This Day in History:, Gandhi Is Assassinated.
January 30, 1948.
The political and spiritual leader
of the Indian independence
movement was assassinated
in New Delhi by a Hindu fanatic.
Known as Mahatma, or “the great soul,”
Gandhi’s methods of civil disobedience influenced
leaders of civil rights movements around the world.
He organized his first campaign of satyagraha,
or mass civil disobedience, in 1906 while
working as a lawyer in South Africa.
Five years after returning to India,
Gandhi launched a new satyagraha in 1919 in
protest of Britain’s mandatory military draft of Indians.
For the next two decades, he led fasts, marches,
worked for India's poor and was often imprisoned.
In 1942, Gandhi launched
the “Quit India” movement,
which called for a total
British withdrawal from India.
On August 15, 1947, Britain
agreed to create the two new independent
states of India and Pakistan.
When he was killed, Gandhi was on
a vigil to heal the religious strife between
Hindus and Muslims in his country