This Day in History: <br />Gandhi Is Assassinated January 30, 1948 The political and spiritual <br />leader of the Indian independence <br />movement was assassinated <br />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 <br />of satyagraha, or mass civil <br />disobedience, in 1906 while <br />working as a lawyer in South Africa. Five years after returning to India, <br />Gandhi launched a new satyagraha <br />in 1919 in protest of Britain’s <br />mandatory military draft of Indians. For the next two decades, <br />he led fasts, marches, worked <br />for India's poor and was <br />often imprisoned. In 1942, Gandhi launched <br />the “Quit India” movement, <br />which called for a total <br />British withdrawal from India. On August 15, 1947, <br />Britain agreed to create <br />the two new independent <br />states of India and Pakistan. When he was killed, Gandhi <br />was on a vigil to heal the <br />religious strife between Hindus <br />and Muslims in his country.
