Gandhi: Do or Die

The setting

With Japanese armies on India's border and British offers of self-government judged inadequate, the Congress Party launched a mass campaign demanding an immediate end to British rule, and Mahatma Gandhi addressed its session in Bombay.

Key passage

Here is a mantra, a short one, that I give you... The mantra is: 'Do or Die.'

Speech at the Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay, 8 August 1942.

What followed

Gandhi and the Congress leadership were arrested within hours, and protests across India were put down with mass arrests. The movement nonetheless showed that British rule could not long continue; India became independent in 1947.

Connected