Mohandas Gandhi (SparkNotes Biography Guide)
By SparkNotes
()
About this ebook
Making the reading experience fun!
SparkNotes Biography Guides examine the lives of historical luminaries, from Alexander the Great to Virginia Woolf. Each biography guide includes: An examination of the historical context in which the person lived
A summary of the person’s life and achievements
A glossary of important terms, people, and events
An in-depth look at the key epochs in the person’s career
Study questions and essay topics
A review test
Suggestions for further reading
Whether you’re a student of history or just a student cramming for a history exam, SparkNotes Biography guides are a reliable, thorough, and readable resource.
Read more from Spark Notes
King Lear: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Fear Shakespeare Audiobook: Romeo & Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tempest (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As You Like It (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bird by Bird (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Much Ado About Nothing (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMacbeth: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5No Fear Shakespeare Audiobook: Julius Caesar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Years of Solitude (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMeasure for Measure (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Merchant of Venice: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsiders (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRomeo and Juliet: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Richard III (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atlas Shrugged SparkNotes Literature Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Winter's Tale (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Autobiography of Malcom X (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Merchant of Venice (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Gentlemen of Verona (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHenry V (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Raisin in the Sun (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTempest: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Comedy of Errors (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Fear Shakespeare Audiobook: Othello Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dune (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRomeo and Juliet (No Fear Shakespeare Graphic Novels) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRomeo and Juliet SparkNotes Literature Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Lear (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRichard II (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Mohandas Gandhi (SparkNotes Biography Guide)
Related ebooks
Gandhi: The Power of Nonviolence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGandhi and the Quit India Movement: Days of Decision Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIndia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Indian Independence Act of 1947, Updated Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great War: Indian Writings on the First World War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorld War II: From the Rise of the Nazi Party to the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary Of "1945-1995 The Decolonization Of The World" By García De Cortázar & Lorenzo Espinosa: UNIVERSITY SUMMARIES Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFor the Souls and Soils of India: From Ohio Farm Land to the Mission Fields of India Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRani Laxmibai: Warrior-Queen of Jhansi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLegends over Generations: Stories of Legends who Shaped our lives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5India Independence Through Non Violence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoments in Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInglorious Empire: what the British did to India Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indian in the House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Shashi Tharoor's Nehru Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNehru: The Invention of India Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Life/Death Rhythms of Capitalist Regimes – Debt Before Dishonour: Part Iii Forecast Dominance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJews in the American Labor Movement: Past, Present, and Future Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJawaharlal Nehru Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHitler And India: The Untold Story of his Hatred for the Country and its People Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYoung India: An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Spain In Our Hearts: by Adam Hochschild | Includes Analysis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Spain in Our Hearts: by Adam Hochschild | Includes Analysis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Diary of Lt Colonel George Thomas Chaloner 1944 - 47 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Complex Endure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Consise History of WWII Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDays of Glory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStudy Guide to The Ugly American by Burdick and Lederer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British, Russian and American Occupation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Road to Delhi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Book Notes For You
Summary of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides: Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez: Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by John Gottman: Conversation Starters Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Midnight Library: A Novel by Matt Haig: Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 5 AM Club Summary: Business Book Summaries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of The Creative Act: A Way of Being | A Guide To Rick Rubin's Book Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Summary of Ichiro Kishimi's and Fumitake Koga's book: The Courage to Be Disliked: Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Untamed by Glennon Doyle: Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery by Brianna Wiest : Discussion Prompts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab: Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Workbook for The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counter intuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor: Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence | Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club): A Novel by Jeanine Cummins: Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Summary of Poverty, by America By Matthew Desmond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant: Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Workbook for Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5
Reviews for Mohandas Gandhi (SparkNotes Biography Guide)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Mohandas Gandhi (SparkNotes Biography Guide) - SparkNotes
General Summary
Mohandas Gandhi was born in the western part of British-ruled India on October 2, 1869. A timid child, he was married at thirteen to a girl of the same age, Kasturbai. Following the death of his father, Gandhi's family sent him to England in 1888 to study law. There, he became interested in the philosophy of nonviolence, as expressed in the Bhagavad-Gita, Hindu sacred scripture, and in Jesus Christ's Sermon on the Mount in the Christian Bible. He returned to India in 1891, having passed the bar, but found little success in his attempts to practice law. Seeking a change of scenery, he accepted a position in South Africa for a year, where he assisted on a lawsuit.
