Plot Summary for
Gandhi (1982) More at IMDbPro » ad feedback
In 1893, Gandhi is thrown off a South African train for being an Indian and traveling in a first class compartment. Gandhi realizes that the laws are biased against Indians and decides to start a non-violent protest campaign for the rights of all Indians in South Africa. After numerous arrests and the unwanted attention of the world, the government finally relents by recognizing rights for Indians, though not for the native blacks of South Africa. After this victory, Gandhi is invited back to India, where he is now considered something of a national hero. He is urged to take up the fight for India's independence from the British Empire. Gandhi agrees, and mounts a non-violent
…show more content…
Written by gavin (gunmasterM@hotmail.com)
The last fifty years of the life of 'Mahatma Gandhi' leading to his assassination in 1948 is portrayed. In the late 1800's South Africa, then Indian-British attorney Mohandas K. Gandhi takes up the cause of fighting what he sees as racially discriminatory laws against colored people such as himself and other ethnic Indians. Being that South Africa is part of the British Empire, he is hoping that news of such in the British press will support his cause. Although violence is used against him by the authorities, his protests are only by peaceful means. Having made a name for himself as a motivator of peaceful action which he does not want confused with passivity, Gandhi returns to India in 1915, when he has now abandoned his western clothing for more basic self-made garb of shawls and loincloths. He is asked by prominent Indian figures of the day, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, to join the fight for Indian independence from the British, despite some within that group believing Gandhi's methods ineffective. Because of internal religious conflicts between the Hindus and minority Muslims among others, the British believe that an Indian self-government would lead to chaos, which to Gandhi is beside the point. But Gandhi's ability to rally the troops is enough to strike fear in the British controlled authorities, who do whatever they feel they need to to
Mohandas Gandhi was born in 1869 in the Indian coastal city of Porbandar (Background Essay). He then studied law in London, where he noticed that Indians were expected to imitate their rulers, the Englishmen (Background Essay). Gandhi wanted all people to live free, even those imposed by India’s caste system so he decided to take action in a peaceful manner (Background Essay). By doing so he was able to gain India’s independence in 1947 (Background Essay). This caused Gandhi to be known as “ Mahatma” or “ Great Soul” because he was able to do it without violence (Background Essay). Gandhi’s nonviolent movement worked because he accepted the consequences to his actions, strived for fairness to all mankind, and didn’t think of the British as enemies.
Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist and writer who would lead the independence movement of India to free the country of British rule (“Mahatma Gandhi,” 2017). He would prove that a single person could change the course of history and take on the entire British Empire. Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence and civil disobedience are attributed to his success in gaining independence for India. The act of passive resistance allowed Gandhi to generate more support for his movement for independence while making it difficult for the British to find reasons to arrest them. He argued that although violence could be more effective than peaceful
Thesis: A true leader, an anti-war activist, and the leader of India’s independence movement, Mohandas Gandhi was a man of great significance.
British rule was tough on many Indians. Gandhi, an Indian born lawyer, believed in freedom and peace for his people. He once experienced racism when he was kicked out of a train in Europe. He changed people’s point of view without breaking the law, which was tough for him. Gandhi made his nonviolent movement work through the use of determination, peaceful civil disobedience, and being a powerful leader.
In 1757, Great Britain extended its empire into India. This occupation would not fully end until 1947. In the time between, there were many movements by the Indian people to gain independence from the British. The movement that finally succeeded in winning India’s independence was led by one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Gandhi’s methods for fighting against the occupation of the British were very different from those of any of the freedom movements before. And that was why it worked. Gandhi did not agree with the general reasoning of the time: that conflicts could be solved through negotiation and forceful resistance.1 Rather, his faith led him to go
In 1869, Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in India. At that time, the British had rule over India. They pushed people in India off their land and took their money from them for themselves, which was extremely cruel and unfair to the population. Then on March 18, 1921, Gandhi made a speech inside a courtroom complaining about these unjust acts. In his speech, he gives a excellent argument against the oppression in India. He uses a combination of emotional, rational, and ethical appeals to help build up his argument.
