Gandhi The film Gandhi (1982) is a dramatized biographical story of the last fifty years of the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the leader of India’s non-violent party in India’s struggle to gain freedom from the British. Starting out in a moment of bias against colored people, the movie follows Gandhi’s journey not only to gain freedom for his people in South Africa but he is also invited home to his native country of India to fight for independence. He is known as somewhat of a national hero that promotes a non-violent and peaceful approach to dealing with the British government. As he faces the many struggles in facing violence and arrests, he promotes the sense of community and coming together by coordinating with thousands of Indians worldwide in his campaign.
As the British government struggles to hold its will over India during World War II it ultimately grants the nations independence. However, new conflict arises when the Muslim and Hindu people of the nation and erupt into nation-wide violence. Gandhi, demanding peace between the groups begins a hunger strike until the violence is stopped. The violence eventually does end, however, in an attempt to keep peace the country is divided into two separate nations: Pakistan and India. In his final days, Gandhi makes a final attempt to bring peace between the two nations but in doing so angers many on both sides. One of these angry dissidents finally gets close enough and assassinates him. This film not only portrays the unjust world that Gandhi’s story begins in but expresses the need for justice, dignity and peace in this same world. When Mohandas Gandhi is first introduced he is riding first class aboard a train in South Africa, a then territory of Great Britain. His first experience in the unjust and discriminatory society of South Africa is when the conductor asks him to move to third class because of his color, refusing to oblige, Gandhi is thrown off. In his time spent in South Africa, Gandhi continues to face discrimination against the Indian people who were ranked the lower class miners. Injustice controls the society of South Africa and Gandhi intends to break this pattern by not submitting to the laws that discriminate against Indians. Gandhi becomes a man that is no longer tide to western ways but sees all men as equal under the leadership of god. He identifies the injustice of the communities and demands that the leaders change the laws, which provide such injustice. Throughout the film Gandhi he knows the importance and power of the masses, and that when a group of people come together a true change can be made. He rallied together groups of Indians in Africa and led them in the peaceful war. They did not fight and did not comply to the laws. Gandhi forced the people of Great Britain to question on whether or not the way they act is just. In this demonstration, after thousands of arrests of Indians and Gandhi himself, the laws were repealed in South Africa. He travels back to India to begin his next fight for justice in India’s need for independence from Great Britain.
Equality is something that Gandhi risked his life each day to achieve. While in South Africa he was told that no colored men were attorneys, a profession he once called his. He was not allowed to walk down the sidewalk with a Catholic white man because he was presumably, to society, the lesser race. He challenged these laws by defying them, and not obliging to the unequal treatment of citizens. He proclaimed himself the same as the British because he was also a member of their empire. Gandhi also faces the differences between the Hindus and the Muslims in the splitting of India into Pakistan and India. He tells a story of how when he was a boy in temple they read both the Gita and the Qur’an because it didn't matter which got was being worshipped. He asks the people of India to set aside their differences to obtain the peace they all strive to achieve. Through his non-violent