On Gopal Krishna Gokhale`s advice Gandhi went back to India after a visit to England. Gandhi spent the first year touring throughout the country to know the real India. After a year of wandering, Gandhiji settled down on the bank of the river Sabarmati, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, where he founded an ashram called Satyagraha Ashram.

The Indian independence movement came to a head between 1918 and 1922 when the first series of Nonviolence campaigns of civil disobedience were launched by the Indian National Congress under the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi. With the Champaran agitation and Kheda Satyagraha in 1918, his first major achievement came. Champaran was in Bihar, where he went in 1917 at the request of a poor peasants to inquire into the grievances of the much exploited peasants of that district, who were compelled by British indigo planters to grow indigo on 15 percent of their land and part with the whole crop for rent. They were living mired in extreme poverty. The villages were kept extremely dirty and unhygienic; and alcoholism, untouchability and purdah were rampant. In the sufferings of a devastating famine, the British levied an oppressive tax which they insisted on increasing. The situation was desperate. Kheda in Gujarat was also experiencing the same problem. Gandhi established an ashram there, organizing scores of his veteran supporters and fresh volunteers from the region.

Gandhi started reforming the villages, leading the clean-up of villages, building of schools and hospitals and encouraging the village leadership to undo and condemn many social evils. The British police arrested him on the charge of creating unrest. The impact of reformation have changed after this act. Hundreds of thousands of people protested and rallied outside the jail, police stations and courts demanding his release, which the court reluctantly granted. Gandhi led organized protests and strikes against the landlords, who with the guidance of the British government, signed an agreement granting the poor farmers of the region more compensation and control over farming, and cancellation of revenue hikes and its collection until the famine ended. During this agitation the people addressed Gadhi as `Bapu`, Father. Rabindranath Tagore accorded `Mahatma` (Great Soul) title to Gandhi in the year 1920. In Kheda, Sardar Patel represented the farmers in negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection and released all the prisoners. As a result, Gandhi`s fame spread all over the nation.

The Gandhi Era in the Indian Independence Movement took place with the Non-Cooperation Movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. The movement was the first-ever series of nationwide people`s movements of nonviolent resistance. The Movement opened and took place from September 1920 until February 1922. In the fight against injustice, Gandhi`s weapons were Non-cooperation and peaceful resistance. the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of civilians by British troops in Punjab, deep trauma to the nation, leading to increased public anger and acts of violence. Both the actions of the British Raj and the retaliatory violence of Indians was criticized by Gandhi. To his principle all violence was evil and could not be justified. But after the massacre and related violence, Gandhiji focused his mind upon obtaining complete self-government. This soon maturing into Swaraj or complete individual, spiritual, political independence.

Under his leadership, the Congress was reorganized with a new constitution, with the goal of Swaraj. To improve discipline, transforming the party from an elite organization to one of mass national appeal a hierarchy of committees was set up. Gandhi expanded his non-violence platform to include the `swadeshi policy` which meant the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. He addressed all the Indians to worn `khadi` (homespun cloth) instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi appealled strongly to Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning `khadi` in support of the independence movement. This was a strategy to implant discipline and dedication to weed out the unwilling and ambitious, and to include women in the movement at a time when many thought that such activities were not respectable activities for women. In addition to boycotting British products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions and law courts, to resign from government employment, and to forsake British titles and honours.

Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore resigned the title knight from the British soon after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as a protest. "Non-cooperation" movement enjoyed wide-spread appeal and success, increasing excitement and participation from all strata of Indian society. Yet, just as the movement reached its apex, it ended abruptly as a result of a violent clash in the town of Chauri Chaura, Uttar Pradesh, in February 1922. Gandhi was arrested on March 10, 1922, tried for sedition and sentenced to six years imprisonment. Without Gandhi, the Indian National Congress splitted into two factions, one led by Chitta Ranjan Das and Motilal Nehru and the other led by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who opposed the movement led by Gandhi. Furthermore, cooperation among Hindus and Muslims, which had been strong at the height of the non-violence campaign, was breaking down. Beginning on March 18, 1922, he only served about two years of the sentence, being released in February 1924 after an operation for appendicitis.

For the next five years Gandhi seemingly retired from active agitational politics. He devoted himself to the basic needs of Nation like Hindu-Muslim unity, removal of untouchability, equality of women, popularization of hand spinning and the reconstruction of village economy. He returned to the fore in 1928. On March 12, 1930 Gandhiji launched a new Satyagraha against the tax on salt and started the historic Dandi March to break the law, which had deprived the poor man of his right to make his own salt. Marched 400 kilometres (248 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself. Gandhiji broke the Salt law at the sea beach at Dandi.

This movement stimulates the whole nation and came to be known as "Civil Disobedience Movement". This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British rule; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people. This forced the then Viceroy Lord Irwin to call Gandhiji for talks. On March 5, 1931 `Gandhi Irwin Pact` was signed. After signing the pact Gandhiji was called to England to attend the First Round Table Conference. Soon after his return from England Gandhiji was arrested without trial. The government completely isolated him from his followers as they were attempted to destroy his influence. But their effort was in waste.

In 1932, through the campaigning of the Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar, the government granted a law which supports untouchables separate electorates under the new constitution. In protest, Gandhi embarked on a six-day fast in September 1932. The government was successfully forced to adopt a more equitable arrangement via negotiations mediated by the Dalit cricketer turned political leader Palwankar Baloo. This was the start of a new campaign by Gandhi to improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he named Harijans, the children of God. On May 8, 1933 Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification to help the Harijan movement.

Gandhiji again became active in the political arena after the outbreak of Second World War in 1939. British Government wanted India`s help in the war and Congress in return wanted a clear-cut promise of independence from British government. But British government dithered in its response and on August 8, 1942 Gandhiji gave the call for Quit India Movement. Soon the British Government arrested Gandhiji and other top leaders of Congress. Disorders broke out immediately all over India and many violent demonstrations took place.

Quit India became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle. Mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale. Thousands of freedom fighters were killed or injured by police gunfire, and hundreds of thousands were arrested. He even clarified that this time the movement would not be stopped if individual acts of violence were committed, saying that the "ordered anarchy" around him was "worse than real anarchy." He called on all Congressmen and Indians to maintain discipline via ahimsa, and Karo Ya Maro ("Do or Die") in order to achieve ultimate freedom. On August 9, 1942 Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were arrested in Bombay by the British. During that period Gandhi suffered two terrible blows in his personal life. His 42-year old secretary Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack 6 days later and his wife Kasturba died after 18 months imprisonment in February 1944; six weeks later Gandhi suffered a severe malaria attack.

In view of his deteriorating health he was released from the jail in May 1944 because the British Government did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. The ruthless suppression of the Quite India movement brought order to India by the end of 1943 although the movement had moderate success in its objective. At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress`s leadership.