Dicey langston biography of mahatma gandhi

Did you know? The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60, 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.

In , 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 , 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. He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust.

Dicey loved her father so much that she obeyed him … for a time. She broke her promise not long afterwards when she heard that the Bloody Scouts were going to attack the small group of Whigs at Little Eden. However, she realized that she could not trust anyone else with the valuable piece of information. Finally, in the dead of night, she sneaked out of the house to relay the message herself.

In order to reach her brothers, she had to cross the flooded Tyger stream. It was during the struggle to the other side of the bank that she almost drowned. When she finally reached the band of men, she was thoroughly soaked and exhausted from the long run. In , with India still under the firm control of the British, Gandhi had a political reawakening when the newly enacted Rowlatt Act authorized British authorities to imprison people suspected of sedition without trial.

In response, Gandhi called for a Satyagraha campaign of peaceful protests and strikes. Violence broke out instead, which culminated on April 13, , in the Massacre of Amritsar. Troops led by British Brigadier General Reginald Dyer fired machine guns into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators and killed nearly people. Gandhi became a leading figure in the Indian home-rule movement.

Calling for mass boycotts, he urged government officials to stop working for the Crown, students to stop attending government schools, soldiers to leave their posts and citizens to stop paying taxes and purchasing British goods. Rather than buy British-manufactured clothes, he began to use a portable spinning wheel to produce his own cloth.

The spinning wheel soon became a symbol of Indian independence and self-reliance. Gandhi assumed the leadership of the Indian National Congress and advocated a policy of non-violence and non-cooperation to achieve home rule. After British authorities arrested Gandhi in , he pleaded guilty to three counts of sedition. Although sentenced to a six-year imprisonment, Gandhi was released in February after appendicitis surgery.

When violence between the two religious groups flared again, Gandhi began a three-week fast in the autumn of to urge unity. He remained away from active politics during much of the latter s. Wearing a homespun white shawl and sandals and carrying a walking stick, Gandhi set out from his religious retreat in Sabarmati on March 12, , with a few dozen followers.

Dicey langston biography of mahatma gandhi

By the time he arrived 24 days later in the coastal town of Dandi, the ranks of the marchers swelled, and Gandhi broke the law by making salt from evaporated seawater. The Salt March sparked similar protests, and mass civil disobedience swept across India. Approximately 60, Indians were jailed for breaking the Salt Acts, including Gandhi, who was imprisoned in May Still, the protests against the Salt Acts elevated Gandhi into a transcendent figure around the world.

Gandhi was released from prison in January , and two months later he made an agreement with Lord Irwin to end the Salt Satyagraha in exchange for concessions that included the release of thousands of political prisoners. The agreement, however, largely kept the Salt Acts intact. But it did give those who lived on the coasts the right to harvest salt from the sea.

Hoping that the agreement would be a stepping-stone to home rule, Gandhi attended the London Round Table Conference on Indian constitutional reform in August as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. Retrieved 18 December History of American Women. Univ of South Carolina Press. ISBN Sourcebooks Inc. Chicago Review Press.

Trafford Publishing. In Disguise! Simon and Schuster.