Gandhi+&+Indian+Independence

__**1920-2002**__ **Dolan & Matt**
 * "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."**

Son of a senior government official, Gandhi was born and raised in a Hindu Bania community in coastal Gujarat, and trained in law in London. Gandhi became famous by fighting for the civil rights of Muslim and Hindu Indians in South Africa, using the new techniques of non-violent civil disobedience that he developed. Returning to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants to protest excessive land-taxes. A lifelong opponent of "communalism" he reached out widely to all religious groups. He became a leader of Muslims protesting the declining status of the Caliphate. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, and above all for achieving Swaraj—the independence of India from British domination.
 * -Gandhi**

Gandhi led Indians in protesting the national salt tax with the 250 miles Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in demanding the British to immediately Quit India in 1942, during World War II. He was imprisoned for that and for numerous other political offenses over the years. Gandhi sought to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He saw the villages as the core of the true India and promoted self sufficiency; he did not support the industrialization programs of his disciple Jawaharlal Nehru. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. His political enemy Winston Churchill ridiculed him as a "half-naked fakir." He was a dedicated vegetarian, and and undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and political mobilization.

In his last year, unhappy at the partition of India, Gandhi worked to stop the carnage between Muslims on the one hand and Hindus and Sikhs that raged in the border area between India and Pakistan. He was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist who thought Gandhi was too sympathetic to India's Muslims. 30 January is observed as Martyrs' Day in India. The honourific Mahatma was applied to him by 1914. In India he was also called Bapu. He is known in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and world-wide as the International Day of Non-Violence. Gandhi's philosophy was not theoretical but one of pragmatism, that is, practicing his principles in real time. Asked to give a message to the people, he would respond, "My life is my message."

Timeline: 1. 1885- Indian National Congress formed. 2. 1920- Marcus Garvey issues Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World. 3. 1930- Ghandi goes on the salt march. 4. 1935- Government of India Act is passed. 5. 1938- Japan passes military draft law. 6. 1949- The Republic of Indonesia is established. 7. 1971- East Pakistan becomes independent Bangladesh. 8. 1992- Hindu militants destroy Muslim shrine at Adodhya. 9. 2002- India-Pakistan fighting over Kashmir escalates. 10. 2002- East Timor wins independence from Indonesia.

media type="custom" key="18622608" media type="custom" key="18622610" media type="youtube" key="B26Uqk63Xfw" height="315" width="420" __** 10 Important Terms: **__
 * **Civil Disobedience:** Refusal to obey laws considered to be unjust, this is what Mohandas Gandhi protested.
 * **Armistar:** City in Northwestern India in which hundreds of unarmed protestors were killed by the British troops.
 * **Salt March:** Protest in 1930 where Gandhi and his supporters marched to the sea to disobey the British.
 * **Muslim League:** Muslims under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jihhad.
 * **Government of India Act:** This act expanded the role of Indians in the governing process.
 * **Sikhs:** Followers of a religion based on both Hindu and Muslim ideas.
 * **Punjab:** A Northern providence where the Sikhs live, Mohandas Gandhi wanted this to be independant.
 * **Golden Temple:** One of the Sikhs most important shrines, the Sikhs took refuge in this place.
 * **Adodhya:** Northern town where Hindus and Muslims faught over in 1992. They fought over this place because it is a holy place.
 * **Kashmir:** Territory between India and Pakistan that was faught over. Today, Pakistan holds a third of Kashmir, the rest goes to India.











__**5 Important People:**__
 * 1) **Mohandas Gandhi: **Had became active in the movement for Indian self-rule before World War I. He was also the leader of the Salt March.
 * 2) **Ho Chi Minh: **Leader of the Communist party in Viet-Nam. The United States fought against him during the Vietnam War.
 * 3) **Pol Pot: ** Leader of the Khmer Rouge, he is responsible for the killings of more than a million Cambodians.
 * 4) **Jawaharlal Nehru: **He is the son of Motilal Nehru and studied law in Great Britain. He was a new kind of Indian polititions.
 * 5) **Ferdinand Marcos: ** Former leader of the Philippines, he was overthrown by the people and was accused of killing popular opposition leader, Benigno Aquino.