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Gandhi's purpose of his letter was to persuade Viceroy Lord Irwin to suspend the harsh policies and unfair taxes placed on India by Britain.

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The Lord Irwin was the foreign minister of Britain from 1938 to 1940

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The exigence of the letter was the salt tax against the Indian people that caused him (Ghandi) to write the letter to the British leader showing his thoughts on the tax.

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Gandhi appeals to Irwin's trust and emotion by saying that he is being non-violent, and isn't threatening him, but then threatens to make the letter public and protest the salt act. Also appeals to logic by situational irony.

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The letter to Lord Irwin was meant for Ghandi to warn and caution the British and he would protest if the British army did not leave. He showed with examples and with calmfull threats for the foreigners to leave his country.

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Mahatma Gandhi is an Indian social and political figure, and one of the most prominent people in the fight for Indian Independence from Britain. He emerged as a dominant nationalist leader for India during the height of conflicts between the two countries. He is still honored and remembered today.

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Gandhi was not the man to nurse a grudge. On the outbreak of the South African (Boer) War in 1899, he argued that the Indians, who claimed the full rights of citizenship in the British crown colony of Natal, were in duty bound to defend it. He raised an ambulance corps of 1,100 volunteers, out of whom 300 were free Indians and the rest indentured labourers. It was a motley crowd: barristers and accountants, artisans and labourers. It was Gandhi's task to instill in them a spirit of service to those whom they regarded as their oppressors. The editor of the Pretoria News offered an insightful portrait of Gandhi in the battle zone:

After a night's work which had shattered men with much bigger frames, I came across Gandhi in the early morning sitting by the roadside eating a regulation army biscuit. Every man in [General] Buller's force was dull and depressed, and damnation was heartily invoked on everything. But Gandhi was stoical in his bearing, cheerful and confident in his conversation and had a kindly eye.

The British victory in the war brought little relief to the Indians in South Africa. The new regime in South Africa was to blossom into a partnership, but only between Boers and Britons. Gandhi saw that, with the exception of a few Christian missionaries and youthful idealists, he had been unable to make a perceptible impression upon the South African Europeans. In 1906 the Transvaal government published a particularly humiliating ordinance for the registration of its Indian population. The Indians held a mass protest meeting at Johannesburg in September 1906 and, under Gandhi's leadership, took a pledge to defy the ordinance if it became law in the teeth of their opposition and to suffer all the penalties resulting from their defiance. Thus was born satyagraha ("devotion to truth"), a new technique for redressing wrongs through inviting, rather than inflicting, suffering, for resisting adversaries without rancour and fighting them without violence.

The struggle in South Africa lasted for more than seven years. It had its ups and downs, but under Gandhi's leadership, the small Indian minority kept up its resistance against heavy odds. Hundreds of Indians chose to sacrifice their livelihood and liberty rather than submit to laws repugnant to their conscience and self-respect. In the final phase of the movement in 1913, hundreds of Indians, including women, went to jail, and thousands of Indian workers who had struck work in the mines bravely faced imprisonment, flogging, and even shooting. It was a terrible ordeal for the Indians, but it was also the worst possible advertisement for the South African government, which, under pressure from the governments of Britain and India, accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi on the one hand and the South African statesman Gen. Jan Christian Smuts on the other.

"The saint has left our shores," Smuts wrote to a friend on Gandhi's departure from South Africa for India, in July 1914, "I hope for ever." A quarter century later, he wrote that it had been his "fate to be the antagonist of a man for whom even then I had the highest respect." Once, during his not-infrequent stays in jail, Gandhi had prepared a pair of sandals for Smuts, who recalled that there was no hatred and personal ill-feeling between them, and when the fight was over "there was the atmosphere in which a decent peace could be concluded."

As later events were to show, Gandhi's work did not provide an enduring solution for the Indian problem in South Africa. What he did to South Africa was indeed less important than what South Africa did to him. It had not treated him kindly, but, by drawing him into the vortex of its racial problem, it had provided him with the ideal setting in which his peculiar talents could unfold themselves.

The religious quest

Gandhi's religious quest dated back to his childhood, the influence of his mother and of his home life in Porbandar and Rajkot, but it received a great impetus after his arrival in South Africa. His Quaker friends in Pretoria failed to convert him to Christianity, but they quickened his appetite for religious studies. He was fascinated by the writings of Leo Tolstoy on Christianity, read the Qurʾān in translation, and delved into Hindu scriptures and philosophy. The study of comparative religion, talks with scholars, and his own reading of theological works brought him to the conclusion that all religions were true and yet every one of them was imperfect because they were "interpreted with poor intellects, sometimes with poor hearts, and more often misinterpreted."

Shrimad Rajchandra, a brilliant young Jain philosopher who became Gandhi's spiritual mentor, convinced him of "the subtlety and profundity" of Hinduism, the religion of his birth. And it was the Bhagavadgita, which Gandhi had first read in London, that became his "spiritual dictionary" and exercised probably the greatest single influence on his life. Two Sanskrit words in the Gita particularly fascinated him. One was aparigraha ("nonpossession"), which implies that people have to jettison the material goods that cramp the life of the spirit and to shake off the bonds of money and property. The other was samabhava ("equability"), which enjoins people to remain unruffled by pain or pleasure, victory or defeat, and to work without hope of success or fear of failure.

Those were not merely counsels of perfection. In the civil case that had taken him to South Africa in 1893, he had persuaded the antagonists to settle their differences out of court. The true function of a lawyer seemed to him "to unite parties riven asunder." He soon regarded his clients not as purchasers of his services but as friends; they consulted him not only on legal issues but on such matters as the best way of weaning a baby or balancing the family budget. When an associate protested that clients came even on Sundays, Gandhi replied: "A man in distress cannot have Sunday rest."

Gandhi's legal earnings reached a peak figure of £5,000 a year, but he had little interest in moneymaking, and his savings were often sunk in his public activities. In Durban and later in Johannesburg, he kept an open table; his house was a virtual hostel for younger colleagues and political coworkers. This was something of an ordeal for his wife, without whose extraordinary patience, endurance, and self-effacement Gandhi could hardly have devoted himself to public causes. As he broke through the conventional bonds of family and property, their life tended to shade into a community life.

Gandhi felt an irresistible attraction to a life of simplicity, manual labour, and austerity. In 1904-after reading John Ruskin's Unto This Last, a critique of capitalism-he set up a farm at Phoenix near Durban where he and his friends could live by the sweat of their brow. Six years later another colony grew up under Gandhi's fostering care near Johannesburg; it was named Tolstoy Farm for the Russian writer and moralist, whom Gandhi admired and corresponded with. Those two settlements were the precursors of the more-famous ashrams (religious retreats) in India, at Sabarmati near Ahmedabad ( Ahmadabad) and at Sevagram near Wardha.

South Africa had not only prompted Gandhi to evolve a novel technique for political action but also transformed him into a leader of men by freeing him from bonds that make cowards of most men. "Persons in power," the British Classical scholar Gilbert Murray prophetically wrote about Gandhi in the Hibbert Journal in 1918,

should be very careful how they deal with a man who cares nothing for sensual pleasure, nothing for riches, nothing for comfort or praise, or promotion, but is simply determined to do what he believes to be right. He is a dangerous and uncomfortable enemy, because his body which you can always conquer gives you so little purchase upon his soul.

Return to India

Gandhi decided to leave South Africa in the summer of 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I. He and his family first went to London, where they remained for several months. Finally, they departed England in December, arriving in Bombay in early January 1915.

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Mahatma Gandhi - Nonviolence, Resistance, India

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Mahatma Gandhi - Nonviolence, Resistance, India: Gandhi was not the man to nurse a grudge. On the outbreak of the South African (Boer) War in 1899, he argued that the Indians, who claimed the full rights of citizenship in the British crown colony of Natal, were in duty bound to defend it.

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The inciting incident in this speech is the fact that Ghandi get to write a letter to one of the heads of Britain (Lorn Irwin). Ghandi also has the chance to lead for his country and do something that was never forgotten in our history.

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Gandhi wrote this letter in order to threaten Irwin to fix his affairs and fix India as a whole.

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Ghandi focused the letter towards Lord Irwin of the British regime back out of India.

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Gandhi chooses to use a peaceful tone so when he threatens Irwin it doesn't sound like he is.

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The purpose to "focus [on] bucking the British regime altogether, a goal that was attained in the years directly after World War II . In the expert Ghandi wanted to peacefully push the British and lord Irwin out of India and to stop the salt tax on the Indian people, granting them with independence.

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Mahatma Gandhi (born October 2, 1869, Porbandar, India-died January 30, 1948, Delhi) Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the father of his country. Gandhi is internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest ( satyagraha) to achieve political and social progress.

In the eyes of millions of his fellow Indians, Gandhi was the Mahatma ("Great Soul"). The unthinking adoration of the huge crowds that gathered to see him all along the route of his tours made them a severe ordeal; he could hardly work during the day or rest at night. "The woes of the Mahatmas," he wrote, "are known only to the Mahatmas." His fame spread worldwide during his lifetime and only increased after his death. The name Mahatma Gandhi is now one of the most universally recognized on earth.

Youth

Gandhi was the youngest child of his father's fourth wife. His father-Karamchand Gandhi, who was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar, the capital of a small principality in western India (in what is now Gujarat state) under British suzerainty-did not have much in the way of a formal education. He was, however, an able administrator who knew how to steer his way between the capricious princes, their long-suffering subjects, and the headstrong British political officers in power.

Gandhi's mother, Putlibai, was completely absorbed in religion, did not care much for finery or jewelry, divided her time between her home and the temple, fasted frequently, and wore herself out in days and nights of nursing whenever there was sickness in the family. Mohandas grew up in a home steeped in Vaishnavism-worship of the Hindu god Vishnu-with a strong tinge of Jainism, a morally rigorous Indian religion whose chief tenets are nonviolence and the belief that everything in the universe is eternal. Thus, he took for granted ahimsa (noninjury to all living beings), vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance between adherents of various creeds and sects.

The educational facilities at Porbandar were rudimentary; in the primary school that Mohandas attended, the children wrote the alphabet in the dust with their fingers. Luckily for him, his father became dewan of Rajkot, another princely state. Though Mohandas occasionally won prizes and scholarships at the local schools, his record was on the whole mediocre. One of the terminal reports rated him as "good at English, fair in Arithmetic and weak in Geography; conduct very good, bad handwriting." He was married at the age of 13 and thus lost a year at school. A diffident child, he shone neither in the classroom nor on the playing field. He loved to go out on long solitary walks when he was not nursing his by then ailing father (who died soon thereafter) or helping his mother with her household chores.

He had learned, in his words, "to carry out the orders of the elders, not to scan them." With such extreme passivity, it is not surprising that he should have gone through a phase of adolescent rebellion, marked by secret atheism, petty thefts, furtive smoking, and-most shocking of all for a boy born in a Vaishnava family-meat eating. His adolescence was probably no stormier than that of most children of his age and class. What was extraordinary was the way his youthful transgressions ended.

"Never again" was his promise to himself after each escapade. And he kept his promise. Beneath an unprepossessing exterior, he concealed a burning passion for self-improvement that led him to take even the heroes of Hindu mythology, such as Prahlada and Harishcandra-legendary embodiments of truthfulness and sacrifice-as living models.

In 1887 Mohandas scraped through the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay (now University of Mumbai) and joined Samaldas College in Bhavnagar (Bhaunagar). As he had to suddenly switch from his native language- Gujarati -to English, he found it rather difficult to follow the lectures.

