Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is widely recognized as one of the twentieth century’s greatest political

and spiritual leaders. Honored in India as the father of the nation, he pioneered and practiced the
principle of Satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass nonviolent civil disobedience.

While leading nationwide campaigns to ease poverty, expand women’s rights, build religious and ethnic
harmony and eliminate the injustices of the caste system, Gandhi supremely applied the principles of
nonviolent civil disobedience, playing a key role in freeing India from foreign domination. He was often
imprisoned for his actions, sometimes for years, but he accomplished his aim in 1947, when India gained
its independence from Britain.

Salt March

Also known as the Dandi Movement, Gandhi's Salt March is considered to be a pivotal incident in the
history of freedom struggle. At the Calcutta Congress of 1928, Gandhi declared that the British must
grant India dominion status or the country will erupt into a revolution for complete independence. The
British did not pay heed to this.

As a result, on December 31, 1929, the Indian flag was unfurled in Lahore and the next January 26 was
celebrated as the Indian Independence Day. Then, Gandhi started a Satyagraha campaign against the
salt tax in March 1930. He marched 388 kilometres from Ahmedabad to Dandi in Gujarat to make salt.
Thousands of people joined him and made it one of the biggest marches in Indian history

The Pope insists that God exists and yearns for human contact and without this, human beings cannot
themselves live. He believes man, in fact, cannot be good without God.

For all the questions this Pope has raised, there is one that burns for John Paul II--the question of faith.
For him faith is the first, the ultimate reality. He has circled the globe without cease, swimming in
people, touching them, provoking them--putting his faith in their faces. Why?

But in the end the Pope also knows, as Monsignor Albacete said, "that he cannot give his faith to
anyone. All he can do is offer clear testimony and bear witness to what he believes is the deepest part of
the self." The Pope has spent his life writing, talking and bearing witness to faith. It is for him, as well as
for us, private, mysterious, ineffable.
 In his lived experience, his philosophical reflection, his role as teacher of the faith; in his presence on
the world stage, and above all, in his life of mystical prayer— John Paul II achieved a unique and
profound synthesis of the dignity of the human person and those freedoms inherent in our humanity.
And he made it clear that the first of those freedoms is religious freedom.

As our Universal Pastor, he taught us that freedom is not merely an instinct to gravitate toward what we
like or to avoid what we happen to dislike. Nor is it merely a privilege granted to us by the government.
Rather freedom is inherent in our very humanity, as our own Declaration of Independence boldly
proclaims. Human freedom has to do with the transcendent dignity of the human being. We are created
in God’s image and likeness and called to friendship with him.

Far from destroying human freedom, this call to love opens the human spirit to the wonder of creation,
to the dignity of one’s neighbor, and to the work of constructing a civilization of justice, truth, and love.
This call to love does not destroy anything authentically human, especially the capacity of human reason
for truth, but rather enlightens and ennobles it from within.

John Paul II seized upon the independence proper to the Church and traveled the globe proclaiming the
Gospel. What he learned as a bishop and a Cardinal in Poland he brought to the world stage: a brand of
leadership that did not stop at defending human rights, that did not stop at defending the [or] rights of
believers and the rights of the Church. To the very end, he boldly and publicly proclaimed how the truth
about Christ reveals the truth about the human person.

Throughout his life, John Paul II inspired new generations to follow Christ. We have only to think of his
boldness in starting up World Youth Day when many advisers told him that such an idea wouldn’t work.
We have only to think of the millions upon millions of young people who came to be with him in Denver,
Manila, Paris, Rome, and Toronto. How many young people found authentic freedom because of this
man who preached the Gospel full throated and unsparingly, without fear, without hesitation, indeed
without counting the cost. Pope John Paul II proclaimed these Gospel values and supported authentic
freedom around the world even in countries that were overtly hostile to that message.

2. Champaran
The Champaran agitation in Bihar was Gandhi's first active involvement into Indian freedom politics. The
Champaran farmers were being forced to grow Indigo and were being tortured if they protested.

The farmers sought Gandhi's help and through a calculated non-violent protest, Gandhi managed to win
concessions from the authority.

Kheda

When Kheda, a village in Gujarat, was badly hit by floods, the local farmers appealed to the rulers to
waive off the taxes. Here, Gandhi started a signature campaign where peasants pledged non-payment of
taxes.

He also arranged a social boycott of the mamlatdars and talatdars (revenue officials). In 1918, the
Government relaxed the conditions of payment of revenue tax until the famine ended.

Gandhi's teachings are convincing, consistent, and coherent. Gandhi expert Michael Nagler believes that
is the reason they are still modern today. "He had the courage to go against the trend of the times,
which was a disastrous trend, and to rediscover an ancient wisdom and craft it in a way that modern
(people) could use it and understand it. And I think he made the greatest discovery – that non-violence
was a key organizing principle that anybody could use in almost any situation."

Gandhi's philosophy is based on three principles: non-violence (ahimsa), the fight for truth (satyagraha)
and individual and political freedom (swaraj). In his fight for peace he sought advice from the teachings
of Buddha and the Prophet Mohammed. Gandhi also believed that pure faith could unite people of
different religions. "I can see that in the midst of death, life persists. In the midst of untruth, truth
persists. In the midst of darkness, light persists. Hence, I gather that God is life, truth, light. He is love. He
is the supreme good."