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Gandhi

Original nameMahatma Gandhi

Leader of Indian independence, champion of non-violent non-cooperation

Those Who Gave Power Back to the People · Revolution & Rights
Indian IndependenceNon-violenceNon-cooperationCivil Disobedience

Who they are

The leader of India’s national independence movement, honored as "Mahatma" (great soul). Facing the mighty British Empire, he chose not violent uprising but a distinctive way of struggle: non-violent non-cooperation. Through fasting, boycotting British goods, peaceful marches, and refusing to pay taxes, he made colonial rule, deprived of the cooperation of the ruled, hard to sustain. He proved something subversive — the weapon of the weakest can be the refusal to obey itself; without a single shot, one can shake an empire. His thought deeply shaped civil-rights and peace movements the world over.

Primary sourcesGandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (autobiography)

Key stories

A Handful of Salt Shakes an Empire

In 1930, to protest Britain’s monopoly and tax on salt, Gandhi led a march on foot of more than three hundred kilometers to the sea and took salt with his own hands from the seawater — a seemingly trivial act, yet an open contempt of colonial authority. Millions of Indians followed suit, making salt illegally and boycotting British goods. This "Salt March" shed no blood, yet showed the world: when the ruled collectively refuse to cooperate, even the mightiest rule will shake.

Relationships

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

The global spread of non-violent struggleThe non-violent non-cooperation Gandhi pioneered was taken as method and spirit by civil-rights and peace movements the world over, from Martin Luther King to Mandela; his death anniversary is the International Day of Non-Violence.

Appears in