Gandhi's Non-Violent Protests were inspired by Shelley's Political Poem, 'The Masque of Anarchy'!

It seems the Poet/Essayist/Novelist Shelley was one of those rare intellectuals- radical reformist and philosopher.. who had a wide sphere of influence.. but did not live to experience his influence- he died aged 29.

Probably because of his anti-monarchy and anti-war views and political writings and poems, "although some of his works were published, they were often suppressed upon publication." 
[All the information below are Extracted from Wiki] 

On PB Shelley's radical reformist ideals:

• As an 18-year old, he was expelled from Oxford University in 1811, for publishing a palmphlet "The Necessity of Atheism", and for refusing to repudiate its authorship..Shelley was given the choice to be reinstated after his father intervened, on the condition that he would have to recant his avowed views. His refusal to do so led to a falling-out with his father.
• The rediscovery in mid-2006 of Shelley's long-lost 'Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things' — a long, strident anti-monarchical and anti-war poem printed in 1811 in London by Crosby and Company as "by a gentleman of the University of Oxford" — gives a new dimension to the expulsion
• Four months after being expelled, the 19-year-old Shelley eloped to Scotland with the 16-year-old schoolgirl Harriet Westbrook and got married.
• Shelley's works played a pivotal rol in the genesis of British radicalism. While living in the Lake District after his marriage, he got distracted from his writings by political events and he visited Ireland as 19-year old in order to engage in radical pamphleteering. Here he wrote his Address to the Irish People and was seen at several nationalist rallies (against the ruling British). His activities earned him the unfavourable attention of the British government
• Shelley was a strong advocate for social justice for the 'lower classes'. He witnessed many of the same mistreatments occurring in the domestication and slaughtering of animals, and he became a fighter for the rights of all living creatures that he saw being treated unjustly.
• Shelley wrote several essays on the subject of vegetarianism, the most prominent of which were "A Vindication of Natural Diet" (1813) and "On the Vegetable System of Diet"

On PB Shelley's influence:

• Apparently even Gandhi was influenced and inspired by Shelley's nonviolence in protest and political action.. It is known that Gandhi would often quote (even to vast audiences during the campaign for a free India) Shelley's best-known political poem The Masque of Anarchy, which has been called "perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance."
• He was "admired by Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, William Butler Yeats, etc.
• (The American thinker/philosopher/reformist) Henry David Thoreau's civil disobedience and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's passive resistance were apparently influenced and inspired by Shelley's nonviolence in protest and political action, although Gandhi does not include him in his list of mentors"

Shelley's Political Poem 'The Masque of Anarchy' (1819)  :

•  Written on the occasion of the massacre carried out by the British Government at Peterloo, Manchester 1819, Shelley begins his poem with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time "God, and King, and Law" - and he then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action: "Let a great assembley be, of the feerless and the free". The crowd at this gathering is met by armed soldiers, but the protestors do not raise an arm against their assailants:

"Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war.

And if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim and hew,
What they like, that let them do.

With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away

Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many — they are few"

• A version was taken up by Henry David Thoreau in his essay Civil Disobedience, and later by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in his doctrine of Satyagraha.Gandhi's passive resistance was influenced and inspired by Shelley's nonviolence in protest and political action. It is known that Gandhi would often quote Shelley's Masque of Anarchy to vast audiences during the campaign for a free India.
  
• Some political authors and campaigners described it as "the greatest political poem ever written in English".
• introduction:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_Anarchy
• Complete 91 stanzas, with preview, as a book, first published in London, 1832:

More From the Wiki Introduction:

•  The poem also mentions several members of the British government by name: the Foreign Secretary, who appears as a mask worn by Murder, the Home Secretary, whose guise is taken by Hypocrisy, and the Lord Chancellor, whose ermine gown is worn by Fraud. Led by Anarchy, a skeleton with a crown, they try to take over England, but are slain by a mysterious armored figure who arises from a mist. The maiden Hope, revived, then calls to the people of England:
  "Men of England, heirs of Glory,
  Heroes of unwritten story,
  Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
  Hopes of her, and one another;
  
  What is Freedom? Ye can tell
  That which Slavery is too well,
  For its very name has grown
  To an echo of your own
  
  Let a vast assembly be,
  And with great solemnity
  Declare with measured words, that ye
  Are, as God has made ye, free!
  
  The old laws of England--they
  Whose reverend heads with age are grey,
  Children of a wiser day;
  And whose solemn voice must be
  Thine own echo--Liberty!
  
  Rise like Lions after slumber
  In unvanquishable number,
  Shake your chains to earth like dew
  Which in sleep had fallen on you-
  Ye are many — they are few"

Notes on Mary Shelly:

• (PB Shelley's second wife) Mary Shelley is author of Frankenstein- The Modern Prometheus, The story of the  scientist who created life and horrified by this own creations. Published when she was only 21!..after eloping as a 16year old lover of the already married 21year old Percy Shelly who left his first wife after 3years.
• In 2008, Percy Bysshe Shelley was credited as the co-author of Frankenstein .Charles E. Robinson determined that Percy Bysshe Shelley was the co-author of the novel: "He made very significant changes in words, themes and style. The book should now be credited as 'by Mary Shelley with Percy Shelley'."