Meanwhile, his family was debating his future. Left to himself, he would have liked to have been a doctor. But, besides the Vaishnava prejudice against vivisection, it was clear that, if he was to keep up the family tradition of holding high office in one of the states in Gujarat, he would have to qualify as a barrister. That meant a visit to England, and Mohandas, who was not too happy at Samaldas College, jumped at the proposal. His youthful imagination conceived England as "a land of philosophers and poets, the very centre of civilization." But there were several hurdles to be crossed before the visit to England could be realized. His father had left the family little property; moreover, his mother was reluctant to expose her youngest child to unknown temptations and dangers in a distant land. But Mohandas was determined to visit England. One of his brothers raised the necessary money, and his mother's doubts were allayed when he took a vow that, while away from home, he would not touch wine, women, or meat. Mohandas disregarded the last obstacle-the decree of the leaders of the Modh Bania subcaste ( Vaishya caste), to which the Gandhis belonged, who forbade his trip to England as a violation of the Hindu religion-and sailed in September 1888. Ten days after his arrival, he joined the Inner Temple, one of the four London law colleges ( The Temple).

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Mahatma Gandhi | Biography, Education, Religion, Accomplishments, Death, & Facts

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Mahatma Gandhi, the revered Indian leader and advocate of nonviolent resistance, inspired a nation to fight for independence from British rule through peaceful means, leaving an enduring legacy in history.

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Ghandi is an Indian right activist that fought for the freedom of India from Britain, Ghandi had been arrested after the act for going against the British government and law.

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Throughout the excerpt, Gandhi appeals to his audience's metaphors. One of these metaphors includes when he states "the sufferings they will undergo...will be enough to melt the stoniest of hearts" (Gandhi 12).

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Ghandi attempted to persuade Irwin to give India more freedom on their laws, and convince him to remove laws that completely control the people.

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Ghandhi came back after helping south Africa to free his people who were being oppressed and heavily taxed. He started out by encouraging rebellion and during this time as well many Indians supported his cause, he led with the salt tax, so more people were united for his cause.

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The Salt March, which took place from March to April 1930 in India, was an act of civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi to protest British rule in India. During the march, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from his religious retreat near Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea coast, a distance of some 240 miles. The nonviolent march and other, similar marches resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself. India finally was granted its independence from Great Britain in 1947.

Salt Tax

Britain's Salt Act of 1882 prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in their diet.

Indian citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from their British rulers, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also charged a heavy salt tax. Although India's poor suffered most under the tax, all Indians required salt.

Satyagraha

After living for two decades in South Africa, where Mohandas Gandhi fought for the civil rights of Indians residing there, Gandhi returned to his native country in 1915 and soon began working for India's independence from Great Britain.

Defying the Salt Act, Gandhi reasoned, would be an ingeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently. Gandhi declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of "satyagraha," or mass civil disobedience.
WATCH: Yohuru Williams on Mohandas Gandhi
Gandhi Begins Salt March

First, Gandhi sent a letter on March 2, 1930, to inform the Viceroy Lord Irwin that he and the others would begin breaking the Salt Laws in 10 days. Then, on March 12, 1930, Gandhi set out from his ashram, or religious retreat, at Sabermanti near Ahmedabad, with several dozen followers on a trek of some 240 miles to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea.

There, Gandhi and his supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater. All along the way, Gandhi addressed large crowds, and with each passing day an increasing number of people joined the salt satyagraha.

By the time they reached Dandi on April 5, Gandhi was at the head of a crowd of tens of thousands of protestors. He spoke and led prayers and early the next morning walked down to the sea to make salt.

He had planned to work the salt flats on the beach, encrusted with crystallized sea salt at every high tide, but the police had forestalled him by crushing the salt deposits into the mud. Undaunted, Gandhi reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud-and British law had been defied.

At Dandi, thousands more followed his lead, and in the coastal cities of Bombay (now called Mumbai) and Karachi, Indian nationalists led crowds of citizens in making salt.

Gandhi Arrested

Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60,000 people. Gandhi himself was arrested on May 5, but the satyagraha continued without him.

On May 21, the poet Sarojini Naidu led 2,500 marchers on the Dharasana Salt Works, some 150 miles north of Bombay. Several hundred British-led Indian policemen met them and viciously beat the peaceful demonstrators.

The incident, recorded by American journalist Webb Miller, prompted an international outcry against British policy in India.

Did you know? Gandhi's followers called him "Mahatma, " which in Sanskrit means "great soul."

Aftermath of the Salt March

In January 1931, Gandhi was released from prison. He later met with Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India, and agreed to call off the satyagraha in exchange for an equal negotiating role at a London conference on India's future.

In August of that year, Gandhi traveled to the conference as the sole representative of the nationalist Indian National Congress. The meeting was a disappointment, but British leaders had acknowledged Gandhi as a force they could not suppress or ignore.

India won its independence in August 1947. The 78-year-old Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist less than six months later, on January 30, 1948.
READ MORE: When Gandhi's Salt March Rattled British Colonial Rule
Sources

Gandhi's Salt March to Dandi. Emory University: Postcolonial Studies.
The Salt March: Gandhi & his companions cut 348 kilometers to resist British occupation. Egypt Today.
How Did Gandhi Win? Lessons from the Salt March. Dissent Magazine.

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Salt March: Definition, Date & Gandhi | HISTORY

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The Salt March of 1930 was a bold act of nonviolent civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi to protest and put an end to British rule and taxation in India.

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The inciting incident of this letter was British control over India, mainly concerning the salt trade. Lord Irwin failed to lessen his control after Ghandi's attempt at a non-violent protest. As a result, Ghandi felt he needed to send this seemingly peaceful, but threatening letter.

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Ghandi was a "lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the father of his country" and beloved by a lot of people.

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Mahatma Gandhi (born October 2, 1869, Porbandar, India-died January 30, 1948, Delhi) Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the father of his country. Gandhi is internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest ( satyagraha) to achieve political and social progress.

In the eyes of millions of his fellow Indians, Gandhi was the Mahatma ("Great Soul"). The unthinking adoration of the huge crowds that gathered to see him all along the route of his tours made them a severe ordeal; he could hardly work during the day or rest at night. "The woes of the Mahatmas," he wrote, "are known only to the Mahatmas." His fame spread worldwide during his lifetime and only increased after his death. The name Mahatma Gandhi is now one of the most universally recognized on earth.

Youth

Gandhi was the youngest child of his father's fourth wife. His father-Karamchand Gandhi, who was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar, the capital of a small principality in western India (in what is now Gujarat state) under British suzerainty-did not have much in the way of a formal education. He was, however, an able administrator who knew how to steer his way between the capricious princes, their long-suffering subjects, and the headstrong British political officers in power.

Gandhi's mother, Putlibai, was completely absorbed in religion, did not care much for finery or jewelry, divided her time between her home and the temple, fasted frequently, and wore herself out in days and nights of nursing whenever there was sickness in the family. Mohandas grew up in a home steeped in Vaishnavism-worship of the Hindu god Vishnu-with a strong tinge of Jainism, a morally rigorous Indian religion whose chief tenets are nonviolence and the belief that everything in the universe is eternal. Thus, he took for granted ahimsa (noninjury to all living beings), vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance between adherents of various creeds and sects.

The educational facilities at Porbandar were rudimentary; in the primary school that Mohandas attended, the children wrote the alphabet in the dust with their fingers. Luckily for him, his father became dewan of Rajkot, another princely state. Though Mohandas occasionally won prizes and scholarships at the local schools, his record was on the whole mediocre. One of the terminal reports rated him as "good at English, fair in Arithmetic and weak in Geography; conduct very good, bad handwriting." He was married at the age of 13 and thus lost a year at school. A diffident child, he shone neither in the classroom nor on the playing field. He loved to go out on long solitary walks when he was not nursing his by then ailing father (who died soon thereafter) or helping his mother with her household chores.

He had learned, in his words, "to carry out the orders of the elders, not to scan them." With such extreme passivity, it is not surprising that he should have gone through a phase of adolescent rebellion, marked by secret atheism, petty thefts, furtive smoking, and-most shocking of all for a boy born in a Vaishnava family-meat eating. His adolescence was probably no stormier than that of most children of his age and class. What was extraordinary was the way his youthful transgressions ended.

"Never again" was his promise to himself after each escapade. And he kept his promise. Beneath an unprepossessing exterior, he concealed a burning passion for self-improvement that led him to take even the heroes of Hindu mythology, such as Prahlada and Harishcandra-legendary embodiments of truthfulness and sacrifice-as living models.

In 1887 Mohandas scraped through the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay (now University of Mumbai) and joined Samaldas College in Bhavnagar (Bhaunagar). As he had to suddenly switch from his native language- Gujarati -to English, he found it rather difficult to follow the lectures.

Meanwhile, his family was debating his future. Left to himself, he would have liked to have been a doctor. But, besides the Vaishnava prejudice against vivisection, it was clear that, if he was to keep up the family tradition of holding high office in one of the states in Gujarat, he would have to qualify as a barrister. That meant a visit to England, and Mohandas, who was not too happy at Samaldas College, jumped at the proposal. His youthful imagination conceived England as "a land of philosophers and poets, the very centre of civilization." But there were several hurdles to be crossed before the visit to England could be realized. His father had left the family little property; moreover, his mother was reluctant to expose her youngest child to unknown temptations and dangers in a distant land. But Mohandas was determined to visit England. One of his brothers raised the necessary money, and his mother's doubts were allayed when he took a vow that, while away from home, he would not touch wine, women, or meat. Mohandas disregarded the last obstacle-the decree of the leaders of the Modh Bania subcaste ( Vaishya caste), to which the Gandhis belonged, who forbade his trip to England as a violation of the Hindu religion-and sailed in September 1888. Ten days after his arrival, he joined the Inner Temple, one of the four London law colleges ( The Temple).

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Mahatma Gandhi | Biography, Education, Religion, Accomplishments, Death, & Facts

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Mahatma Gandhi, the revered Indian leader and advocate of nonviolent resistance, inspired a nation to fight for independence from British rule through peaceful means, leaving an enduring legacy in history.

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During the late 1800's, the British placed a tax on salt. This, due the abundance of sea water on the Indian coast, perfect for evaporation into salt, was seen as arbitrary by the Indians, which led to an outcry to remove the tax.

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“Salt March” published on by Oxford University Press.

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When the letter was written, India's independence was on the line. Gandhi had to "demand" for the chance to finale confront Britishs rain over India and if he didn't India would still be ruled by Britain.

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The Salt March was a major nonviolent protest action in India led by Mohandas K. Gandhi in March-April 1930. It was directed against the British government's tax on salt, which greatly affected the poorest Indians. The Salt March was one of the most successful campaigns in Gandhi's struggle against British rule in India. Gandhi sought to win equal rights and freedom for Indians through campaigns of civil disobedience-the refusal to obey a government's commands without resorting to violence. He developed the philosophy of , which centers on nonviolent resistance to evil. The Salt March was one of Gandhi's most famous satyagraha campaigns, and it was the first in an even-larger program of resistance that lasted until early 1931. The program earned Gandhi widespread support among Indians and considerable worldwide attention. The Salt March is also called the Salt Satyagraha or the Dandi March (since it ended in the town of Dandi, India).

The British government had long completely controlled the production and distribution of salt. This monopoly brought large amounts of revenue to the British. A series of laws prohibited Indians from making or selling salt independently. Instead, the only salt Indians could buy was expensive and heavily taxed, and it was often imported. The great majority of Indians could not afford to buy this salt. Indian protests against the salt tax began in the 19th century and remained a major issue throughout the period of British rule.

In early 1930 Gandhi decided to mount a highly visible demonstration against the salt tax by marching through what is now the western Indian state of Gujarat. The march began at his ashram (religious retreat) at Sabermati (near Ahmadabad) and ended at the town of Dandi (near Surat) on the Arabian Sea coast. Gandhi set out on foot on March 12, accompanied by several dozen followers. After each day's march, the group stopped in a different village along the route, where increasingly larger crowds would gather to hear Gandhi speak against the unfairness of the tax on poor people. Hundreds more marchers joined the core group of followers as they made their way to the sea. On April 5 the group reached Dandi after a journey of some 240 miles (385 kilometers). On the morning of April 6, Gandhi and his followers picked up handfuls of salt along the seashore. In so doing, they technically "produced" salt and broke the law.

