Mahatma Karamchand Gandhi

By Charlotte Harvey

Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Parbandet, India. Mahatma got married when he was thirteen. When he got older he went to law school. In 1888 Gandhi set sail for England, where he had decided to pursue a degree in law. After pursuing his degree in law he went to South Africa to be a lawyer. When he went to South Africa he was treated badly.

Gandhi led India to freedom from the British. He told Indians not to work with the British in everything they did. The British were mad with him because the people of India were listening to him. Later on in 1922 a policeman was killed and shortly after Gandhi was arrested and sent to prison for six years. Gandhi stopped eating because he knew if he died Indians would fight for their freedom. So in 1925 he was released. Then he tried to change the salt laws. The salt laws were laws that said Indians had to pay taxes to buy salt. The people that didn't have a lot of money had to pay extra for salt. Gandhi was angry because he thought it was racist. He tried to change it. He and thousands of people walked to the sea to get the law changed. They said they were going to make their own salt. The British couldnít do anything so they changed the salt law. It took a long time to free India. The British ended up going back to their own country in the 1940s.

Gandhi showed courage when he got arrested and stopped eating. The thing he believed in most strongly was non-violence. Non - violence means fighting without violence. You could use sit-ins and you can march for what you believe in. Children like me can learn a lot from what Gandhi said and did by using non-violence.

    In the year 1948, Gandhi was murdered. The man that killed him didn't believe in the same religion that Gandhi did. After Indians were free, the people started fighting with each other. They werenít from the same religions. I think it was sad because Gandhi helped free India and this was how they repaid him. Religion shouldn't matter to them because as long as Indians were free they shouldn't need to worry about religion or anything.