In India, the Khilafat Movement and the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre brought Mahatma Gandhi into prominence. His non-cooperation campaigns of 1921, his Salt Satyagraha in 1930 and finally his ‘Quit India’ movement in 1942 along with the developments back home forced the British to grant independence and sovereignty to India. In this process, not a single action using force and violence can he cited which Gandhiji or one of his millions of followers indulged in. The splinter groups in the Indian National Congress who did not agree on this method of achieving independence and thought violence to be the only method leading to the country’s freedom broke away from Gandhiji and the Congress, but Gandhiji did not compromise his ideals at the expense of expediency. For him the end justified the means and since the end of India’s independence was something noble and unique, it had to be achieved through noble and peaceful means.
Gandhiji was basically a social reformer who spiritualised the arena of politics. He fought hard to uplift the downtrodden masses of India. The under-privileged, the Harijans and members of other scheduled and back ward classes were equal to Gandhiji. He championed the movement to remove untouchability and exploitation from the country. To identify himself with the poverty-stricken masses of India, he wore the dress of a common man. He always travelled in the third class. To give a vocational bias to our education, he evolved the Nai Talim. Drinking, he held, was an evil akin to or even worse than prostitution. He highlighted it in all its gory after-effects on the person, the family and the society and gave a call to all Indians to give up drinking as a habit. All the inequalities in India, whether casteism, capitalism or any other issue, he stands out to the real hero of all indians.
This short description shows that truly "Mahatma Gandhi" is the champion of Downtrodden.
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