None of the protesters was arrested that day. For the next two months, Gandhi continued his satyagraha, urging other Indians to break the salt laws by committing acts of civil disobedience. Thousands of participants in the campaign were arrested and imprisoned. Among them was Jawaharlal Nehru, who would later become the first prime minister of India. Gandhi himself was arrested in early May after he informed Lord Irwin (the British governor, or viceroy, of India) of his intention to march on the nearby Dharasana saltworks. News of Gandhi's imprisonment spurred tens of thousands more Indians to join the satyagraha. The march on the saltworks went ahead as planned on May 21, led by the poet Sarojini Naidu. Many of the some 2,500 peaceful marchers were attacked and beaten by police. By the end of 1930, some 60,000 people were in jail for participating in the satyagraha.

In January 1931 Gandhi was released from custody and began negotiations with Lord Irwin aimed at ending the satyagraha campaign. On March 5, 1931, the two signed an agreement known as the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. Gandhi pledged to give up the satyagraha campaign, and Irwin agreed to release those who had been imprisoned during it. Irwin also agreed to allow Indians to make salt for domestic use. The pact paved the way for Gandhi, representing the Indian National Congress, to attend the second session of a conference later in 1931 to discuss the future constitution of India. It was called the Round Table Conference and took place in London, England.

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The Salt March was a major nonviolent protest action in India led by Mohandas K. Gandhi in March-April 1930. It was directed against the British government's tax on salt,...

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The purpose of Gandhi's letter was to allow Lord Irwin to right the wrongs of the British Empire and mend their relations with the people of India.

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The target audience of this letter was to Lord Irwin, while the Indirect Audience is any viewer of the letter after its publication.

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Ghandi held a "Non-Violent 'Raid'" in protest for the Indian Salt Act.

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The Salt March, which Mahatma Gandhi launched in March of 1930 constitutes a watershed in India's independence struggle and as such, we might be tempted to view it as a single decisive event which brought the struggle to a boil. It was, however, more like a series of skirmishes with increasing intensity, covering a period from March 12, 1930 to May 21, 1930. On March 12, Gandhi commenced his march from Ahmedabad; on April 6 he reached his destination, Dandi: the next day, on April 7, broke the Salt Law, which made salt a British monopoly, by picking up a lump of natural salt from the seashore; the next day, on April 8, he broke the law again at a village near Dandi; the British government finally arrested him on May 5, when Gandhi upped the ante and began planning a non-violent "raid" on the Dharsana Salt Works, around 150 miles from Bombay.

This non-violent "raid" was a remarkable event, as the phrase itself might presage. A raid is usually a violent act, but this was to be a non-violent "raid". But a non-violent "raid" almost sounds like an oxymoron. What could it be like?

The series of events, as they actually unfolded on May 21, 1930 provide an answer to our question. A raid is usually associated with an armed force and what is remarkable is that Gandhi's followers indeed prepared for it like an armed force, except that they were unarmed. Just as an army usually consists of volunteers, they were all volunteers. Just as soldiers in an army wear a uniform, Gandhi's followers also were dressed in their own livery, consisting of white dhotis and Gandhi caps. Just as an army fights for a cause, the Gandhi volunteers were also fighting for a cause-that of India's freedom. And just as an army has its engineering core and its medical core, Gandhi's volunteers were carrying ropes to scale the barbed-wire fence surrounding the Dharsana Salt Works, and stretchers with blankets to carry away the comrades who might fall in battle. And just as an armed force is led be a general, the volunteers were led by Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, as Gandhi was in jail. She, according to one biographer, even "resembled to an extraordinary degree the ancient Rajput, princesses who led their armies into battle."

The battle lines were soon drawn. About 2,500 of Gandhi's volunteers faced a force of about four hundred policemen commanded by the British, who protected the Salt Works. Soon then the raid commenced. Gandhi's volunteers halted a hundred yards from the stockade and then a picked column moved forward. It waded across the ditches surrounding the Salt Works and then approached the stockade guarded by the policemen. Gandhi's volunteers were ordered to retreat but they refused to do so.

Then all at once the policemen, upon a word of command, advanced towards them, and started beating them with their steel-shod sticks, called lathis, upon their heads. So far the setting had been just like that of any armed raid.

What happened next, however, was quite inconsistent with an armed raid. Am armed raid involves a violent attack by the raiders. But Gandhi's volunteers did no such thing. And when the policeman attacked them, Gandhi's volunteers did not retaliate. They did not even raise their hands to fend off the blows. According to the account of Webb Miller, the American journalist who was an eye-witness to the event, Gandhi's volunteers "went down like ten-pins." After one column had thus been moved down, as it were, and the wounded removed on stretchers, another picked column advanced and was similarly knocked down. As Miller describes the scene, "the police rushed out and methodically and mechanically beat down the second column. There was no fight, no struggle, the marchers simply walked forward till struck down."

Then another column advanced to meet the same fate. And so it went on until the weather became too hot for the action to continue. Miller counted 320 wounded and two dead. In terms of the casualties then too it was like an armed raid, inasmuch as this non-violent raid also produced casualties as in a war.

So what made it non-violent? What made it non-violent was that Gandhi's volunteers would die but they would not kill. Gandhi had devised this unique form of warfare, which was now on display during the Salt Satyagraha. In this warfare, dying was more potent than killing.

Arvind Sharma is the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University. His book Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography was released in paperback last fall.
Further Reading:

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Gandhi's Non-Violent "Raid" During the Salt March - Yale University Press

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Arvind Sharma- The Salt March, which Mahatma Gandhi launched in March of 1930 constitutes a watershed in India's independence struggle and as such, we might be tempted to view it... READ MORE

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Lord Irwin agreed to release those imprisoned during the salt march.

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Gandhi is was a political ethicist and activist who protested by nonviolent resistance. He lead many successful campaigns for India's independence.

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; 2 October 1869 - 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist, who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

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Whilst Ghandi was in England, he took much backlash, after a while, sparking something in his mind. Telling himself, he would protect South Africa's and his own dignity.

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Gandhi took his studies seriously and tried to brush up on his English and Latin by taking the University of London matriculation examination. But, during the three years he spent in England, his main preoccupation was with personal and moral issues rather than with academic ambitions. The transition from the half-rural atmosphere of Rajkot to the cosmopolitan life of London was not easy for him. As he struggled painfully to adapt himself to Western food, dress, and etiquette, he felt awkward. His vegetarianism became a continual source of embarrassment to him; his friends warned him that it would wreck his studies as well as his health. Fortunately for him he came across a vegetarian restaurant as well as a book providing a reasoned defense of vegetarianism, which henceforth became a matter of conviction for him, not merely a legacy of his Vaishnava background. The missionary zeal he developed for vegetarianism helped to draw the pitifully shy youth out of his shell and gave him a new poise. He became a member of the executive committee of the London Vegetarian Society, attending its conferences and contributing articles to its journal.

In the boardinghouses and vegetarian restaurants of England, Gandhi met not only food faddists but some earnest men and women to whom he owed his introduction to the Bible and, more important, the Bhagavadgita, which he read for the first time in its English translation by Sir Edwin Arnold. The Bhagavadgita (commonly known as the Gita) is part of the great epic the Mahabharata and, in the form of a philosophical poem, is the most-popular expression of Hinduism. The English vegetarians were a motley crowd. They included socialists and humanitarians such as Edward Carpenter, "the British Thoreau"; Fabians such as George Bernard Shaw; and Theosophists such as Annie Besant. Most of them were idealists; quite a few were rebels who rejected the prevailing values of the late-Victorian establishment, denounced the evils of the capitalist and industrial society, preached the cult of the simple life, and stressed the superiority of moral over material values and of cooperation over conflict. Those ideas were to contribute substantially to the shaping of Gandhi's personality and, eventually, to his politics.

Painful surprises were in store for Gandhi when he returned to India in July 1891. His mother had died in his absence, and he discovered to his dismay that the barrister's degree was not a guarantee of a lucrative career. The legal profession was already beginning to be overcrowded, and Gandhi was much too diffident to elbow his way into it. In the very first brief he argued in a court in Bombay (now Mumbai), he cut a sorry figure. Turned down even for the part-time job of a teacher in a Bombay high school, he returned to Rajkot to make a modest living by drafting petitions for litigants. Even that employment was closed to him when he incurred the displeasure of a local British officer. It was, therefore, with some relief that in 1893 he accepted the none-too-attractive offer of a year's contract from an Indian firm in Natal, South Africa.

Years in South Africa

Africa was to present to Gandhi challenges and opportunities that he could hardly have conceived. In the end he would spend more than two decades there, returning to India only briefly in 1896-97. The youngest two of his four children were born there.

Emergence as a political and social activist

Gandhi was quickly exposed to the racial discrimination practiced in South Africa. In a Durban court he was asked by the European magistrate to take off his turban; he refused and left the courtroom. A few days later, while traveling to Pretoria, he was unceremoniously thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and left shivering and brooding at the rail station in Pietermaritzburg. In the further course of that journey, he was beaten up by the white driver of a stagecoach because he would not travel on the footboard to make room for a European passenger, and finally he was barred from hotels reserved "for Europeans only." Those humiliations were the daily lot of Indian traders and labourers in Natal, who had learned to pocket them with the same resignation with which they pocketed their meagre earnings. What was new was not Gandhi's experience but his reaction. He had so far not been conspicuous for self-assertion or aggressiveness. But something happened to him as he smarted under the insults heaped upon him. In retrospect the journey from Durban to Pretoria struck him as one of the most-creative experiences of his life; it was his moment of truth. Henceforth he would not accept injustice as part of the natural or unnatural order in South Africa; he would defend his dignity as an Indian and as a man.

While in Pretoria, Gandhi studied the conditions in which his fellow South Asians in South Africa lived and tried to educate them on their rights and duties, but he had no intention of staying on in South Africa. Indeed, in June 1894, as his year's contract drew to a close, he was back in Durban, ready to sail for India. At a farewell party given in his honour, he happened to glance through the Natal Mercury and learned that the Natal Legislative Assembly was considering a bill to deprive Indians of the right to vote. "This is the first nail in our coffin," Gandhi told his hosts. They professed their inability to oppose the bill, and indeed their ignorance of the politics of the colony, and begged him to take up the fight on their behalf.

Until the age of 18, Gandhi had hardly ever read a newspaper. Neither as a student in England nor as a budding barrister in India had he evinced much interest in politics. Indeed, he was overcome by a terrifying stage fright whenever he stood up to read a speech at a social gathering or to defend a client in court. Nevertheless, in July 1894, when he was barely 25, he blossomed almost overnight into a proficient political campaigner. He drafted petitions to the Natal legislature and the British government and had them signed by hundreds of his compatriots. He could not prevent the passage of the bill but succeeded in drawing the attention of the public and the press in Natal, India, and England to the Natal Indians' grievances. He was persuaded to settle down in Durban to practice law and to organize the Indian community. In 1894 he founded the Natal Indian Congress, of which he himself became the indefatigable secretary. Through that common political organization, he infused a spirit of solidarity in the heterogeneous Indian community. He flooded the government, the legislature, and the press with closely reasoned statements of Indian grievances. Finally, he exposed to the view of the outside world the skeleton in the imperial cupboard, the discrimination practiced against the Indian subjects of Queen Victoria in one of her own colonies in Africa. It was a measure of his success as a publicist that such important newspapers as The Times of London and The Statesman and Englishman of Calcutta (now Kolkata) editorially commented on the Natal Indians' grievances.

In 1896 Gandhi went to India to fetch his wife, Kasturba (or Kasturbai), and their two oldest children and to canvass support for the Indians overseas. He met prominent leaders and persuaded them to address public meetings in the country's principal cities. Unfortunately for him, garbled versions of his activities and utterances reached Natal and inflamed its European population. On landing at Durban in January 1897, he was assaulted and nearly lynched by a white mob. Joseph Chamberlain, the colonial secretary in the British Cabinet, cabled the government of Natal to bring the guilty men to book, but Gandhi refused to prosecute his assailants. It was, he said, a principle with him not to seek redress of a personal wrong in a court of law.

