Gandhi Personal Power

Kyle Bright
Ms. Morales
English I-H
4 November 2012
Mahatma Gandhi Personal Power
Imagine that it’s March 12, 1930 in India. Eighty activists just set out on a 240 mile journey to the ocean to protest a tax on salt.   In the coming weeks, thousands will join to form a two mile long line of marchers. Eventually, they will reach the ocean and illegally boil the water to make salt, receiving international attention in the process (Benner). It will make the British realize that they can’t govern India long term, and so it will indirectly set in motion events that led to Indian Independence. What I am referring to, of course, is the famous Salt March, led by Mahatma Gandhi. It is one of his more famous acts of organizing people in a peaceful way, due to the size of the protest and how it helped set the Indian independence movement in motion. To me personal power isn’t just being able to influence and organize people. In order to have personal power, one would also have to have their legacy and influence last for a long time and continue to change how people do things long after they’re gone. This shows you have power that lasts. Another thing that someone has to have to have personal power is they have to have used their personal power to achieve something. Someone can’t just be powerful without using it to get anything done in their life.   Mahatma Gandhi has this personal power because he had influence over large groups of people, his legacy and influence lasted long after he was dead, and also because he accomplished many things in his lifetime that showed he was personally powerful.
Gandhi’s legacy and influence over others long after he was dead is one thing that clearly gives him personal power. He died in 1948, but many peaceful protestors in the time since then have said that Gandhi was what inspired them to conduct their protests in the same way. One of those protestors was the famous Martin Luther King Jr. in the American civil rights movement. He wanted...