GANDHI

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in India.

According to Hindu custom, his parents married him to Kasturba.

He stole some gold from his older brother, he felt terrible about it later and he decided to change and become a better person.

He had to go to England to study law and he started his studies in November.

He began to read the Bible and Hindu religious books. Slowly, he began to develop his ideas about non-violence.

Gandhi became a lawyer in June and the day after he graduated, he retourned to India.

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During the Boer War, he organised an ambulance corps of 1,100 Indian men to help the war effort.

He had to go to study Indian law in Bombay because the local lawyers were much better than he was. He opened a small office there, but his career as a lawyer was not successful.

He looked for other kinds of work and he discovered he could write petitions to government offices.A Moslen businessman offered him a job to fight a legal case for him in South Africa.

He arrived in Durban, South Africa, in May. Again, he had a terrible experience in court.

His boss bought first-class tickets for him on the train.

A white man entered his compartment and saw him. Then a policeman forced him to leave the train because this was for whites only. At the end of the year, his work for the Indian company was finished.

He decided to start an organisation called Natal Indian Congress to help the Indians and many people joined it.

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He decided to try a different tactic: a non-violent way to fight. He called it passive resistance. Finally, he was called to meet with the Minister of Defence and he signed an agreement.

They travelled to Porbandar. He decided to start an ashram, a small community, and make it a place for them to live together. He now wore a long white cotton shirt, white cotton trousers and sandals.

Towards the end of the war, it was clear that things werent going well for the British so he went from village to village to get people to become soldiers in the British Indian Army and fight in Europe.

He started a new group called Satyagraha Sabha. He spoke against the violence. He finally understood: British rule in India must end and he decided to wear only Indian clothes.

He changed his plans: he decided to concentrate on social problems and he was sent to prison for six years. After two years, he was freed.

The British sent an all-white committee to India to see if the country was ready for home rule of self-government under the British. They decided to boycott the comittee and they began to write their own constitution.

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At midnight on 31st December, they declared their independence and announced the beginning of non-violent resistance campaign.

On 26th January, in the towns and villages of India, hundreds of thousands of people agreed together. Their first act of non-violent resistance was to demostrate against the salt tax.

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While he was in England, the agreement with Lord Irwin began to fail and Nehru and other leaders were arrested. He was also arrested and the resistance began again.

He was sent to prision again.

On 12th March, he began the long walk to the sea. When they arrived at the sea on 5th April, there were several thousand of people. The next morning he went to the sea and picked the salt directly from the sea.

A new British representative, Lord Irwin, arrived to India. They agreed to stop the resistance if the British gave them home rule.Then, he travelled to England to a special conference to discuss it.

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He was very happy when the Congress Party won several local elections and became the main party in the country. The Moslems werent so happy and they began to say they wanted their own country in the north part of India. They called it Pakistan.

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But, unfortunately, India was now going to be two countries- India and Pakistan.On 13th January he decided to fast in his home in Delhi, until the fighting stopped or he died. Finally, his fast began to change things.

On 18th January representatives of the two sides came to him and signed a peace.He announced, I will stop fasting.

The British Prime Minister suddenly announced on 20th February, We will leave India by the end of next years. Finally, the British decided to leave India on 15th August.

While he was in prision this time, he decided to fast to demonstrate against the treatment of the untouchables by many Hindus in his country. When he left prision, he continued the fight.

And then the Second World War began. The Congress Party voted for the Quit-India resolution for the British to leave India immediately and let them govern their own country. Of course the party leaders and he were immediately put in prision.

1948

At 4.30 on 30th January he got up and started to walk to the large park to the left of the house. Manu and Ava -his assintants- walked with him.

A man moved forward as if he wanted to greet Gandhi. Suddenly, he held up an automatic pistol and fire three shots..

A doctor was called inmmediately and he examined him but declared him dead. Prime Minister Nehru soon arrived. In the early morning, they washed his body and prepared it to be burnt according to Hindu customs.

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At 4.45 Gandhis third son, Ramdas, lit the fire. It burned for 27 hours. At the end they collected his remains and put them into an urn.

Two weeks later, the contents of the urn were thrown into the river in another ceremony. Millions of people followed the urn to the river.

Then, they covered him with the India flag and put roses on top. The funeral procession left at 11.45 in the morning. Three planes flew over and dropped millions of roses.

People from all over the world sent messages of condolence.The United Nations lowered its flag in his memory.

PAULA RUEDA RODRGUEZ