went to England in 1888
to study law at University
of London
• Also learned to become a
barrister

6. Attempting to Establish a
Career in India: 1891-1893
• His attempts at establishing a law
practice in Mumbai failed. Later, after
failing to secure a part-time job as a high
school teacher, he ended up returning to
Rajkot to make a modest living drafting
petitions for litigants, a business he was
forced to close when he ran afoul of a
British officer. In his autobiography, he
refers to this incident as an unsuccessful
attempt to lobby on behalf of his older
brother. It was in this climate that, in April
1893, he accepted a year-long contract
from Dada Abdulla & Co., an Indian firm,
to a post in the Colony of Natal, South
Africa, then part of the British Empire

7. Gandhi in South Africa: 1893- 1914
• In South Africa, Gandhi faced
discrimination directed at Indians. He
was thrown off a train at
Pietermaritzburg after refusing to
move from the first class to a third
class coach while holding a valid first
class ticket. Traveling farther on by
stagecoach he was beaten by a
driver for refusing to travel on the foot
board to make room for a European
passenger. These events were a
turning point in his life, awakening
him to social injustice and influencing
his subsequent social activism.
Gandhi while serving in
the Ambulance Corps
during the Boer War.

8. South Africa Continued
• Stayed in Africa longer to
assist Indians in opposing
a bill that did not let them
vote
• Helped found Natal Indian
Congress in 1894
• This was a political force

9. South Africa Continued
• Adopted satyagraha
• This means “devotion to
the truth”
• Told Indians to defy the
law and suffer through
punishments instead of
resisting
• Satyagraha began to
mature

10. Accusations of Racism
• In one report, Gandhi said
that Kaffirs are dirty and
troublesome
• He also said the white
race should be the
predominant race in
South Africa
• This lead people to the
idea that he was racist

11. Maturing in South Africa
Gandhi and his wife Kasturba in South Africa (1902)

12. The South
Africa Years
Gandhi and his legal colleagues.
Gandhi and his South African friends.
Gandhi served in and lead an
Ambulance Corps Unit in both the
Boer War 1899-1892 and the Zulu War
of 1906. By supporting the British
government, Gandhi hoped to gain full
citizenship for Indians in South Africa,
a goal he did not achieve.

13. STRUGGLE FOR INDIAN
INDEPENDENCE (1915–1945)

14. Returning to India in 1915
• In 1915, Gandhi returned
from South Africa to live
in India. He spoke at the
conventions of the Indian
National Congress, but
was primarily introduced
to Indian issues, politics
and the Indian people by
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a
respected leader of the
Congress Party at the
time.

15. Attitudes towards Gandhi
• Moderates did not like the use of satyagraha.
• Extremist leaders repelled by his studied
moderation towards the government.
• British attitude was deeply suspicious of his
motives and actions.

16. Role in World War I
• In April 1918, during the latter part of World
War I, Gandhi was invited by the Viceroy to a
War Conference in Delhi. Perhaps to show
his support for the Empire and help his case
for India's independence, Gandhi agreed to
actively recruit Indians for the war effort. In
contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the
outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he
recruited volunteers for the Ambulance
Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit
combatants.

17. Initial Areas of Satyagraha
• Champaran – Bihar
• Kheda – Gujrat
• Ahmadabad - Gujrat

18. • 10th Apr 1917 : Gandhiji arrives Patna in way to
Champaran with Raj Kumar Shukla. Started for
Muzafferpur. Prof J. B. Kriplani welcomes at
Muzafferpur Station. Stayed in Hostel during Night.
• 15th Apr : Gandhiji arrives Motihari at 3P.M. and
stayed at the residence of Gorakh Prasad, advocate.
• 16th Apr : Gandhiji was served order by
government of leaving district by first available train.
Gandhiji returned to Motihari and gave letter of his
intension of not obeying the order to District
Magistrate.
• 17th Apr : Wrote a letter to District Magistrate showing
his willingness to go to nearby village.

19. • 18th Apr 1917 :Appeared in the court of Sub
Divisional Magistrate of Motihari and gave
Historic Statement of reason for not obeying
the order. Case was adjourned till 21st Apr.
• 19th Apr : In protest against the order of
leaving the district, executive committee of
Bihar Provincial Union decided to send a letter
to viceroy.
• 20th Apr : Government ordered for withdrawal
of case against Gandhiji and instructed the
District Collector for making arrangements
during his enquiry period. First Victory
of Satyagrah in Champaran.
• 10th Jun : Formation of Enquiry Committee.
Subject and name of seven members
announced. Gandhiji was one of the member.

20. • 11th Jul :Gandhiji attended the primary meeting for
deciding the legality and subject of his Champaran
enquiry in Ranchi.
• 25th Jul : Meeting of Enquiry Committee in front of
committee the District Magistrate and manager of
Rajepur Kothi (Neel Factory) E.A. Hudson.
• 23rd Sep :Met Lt. Governer and talked about
Champaran.
• 6th Oct :Lt. Governor accepted the report of
Champaran Enquiry Committee.
• 18th Oct 1917 : Government accepted the
recommendation of Champaran Enquiry Committee
and published his opinion. AND THIS WAS THE
VICTORY OF FIRST PEACEFUL MOVEMENT
(SATYAGRAH) BY GANDHIJI IN CHAMPARAN.

