Quit India

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most influential political and spiritual figures of the past century. He is most well-known for his role in the largely nonviolent campaign to end British colonialism in India in the 1940s. Although he was assassinated just one year after India gained freedom, he inspired so many civil rights leaders and politicians that his influence still carries on to this day.

Born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to a Hindu family in 1869 under the British Raj in India, Gandhi did not receive the honorary title “Mahatma” until later in life. He studied law in both India and London, and he became recognized for his work around civil rights law in South Africa in the early 1900s. Charlie Andrews, a missionary in South Africa, and Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who was an Indian politician, convinced him to return to India. (Both these men are mentioned in the English portion of Gandhi’s speech.) Some of Gandhi’s early work included creating relationships between Hindus and the Muslim caliphate and promoting nonviolence despite worsening conditions for Indians under British rule. However, his most famous nonviolent action prior to his “Quit India” speeches was the Salt March, also known as the Salt