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Mahatma Gandhi - Sojourn in England and return to India

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Gandhi took his studies seriously and tried to brush up on his English and Latin by taking the University of London matriculation examination. But, during the three years he spent in England, his main preoccupation was with personal and moral issues rather than with academic ambitions.

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The Salt Act was a British Monopoly on salt, and with it a heavy tax. Gandhi led a march (The Salt March) to the coast, so that they could illegally produce salt by picking up handfuls of it on the shore. Gandhi previously informed the Viceroy about his intention, but the Viceroy did not oblige Gandhi's demands.

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Salt March | Definition, Causes, History, & Facts

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Salt March, major nonviolent protest action in India led by Mahatma Gandhi in March–April 1930. The march was the first act in an even-larger campaign of civil disobedience Gandhi waged against British rule in India and garnered Gandhi widespread support among the Indian populace and considerable worldwide attention.

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Gandhi's purpose is to persuade Lord Irwin to discuss terms to abolish the salt act and discuss the terms of Britian's oppressive rule.

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Britian having control over India. AKA The Indian Independence Struggle lasted to 1930-1.

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Mahatma Ghandi was known for his passive resistance and having many followers. His nonviolent philosophy helped him become the leading figure for India during World War 1, further intensifying his role and status throughout the world.

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Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or "the great-souled one." He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s, and in the years following World War I became the leading figure in India's struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Known for his ascetic lifestyle-he often dressed only in a loincloth and shawl-and devout Hindu faith, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation, and undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India's poorest classes, among other injustices. After Partition in 1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist.

Early Life

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. His father was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar; his deeply religious mother was a devoted practitioner of Vaishnavism (worship of the Hindu god Vishnu), influenced by Jainism, an ascetic religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence. At the age of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in London at the Inner Temple, one of the city's four law colleges. Upon returning to India in mid-1891, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.

Did you know? In the famous Salt March of April-May 1930, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.

Gandhi was appalled by the discrimination he experienced as an Indian immigrant in South Africa. When a European magistrate in Durban asked him to take off his turban, he refused and left the courtroom. On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten up by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give up his seat for a European passenger. That train journey served as a turning point for Gandhi, and he soon began developing and teaching the concept of satyagraha ("truth and firmness"), or passive resistance, as a way of non-cooperation with authorities.

The Birth of Passive Resistance

In 1906, after the Transvaal government passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian population, Gandhi led a campaign of civil disobedience that would last for the next eight years. During its final phase in 1913, hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from the British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax for Indians.

In July 1914, Gandhi left South Africa to return to India. He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. In 1919, Gandhi launched an organized campaign of passive resistance in response to Parliament's passage of the Rowlatt Acts, which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to suppress subversive activities. He backed off after violence broke out-including the massacre by British-led soldiers of some 400 Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar-but only temporarily, and by 1920 he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence.

Leader of a Movement

As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain. Gandhi's eloquence and embrace of an ascetic lifestyle based on prayer, fasting and meditation earned him the reverence of his followers, who called him Mahatma (Sanskrit for "the great-souled one"). Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress Party), Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.

After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March 1922 and tried him for sedition; he was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1924 after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. He refrained from active participation in politics for the next several years, but in 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government's tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian's poorest citizens.

A Divided Movement

In 1931, after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London. Meanwhile, some of his party colleagues-particularly Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a leading voice for India's Muslim minority-grew frustrated with Gandhi's methods, and what they saw as a lack of concrete gains. Arrested upon his return by a newly aggressive colonial government, Gandhi began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India's so-called "untouchables" (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or "children of God." The fasting caused an uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government.

In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II, Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort. Instead, British forces imprisoned the entire Congress leadership, bringing Anglo-Indian relations to a new low point.

Partition and Death of Gandhi

After the Labor Party took power in Britain in 1947, negotiations over Indian home rule began between the British, the Congress Party and the Muslim League (now led by Jinnah). Later that year, Britain granted India its independence but split the country into two dominions: India and Pakistan. Gandhi strongly opposed Partition, but he agreed to it in hopes that after independence Hindus and Muslims could achieve peace internally. Amid the massive riots that followed Partition, Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots in Calcutta ceased.

In January 1948, Gandhi carried out yet another fast, this time to bring about peace in the city of Delhi. On January 30, 12 days after that fast ended, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma's efforts to negotiate with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi's body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.

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Mohandas Gandhi - Biography, Facts & Beliefs

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was leader of India's nonviolent independence movement against British rule. He was revered the world over for his philosophy of passive resistance and was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or "the great-souled one."

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He was "Viceroy of India" which was representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom.

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Edward Frederick Lindley Wood styled, more commonly known as Lord Irwin, was a senior British Conservative politician of the 1930s and the Viceroy of British India from 3 April 1926 - 18 April 1931.

His tenure saw major events happening during the Independence struggle which in turn solidified his reputation in Britain as one of the most capable Viceroys to govern India.

This article will give details about Lord Irwin within the context of the

The early life of Lord Irwin

Lord Irving was born on 16 April 1881 at Powderham Castle in Devon

In May 1920, he accepted the Governor-Generalship of South Africa, but the offer was withdrawn after the South African government announced that it wanted a Cabinet minister or a member of the Royal Family.

When the Conservatives came to power, on 6 November 1924, Lord Irwin was appointed Minister for Agriculture.

Viceroy of India

In October 1925, Lord Birkenhead, Secretary of State for India, offered Lord Irwin the position of Viceroy of India at the suggestion of King George V. Accepting his new role, he arrived in India on 1 April 1926.

Thus it was on his advice that the Simon Commission would consist of only the British but no Indian but he would come to regret bitterly on the decision he made regarding the commission. Once the composition of the Simon Commission was announced, Indian leaders were outraged and boycotted it out of hand. There were even incidents of violence between the British police and the freedom fighters during which Lala Lajpat Rai lost his life. The Simon Commission made little headway but Lord Irwin was of the opinion that a symbolic gesture would be necessary to bring the Indian leaders to the negotiations table.

With tacit approval from the home government in London, Lord Irwin made a declaration that Britain would be committed to eventual dominion status of India. The 'Irwin Declaration' was opposed by the conservative factions of the British parliament. But it was still thought to be a break in the Anglo-India relations, yet the Delhi Conference on December 29 yielded little result.

Seeing no headway made, Mahatma Gandhi launched the Salt Satyagraha , symbolically marching to the sea in 24 days and breaking the Government's monopoly over salt. For this Lord Irwin had Mahatma Gandhi and other Congress leaders arrested but the resulting heavy handedness turned world opinion against British colonialism in India.

In November 1930, King George V opened the First Round Table Conference in London; no Congress delegates took part because Gandhi was in jail

In January 1931, Mahatma Gandhi was released and at Irwin's invitation, they had eight meetings together.
Lord Irwin: UPSC Exam Notes - Download PDF Here
Later life of Lord Irwin and Legacy

He died of a heart attack at his estate at Garrowby on 23 December 1959, aged 78.

Despite the mixed outcome that came in his wake as the Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin was overall a successful Viceroy; he had charted a clear and balanced course and had not lost the confidence of his home government. He had demonstrated toughness and independence. His successful term as Viceroy ensured that he returned to British politics with significant prestige.

Q 1. What was the Gandhi-Irwin Pact?

Ans. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact was a political agreement signed by Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, on March 5, 1931. It marked the end of a period of civil disobedience (satyagraha) in India against British rule that Gandhi and his followers had initiated with the Salt March.

Related Links

Q 2. When was Lord Curzon appointed the Viceroy of India?

Ans. Lord Curzon was appointed the Viceroy of India in the year 1899. His tenure lasted for six years from 1899 to 1905.

Frequently Asked Questions on Lord Irwin

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Lord Irwin [1881-1959] Delhi Conference | Civil Disobedience | Diarchy System

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What events took place during the Indian Independence Movement under Lord Irwin's Viceroyalty? How were his performances as a Viceroy seen during that time? Read on to find out. Download Lord Irwin PDF notes for free. For Civil Services Examination preparation 2023.

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His "religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence." So, he never wished to participate in violent acts.

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Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or "the great-souled one." He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s, and in the years following World War I became the leading figure in India's struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Known for his ascetic lifestyle-he often dressed only in a loincloth and shawl-and devout Hindu faith, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation, and undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India's poorest classes, among other injustices. After Partition in 1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist.

Early Life

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. His father was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar; his deeply religious mother was a devoted practitioner of Vaishnavism (worship of the Hindu god Vishnu), influenced by Jainism, an ascetic religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence. At the age of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in London at the Inner Temple, one of the city's four law colleges. Upon returning to India in mid-1891, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.

Did you know? In the famous Salt March of April-May 1930, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.

Gandhi was appalled by the discrimination he experienced as an Indian immigrant in South Africa. When a European magistrate in Durban asked him to take off his turban, he refused and left the courtroom. On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten up by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give up his seat for a European passenger. That train journey served as a turning point for Gandhi, and he soon began developing and teaching the concept of satyagraha ("truth and firmness"), or passive resistance, as a way of non-cooperation with authorities.

The Birth of Passive Resistance

In 1906, after the Transvaal government passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian population, Gandhi led a campaign of civil disobedience that would last for the next eight years. During its final phase in 1913, hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from the British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax for Indians.

In July 1914, Gandhi left South Africa to return to India. He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. In 1919, Gandhi launched an organized campaign of passive resistance in response to Parliament's passage of the Rowlatt Acts, which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to suppress subversive activities. He backed off after violence broke out-including the massacre by British-led soldiers of some 400 Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar-but only temporarily, and by 1920 he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence.

Leader of a Movement

As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain. Gandhi's eloquence and embrace of an ascetic lifestyle based on prayer, fasting and meditation earned him the reverence of his followers, who called him Mahatma (Sanskrit for "the great-souled one"). Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress Party), Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.

After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March 1922 and tried him for sedition; he was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1924 after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. He refrained from active participation in politics for the next several years, but in 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government's tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian's poorest citizens.

A Divided Movement

In 1931, after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London. Meanwhile, some of his party colleagues-particularly Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a leading voice for India's Muslim minority-grew frustrated with Gandhi's methods, and what they saw as a lack of concrete gains. Arrested upon his return by a newly aggressive colonial government, Gandhi began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India's so-called "untouchables" (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or "children of God." The fasting caused an uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government.

In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II, Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort. Instead, British forces imprisoned the entire Congress leadership, bringing Anglo-Indian relations to a new low point.

Partition and Death of Gandhi

After the Labor Party took power in Britain in 1947, negotiations over Indian home rule began between the British, the Congress Party and the Muslim League (now led by Jinnah). Later that year, Britain granted India its independence but split the country into two dominions: India and Pakistan. Gandhi strongly opposed Partition, but he agreed to it in hopes that after independence Hindus and Muslims could achieve peace internally. Amid the massive riots that followed Partition, Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots in Calcutta ceased.

In January 1948, Gandhi carried out yet another fast, this time to bring about peace in the city of Delhi. On January 30, 12 days after that fast ended, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma's efforts to negotiate with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi's body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.

Photos

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Mohandas Gandhi - Biography, Facts & Beliefs | HISTORY

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was leader of India's nonviolent independence movement against British rule. He was revered the world over for his philosophy of passive resistance and was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or "the great-souled one."

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Ghandi presents a threating tone throughout the excerpt but is mask to be less threating through his euphemistic diction.

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This letter's direct/target audience is Lord Irwin. The indirect audience, however, is anyone who views the letter. Lord Irwin was a "respected Conservative member of parliament."