21. • 8th Nov : Gandhiji arrives with his wife Kasturba
and volunteer in Motihari for educating people.
• 14th Nov 1917 : Gandhiji started first school at
Barharwa Lakhansen near Dhaka.
• 4th Mar 1918 : Governor General of India signed
on Agreain Bill and all black law along with
'Tinkathia ' abolished.
• 1st May 1918 :Governor General finally signed
the Act and thus the end of "NEEL KA
ABHISHAP“
• 24th May 1918
Layed the Foundation of Ashram at Motihari and
left for Ahmedabad. THUS THE END OF
CHAMPARAN SATYAGRAH
ANDOLAN(MOVEMENT).

22. Ahmedabad Mill Strike :1918
The next scene of Gandhiji's activity was
in 1918 at Ahmedabad where an agitation
had been going on between the labourers
and the owners of a cotton textile mill for
an increase of pay.
While Gandhiji was negotiating with the
millowners, he advised the workers to go
on strike and to demand 35% increase in
wages.

23. Ahmedabad Mill Strike:Continue
Having advised the strikers to depend
upon their conscience, Gandhiji himself
went on a "fast unto death" to strengthen
the workers resolved to continue the
strike.
The mill owners gave away and a
settlement was reached after 21 days of
strike. The millowners agreed to submit
the whole issue to a tribunal.

24. Ahmedabad Mill Strike:Continue
The strike was withdrawn and retrieval
later awarded the 35% increase that the
workers had demanded.
Ambalal Sarabhai's sister, Anasuya Behn,
was one of the main lieutenants of
Gandhiji in this struggle in which her
brother and Gandhiji's friend was one of
the main advisories.

25. Kheda Satyagraha: 1918
in 1918, Gandhiji learned that the
peasants of Kheda district in Gujarat were
in extreme distress due to the failure of
crops, and that their appeals for the
remission of land revenue were being
ignored by the government.
As the crops were less than one fourth of
the normal yield, the peasants were
entitled under the revenue code to a total
remission of the land revenue.

26. Kheda Satyagraha: Continue
• Gandhiji organised Satyagraha and asked
the cultivators not to pay land revenue till
their demand for remission was met.
• The struggle was withdrawn, when the
government issued instructions that
revenue should be recovered only from
those peasants who could afford to pay.
• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was one of the
many young persons who became
Gandhiji's follower during the Kheda
peasant struggle.

27. Gandhi’s Tactics
• Gandhi employed non-cooperation,
non-violence and peaceful
resistance as his "weapons" in the
struggle against British. In Punjab,
the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of
civilians by British troops (also
known as the Amritsar Massacre)
caused deep trauma to the nation,
leading to increased public anger
and acts of violence. Gandhi
criticized both the actions of the
British Raj and the retaliatory
violence of Indians. When he was
arrested, he continued his non-
violent protest through hunger
strikes.
Gandhi on the Salt March.
Gandhi on Dandi
March

28. As the Rowlatt act was hurriedly passed by the
imperial Legislative Council, Mahatma Gandhi
wanted non-violent civil disobedience against
the unjust laws, which would start with a hartal
on 6 April. On 10 April, the police in Amritsar
fired upon a peaceful processions. As Martial
law was imposed and General Dyer took
command. On 13 April the infamous
Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place.
Hundreds were killed and injured. His object,
as he declared later, was to ‘produce a moral
effect’, to create in the minds of satyagrahis a
felling of terror and awe.

30. On April 13, the traditional festival of Baisakhi, thousands of
Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus gathered in the Jallianwalla
Bagh (garden) near the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar.
An hour after the meeting began as scheduled at 4:30 pm,
General Dyer--without warning the crowd to disperse--blocked
the main exits. He explained later that this act "was not to
disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for
disobedience." Dyer ordered his troops to begin shooting toward
the densest sections of the crowd (including women and
children). Firing continued for approximately ten minutes. Many
people died in stampedes at the narrow gates or by jumping into
the solitary well on the compound to escape the shooting. A
plaque in the monument at the site, set up after independence,
says that 120 bodies were pulled out of the well. The wounded
could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew was
declared; and many more died during the night.

33. As the news of Jallianwalla Bagh spread,
crowds took to the streets in many north Indian
towns. There were strikes, clashes with the police
and attacks on government buildings. The
government responded with brutal repression,
seeking to humiliate and terrorise people:
satyagrahis were forced to rub their noses on the
ground, crawl on the streets, and do salaam
(salute) to all sahibs; people were flogged an
villages (around Gujranwala in Punjab) were
bombed. Seeing violence spread, Mahatma
Gandhi called off the movement.

