Gandhism

Doctrine and social movement whose founder and leader was the Indian thinker and political figure Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known as Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948). In 1893 he organized the Indians of South Africa in a campaign of passive resistance against discriminatory legislation. In 1919 he undertook to organize in India, then a British colony, a mass movement against colonialism, using non-cooperation and a boycott of British merchandise. He used fasting and civil disobedience as political instruments, rejecting violence on principle. In the philosophical and social doctrine of Mahatma Gandhi, which is quite heterogeneous, we observe both progressive elements and patriarchal social forms, since rendered outmoded by the historical process.