Gilbert, Marc Jason. "Irwin, Lord." Encyclopedia.com. Irwin, Lord | Encyclopedia.com

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IRWIN, LORD (1881-1959), the first baron Irwin, first earl of Halifax, viceroy and governor-general of India (1926-1931). Edward Frederick Lindley Wood was a respected Conservative member of Parliament (1910-1925) who served as president of the Board of Education (1922) and minister of Agriculture (1923) before being raised to the peerage as Lord Irwin and named to succeed Lord Reading as viceroy of India. From the outset of his viceroyalty, Irwin was not unsympathetic to Indian political aspirations, and he admired the religious spirit that animated Mahatma Gandhi's politics: that both men were devout helped smooth their subsequent face-to-face negotiations.

On 31 October 1929, with the tacit approval of the home government and over some resistance from of his own council, Irwin announced that "the natural issue of India's constitutional progress was the attainment of Dominion status," and that a Round Table Conference in London would follow the Report of the Simon Commission to lay the groundwork for further political devolution of power to Indians. Without Indian representation, however, the Simon Commission was greeted with black flags and boycott wherever it went in India. India's National Congress responded by boycotting the first Round Table Conference, calling for purna swaraj (complete independence) on 30 January 1930. On 6 April at Dandi, Gandhi launched his famous march to the sea against the salt tax, which turned world opinion against the Raj. That action had been preceded on 2 March by Gandhi's direct appeal to Irwin, announcing his intention to resist the salt tax and urging the viceroy to act to remove the manifold inequities of British rule that left Indians no choice but civil disobedience. Irwin, however, would not countenance violations of the law, even in the furtherance of a cause he respected. His arrest of Gandhi, the Congress's entire Working Committee, and over ninety thousand Indians during the subsequent satyagraha (nonviolent resistance campaign) led to widespread violence and brutal police atrocities.

British prime minister J. Ramsay MacDonald, recoiling from the damage the satyagraha and its subsequent repression had done to British prestige, expressed the hope that Congress would attend a second "all-party" conference in London, something Congress leaders could hardly do from prison. Accordingly, Irwin released Gandhi, and the two met eight times beginning on 17 February 1930. Winston Churchill decried the "nauseating and humiliating spectacle of this once inner-temple lawyer [Gandhi], now seditious fakir, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceroy's palace there to negotiate and parley on equal terms with the representative of the King Emperor." But the meeting of "the two Mahatmas," as Sarojini Naidu, the Indian poet and nationalist, referred to these encounters, proved amicable. The resultant Gandhi-Irwin Pact, agreed to on 5 March 1931, was the subject of much debate. It ended the civil disobedience campaign in return for minor British political concessions, but it did allow Gandhi to attend the Second London Round Table Conference. His insistence on serving as the sole representative of India's National Congress, however, proved to be a serious strategic mistake.

Irwin left India in April 1931 and held increasingly responsible posts, culminating in 1938 with his appointment as foreign secretary. His association with Britain's failed policy of appeasement toward Hitler's Nazi regime, however, damaged his reputation. He ultimately accepted appointment as ambassador to the United States, and his wartime service there earned him an earldom in 1944.
Marc Jason Gilbert
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Birkenhead, Earl of. The Life of Lord Halifax. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965.

Gopal, Sarvepalli. The Vice-Royalty of Lord Irwin: 1926- 1931. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957.

Halifax, Earl of. Fulness of Days. London: Collins, 1957.

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viceroy and governor-general of india (1926–1931). edward frederick lindley wood was a respected conservative member of parliament (1910–1925) who served as president of the board of education (1922) and minister of agriculture (1923) before being raised to the peerage as lord irwin and named to succeed lord reading as viceroy of india.

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IRWIN, LORDIRWIN, LORD (1881-1959), the first baron Irwin, first earl of Halifax, viceroy and governor-general of India (1926-1931). Edward Frederick Lindley Wood was a respected Conservative member of Parliament (1910-1925) who served as president of the Board of Education (1922) and minister of Agriculture (1923) before being raised to the peerage as Lord Irwin and named to succeed Lord Reading as viceroy of India.

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Ghandi employs antitheses in lines 5-6 to highlight that the British unknowingly or unknowingly preyed upon the people of India.

"[C]onsciously or unconsciously preyed upon another.

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Ghandi intended to cause the salt tax to be reformed through matters nonviolent and peacefully as illustrated in lines 1-4 when he states "I know that in embarking on non-violence, I shall be running what might be fairly deemed a mad risk. But the victories of truth have never been won without risks, often of the gravest character" showing his true dedication to nonviolence.

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The speaker, Ghandi, was a rights activist in India that has assisted his people in is government towards gaining freedoms against British rule; furthermore, his education leads him on par with those of British royalty, allowing him to right complex letters to people to assist in his Salt Marh in 1930.

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While speaking directly to Lord Irwin, Ghandi is clear of the possible indirect audience, the public, if he is to publish the letter. The target audience is both of these, as the letter has been written to blackmail Lord Irwin into complying, with information meant for the public to see.

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"Salt production and distribution in India had long been a lucrative monopoly of the British. Through a series of laws, the Indian populace was prohibited from producing or selling salt independently, and instead Indians were required to buy expensive, heavily taxed salt that often was imported. This affected the great majority of Indians, who were poor and could not afford to buy it. Indian protests against the salt tax began in the 19th century."

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Salt March | Definition, Causes, History, & Facts

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Salt March, major nonviolent protest action in India led by Mahatma Gandhi in March–April 1930. The march was the first act in an even-larger campaign of civil disobedience Gandhi waged against British rule in India and garnered Gandhi widespread support among the Indian populace and considerable worldwide attention.

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In lines 22-24 they appeal to the audience's emotion when he states, "[i]t will be acknowledged by them, even as the members of my family acknowledged." He creates the emotion of grief as he is visualizing the future he hopes for.

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Gandhi's intended audience is Lord Irwin. His indirect audience is everyone who reads the letter after it's published. His target audience is Lord Irwin. He anticipates that Lord Irwin will be reluctant to cooperate with him so he tells him what that will cause in a 'nonthreatening' way.

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The purpose that Ghandi insinuates in the excerpt is to persuade Lord Irwin to be on his side for the freedom of India.

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After the march and Ghandi was arrested, it "sparked one of his more effective civil disobedience movements."

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Gandhi-Irwin Pact, agreement signed on March 5, 1931, between Mohandas K. Gandhi, leader of the Indian nationalist movement, and Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax), British viceroy (1926-31) of India. It marked the end of a period of civil disobedience (satyagraha) in India against British rule that Gandhi and his followers had initiated with the Salt March (March-April 1930). Gandhi's arrest and imprisonment at the end of the march, for illegally making salt, sparked one of his more effective civil disobedience movements. By the end of 1930, tens of thousands of Indians were in jail (including future Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru), the movement had generated worldwide publicity, and Irwin was looking for a way to end it. Gandhi was released from custody in January 1931, and the two men began negotiating the terms of the pact. In the end, Gandhi pledged to give up the satyagraha campaign, and Irwin agreed to release those who had been imprisoned during it and to allow Indians to make salt for domestic use. Later that year Gandhi attended the second session (September-December) of the Round Table Conference in London.
(Read Indira Gandhi's 1975 Britannica essay on global underprivilege.)
Kenneth Pletcher

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Gandhi-Irwin Pact | Non-Violence, Salt March, Peaceful Protest

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Gandhi-Irwin Pact, agreement signed on March 5, 1931, between Mohandas K. Gandhi, leader of the Indian nationalist movement, and Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax), British viceroy (1926-31) of India. It marked the end of a period of civil disobedience (satyagraha) in India against British rule that

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Gandhi's tone throughout the excerpt is passive, yet at the same time, overtly threatening. It is almost passive-aggressive, however his threats are not violent.

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The purpose for Ghandi writing this letter is to persuade Lord Irwin to assist him in freeing India of British rule and policies; thus, creating The Salt March.

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Ghandi's intended audience while writing this letter was Lord Irwin. Lord Irwin was a British conservative politician.

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The excerpt is structured with a calm and peaceful tone from the beginning to middle, then gets more aggressive towards Lord Irwin by being indirectly aggressive to him.

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"Gandhi leads tens of thousands of Indians on a 240-mile (385-kilometer) march to the sea to collect their own salt. The march... results in 60,000 people being arrested." This likely caused his sense of urgency in the text and what created a window for Gandhi to write to Lord Irwin

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is born in Porbandar, in western India. His father is the dewan (chief minister) of the city of Porbandar and an able administrator. His mother is completely absorbed in religion. Mohandas grows up in a home steeped in Vaishnavism-worship of the Hindu god Vishnu-with a strong tinge of Jainism, a morally rigorous Indian religion whose chief tenets are nonviolence and the belief that everything in the universe is eternal.

Kasturba Gandhi Courtesy of Photo Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India

Gandhi, only 13 years old, marries Kasturba Kapadia, who is also 13. Kasturba will later participate in a number of her husband's civil disobedience campaigns.

Gandhi studies law in London. While there he meets playwright George Bernard Shaw and social reformer Annie Besant, among other notable figures. He is introduced to the Bible and to the Bhagavadgita, which he reads for the first time in its English translation by Sir Edwin Arnold.

In 1893 Gandhi takes a job with an Indian law firm in South Africa, where he is quickly exposed to the racial discrimination practiced there. He settles in Durban and begins to practice law. In 1894 he founds the Natal Indian Congress to agitate for Indian rights. Through that political organization he infuses a spirit of solidarity in the heterogeneous Indian community. He floods the government, the legislature, and the press with closely reasoned statements of Indian grievances. Important newspapers, such as The Times of London and The Statesman and Englishman of Calcutta (now Kolkata), begin to take notice of issues that Gandhi raises.

In 1906 a discriminatory law is passed in the Transvaal region of South Africa forcing all Indians to register with the provincial government or else face punishment. Under Gandhi's leadership the Indian community takes a pledge to defy the law and to suffer all the penalties resulting from its defiance. This practice becomes known as satyagraha, a technique for redressing wrongs through inviting, rather than inflicting, suffering, for resisting adversaries without rancor, and fighting them without violence. Gandhi is frequently jailed during the ensuing years. Thousands of other Indians are imprisoned, flogged, or shot. The law is eventually abolished, though racial discrimination in the country continues. Gandhi returns to India in 1915.

In 1919 Gandhi becomes a leader in the Indian National Congress political party. He campaigns for swaraj, or "self-rule." He works to reconcile all classes and religious sects, especially Hindus and Muslims. In 1920 he launches a noncooperation campaign against Britain, urging Indians to spin their own cotton and to boycott British goods, courts, and government. This leads to his imprisonment from 1922 to 1924.

Salt March Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Gandhi leads tens of thousands of Indians on a 240-mile (385-kilometer) march to the sea to collect their own salt. The march is a protest against a British tax on salt and results in 60,000 people being arrested. In 1931 the British viceroy and Gandhi sign an agreement (the Gandhi-Irwin Pact) marking the end of a period of civil disobedience in India against British rule. The pact involves Gandhi pledging to give up the satyagraha campaign and the British viceroy agreeing to release all those who had been imprisoned and to allow Indians to make salt for domestic use.

Under a new viceroy, Gandhi is imprisoned again. While in prison he fasts to protest the British decision to segregate the so-called untouchables (the lowest level of the Indian caste system) by allotting them separate electorates in the new constitution. The fast causes an emotional upheaval in the country, and the British agree to change the policy.

Gandhi, who in 1934 had resigned as leader and member of the Indian National Congress, becomes politically active again early in World War II, demanding immediate independence as India's price for aiding Britain in the war. He is imprisoned again, from 1942 to 1944.

India formally achieves independence from British rule. However, the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan is a great disappointment to Gandhi, who has long worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. Rioting between Muslims and Hindus over the partition breaks out in many areas. Again Gandhi turns to nonviolence, fasting until Delhi rioters pledge peace.