34. Non-cooperation-Khilafat Movement

35. Background and Causes
Mahatma Gandhi led his non-violent nationalist movement
satyagraha, as a protest against government repression such as the
Rowlatt Act of 1919, and the Jalian Wallah Bagh Massacre of
April 1919. To enlist Muslim support in his movement, Gandhi
supported the Khilafat cause and became a member of the
Central Khilafat Committee.

36. Time and aim
• Began in January 1921 and ended in
February 1922 with the chauri chaura
incident.
• It aimed to resist British occupation of
India through non-violent means.

37. Participants• Various social groups participated in the
movement with its own aspiration and
views –
• Students,teachers,laywers,headmasters,tr
aders,merchants etc. in towns .
• Peasants and tribals in the villages with
their own views of swaraj.
• Workers(e.g.plantation workers )

38. What Happened ?
• Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor
shops picketed, and foreign cloth bunt.
Merchants and traders refused to trade in
foreign goods.

39. Students left government schools and colleges,
teachers and head masters resigned, and lawyers
gave up their legal practices. Council elections
were boycotted in provinces.

40. In the countryside the struggles of peasants and
tribals came under the label of non co-operation
movement.
In Awadh peasants led by Baba Ramachandra
were struggling for reduction of revenue,
abolition of begar, social boycott of
opressive landlords.
By october 1920 the Oudh Kisan
Sabha was set up headed by
Jawaharlal Nehru,Baba
Ramachandra and few others.
When the non cooperation movement began, the peasant
movement developed under its label but the movement was
somewhat violent – houses of merchants and landlords were
attacked, bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over.

41. AT LAST
Chauri Chaura is a town
near Gorakhpur, Uttar
Pradesh, known most for an
event in February 1922
during the British Raj when
a police station)was set on
fire by a mob of angry
citizens, killing 23 policemen
inside. Due to this incident
mahatma Gandhi called a
halt to the non-cooperation
movement.

42. Imprisonment
• Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried
for sedition, and sentenced to six years'
imprisonment. He began his sentence on 18
March 1922. He was released in February 1924
for an appendicitis operation, having served
only 2 years. Without Gandhi's uniting
personality, the Indian National Congress
began to splinter during his years in prison,
splitting into two factions. Furthermore,
cooperation among Hindus and Muslims, which
had been strong at the height of the non-
violence campaign, was breaking down. Gandhi
attempted to bridge these differences through
many means, including a three-week fast in the
autumn of 1924, but with limited success.
Gandhi on a “fast.”

43. World War II interrupted the independence
process.
• After long deliberations, Gandhi
declared that India could not be
party to a war ostensibly being
fought for democratic freedom,
while that freedom was denied to
India itself. As the war progressed,
Gandhi intensified his demand for
independence, drafting a resolution
calling for the British to Quit India.
This was Gandhi's and the
Congress Party's most definitive
revolt aimed at securing the British
exit from India.
Jawaharlal Nehru sitting
next to Gandhi at the AICC
General Session, 1942.

44. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru work to
prepare for independence.
Gandhi-Nehru in a happy mood Gandhiji and Nehruji on serious
discussions for attaining
independence to India

45. Gandhiji with Jinnah, leader of
the Muslim faction in 1944
Gandhiji addressing a huge gathering

46. Gandhi led a very simple life
Gandhi spinning thread Gandhi reading a newspaper
Mahatma Gandhi's room at Sabarmati Ashram

47. Much older, but still together

48. Independence
• When the moment of
freedom came, on 15
August 1947, Gandhi
was nowhere to be seen
in the capital, though
Nehru and the entire
Constituent Assembly
were to salute him as
the architect of Indian
independence, as the
'father of the nation'.

49. Partitioning India into India &
Pakistan.
• Hindu and Sikh refugees had streamed into the capital
from what had become Pakistan, and there was much
resentment, which easily translated into violence, against
Muslims. It was partly in an attempt to put an end to the
killings in Delhi, and more generally to the bloodshed
following the partition, which may have taken the lives of
as many as 1 million people, besides causing the
dislocation of no fewer than 11 million, that Gandhi was
to commence the last fast unto death of his life. The fast
was terminated when representatives of all the
communities signed a statement that they were prepared
to live in "perfect amity", and that the lives, property, and
faith of the Muslims would be safeguarded.

50. Gandhi’s response to threats
• Gandhi, quite characteristically, refused additional
security, and no one could defy his wish to be allowed to
move around unhindered. In the early evening hours of
30 January 1948, Gandhi met with India's Deputy Prime
Minister and his close associate in the freedom struggle,
Vallabhai Patel, and then proceeded to his prayers.
Gandhi commenced his walk towards the garden where
the prayer meeting was held. As he was about to mount
the steps of the podium, Gandhi folded his hands and
greeted his audience with a namaskar; at that moment, a
young man came up to him and roughly pushed aside
Manu. Nathuram Godse (a Brahmin Hindu) bent down in
the gesture of an obeisance, took a revolver out of his
pocket, and shot Gandhi three times in his chest.

51. Mahatma Gandhi – The Father of India (1869-1948)