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.