While on his way to prayer in Delhi, Gandhi is killed by a young Hindu fanatic who has been angered by Gandhi's efforts to reconcile Hindus and Muslims.

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Timeline of key events in the 'life of Mahatma Gandhi, leader of India's independence movement. When India was a colony of Great Britain, Gandhi (who was born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) used nonviolent methods to protest against British rule. His efforts earned him the title Mahatma. Mahatma means 'great soul.'

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Ghandi uses a passionate and confident tone to display his plans for getting rid of the Salt Act. For example, Ghandi states, "I have deliberately used the word conversion" (p. 9).

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Ghandi's purpose in the excerpt was persuade Lord Irwin the one who was representing India in Britain to assist in giving India independence because of the Salt Act. This would also put pressure Lord Irwin's reputation to listen to him.

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His "religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence." So, he never wished to participate in violent acts.

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Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or "the great-souled one." He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s, and in the years following World War I became the leading figure in India's struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Known for his ascetic lifestyle-he often dressed only in a loincloth and shawl-and devout Hindu faith, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation, and undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India's poorest classes, among other injustices. After Partition in 1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist.

Early Life

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. His father was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar; his deeply religious mother was a devoted practitioner of Vaishnavism (worship of the Hindu god Vishnu), influenced by Jainism, an ascetic religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence. At the age of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in London at the Inner Temple, one of the city's four law colleges. Upon returning to India in mid-1891, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.

Did you know? In the famous Salt March of April-May 1930, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.

Gandhi was appalled by the discrimination he experienced as an Indian immigrant in South Africa. When a European magistrate in Durban asked him to take off his turban, he refused and left the courtroom. On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten up by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give up his seat for a European passenger. That train journey served as a turning point for Gandhi, and he soon began developing and teaching the concept of satyagraha ("truth and firmness"), or passive resistance, as a way of non-cooperation with authorities.

The Birth of Passive Resistance

In 1906, after the Transvaal government passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian population, Gandhi led a campaign of civil disobedience that would last for the next eight years. During its final phase in 1913, hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from the British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax for Indians.

In July 1914, Gandhi left South Africa to return to India. He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. In 1919, Gandhi launched an organized campaign of passive resistance in response to Parliament's passage of the Rowlatt Acts, which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to suppress subversive activities. He backed off after violence broke out-including the massacre by British-led soldiers of some 400 Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar-but only temporarily, and by 1920 he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence.

Leader of a Movement

As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain. Gandhi's eloquence and embrace of an ascetic lifestyle based on prayer, fasting and meditation earned him the reverence of his followers, who called him Mahatma (Sanskrit for "the great-souled one"). Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress Party), Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.

After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March 1922 and tried him for sedition; he was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1924 after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. He refrained from active participation in politics for the next several years, but in 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government's tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian's poorest citizens.

A Divided Movement

In 1931, after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London. Meanwhile, some of his party colleagues-particularly Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a leading voice for India's Muslim minority-grew frustrated with Gandhi's methods, and what they saw as a lack of concrete gains. Arrested upon his return by a newly aggressive colonial government, Gandhi began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India's so-called "untouchables" (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or "children of God." The fasting caused an uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government.

In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II, Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort. Instead, British forces imprisoned the entire Congress leadership, bringing Anglo-Indian relations to a new low point.

Partition and Death of Gandhi

After the Labor Party took power in Britain in 1947, negotiations over Indian home rule began between the British, the Congress Party and the Muslim League (now led by Jinnah). Later that year, Britain granted India its independence but split the country into two dominions: India and Pakistan. Gandhi strongly opposed Partition, but he agreed to it in hopes that after independence Hindus and Muslims could achieve peace internally. Amid the massive riots that followed Partition, Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots in Calcutta ceased.

In January 1948, Gandhi carried out yet another fast, this time to bring about peace in the city of Delhi. On January 30, 12 days after that fast ended, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma's efforts to negotiate with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi's body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.

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Mohandas Gandhi - Biography, Facts & Beliefs | HISTORY

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was leader of India's nonviolent independence movement against British rule. He was revered the world over for his philosophy of passive resistance and was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or "the great-souled one."

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Gandhi was a major activist in India against the British control over the area. His support of the country goes beyond civil protest though, as in 1919 he rallied Hindus and Muslims together to support the Ottoman Empire after their defeat in World War II. This caused the British to enforce the Rowlatt Act, allowing them to treat civil disobedience as criminal activity.

This was sourced from the book "Gandhi and King: The Power of Nonviolent Resistance".

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The lives and work of Mohandis Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have much to teach us about nonviolent resistance to oppression. This book presents a comparative analysis of their legacies that demonstrates how powerful peace and love can be, even in the face of hate-filled oppression, aggression, and violence.

No two individuals had a greater impact on the 20th century's monumental struggles for freedom, justice, and peace. Gandhi showed the world that steadfastly and nonviolently adhering to the truth gave the world a practical alternative to the madness of war and violence. King used nonviolence to realize his dream of a beloved community and to beckon his white countrymen to live up to the lofty ideals bequeathed to them by America's founders. The two men came from widely divergent cultural, religious, economic, and political backgrounds and settings, yet they both wielded nonviolent weapons effectively. This comparison not only demonstrates the broad applicability of nonviolent principles; it also highlights the importance of merging high ideals with a practical program that produces positive results in people's lives.

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The lives and work of Mohandis Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have much to teach us about nonviolent resistance to oppression. This book presents a comparative analysis of their legacies that demonstrates how powerful peace and love can be, even in the face of hate-filled oppression, aggression, and violence.No two individuals had a greater impact on the 20th century's monumental struggles for freedom, justice, and peace.

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Ghandi's purpose for writing this letter to Lord Irwin was to persuade him to assist Ghandi in ending British rule in India.

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Gandhi incorporates his purpose in the excerpt with a collected and calm notation which is backed by during this time. Many Indian people were divided, so Gandhi united the country to support his cause over a tax that effected every class.

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Disclaimer: The following blog post is not a reflection of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's opinion on the Salt March of 1930.
By Nadya Hayasi.

The Salt March was one of the most famous early acts of civil disobedience, led by nonviolence leader Mahatma Gandhi as part of India's protest to gain freedom from the British. In 1882, the British government implemented the Salt Act which prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, forcing them to buy salt from the British instead.[1] This gave the British a monopoly on the good. The Indians were forced to incur a heavy salt tax charged by British sellers, especially since salt was a staple in their diet.[2] To protest this law, Gandhi declared resistance to the Salt Act and started a campaign of mass civil disobedience, or 'satyagraha'.

Satyagraha is literally defined as 'truth-force' and has been the main ideology in Gandhi's quest to fight for Indian independence.[3] To Gandhi, satyagraha was a political tool that went beyond quiet resistance and was an active act of non-cooperation and protest. Gandhi's concept of satyagraha has 3 factors - truth, nonviolence, and self-suffering.[4] Using these 3 factors, Gandhi abstains from anything that harms his opponent while continuing the work towards his goals and the future of India.

So why salt? Initially, Gandhi's idea of using salt as the centerpiece of their protest led to reluctance from the rest of the activists.[5] It seemed like such a small thing to focus on in the midst of the national struggle. However, Gandhi reasoned that they needed something to unite people of different classes and backgrounds, and salt was the answer.[6] Salt was a daily necessity for most Indians, and the salt tax had hurt all of them immensely.[7] He also felt that a common factor was needed to unite the Muslims and Hindus to revolt against the British by fighting something that impacted both groups.[8] Thus, the idea of the Salt March began to take place.

In 1930, Gandhi and 79 of his followers left Sabarmati Ashram to walk through Gujarat to the coastal town of Dandi with the intention of producing salt.[9] During the 24 days of the march he spoke to thousands of people and led prayers, convincing many more to join the trail. When he reached Dandi, he planned to work the salt flats on the beach but the police had crushed the salt deposits into the mud. Nevertheless, he reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud as an act of defiance towards the British.[10] Thousands of people in the other coastal cities followed Gandhi by making salt on their own, disrupting the British's order.[11]

Gandhi was arrested but satyagraha continued as Indians were inspired to take their destiny into their own hands. A year later in 1931 Gandhi was released from prison and started negotiations with the British. He agreed to call off the satyagraha in exchange for an equal negotiating role at a London conference on India's future.[12] The Salt March demonstrated that nonviolence can be an effective political tool, by showing the determination and willingness of the masses to fight for their rights and undermining the power of the ruling party. It is clear that noncooperation and noncompliance with the oppressors also forces the rulers to change their tactics and consider giving in to some demands, as they cannot rule a population who continuously go against their word.

[1] History.com Editors, " The Salt March," History.com, June 10, 2010.

[2] India Today Web Desk, " The end of Dandi March: The protest that shook the British establishment ended this day, 87 years ago" India Today, April 6, 2017.

[3] Edward A. Leonard, " The Political Theory of Satyagraha: An Introduction and a Plea for Further Study," The Western Political Quarterly Vol. 22 No 3 (September 1969): 594.

[4] Roque Ferriols, " Review: SATYAGRAHA," Review of Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflictby Joan V. Bondurant, Philippine Studies Vol. 7, No. 4 (October 1959): 504.

[5] Dennis Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action (Columbia University Press: New York, 1993): 100.

[6] Evan Andrews, " Why Gandhi's Salt March Rattled British Colonial Rule," History.com, October 2, 2019.

[7] Roy Moxham, " Salt Starvation in British India: Consequences of High Salt Taxation in Bengal Presidency, 1765-1878," Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 36. No. 4 (June 2001): 2270.

[8] Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict (Palgrave Macmillan: 2020): 84.

[9] " Chronology: Event Detail Page," Gandhi Heritage Portal, 15 June 2012.

[10] "The Salt March," History.com.

[11] Mahatma Gandhi and Dennis Dalton, Selected Political Writings (Hackett Publishing Company: Indiana, 1996): 72.

[12] Mark Engler and Roy Engler, " How Did Gandhi Win? Lessons from the Salt March," Dissent Magazine, October 20, 2014.

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A Pinch of Salt and the One of the Largest Nonviolence Movements in India: The Salt March of 1930

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The Salt March was one of the most famous early acts of civil disobedience, led by nonviolence leader Mahatma Gandhi as part of India's protest to gain freedom from the British. In 1882, the British government implemented the Salt Act which prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, forcing them to buy salt from the British instead.

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The Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed in 1931, after Gandhis release from imprisonment during the Salt March. It made it to where Indians could make salt for domestic use, and Irwin would release those imprisoned from the Salt March.

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Gandhi-Irwin Pact, agreement signed on March 5, 1931, between Mohandas K. Gandhi, leader of the Indian nationalist movement, and Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax), British viceroy (1926-31) of India. It marked the end of a period of civil disobedience (satyagraha) in India against British rule that Gandhi and his followers had initiated with the Salt March (March-April 1930). Gandhi's arrest and imprisonment at the end of the march, for illegally making salt, sparked one of his more effective civil disobedience movements. By the end of 1930, tens of thousands of Indians were in jail (including future Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru), the movement had generated worldwide publicity, and Irwin was looking for a way to end it. Gandhi was released from custody in January 1931, and the two men began negotiating the terms of the pact. In the end, Gandhi pledged to give up the satyagraha campaign, and Irwin agreed to release those who had been imprisoned during it and to allow Indians to make salt for domestic use. Later that year Gandhi attended the second session (September-December) of the Round Table Conference in London.
(Read Indira Gandhi's 1975 Britannica essay on global underprivilege.)
Kenneth Pletcher

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Gandhi-Irwin Pact | Non-Violence, Salt March, Peaceful Protest

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Gandhi-Irwin Pact, agreement signed on March 5, 1931, between Mohandas K. Gandhi, leader of the Indian nationalist movement, and Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax), British viceroy (1926-31) of India. It marked the end of a period of civil disobedience (satyagraha) in India against British rule that

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Gandi is referring to lord Irwin through the letter, but it can also be seen as him talking to the British nation. being that lord Irwin in the personified version of Britan.

