Mahatma Gandhi Act Of Civil Disobedience

The man that most of us know as Mahatma Gandhi was actually named Mohandas Gandhi. Mahatma actually means great soul in Sanskrit (Mahatma Gandhi Biography 13). A man widely known as Great Soul doesn’t seem like someone who should have been assassinated, yet he was. Gandhi was an activist that preached peace and fought for human rights. He was assassinated by Nathuram Godse on January 30th, 1948 (Mahatma Gandhi Biography 26). Nathuram Godse was a Hindu extremist who believed that Gandhi sided too far with Muslims after the partition of India into the two countries, Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India (Mahatma Gandhi 8). Gandhi should not have been assassinated because even though he was sympathetic to Muslims, he fought for human rights and encouraged non-violence. Gandhi mainly fought for human rights. It’s incredibly wrong that someone fighting for other’s rights should have his violated so majorly as to be assassinated. In South Africa, he fought against racism towards Indians and Hindus. In fact, the first mass protest Gandhi organized was for these causes. Gandhi protested an act that would have created a poll tax for Indians and disrespected Hindu marriages by not legally recognizing them (Gandhi’s First Act of Civil Disobedience …show more content…
He was full-heartedly against violence, yet his death was incredibly violent. Gandhi called his protest method Satyagraha, which means truth and firmness. Gandhi believed violence should never be used during protests, but protesters should also never give in. This can be seen in his famous Salt March where he marched 241 miles to the ocean to harvest salt in order to protest a law preventing Indians from selling or collecting salt (Mahatma Gandhi Biography 17). Gandhi is also a known inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr., a very famous supporter of non-violence and racial equality. It seems wrong that a man who spent his whole life trying to create peace and end violence died so