Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi once said, “You must be the change you change you wish to see in the world” (Drouin 2). And as Gandhi asked of other, Gandhi was the change he wished to see. He was the start a great revolution to the world and altered the perspective of life for many people. Gandhi’s spark in action against nonviolence first started when he was treated as part of the inferior race of Indian immigrants within South Africa (Karmat 1). He was in South Africa because he had gotten a law degree at University College, London, with plans to start a law firm in India. His law firm idea in India failed and he was asked to be a legal adviser for a law firm in Durban so he moved to South Africa. In South Africa Gandhi found himself being revoked of civil liberties and political rights because he was an Indian immigrant. (Kamat 1). Gandhi fought against this using nonviolence means and methods.  Gandhi had an everlasting impact on the world through his use of nonviolence, helping to free India from British rule and he inspired world leaders.

            Nonviolence was an immense moral in Gandhi’s life. Wherever he went, he was trying to convince people that nonviolence and civil disobedience was a better form of protest than weapons. In 1896, Gandhi was attacked and humiliated by white South Africans, after which he started to teach the way of passive resistance and non-cooperation with South African authorities to show the Indian people that they should not be treated like that anymore. (Kamat 1). In 1914 the government in South Africa agreed to Gandhi’s demands by recognizing Indian marriages and the abolishment on poll tax for the Indian immigrants. With his work in South Africa completed Gandhi returned to India to spread his nonviolent nature there. Throughout India, Gandhi was, again, fighting the government, this time the British government in India (Kamat 1).

            Gandhi became the leader of the long and difficult Indian camp campaign for home rule. In 1919 when the British Parliament passed the Rowlatt Act that colonial authorities had the power to “deal” with the outbursts of revolutionary resistance (Kamat 1). Gandhi’s teachings of nonviolence were met with a massacre of Indians at Amritsar by British authorities. (Kamat 2) Gandhi’s teaching spread throughout India and he was gaining millions of followers. Gandhi’s political and spiritual power on the people of India was so influential that the British did not challenge him for fear of provoke the fires of revolt (Kamat 2). The Indian National Congress, the group responsible for the fight for nationalism, in 1921 gave Gandhi the right to choose who will follow his teachings and way of life. But in 1922 Gandhi admitted defeat, in his non after a string of armed revolts against the British; he was arrested the same year. After his release from jail in 1924 Gandhi tried to quit politics and work on a small group of citizens who will follow his way of life. Tried and fail, for Gandhi was drawn in again by calling an act for civil disobedience by not paying taxes on salt and marching to the sea. The march to the sea was a campaign in which thousands followed Gandhi where they made salt by evaporating the salt water. This was less about getting the salt and was more about the symbolism of rising against the British tax on salt. Once again Gandhi was arrested but was released again in 1931. Gandhi stopped the movement once the British made concession to his demands (Kamat 2). Gandhi represented the Indian Nations Congress in London at a conference.  But then in 1932 Gandhi began a new nonviolence movement and then in 1934 Gandhi formally retired from politics and moved on to teach people about treating everyone fairly, no matter what their class is. In 1935 India’s home rule could not be put into use until Gandhi accepted it. India finally got freedom in 1947, without Gandhi none of this would have happened. Getting freedom from the British was a big achievement, but Gandhi also inspired world leaders with his words and nonviolent actions.

            Gandhi’s affect on people went so far it reached Albert Einstein who said boldly of Gandhi, “Generations to come, it may be, will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh in bone walked upon this earth” (Drouin 3).  Even the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. used Gandhi’s nonviolent methods as a way to protest discrimination. In South Africa Nelson Mandela used Gandhi’s teachings. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world” (Drouin 2). Gandhi not only changed his generation, he changed generations to come. His words and teaching affected the whole word and united people. Gandhi brought nations together and effected lives beyond his own. And impacted the lives of generations to come and gave an everlasting impression upon the world. His affect will be continuations ripple in the pond of life.