110 Fun Facts About Mahatma Gandhi

What does the honorific 'Mahatma' mean in Sanskrit?

'Great-souled' is the literal meaning, yet Gandhi wrote that the title often deeply pained him and never once tickled him.

In which coastal town of Gujarat was Gandhi born on 2 October 1869?

Porbandar was his birthplace, but he grew up mostly in Rajkot, where his father moved to serve a smaller state and Gandhi went to school.

What position did Gandhi's father Karamchand hold in his home princely state?

Karamchand was dewan, or chief minister, despite starting as a clerk with only an elementary education; he married four times.

Which film star did a London doctor introduce to Gandhi during his 1931 visit?

Charlie Chaplin was introduced to him by Dr Chuni Lal Katial, a London doctor who later became Britain's first South Asian mayor.

Being married at 13 cost the young Gandhi a year of what?

Schooling: the wedding cost him a year of high school, and a teacher later had him skip a class to make up the loss.

What three things did Gandhi vow to his mother to abstain from in London?

Meat, alcohol and women were off-limits, yet his Modh Bania caste still declared him an outcaste for sailing abroad.

At which of the Inns of Court did Gandhi train as a barrister?

Inner Temple called him to the bar in June 1891; two days later he sailed for India, where he learned his mother had died while he was away.

Which organisation did Gandhi join and serve on the executive committee of as a student in England?

The London Vegetarian Society's president, Arnold Hills, owned the Thames Ironworks, whose works football team became West Ham United.

Why did Gandhi refund his first client's fee?

He froze in court: rising to cross-examine in Mamibai's small-cause case in Bombay, he could think of no question, sat down and told the agent to hire someone else.

Who hired Gandhi for the one-year legal job that first took him to South Africa?

A Muslim merchant's shipping firm, Dada Abdullah & Co., wanted a lawyer with Kathiawari roots and paid him £105 plus a first-class return fare.

At which South African station was Gandhi thrown off a train for staying in first class?

Pietermaritzburg station is where he spent a freezing night in the waiting room and resolved to stay in South Africa and fight discrimination.

How many years did Gandhi live in South Africa?

21 years: Gandhi sailed for South Africa in 1893, aged 23, and settled back in India in 1915.

Which political organisation did Gandhi help found in 1894 to unite South Africa's Indians?

The Natal Indian Congress grew out of his own farewell party in Durban, where news of a bill to strip Indians of the vote persuaded him to stay.

What did Gandhi organise during the Boer War in 1900?

An Indian ambulance corps of stretcher-bearers carried wounded British soldiers for miles to field hospitals, and Gandhi was decorated for the work.

What 1906 Transvaal law prompted Gandhi to first adopt satyagraha?

Compulsory registration and fingerprinting of Asians meant carrying a certificate for officials to inspect on demand, so Gandhi urged Indians to defy it and suffer the penalties.

What does 'satyagraha' mean?

Devotion to, or insistence on, the truth: Gandhi's cousin Maganlal won a readers' contest with 'sadagraha', which Gandhi changed to satyagraha.

What was the name of the multilingual journal Gandhi started in South Africa in 1903?

Indian Opinion ran in English, Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil, and from 1904 it was printed at Gandhi's Phoenix Settlement near Durban.

Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach's 1910 community near Johannesburg was named after which writer?

Tolstoy wrote 'A Letter to a Hindu' to Taraknath Das in 1908; Gandhi reprinted it, translated it into Gujarati and began writing to the novelist.

At whose request did Gandhi return to India in 1915?

Gopal Krishna Gokhale introduced him to Indian politics, but Gandhi later rejected his mentor's faith in Western institutions.

Which crop were Champaran's peasants forced to grow, prompting Gandhi's 1917 campaign?

Indigo had to be grown on part of each tenant's land as a condition of tenancy.

Which future 'Iron Man of India' was Gandhi's top volunteer in the 1918 Kheda agitation?

Vallabhbhai Patel, then a successful Ahmedabad barrister, volunteered when Gandhi asked for a Gujarati to lead, and the British suspended revenue collection.

In 1918 Gandhi surprised many by doing what for the British war effort?

Trying to recruit combatants for the British army won him not a single recruit by July 1918: 'They object because they fear to die.'

Which 1919 British law allowing internment without trial did Gandhi warn would provoke resistance?

