That was what Gandhi wanted to achieve when he launched on a policy of
noncooperation with the British. Nonviolence and noncooperation would make India
independent of the British Empire, and the Indians would see the Englishmen off
as friends. The first action of this noncooperation policy was to make the
indians realize that to buy and use cotton clothing made in England made the
Indian people unemployed and poor. But one day a policeman got killed as a
direct consequence of one of the civil disobedience-marches, and Gandhi felt
obligated to abandon total noncooperation. Despite that Gandhi actually stopped
a revolution that cold have cost hundreds of Englishmens lives, Gandhi was
sentenced to jail, this time on the charges of encouraging the Indian people to
noncooperation and civil disobedience. The Englishmen thought that after a few
years in jail, Gandhi would be forgotten. But from the first day he became a
free man he once again fought for a free India. In 1930 Gandhi arranged one of
his most famous anti-English action: The salt march. This was a reaction to
England's unreasonable salt-taxes. The Indish people are, as all other people,
dependent of salt. Many Indians couldn't afford salt because of the new taxes.
Gandhi gathered hundreds of thousands people, and they all marched towards the
Indian Sea to extract salt from the ocean. First, the British government chose
to overlook it, but after a while they tried to stop the action.
They arrested 90-100.00 people, and in one demonstration the British soliders
killed and wounded 10-20.000 men. After the salt-massacre the British empire's
moral and ethic reputation was lost forever (if there ever were any). India had
endured all the cruelties, unreason and hardship, and the people had neither
defeated nor retreated. In everybodies hearts, India was now free and
independent. It seemed like the British government finally saw that, because in
1931 Gandhi was invited to participate in a government-conference in London, to
discuss the possible independence of India. But the talking in England ends in
nothing, India is still a part of the British empire. Together with his struggle
for political independence, Gandhi fought to improve the status of the lowest
classes of society, the casteless Untouchables, whom he called harijans
(children of God). He was a believer in manual labor and simple living; he spun
the thread and wove the cloth for his own garments and insisted that his
followers do so, too. He disagreed with those who wanted India to become an
industrial country. Gandhi thought that his philisophy, the nonviolent
resistance, could be used during World War II. Not without a great number of
causualties and deaths of course, but people always get killed or wounded in
wars. In 1942-44, Gandhi was imprisoned for the last time, after he had demanded
total withdrawal of the British (the Quit India movement). Gandhi was tireless
in his attempts to get a closer relationship between the Hindu majority and the
numerous minorities of India, particularly the Muslims. His greatest failure, in
fact, was his inability to dissuade India Muslims, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
from creating a separate state, Pakistan. When independence of India was finally
achieved in 1947 after negotiations in whitch Gandhi was a principal
participant, he opposed the partition of India with such intensity that he
launched a mass movement against it. This resulted in a gruesome Civil War in
India and Pakistan, the muslims fought the hindues. Millions of people got
killed, men, women and children were slaughtered.
