By the time of Gandhi’s birth in 1869, the Indian subcontinent was firmly controlled by the British. Part of the country was ruled directly by British (and subordinate Indian) officials, answerable to the British Parliament in London. In each of the so-called protected states, the native prince — usually known as the maharaja — remained the titular ruler, although he was bound to the British by unequal treaties and had to accept the “advice” of the British resident assigned to his court.

Gandhi grew up in one of the small protected states north of Bombay. Gandhi’s father was the well-to-do head of a large extended family. Gandhi’s mother was devoted but undogmatic in religious matters, and she exercised a strong influence on her son. After his father’s death, Gandhi went to study law in England, where he passed the English bar. Upon returning to India, he decided in 1893 to try a case for some wealthy Indian merchants in the British colony of Natal (part of modern South Africa). It was a momentous decision.

In Natal Gandhi took up the plight of the expatriate Indian community. White plantation owners had been importing thousands of poor Indians as indentured laborers on five-year renewable contracts since the 1860s. When Gandhi arrived there were more Indians than whites in Natal. Some of these Indians, after completing their contracts, remained in Natal as free persons and economic competitors. In response, the Afrikaner (of Dutch descent) and British settlers passed brutally discriminatory laws. Poor Indians had to work on plantations or return to India. Rich Indians, who had previously had the vote in Natal, lost that right in 1896. Gandhi undertook his countrymen’s legal defense, and in 1897 a white mob almost lynched the “coolie lawyer.”

Meanwhile, Gandhi was searching for a spiritual theory of social action. He studied Hindu and Christian teachings and gradually developed a weapon for the poor and oppressed that he called satyagraha (suh-TYAH-gruh-huh). Gandhi conceived of satyagraha, loosely translated as “soul force,” as a means of striving for truth and social justice through love and a willingness to suffer the oppressor’s blows, while trying to convert him or her to one’s views of what is true and just. Its tactic was active nonviolent resistance.

As the undisputed leader of South Africa’s Indians before the First World War, Gandhi put his philosophy into action. When South Africa’s white government severely restricted Asian immigration and internal freedom of movement, Gandhi organized a nonviolent mass resistance campaign. Thousands of Indian men and women marched in peaceful protest and withstood beatings, arrest, and imprisonment.

In 1914 South Africa’s exasperated whites agreed to many of the Indians’ demands. They passed a law abolishing discriminatory taxes on Indian traders, recognized the legality of non-Christian marriages, and permitted the continued immigration of free Indians. Satyagraha — militant nonviolence in pursuit of social justice — proved a powerful force in Gandhi’s hands.