Mahatma Gandhi Dbq Essay

“ First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” (Mahatma Gandhi). Gandhi was born in 1869 in Porbandar. Throughout his life Gandhi helped those in need. He was taught that everyone and everything is holy. He married at the custom age of 19 and went to London to study law. The thing that helped Gandhi promote nonviolence is that he worked his entire life saying that violence didn’t change the way people acted. He lived his life saying that an eye for an eye only made the whole world blind. Gandhi’s nonviolent movement worked because he had something to prove and everyone else in the world agreed with him. Gandhi served 2,338 days in prison -- 3.5 years-- just to prove that violence would never be the answer. When Gandhi heard that his fell Indian protesters had been sentenced to three months in prison he stated, “ If these men had committed an offense, I had committed a greater offense and I therefore asked the Magistrate to impose upon me the heaviest penalty…. I well remembered that I … did not feel the slightest hesitation in entering the prisoner’s box” (Document C). This proves that Gandhi was more than willing to prove to the British -- ruling India -- that he

In a letter from Gandhi to Lord Irwin addressed as “Dear Friend,” he stated, “ Whilst therefore I hold the British rule to be a curse, I do not intend harm to a single Englishmen or to any legitimate interest he may have in India…. And why do I regard the British rule a curse? ...Even the salt [the peasant] must use to live is so taxed as to make burden fall heaviest on him…” (Document A). Gandhi refers to Lord Irwin as “Friend” so that as he reads the letter he is not seeing himself as a higher power. Gandhi was opposed to the British rule because they placed a high tax on the salt that the poor men and/or women need to