India Independence – Mohandas Gandhi Day 3
• May 1 -2, 2014
• Objective: Students will analyze key events and leaders of
India’s independence through video, written response and group
discussion.
• Warm – Up: “Africa, Asia and Australia”. Read ‘Independence
and Partition’ p. 361. Answer in your notebook:
1. Why were so many Hindus and Muslims migrating to either
India or Pakistan? 2. In light of what you read, which of Gandhi’s
goals was never achieved and why?
Rephrase the question to begin your answer.
March to the Sea
• In 1930, Gandhi led a defiant ‘March to the Sea’ in
protest of the British monopoly on salt, his boldest act of
civil disobedience yet against British rule in India.
• Britain's Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or
selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Citizens were forced
to buy salt from the British, who, in addition to exercising
a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also
exerted a heavy salt tax. Although India's poor suffered
most under the tax, Indians required salt. Defying the Salt
Acts, Gandhi reasoned, would be a simple way for many
Indians to break a British law nonviolently.
Seminar Questions
1. What is “homespun” and why is it important to India’s
independence movement?
2. What was the purpose behind the “March to the
Sea”?
3. Why might Gandhi feel he failed after India achieved
independence?
4. How does Gandhi propose that the wild-eyed Hindu
avoid hell?
5. The man that assassinated Gandhi was a Hindu. Why
do you think someone of his own religion would want to kill
him?
works cited
•
•
http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-16-3-b-bringing-down-anempire-gandhi-and-civil-disobedience
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gandhi-leads-civil-disobedience