In South Africa, he became involved in efforts to end discrimination against the Indian minority there, who were oppressed both by the British and by the Boers, descendants of the original Dutch settlers of the region. Having intended to stay a year, he ended up remaining until 1914 (his wife and children had joined him, meanwhile, in 1896). He founded the Natal Indian Congress, which worked to further Indian interests, and commanded an Indian medical corps that fought on the British side in the Boer War (1899-1901), in which the British conquered the last independent Boer republics.
After the war, Gandhi's reputation as a leader grew. He became even more adamant in his personal principles, practicing sexual abstinence, renouncing modern technology, and developing satyagraha–literally, soul- force.
Satyagraha was a method of non-violent resistance, often called non-cooperation,
that he and his allies used to great effect against the white governments in South Africa. Their willingness to endure punishment and jail earned the admiration of people in Gandhi's native India, and eventually won concessions from the Boer and British rulers. By 1914, when Gandhi left South Africa and returned to India, he was known as a holy man: people called him a Mahatma
, or great soul.
At this point, he was still loyal to the British Empire, but when the British cracked down on Indian civil liberties after World War I, Gandhi began to organize nonviolent protests. The Amritsar Massacre, in which British troops gunned down peaceful Indian protestors, convinced Gandhi and India of the need for self-rule, and in the early '20s Gandhi organized large-scale campaigns of non-cooperation that paralyzed the subcontinent's administration–and led to his imprisonment, from 1922 to 1924. After his release, he withdrew from politics for a time, preferring to travel India, working among the peasantry. But in 1930, he wrote the Declaration of Independence of India, and then led the Salt March in protest against the British monopoly on salt. This touched off acts of civil disobedience across India, and the British were forced to invite Gandhi to London for a Round-Table Conference.
Although Gandhi received a warm welcome in England, the Conference foundered on the issue of how an independent India would deal with its Muslim minority, and Gandhi withdrew from public life again. But independence could not be long delayed. The Government of India Act (1935) surrendered significant amounts of power to Indians, and the Indian National Congress clamored for more. When World War II broke out, India erupted into violence, and many nationalist leaders, including Gandhi, went to prison. After the war, the new British government wanted to get India off its hands quickly. But Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the head of the Muslim League, demanded that a separate state be created for India's Muslims, and to Gandhi's great distress, the Congress leaders and the harried British agreed. August of 1947 saw India's attainment of independence–as well as its partition into two countries, India and Pakistan. However, neither measure served to solve India's problems, and the country immediately fell apart: Hindus and Muslims killed each other in alarming numbers while refugees fled toward the borders. Heartbroken, Gandhi tried to calm the country, but to no avail. He was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist in Delhi on January 30, 1948, and India mourned the loss of its greatest hero.
Context
When Mohandas Gandhi was born in western India in 1869, Europe ruled the world. The various colonial powers controlled huge territories in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East; chief among these powers was Britain, whose Queen Victoria gave the age its name. The British Empire ruled all of India, from present-day Pakistan in the west to present-day Burma in the east: this Indian dominion, or Raj, as they called it, was the brightest jewel in an empire that included Canada, Australia, much of Africa, and countless smaller territories.
India was an ancient and proud civilization; in the Middle Ages, it had been far more powerful and civilized than Europeanpe. However, under the Mughal Dynasty in the 16th and 17th centuries its power had waned, and the Western powers had passed it by technologically, as the Industrial Revolution gave them an insurmountable edge in economic and military matters. The British did not so much conquer India as occupy a power vacuum, first under the auspices of the East India Company in the 17th century, which used British troops to protect and expand its trading sphere, and then under the British Crown after 1857. But the colonial empire that Britain (and France, and Germany,