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The Power of Non-Violence

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The Power of Non-Violence

The movies “Gandhi” and “A Force More Powerful” showed how Gandhi focused on non-violence and fought for the Independence of India. The movie “Gandhi” is a dramatization of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s life, which covers how he was thrown off a South African train for being in a whites only compartment, India’s Independence, India-Pakistan’s partition and concludes with his assassination and funeral in 1948. It has more story and characters than the movie “A Force More Powerful,” which is a documentary film. The documentary focuses on Gandhi’s leadership of the Indian Independence movement and the Salt March. In this movie, they showed real clips of videos of that time.

In the order to advance the cause of a free India, Gandhi began the Salt March in 1930, which protested the salt taxes imposed by Britain. In the Salt March from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gandhi traveled 250 miles to make salt from the ocean water, in order to avoid paying the salt tax. Millions of Indians joined him to show their support. Like African-Americans in the United States, the Indian people longed for freedom, as well as for the full spectrum of rights denied them by the British government. The Salt March resulted in the mass civil disobedience and non- violent struggle against British rule. As Gandhi and his followers reached the coast, he picked up a handful of salt, breaking the law. A month later, Gandhi was arrested. This started a series of protests and boycotts, which closed many British shops and mills. In planning protests and boycotts, Gandhi always incorporated the strategy of “Ahimsa” believing that the non-violent resistance for Indian freedom was “Satyagraha.” Satyagraha means holding unto the truth and Ahimsa means not to hurt others. Satyagraha was like a weapon. By using non-violence, Gandhi forced the British to accept their demands. This

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