Gandhi

By Kylie Marie

  • Gandhi was born

  • Gandhi marries Kasturba

  • Gandhi takes a job with an Indian law firm in South Africa

  • Gandhi founds the Natal Indian Congress to agitate for Indian rights.

  • A discriminatory law is passed in the Transvaal region of South Africa forcing all Indians to register with the provincial government or else face punishment.

    Under Gandhi’s leadership the Indian community takes a pledge to defy the law and to suffer all the penalties resulting from its defiance.

  • Gandhi returns to India

  • Gandhi becomes a leader in the Indian National Congress political party. He campaigns for swaraj

    He works to reconcile all classes and religious sects, especially Hindus and Muslims.

  • He launches a noncooperation campaign against Britain, urging Indians to spin their own cotton and to boycott British goods, courts, and government.

    This leads to his imprisonment from 1922 to 1924.

  • Mahatma Gandhi marches with supporters on the Salt March, a nonviolent protest directed against the British government's tax on salt, which greatly affected the poorest Indians.

  • The British viceroy and Gandhi sign an agreement (the Gandhi-Irwin Pact) marking the end of a period of civil disobedience in India against British rule.

    The pact involves Gandhi pledging to give up the satyagraha campaign and the British viceroy agreeing to release all those who had been imprisoned and to allow Indians to make salt for domestic use.

  • Under a new viceroy, Gandhi is imprisoned again. While in prison he fasts to protest the British decision to segregate the so-called untouchables (the lowest level of the Indian caste system) by allotting them separate electorates in the new constitution

    The fast causes an emotional upheaval in the country, and the British agree to change the policy.

  • resigned as leader and member of the Indian National Congress

  • Becomes politically active again early in World War II, demanding immediate independence as India’s price for aiding Britain in the war.

    He is imprisoned again, from 1942 to 1944.

  • India formally achieves independence from British rule.

    However, the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan is a great disappointment to Gandhi, who has long worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. Rioting between Muslims and Hindus over the partition breaks out in many areas. Again Gandhi turns to nonviolence, fasting until Delhi rioters pledge peace.

  • While on his way to prayer in Delhi, Gandhi is killed by a young Hindu fanatic who has been angered by Gandhi’s efforts to reconcile Hindus and Muslims.