Independence (1916-1945)

1915 Gandhi returned from the South Africa to live in India. He gets an honorary title “Mahatma” (big soul) because of his merits during the fight.

1920 he take over the leadership of the Indian National Congress (INC). Because of that the INC become a mass organisation and a main institution of the Indian independence movement.

He wanted to force the British to leave the Indian subcontinent with the plan that they don’t cooperate together with them. All Indian bourgeois and under appointee shouldn’t work for the colonial rule and every cooperation should be stopped to make the English powerless. In August 1920 he made this plan that they didn’t cooperate together official.

He was against violence. His principle was that 100.000 British can’t control 300 million Indian if they don’t cooperate together.

1930 he make a campaign of civil disobedience. He exclaimed a salt march against the salt monopoly law. 78 men went with him and thousands of Indians from the ashram to the sea. At the coast they began with the salt extraction.

His campaign was the spectacularly campaign during his fight for independence.

With this march he protest against the English taxes which where at the salt. The Indian inhabitants weren’t able to produce salt or to sell it on themselves.

On the 8. August 1942 Gandhi demanded an immediate independence of India. Because of that he got arrested in Pune by the colonial power but after two years he was discharged again because of his health problems. More and more he get the aid of the population.

In South Africa as well as in India Gandhi got arrested a few times by the colonial power. Overall he was 8 years in the prison.

On the 3. June the British prime minister Clement Attlee announce the independence on India and the division of two states: the majoritarian Hindu India and the majoritarian Moslem India.

Gandhi was the whole time against this division, but after the division he stood up for the fair split of the treasury.

Mahatma Gandhi was shot on the 30. January 1948 on a prayer meeting in New-Delhi.