The Rowlatt Act let police jail suspects for up to two years without trial, and protests against it led to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Which campaign, defending the Ottoman Caliph, did Gandhi support in 1919 to win Muslim cooperation?

The Khilafat Movement collapsed in 1922 after the non-cooperation campaign ended and Gandhi was arrested.

Which 1909 book by Gandhi argued that British rule survived only through Indian cooperation?

Hind Swaraj was written in Gujarati aboard the Kildonan Castle in November 1909, as Gandhi sailed from London back to South Africa.

In which town did a crowd burn a police station, prompting Gandhi to halt non-cooperation?

Chauri Chaura's crowd set the police post ablaze, killing more than 20 policemen; weeks later Gandhi was jailed for six years for sedition.

After Gandhi's arrest in May 1930, which woman led the satyagrahis' march on the Dharasana Salt Works?

Sarojini Naidu warned the marchers not to use violence under any circumstances, and the police beating of hundreds of them made news worldwide.

India's Republic Day falls on 26 January to honour which 1930 event?

Congress's declaration of independence was promulgated on 26 January 1930, so the constitution took effect on that same date in 1950.

Which viceroy's March 1931 pact with Gandhi freed prisoners in return for suspending civil disobedience?

Lord Irwin's pact sent Gandhi to London as the Congress's sole representative at the Second Round Table Conference.

Which British politician called Gandhi 'a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir' in 1931?

Winston Churchill also called him a 'Hindu Mussolini'.

Where did Gandhi choose to stay during the 1931 Round Table Conference in London?

Kingsley Hall in the East End was his home for 12 weeks after he refused a hotel, and local children gave him toys for his birthday.

In 1931 Gandhi visited textile workers in which English county to see the effects of India's cotton boycott?

Lancashire's mill town of Darwen hosted him at the invitation of Quaker manager Corder Catchpool, and textile workers there were photographed with him.

Which 1932 compromise ended Gandhi's fast against separate electorates for the Depressed Classes?

The Poona Pact, agreed with B. R. Ambedkar, replaced separate electorates for the Depressed Classes with seats reserved inside a single Hindu electorate.

Which Congress president beat Gandhi's nominee in 1939, a defeat Gandhi called his own?

Subhas Chandra Bose's win split Congress: most of the Working Committee resigned, and within months he was forced out of the presidency.

What Hindi slogan, meaning 'do or die', did Gandhi give the Quit India movement in 1942?

Karo ya maro was his mantra at Bombay's Gowalia Tank Maidan on 8 August 1942, and he was arrested early the next morning.

Where was Gandhi held as a political prisoner from 1942 to 1944?

The Aga Khan Palace in Pune is where his wife Kasturba and his secretary Mahadev Desai both died in detention, and their memorials stand there.

Which Muslim League leader called Direct Action Day on 16 August 1946 to press for partition?

Muhammad Ali Jinnah's call became a public holiday in Bengal at the urging of its Muslim League chief minister, and mass killings followed.

How did Gandhi spend India's independence day, 15 August 1947?

Fasting and spinning in Calcutta was how he marked the day, staying there to calm religious violence while the rest of India celebrated.

Gandhi's last fast, begun on 13 January 1948, pressed India to release funds owed to which country?

Pakistan was owed 55 crore rupees of pre-Partition assets that India had held back during the Kashmir war, and the government released the money.

Who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948?

Nathuram Godse was hanged at Ambala Jail in November 1949, even though two of Gandhi's sons had pleaded for his sentence to be commuted.

In the garden of which Delhi mansion was Gandhi shot on his way to a prayer meeting?

Birla House, home of the Birla business family, is where Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life; it is now the Gandhi Smriti memorial.

Which prime minister told India by radio that 'the light has gone out of our lives'?

Jawaharlal Nehru's broadcast went on: 'there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it.'

The trial of Gandhi's assassins opened in May 1948 in which Delhi landmark?

The Red Fort's special court heard 149 prosecution witnesses and none for the defence; two men were sentenced to death and Vinayak Savarkar was acquitted.

A weapons carrier pulled by 200 people on drag-ropes took Gandhi's body to be cremated beside which river?

The Yamuna flows past Raj Ghat, where he was cremated after a five-mile funeral procession that took over five hours.

Some of Gandhi's ashes were scattered at the source of which river?

