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Join The Movement Mohandas Gandhi

My name is Mohandas Gandhi and I was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India. I studied in London to become a lawyer when I was 19 years old. My fight for civil rights for Indians began when I realized how unfairly Indians were treated by the British when I was traveling to South Africa to help with a lawsuit.

I knew I couldn't just let Indians be treated so unfairly by the British so I decided to stay in Africa for a while to help my fellow people get the rights they deserve. The first major thing I did in Africa was to organize an act of civil disobedience by burning the pass laws Indians had to carry.

Pass laws were forms of identification Indians had to carry that allowed everyone to know they were Indian. These were meant as a form of segregation that would limit the movements of Indians. On August 16, 1908 I organized for the Indian community to come together to burn their passes in a 3 legged pot in the corner of the grounds. Over 2,000 passes were burned this day and it turned out to be very successful.

After 20 years in Africa I succeeded in forcing the British out, but I realized British rule in India was bad as well, so I decided to return to my home country to help my people receive the rights they deserve. You all must know the real reasons the British are terrible and why we need to force them out of India.

The British are taxing us too much on salt that is coming from our land and it is not fair. Our people are getting thrown in jail just because they are buying it and selling it but this is a preservative we need and we have a right to be able to use it.

We all need to change this as a group and the only way we can do this is by marching our way all the way to the sea. I am aware that this is going to be a very treacherous journey and it will be very time consuming and exhausting. I expect it to take almost a month and to be about 250 miles but this is the only way we can show the British that we won't give up until we get what we want and they're gone.

As a result of British rule, there were many famines in India which resulted in many of out people dying. The British caused these famines because of their economic and administrative policies. For example, the British seized local farmland and converted it to foreign-owned plantations that grew cash crops that they exported for profit rather than food that could have been used to feed everyone here. We cannot trust the British, they do not care about us, only about money.

Like I said before, the British don't care about us, they're cruel and don't care how bad they beat us. Whenever we nonviolently protest we always get beaten by British soldiers, like the time we were all meeting together they started shooting us at what is now the amritsar massacre. What is important though is that we never fight back because if we do then it gives the British a reason to imprison us. We must show them we are stronger and more united than they think

Many Indians have lost many businesses to the British which have forced us to work for them without a choice. If we don't work for them then they will imprison us so we need to, but we should be able to get our own businesses back. What is even worse about this is that we work for them without even getting paid.

We can no longer allow Britain to be the "jewel in the crown" therefore we need to stop helping them make money. What I encourage you all to do is to buy cotton goods that are homespun by Indians or do it yourself. We can call this the homespun movement, this will prevent the British from profiting off of us.

The British are preventing us from making as much money as we could be making. This is because they are forcing us to grow the cash crop called indigo and sell it at a low price instead of other crops that people actually need and would buy. We aren't even making any money off of indigo because nobody needs it and the British know that.

These are only a few of the reasons the British need to go, but the only way we will be able to get them out of here is if we make a change, we must be willing to take beatings and go to jail, we must be willing to fight for the rights we want and deserve and we must work together. This will only work if we work together as one. All for one or none at all.

Sources

http://www.softschools.com/timelines/gandhi_timeline/127/
http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/gandhi-and-burning-passes

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