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Ghandi appeals to logic through his use of a direct metaphor in line 27, stating that the suffering the British "will be enough to melt the stoniest of hearts." Through this he equates hearts to stone.

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Gandhi appeals to the audience's emotion through euphemistic diction, because of him putting his "threats" in less threating words he appealed to the audience conformability.

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Written in 1930, this letter communicated Gandhi’s reasons for wanting to end British rule of India. It invited the British governor of India at the time, Lord Irwin, to allow India to gain its independence.

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Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer as well as a social activist of India Nationality, famous for his nonviolence policies. He has led many peaceful protests for the sake of Indian people, the most famous of which is the Salt March where thousands of Indians followed Ghandi for 240 miles on foot.

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Ghandi's purpose in this excerpt is to politely threaten the British Government (Specifically Lord Irwin) because they have passed an unfair act: The India Salt Act. Ghandi is speaking on behalf of "the poor man" (line 52). He threatens to publish the letter through a rhetorical fragment: "But if you cannot see your way to deal with these evils... I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram... to disregard the salt laws" (lines 46-51). This would expose the British negatively.

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Ghandi's choices while writing this letter was rhetorical fragment- lines 3-4, lines 46-51, & lines 16-18-, juxtaposition- lines 5-8-, parallelism- lines 12-15 & lines 57-62. These help exemplify his appeals.

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The excerpt starts with a calm tone to explain that he wants to solve this problem "through non-violence" (line 11). There is then a rhetorical shift when he first says, "I invite you then to pave the way for immediate removal of those evils, and thus open a way for a real conference between equals, interest only in promoting the common good of mankind through voluntary fellowship and in arranging terms of mutual help and commerce equally suited to both," then says, "[Lord Irwin has] unnecessarily laid stress upon communal problems that unhappily affect this land" (35-42). The tone shifts from the calm tone of the beginning to a more angry and aggressive tone to attack the Viceroy.

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"[I]n 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government’s tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian’s poorest citizens."

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Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or "the great-souled one." He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s, and in the years following World War I became the leading figure in India's struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Known for his ascetic lifestyle-he often dressed only in a loincloth and shawl-and devout Hindu faith, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation, and undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India's poorest classes, among other injustices. After Partition in 1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist.

Early Life

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. His father was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar; his deeply religious mother was a devoted practitioner of Vaishnavism (worship of the Hindu god Vishnu), influenced by Jainism, an ascetic religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence. At the age of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in London at the Inner Temple, one of the city's four law colleges. Upon returning to India in mid-1891, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.

Did you know? In the famous Salt March of April-May 1930, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.

Gandhi was appalled by the discrimination he experienced as an Indian immigrant in South Africa. When a European magistrate in Durban asked him to take off his turban, he refused and left the courtroom. On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten up by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give up his seat for a European passenger. That train journey served as a turning point for Gandhi, and he soon began developing and teaching the concept of satyagraha ("truth and firmness"), or passive resistance, as a way of non-cooperation with authorities.

The Birth of Passive Resistance

In 1906, after the Transvaal government passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian population, Gandhi led a campaign of civil disobedience that would last for the next eight years. During its final phase in 1913, hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from the British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax for Indians.

In July 1914, Gandhi left South Africa to return to India. He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. In 1919, Gandhi launched an organized campaign of passive resistance in response to Parliament's passage of the Rowlatt Acts, which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to suppress subversive activities. He backed off after violence broke out-including the massacre by British-led soldiers of some 400 Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar-but only temporarily, and by 1920 he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence.

Leader of a Movement

As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain. Gandhi's eloquence and embrace of an ascetic lifestyle based on prayer, fasting and meditation earned him the reverence of his followers, who called him Mahatma (Sanskrit for "the great-souled one"). Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress Party), Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.

After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March 1922 and tried him for sedition; he was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1924 after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. He refrained from active participation in politics for the next several years, but in 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government's tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian's poorest citizens.

A Divided Movement

In 1931, after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London. Meanwhile, some of his party colleagues-particularly Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a leading voice for India's Muslim minority-grew frustrated with Gandhi's methods, and what they saw as a lack of concrete gains. Arrested upon his return by a newly aggressive colonial government, Gandhi began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India's so-called "untouchables" (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or "children of God." The fasting caused an uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government.

In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II, Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort. Instead, British forces imprisoned the entire Congress leadership, bringing Anglo-Indian relations to a new low point.

Partition and Death of Gandhi

After the Labor Party took power in Britain in 1947, negotiations over Indian home rule began between the British, the Congress Party and the Muslim League (now led by Jinnah). Later that year, Britain granted India its independence but split the country into two dominions: India and Pakistan. Gandhi strongly opposed Partition, but he agreed to it in hopes that after independence Hindus and Muslims could achieve peace internally. Amid the massive riots that followed Partition, Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots in Calcutta ceased.

In January 1948, Gandhi carried out yet another fast, this time to bring about peace in the city of Delhi. On January 30, 12 days after that fast ended, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma's efforts to negotiate with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi's body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.

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Mohandas Gandhi - Biography, Facts & Beliefs | HISTORY

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was leader of India's nonviolent independence movement against British rule. He was revered the world over for his philosophy of passive resistance and was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or "the great-souled one."

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In lines 55 to 60, when Ghandi says "It is, I know, open to you to frustrate my design by arresting me. I hope that there will be tens of thousands ready, in a disciplined manner, to take up the work after me, and, in the act of disobeying the Salt Act." He concedes that he might simply be arrested, but he makes a rebuttal that his work will likely be continued by many others. This appeals to logic, by illustrating to Lord Irwin that something he likely plans on doing, will be futile. This statement of strategic authority over Irwin also appeals to trust.

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Ghandi uses rebuttal in lines 3-4 expressing, "But the victories of truth have never been won without risk, often of the gravest character. " This choice better illustrates the effort he is willing to put for his cause.

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Lord Irwin also known as Edward Fredrick Lindley Wood was known to be a devout Christian enabling him to work with other religious people.

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Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st earl of Halifax (born April 16, 1881, Powderham Castle, Devonshire, England-died December 23, 1959, Garrowby Hall, near York, Yorkshire) British viceroy of India (1925-31), foreign secretary (1938-40), and ambassador to the United States (1941-46).

The fourth son of the 2nd Viscount Halifax, a well-known churchman and a leader of the Anglo-Catholic movement in Yorkshire, Wood was born with an atrophied left arm that had no hand. He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, and was elected a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, in 1903.

Wood entered Parliament as Conservative member for Ripon, Yorkshire, in January 1910, and for the next 30 years he had a most successful career in politics. During World War I he served for a time with the Yorkshire Dragoons in France and was assistant secretary to the ministry of national service from 1917 to 1918. After the war he was successively undersecretary of state for the colonies (1921-22), president of the Board of Education (1922-24), and minister of agriculture (1924-25).

In 1925 he was appointed viceroy of India and raised to the peerage as Baron Irwin. His term of office in India (1925-29) coincided with a period of intense nationalist ferment among Hindus and Muslims alike, but his own deep concern with religious faith (like his father, he was a devout High Churchman) enabled him to work on terms of understanding with Mahatma Gandhi, the most powerful figure among Indian nationalists at that time. Halifax accelerated the processes of constitutional advance by using his great influence to that end both during his viceroyalty and after.

On his return from India, he again became president of the Board of Education (1932-35). He succeeded to his father's viscountcy in 1934. Thereafter he was lord privy seal (1935-37), leader of the House of Lords (1935-38), and lord president of the council (1937-38) before being appointed foreign secretary on February 25, 1938, on Anthony Eden's resignation from Neville Chamberlain's government. His tenure of the foreign office was the most controversial period of his career, for by accepting this appointment he identified himself with Chamberlain's policy of "appeasement" toward Adolf Hitler. As lord privy seal he had visited Hitler and Hermann Göring in November 1937, and he accompanied Chamberlain on a visit to Benito Mussolini in Rome in January 1939.

Halifax had been close to Chamberlain long before becoming foreign secretary, and, when Chamberlain resigned in May1940, he hoped Halifax would succeed him as prime minister. In fact, the issue was decided otherwise at a meeting between Chamberlain, Halifax, and Winston Churchill. Halifax remained foreign secretary for the first seven months of Churchill's ministry, but in December 1940 he was named British ambassador to the United States.

In that post he gave great service to the Allied cause during World War II, in recognition of which he was created earl of Halifax in 1944. Named British delegate to the San Francisco Conference in March 1945, he attended the first sessions of the United Nations. His resignation as ambassador became effective on May 1, 1946. In 1957 he published a volume of recollections, Fullness of Days.

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Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st earl of Halifax | Biography & Facts

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Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st earl of Halifax, British viceroy of India (1925-31), foreign secretary (1938-40), and ambassador to the United States (1941-46). As Neville Chamberlain's foreign secretary, he was identified with the policy of appeasement toward Adolf Hitler.

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Ghandi's choices while writing this letter are to add multiple concessions and rebuttals to enforce a reasonable diction with thought provoking ideas. Like in lines 16-20 when he states, "I served them up to 1919, blindly. But when y eyes were opened and I conceived non-co-operation, the objective still was to serve them."

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The Salt March which took place in India that lasted through March and April of 1930 was an act of civil disobedience that protested British rule. Ghandi had a very large following and with that came many arrests; moreover, nearly 60,000 of Ghandi's followers were arrested by the Indian Government.

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The Salt March, which took place from March to April 1930 in India, was an act of civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi to protest British rule in India. During the march, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from his religious retreat near Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea coast, a distance of some 240 miles. The nonviolent march and other, similar marches resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself. India finally was granted its independence from Great Britain in 1947.

Salt Tax

Britain's Salt Act of 1882 prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in their diet.

Indian citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from their British rulers, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also charged a heavy salt tax. Although India's poor suffered most under the tax, all Indians required salt.

Satyagraha

After living for two decades in South Africa, where Mohandas Gandhi fought for the civil rights of Indians residing there, Gandhi returned to his native country in 1915 and soon began working for India's independence from Great Britain.

Defying the Salt Act, Gandhi reasoned, would be an ingeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently. Gandhi declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of "satyagraha," or mass civil disobedience.
WATCH: Yohuru Williams on Mohandas Gandhi
Gandhi Begins Salt March

First, Gandhi sent a letter on March 2, 1930, to inform the Viceroy Lord Irwin that he and the others would begin breaking the Salt Laws in 10 days. Then, on March 12, 1930, Gandhi set out from his ashram, or religious retreat, at Sabermanti near Ahmedabad, with several dozen followers on a trek of some 240 miles to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea.

There, Gandhi and his supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater. All along the way, Gandhi addressed large crowds, and with each passing day an increasing number of people joined the salt satyagraha.

By the time they reached Dandi on April 5, Gandhi was at the head of a crowd of tens of thousands of protestors. He spoke and led prayers and early the next morning walked down to the sea to make salt.

He had planned to work the salt flats on the beach, encrusted with crystallized sea salt at every high tide, but the police had forestalled him by crushing the salt deposits into the mud. Undaunted, Gandhi reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud-and British law had been defied.

At Dandi, thousands more followed his lead, and in the coastal cities of Bombay (now called Mumbai) and Karachi, Indian nationalists led crowds of citizens in making salt.

Gandhi Arrested

Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60,000 people. Gandhi himself was arrested on May 5, but the satyagraha continued without him.

On May 21, the poet Sarojini Naidu led 2,500 marchers on the Dharasana Salt Works, some 150 miles north of Bombay. Several hundred British-led Indian policemen met them and viciously beat the peaceful demonstrators.

The incident, recorded by American journalist Webb Miller, prompted an international outcry against British policy in India.

Did you know? Gandhi's followers called him "Mahatma, " which in Sanskrit means "great soul."