The South African civil rights movement, was greatly impacted upon by Gandhi. After becoming a legal barrister in England, he accepted a yearlong contract from an Indian firm, to a post in the Colony of Natal, South Africa. Gandhi was horrified by the racism and prejudice he experienced as an Indian immigrant in South Africa. On a train voyage to Pretoria, Gandhi was beaten by a Caucasian stagecoach driver and thrown out of a first-class railway compartment. This was because he refused to give up his seat for a European passenger. That
Born in Porbandar, India, Gandhi studied law and organized boycotts against British institutions in peaceful forms of civil protest. He was killed in 1948.Even after Gandhi’s assassination, his commitment to nonviolence and his belief in simple living,making his own clothes, eating a vegetarian diet and using fasts for self-purification as well as a means of protest have been a beacon of hope for oppressed people throughout the world. Gandhi’s actions inspired future human rights movements around the
This experience in his time in South Africa prepared him to lead India’s independence movement because it helped him become aware of the racial prejudice and exploitation of Indians in South Africa. By him witnessing the racial prejudice in South Africa, he then organized the Indian émigrés in order to protect their interests. As a result, Gandhi developed a basic understanding and experience on how to organize masses of people under a single goal of liberating themselves from foreign oppression that existed in both South Africa and India. This experience in addition to his knowledge on law would aid him to become a respectful leader as he took part in an active independent movement based on nonviolent
After he graduated law school, he went to Africa and lived there for 20 years; however, Indians and non-whites were treated poorly, like in the southern United States. He believed this was wrong, and sought out to peacefully solve the problem, using his method of “Satyagraha.” Once he started though, he discovered a problem: Africa was a British colony at the time. The British rule was ultimately leading to racial tension, so he decided to peacefully protest against British rule. “Gandhi helped people realize that they needed independence from Britain” (StudySync). Although while he was doing this, trouble was brewing in India. The British were trying to pay off their national debt, so they made a monopoly for salt saled and taxed salt heavily in India. The citizens of india where outraged, because salt was an important part in their diet, and many families no longer could afford it. Gandhi desided to use his methood of peaceful protesting to try and free India from the rule of the British. He then started the Salt March, a long march to the sea to protest against the British. “...Gandhi reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud–and British law had been defied…. Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60,000 people. Gandhi himself was arrested on May 5, but the satyagraha continued
Gandhi was born in 1869 in British-ruled India. He became a lawyer, moving to South Africa to practice for a year. While there, Gandhi witnessed the intense racial tensions occurring in the nation. His earliest encounter with discrimination was in Pretoria, when he was forcibly removed from a train after refusing to move to the back. This initial action of civil disobedience made Gandhi “think of his duty to stay back and fight for his rights.” In 1906, Gandhi and his supporters started a peaceful protest called Satyagraha, against the South African Transvaal Government’s restrictions on Indian rights, and they’re struggle eventually bore fruit in 1913. Gandhi also used Satyagraha in India in 1930, protesting the British Salt Acts, which prevented Indians from collecting or selling salt. He, along with thousands of Indians, marched 241 miles to the coastal city of Dandi, where Gandhi made salt out of sea water. Despite being beaten and arrested, Gandhi and his supporters achieved success by the lessening of the Salt Acts in 1931. Because of Gandhi’s civil disobedience movements, Indians achieved the rights that they deserved, both in South Africa and in
According to the Constitutional Rights Foundation, when the Boer legislature passed a law requiring that all Indians have to register with police with fingerprints Gandhi and other Indians had refused to obey the law. For the disobedience, Gandhi was arrested and imprisoned for years because he did not believe in those unjust laws. Though, after he got released, he still continued to protest the registration law and help non-violent marches. Eventually, this caused the Boer government to end the “objectionable parts” of the law. Even though Gandhi had been in jail for an abundance amount of times, he came out every time to start new peaceful protests. At the end, with the help of Gandhi and his satyagraha (peaceful revolt), India had finally gained independence from Britain. Consequently, this again demonstrates how civil disobedience can have positive impact and can change a society for its greater
Aroused by the massacre of Amritsar in 1919, Gandhi devoted his life to gaining India’s independence from Great Britain. As the dominant figure used his persuasive philosophy of non-violent confrontation, he inspired political activists with many persuasions throughout the world (Andrews 23). Not only was Mahatma Gandhi a great peacemaker, but also his work to achieve freedom and equality for all people was greatly acknowledged. Gandhi’s unconventional style of leadership gained him the love of a country and eventually enabled him to lead the independence movement in India.
Events in South Africa had made Gandhi a very well-known man in India and in 1915 he along with family in tow, arrives in Bombay, India which is where the following scene takes place. I immediately noticed that he was no longer wearing a suit, but instead the traditional clothing of the Indian people. Upon returning to India, the film depicts Gandhi taking on the English once again with the backing of millions of Indian supporters seeking independence from Great Britain. This done by once again forming a non-violent protesting organization. From here the film goes on to show violence brought to Gandhi’s followers, supporters, and the non-violent protestors by officials using force with gunfire, batons, etc. Afterwards, Gandhi was again imprisoned several times in India with one occurrence resulting in a six year sentence.
In South Africa, he involved himself in an attempt to end discrimination against the minority Indians residing there. During this course, he developed “satyagarha”, which translates into “soul force”, or an approach of non-violence resistance, against the British governments in South Africa. In the years following the World War I, Gandhi became a leading figure in India for his struggle to achieve independent from the mighty British rule. His willingness to tolerate the punishments and the prison confinement earned him the title of “ Mahatama”, a “great soul” in India in 1914. (Mohandas Gandhi, 2015)