Gandhi and satyagraha

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, Gujarat, in 1869. He studied law in London, then went to South Africa, where he faced racial discrimination himself and saw the hardships of the Indian community there.

From that came his method: satyagraha, 'insistence on truth', based on passive resistance, nonviolence (ahimsa), and accepting suffering in the search for truth.

He returned to India in 1915, and on Gokhale's advice joined the Congress. Three years later he began using satyagraha, but not on big national questions.

He used it on local problems: indigo farmers in Bihar who were cruelly exploited, mill workers in Ahmedabad on very low wages, and peasants in Kheda facing too-high land revenue demands.

Vallabhbhai Patel later led the Bardoli movement of 1928 for peasants' rights, one of the most successful grassroots movements of the struggle, for which Gandhi gave him the title 'Sardar'.

Then the end of World War I brought no freedom. Food had been sent away to feed soldiers, causing shortages; war spending pushed up prices; and in 1919 the Rowlatt Act let police detain anyone without trial.

Gandhi launched a nationwide protest: a day of prayer and fasting, Hindus and Muslims uniting in satyagraha, Swadeshi goods promoted as a 'religious duty', and a boycott of foreign goods, schools and courts. This became the Non-Cooperation Movement, with a promise of Swaraj within a year if people kept strictly to nonviolence.

And khadi was its symbol. Hand-spun, hand-woven cloth meant self-reliance, work for millions of poor villagers, and a direct challenge to British cloth imports, all in one piece of cloth.