Aftermath of the Salt March

In January 1931, Gandhi was released from prison. He later met with Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India, and agreed to call off the satyagraha in exchange for an equal negotiating role at a London conference on India's future.

In August of that year, Gandhi traveled to the conference as the sole representative of the nationalist Indian National Congress. The meeting was a disappointment, but British leaders had acknowledged Gandhi as a force they could not suppress or ignore.

India won its independence in August 1947. The 78-year-old Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist less than six months later, on January 30, 1948.
READ MORE: When Gandhi's Salt March Rattled British Colonial Rule
Sources

Gandhi's Salt March to Dandi. Emory University: Postcolonial Studies.
The Salt March: Gandhi & his companions cut 348 kilometers to resist British occupation. Egypt Today.
How Did Gandhi Win? Lessons from the Salt March. Dissent Magazine.

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Salt March: Definition, Date & Gandhi | HISTORY

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The Salt March of 1930 was a bold act of nonviolent civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi to protest and put an end to British rule and taxation in India.

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Ghandi repeated "I" in lines 12-15. This choice is repetition (anaphora). The way his sentences are in these lines can also be classified as parallelism.

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Ghandi is a Indian rights activist who highlighted the importance of economic independence for India, Ghandi had been arrested after the Salt Act for protesting against the laws.

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Concession and Rebuttal - Ghandi admits there are risks present with his protest, but he explains why he still will persevere.

"I know that embarking on non-violence, I shall be running what might fairly be termed a mad risk. But the victories of truth have never been won without risks, often of the greatest character" (1-4).

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Ghandi's tone throughout this excerpt is peaceful and demanding yet with the intention to threaten the direct audience (Lord Irwin).

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Ghandi's tone in the expert is a threatening and peaceful

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Gandi uses a threating and sarcastic tone through out the text. the prime example of this is within the sentence " this letter is in any way intended as a threat, but is a sample and sacred duty,"

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Ghandi appeals to logic through emphasis of ideas, comparison, connecting of ideas, and thoughts association.

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Gandhi was a leader of the Indian National Congress, which was the first nationalist movement within the British Empire in Asia and Africa, known for gaining India its independence from Great Britain.

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For the next three years, Gandhi seemed to hover uncertainly on the periphery of Indian politics, declining to join any political agitation, supporting the British war effort, and even recruiting soldiers for the British Indian Army. At the same time, he did not flinch from criticizing the British officials for any acts of high-handedness or from taking up the grievances of the long-suffering peasantry in Bihar and Gujarat. By February 1919, however, the British had insisted on pushing through-in the teeth of fierce Indian opposition-the Rowlatt Acts, which empowered the authorities to imprison without trial those suspected of sedition. A provoked Gandhi finally revealed a sense of estrangement from the British raj and announced a satyagraha struggle. The result was a virtual political earthquake that shook the subcontinent in the spring of 1919. The violent outbreaks that followed-notably the Massacre of Amritsar, which was the killing by British-led soldiers of nearly 400 Indians who were gathered in an open space in Amritsar in the Punjab region (now in Punjab state), and the enactment of martial law-prompted him to stay his hand. However, within a year he was again in a militant mood, having in the meantime been irrevocably alienated by British insensitiveness to Indian feeling on the Punjab tragedy and Muslim resentment on the peace terms offered to Turkey following World War I.

By the autumn of 1920, Gandhi was the dominant figure on the political stage, commanding an influence never before attained by any political leader in India or perhaps in any other country. He refashioned the 35-year-old Indian National Congress (Congress Party) into an effective political instrument of Indian nationalism: from a three-day Christmas-week picnic of the upper middle class in one of the principal cities of India, it became a mass organization with its roots in small towns and villages. Gandhi's message was simple: it was not British guns but imperfections of Indians themselves that kept their country in bondage. His program, the nonviolent noncooperation movement against the British government, included boycotts not only of British manufactures but of institutions operated or aided by the British in India: legislatures, courts, offices, schools. The campaign electrified the country, broke the spell of fear of foreign rule, and led to the arrests of thousands of satyagrahis, who defied laws and cheerfully lined up for prison. In February 1922 the movement seemed to be on the crest of a rising wave, but, alarmed by a violent outbreak in Chauri Chaura, a remote village in eastern India, Gandhi decided to call off mass civil disobedience. That was a blow to many of his followers, who feared that his self-imposed restraints and scruples would reduce the nationalist struggle to pious futility. Gandhi himself was arrested on March 10, 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He was released in February 1924, after undergoing surgery for appendicitis. The political landscape had changed in his absence. The Congress Party had split into two factions, one under Chitta Ranjan Das and Motilal Nehru (the father of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister) favouring the entry of the party into legislatures and the other under Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel opposing it. Worst of all, the unity between Hindus and Muslims of the heyday of the noncooperation movement of 1920-22 had dissolved. Gandhi tried to draw the warring communities out of their suspicion and fanaticism by reasoning and persuasion. Finally, after a serious outbreak of communal unrest, he undertook a three-week fast in the autumn of 1924 to arouse the people into following the path of nonviolence. In December 1924 he was named president of the Congress Party, and he served for a year.

Return to party leadership

During the mid-1920s Gandhi took little interest in active politics and was considered a spent force. In 1927, however, the British government appointed a constitutional reform commission under Sir John Simon, a prominent English lawyer and politician, that did not contain a single Indian. When the Congress and other parties boycotted the commission, the political tempo rose. At the Congress session (meeting) at Calcutta in December 1928, Gandhi put forth the crucial resolution demanding dominion status from the British government within a year under threat of a nationwide nonviolent campaign for complete independence. Henceforth, Gandhi was back as the leading voice of the Congress Party. In March 1930 he launched the Salt March, a satyagraha against the British-imposed tax on salt, which affected the poorest section of the community. One of the most spectacular and successful campaigns in Gandhi's nonviolent war against the British raj, it resulted in the imprisonment of more than 60,000 people. A year later, after talks with the viceroy, Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax), Gandhi accepted a truce (the Gandhi-Irwin Pact), called off civil disobedience, and agreed to attend the Round Table Conference in London as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress.

The conference, which concentrated on the problem of the Indian minorities rather than on the transfer of power from the British, was a great disappointment to the Indian nationalists. Moreover, when Gandhi returned to India in December 1931, he found his party facing an all-out offensive from Lord Irwin's successor as viceroy, Lord Willingdon, who unleashed the sternest repression in the history of the nationalist movement. Gandhi was once more imprisoned, and the government tried to insulate him from the outside world and to destroy his influence. That was not an easy task. Gandhi soon regained the initiative. In September 1932, while still a prisoner, he embarked on a fast to protest against the British government's decision to segregate the so-called " untouchables" (the lowest level of the Indian caste system; now called Scheduled Castes [official] or Dalits) by allotting them separate electorates in the new constitution. The fast produced an emotional upheaval in the country, and an alternative electoral arrangement was jointly and speedily devised by the leaders of the Hindu community and the Dalits and endorsed by the British government. The fast became the starting point of a vigorous campaign for the removal of the disenfranchisement of the Dalits, whom Gandhi referred to as Harijans, or "children of God."

In 1934 Gandhi resigned not only as the leader but also as a member of the Congress Party. He had come to believe that its leading members had adopted nonviolence as a political expedient and not as the fundamental creed it was for him. In place of political activity he then concentrated on his "constructive programme" of building the nation "from the bottom up"-educating rural India, which accounted for 85 percent of the population; continuing his fight against untouchability; promoting hand spinning, weaving, and other cottage industries to supplement the earnings of the underemployed peasantry; and evolving a system of education best suited to the needs of the people. Gandhi himself went to live at Sevagram, a village in central India, which became the centre of his program of social and economic uplift.

The last phase

With the outbreak of World War II, the nationalist struggle in India entered its last crucial phase. Gandhi hated fascism and all it stood for, but he also hated war. The Indian National Congress, on the other hand, was not committed to pacifism and was prepared to support the British war effort if Indian self-government was assured. Once more Gandhi became politically active. The failure of the mission of Sir Stafford Cripps, a British cabinet minister who went to India in March 1942 with an offer that Gandhi found unacceptable, the British equivocation on the transfer of power to Indian hands, and the encouragement given by high British officials to conservative and communal forces promoting discord between Muslims and Hindus impelled Gandhi to demand in the summer of 1942 an immediate British withdrawal from India-what became known as the Quit India Movement.

In mid-1942 the war against the Axis powers, particularly Japan, was in a critical phase, and the British reacted sharply to the campaign. They imprisoned the entire Congress leadership and set out to crush the party once and for all. There were violent outbreaks that were sternly suppressed, and the gulf between Britain and India became wider than ever before. Gandhi, his wife, and several other top party leaders (including Nehru) were confined in the Aga Khan Palace (now the Gandhi National Memorial) in Poona (now Pune). Kasturba died there in early 1944, shortly before Gandhi and the others were released.

A new chapter in Indo-British relations opened with the victory of the Labour Party in Britain 1945. During the next two years, there were prolonged triangular negotiations between leaders of the Congress, the Muslim League under Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and the British government, culminating in the Mountbatten Plan of June 3, 1947, and the formation of the two new dominions of India and Pakistan in mid-August 1947.

It was one of the greatest disappointments of Gandhi's life that Indian freedom was realized without Indian unity. Muslim separatism had received a great boost while Gandhi and his colleagues were in jail, and in 1946-47, as the final constitutional arrangements were being negotiated, the outbreak of communal riots between Hindus and Muslims unhappily created a climate in which Gandhi's appeals to reason and justice, tolerance and trust had little chance. When partition of the subcontinent was accepted-against his advice-he threw himself heart and soul into the task of healing the scars of the communal conflict, toured the riot-torn areas in Bengal and Bihar, admonished the bigots, consoled the victims, and tried to rehabilitate the refugees. In the atmosphere of that period, surcharged with suspicion and hatred, that was a difficult and heartbreaking task. Gandhi was blamed by partisans of both the communities. When persuasion failed, he went on a fast. He won at least two spectacular triumphs: in September 1947 his fasting stopped the rioting in Calcutta, and in January 1948 he shamed the city of Delhi into a communal truce. A few days later, on January 30, while he was on his way to his evening prayer meeting in Delhi, he was shot down by Nathuram Godse, a young Hindu fanatic.

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Mahatma Gandhi - Emergence as nationalist leader

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For the next three years, Gandhi seemed to hover uncertainly on the periphery of Indian politics, declining to join any political agitation, supporting the British war effort, and even recruiting soldiers for the British Indian Army.

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Ghandi actively chooses to give the letter a threatening tone through his syntax, and subject, but in a peaceful way, through his formal and respectful diction.

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Rhetorical question: "The wonder is that we have submitted to the cruel monopoly for so long" This appeals to the audiences logic.

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In the letter excerpt, Ghandi appeals to his audiences' logic when he uses concession, rebuttals in the excerpt. "I know that embarking on non-violence, I shall be running what might fairly be termed a mad risk. But the victories of truth have never been won without risks, often of the gravest character."

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On lines 49-51 Gandi states "I shall proceed with such co-workers... to disregard the provisions of the salt laws" appeals to the audience's emotion of comfortability because he could have phrased it much more threatening.

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Ghandi appeals to the audience's emotions by evoking fear via cautionary anecdote when warning Lord Irwin that "...if [he] cannot see [his] way to deal with these evils and [Ghandi's] letter makes no appeal to [his] hear, on the eleventh day of [the] month, [Ghandi] shall proceed with such co-workers of the Shram as [Ghandi] can take, to disregard the provision of the salt laws" (pp. 45-51).

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Ghandi's tone is very calm but also threatening

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Demanding tone when he says, "You will, however, do me the favor not to deflect me from my course"

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The tone of the excerpt is a peaceful and respectful, but in a more ironic way of threating

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Ghandi appeals to the audience's logic and trust throughout the speech by using concession and rebuttal, parallelism, and juxtaposition.

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Ghandi's tone in this letter excerpt is Calm, Mature, and Sarcastic.