Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi committed his first act of civil disobedience in 1893.

Although Mohandas Gandhi is best known for his non-violent protests as leader of the independence movement in India, his first act of civil disobedience occurred not in India but in South Africa. As a young Indian or “coolie” lawyer newly arrived in South Africa, Gandhi was appalled by the racism and discrimination he encountered. On this day in 1893 Gandhi was traveling by train on his way to Pretoria on business. He was ordered to leave the first class compartment for which he had a ticket when a passenger complained about sharing it with a “colored” person. When Gandhi refused to move to a lower class compartment, railway officials called a police constable, who forced Gandhi and his luggage from the train at Maritzburg. Gandhi wrote of the incident in his autobiography: “The hardship to which I was subjected was superficial—only a symptom of the deep disease of color prejudice. I should try, if possible, to root out the disease and suffer hardships in the process.” Gandhi experienced more discrimination during the remainder of his trip to Pretoria, including a beating by a coachman. Moved by his experiences, Gandhi stayed on in South Africa and organized mass actions of civil disobedience to protest the treatment of Indians in South Africa. After his return to India, he used similar techniques of nonviolence in his ultimately successful efforts to gain independence for India from British rule. Living a life of spirituality and abstinence, Gandhi became known as Mahatma, or “the great soul,” and influenced civil rights leaders around the world.

Xpeditions
Cultural Icons: Voices of Their Nations (9–12) links geography with world issues of the 20th and 21st centuries by identifying cultural leaders or icons from around the world, such as Mohandas Gandhi, who have influenced the social, political or environmental views of their countries.

Students can use the printable maps of India and South Africa from the Xpeditions Atlas in any study of these nations.

EDSITEment
EDSITEment has a number of lessons exploring India’s history and culture.

Students explore Indian epic cycles in Lessons of the Indian Epics: The Ramayana (9–12), Lessons of the Indian Epics: Following the Dharma (9–12) and Lessons of the Indian Epics: The Ramayana: Showing your Dharma (9–12).

Students read an essay written by George Orwell about his time spent in Burma during the period when it was administered as a colonial Indian province in “Shooting An Elephant”: George Orwell’s Essay on his Life in Burma (9–12).

One of the best known works of fiction set in colonial India is Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. In Rudyard Kipling’s “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”: Mixing Fact and Fiction (3–5) and Rudyard Kipling’s “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”: Mixing Words and Pictures (3–5), students explore literary and historical elements of one of the stories in The Jungle Book.