Mohandas Gandhi was an Indian nationalist.

Mohandas Gandhi was an Indian nationalist.

He was also a nonviolent activist.

Gandhi believed in satyagraha or truth-force. He believed that goodness ultimately prevailed.

Gandhi believed that people were fundamentally good. When people acted badly, it was out of ignorance.

Nonviolent action produced change without increasing hatred.

Gandhi organized a boycott of British cloth. He encouraged Indians to stop buying foreign goods.

It was better for Indians to make their own clothing than put money into the pockets of Imperialists.

If imperialism was not profitable, the imperialists would leave India.

Gandhi also encouraged Indians to engage in civil disobedience.

Civil disobedience is to deliberately break an unjust law. It is an intentional noncooperation with injustice.

Gandhi believed it was better to be imprisoned than to cooperate with injustice.

Of course, it is difficult to govern a colony where the colonial subjects refuse to obey the laws.

During the Salt March, Gandhi and his followers marched to the sea.

They marched to the sea to make salt. It was against the law to make salt.

Thousands of Indians were imprisoned.

Slowly, the British began to realize that it was time to leave India.

But before the British left India, they partitioned or divided the subcontinent.

They created Pakistan for Indian Muslims and India for a Hindu majority.

Indian Muslims believed that they would not be safe in a Hindu-dominated society.

Terrible rioting ensued as millions of Indians moved across borders.

Jawaharlal Nehru became the first prime minister of an independent India.

Nehru pursued a policy of nonalignment or neutrality during the Cold War.