Mahatma Gandhi Character Analysis

An Indian lawyer, politician, writer, and social activist known for his successful use of civil disobedience, or non-violent protest. In 1920, he became a leader in the Indian National Congress and used his political clout to promote Indian nationalism. Gandhi argued that Indians remained under British colonial rule not so much out of fear of British power and weaponry, but due to their own flaws. Gandhi started boycotts of British businesses and institutions in India, though this initial effort was unsuccessful in getting the British to relinquish power over the then-colony. In 1942, fed up with what he perceived as a dishonest offer from the British to transfer power to Indians, and upset, too, with their encouragement of discord between Hindus and Muslims, Gandhi demanded that the British immediately withdraw from India. In the same year, Gandhi was imprisoned in the Aga Khan Palace (now the Gandhi National Memorial), as part of the British effort to crush the Congress Party. He was released in 1944. By 1945, a series of negotiations between the newly-elected Labor Party in England, the Indian National Congress, and the Muslim League led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, resulted in the Mountbatten Plan—an agreement to partition British India into the separate states of India and Pakistan. Gandhi sorely regretted his inability to help create a united, independent India. To protest the communal riots which broke out between Hindus and Muslims from 1946-1947, Gandhi went on hunger strikes. His fast in September 1947 helped end riots in Calcutta. On January 30, 1948, while walking to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi, he was shot and killed by Nathuram Godse, a young man who was a Hindu fanatic.