The Indian Independence Movement

Gandhi was forty-five years old when he returned to India. Already well known in Indian political circles, he joined the Congress and was soon immersed in India's struggle for independence. His first major campaign was the non-cooperation movement of 1920. This involved a boycott of goods manufactured in Britain. Gandhi insisted on complete non-violence, and called off the movement in 1922 when some villagers attacked a police station and killed several policemen.
Attempts at Hindu-Muslim unity which had seemed well set on a path to completion in 1916, collapsed during this movement. Mohammed Ali Jinnah called this an "extremist movement [which] struck the imagination mostly of the inexperienced youth and the ignorant and illiterate". Through the 20's there was a rising tide of communal violence, and Gandhi's many fasts against this phenomenon did nothing to check it.
In 1930 another non-cooperation movement was launched. The British government in India jailed 60,000 Congress workers before making truce and calling Gandhi to negotiate with the viceroy. Winston Churchill's remark on this occasion about "this seditious fakir ... striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceroy's palace" was turned against the British and made into good propaganda.
Subhash Chandra Bose tried to move the Congress away from the Gandhian path of non-violence in 1939, but failed. In 1940 Jinnah called for a separate Muslim nation in those parts of India with a Muslim majority. In 1942 the British jailed the entire Congress leadership when the party threatened to go on another anti-British campaign. In 1944 Gandhi's wife, Kasturba, died. From 1944 to 1947 Gandhi tried to halt the partition of India, but failed.
On August 15, 1947 India became free. Gandhi refused to join the official ceremonies in Delhi and instead went on a fast in Calcutta, in protest against the communal violence erupting all over the newly-partitioned country. In January 1948 he went to New Delhi and began another fast for peace between Hindus and Muslims. On January 30 he was shot dead by a Hindu fanatic.