The Nile, near Jinja in Uganda, received some of the ashes and a memorial marks the spot; most were immersed at Allahabad's Sangam in 1948.

What words are inscribed on the Raj Ghat memorial, said to be Gandhi's last after he was shot?

'Hē Rāma' is the epigraph on the black marble platform, though his secretary V. Kalyanam, just behind him, said Gandhi never uttered it.

Which Sanskrit name is given to the vow of celibacy Gandhi took in 1906?

Brahmacharya came after his service in the 1906 Zulu rebellion set him thinking, and he consulted Kasturba only at the moment of taking the vow.

What is the title of Gandhi's autobiography?

Gandhi bought the entire first edition of The Story of My Experiments with Truth to make sure it would be reprinted.

Whose essay Unto This Last did Gandhi paraphrase into Gujarati as his programme on economics?

John Ruskin's book, lent by Henry Polak for the 24-hour train to Durban, kept Gandhi awake all night and moved him to found the Phoenix Settlement.

Roughly how many pages do The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi run to?

About 50,000 pages fill roughly 100 volumes, and a revised edition released in 2000 was withdrawn over its errors and omissions.

Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is marked worldwide as what?

The International Day of Nonviolence was created by a UN General Assembly vote in June 2007, on a resolution India introduced with 140 co-sponsors.

By what affectionate name, roughly meaning 'father', was Gandhi commonly known in India?

Bapu was the name in the broadcast announcing his death: 'Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more.'

Which of Gandhi's sons briefly converted to Islam?

Harilal, his eldest son, fell out with his father over studying abroad and died only months after Gandhi's assassination.

Which magazine compared Gandhi's Salt March to New Englanders defying a British tea tax?

Time made the comparison when it named Gandhi its Man of the Year for 1930, as newsreels turned him into a household name in Europe and America.

At which institution did Gandhi take English literature classes with Henry Morley in 1888-89?

University College London was where he studied, while the dancing, violin and elocution lessons meant to make him an English gentleman were soon dropped.

Which American civil rights leader made a five-week trip to India in 1959 to see Gandhi's legacy firsthand?

Martin Luther King Jr. left India 'more convinced than ever before' that nonviolent resistance was the most potent weapon available to oppressed people.

Which actor won the Best Actor Oscar for playing Gandhi in Richard Attenborough's 1982 film?

Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji, and his father's family were Gujarati, like Gandhi's own.

Stories of Shravana and which truth-loving king made a deep impression on the young Gandhi?

Gandhi saw a play about Harishchandra, who gave up his kingdom, family and freedom to keep his word, and wrote that he acted the king to himself 'times without number'.

Richard Attenborough's Gandhi beat which Steven Spielberg film to the Best Picture Oscar?

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial took four Oscars that night, including visual effects and John Williams's score, while Gandhi won eight.

Which composer wrote the Gandhi opera Satyagraha?

Philip Glass made Satyagraha the middle opera of his Portrait Trilogy, between Einstein on the Beach and Akhnaten.

To which European dictator did Gandhi write letters that became the basis of a 2011 Hindi war film?

Adolf Hitler was the addressee, and the film built on the letters sets Gandhi's creed against Nazism. It was released in India under the title Gandhi to Hitler.

Which award eluded Gandhi despite five nominations, the last only days before his murder in 1948?

The Nobel Peace Prize was withheld entirely in 1948, the committee ruling there was no suitable living candidate. Later committee members publicly regretted the omission.

Which British monarch had Gandhi to tea in 1931, despite misgivings about his loincloth?

George V relented after Gandhi declared he would not reclothe even for royalty while India's poor went naked. He arrived in his loincloth and a white shawl worn inside out.

Which woman, married to Gandhi in an arranged wedding in 1883, died in British detention in 1944?

Kasturba was 14 to her groom's 13 at the wedding their parents arranged. She became a campaigner herself, sentenced to hard labour in South Africa in 1913 for joining a protest.

At which coastal village in Gujarat did Gandhi's Salt March end in 1930 after 240 miles on foot?

Dandi is where he made salt by evaporation on 6 April 1930, breaking the Raj's monopoly law. Millions of Indians then defied the same law in the campaign that followed.

Which physicist exchanged letters with Gandhi and admired him deeply, though the two never met?

Albert Einstein sent his first short letter through one of Gandhi's envoys and got a quick reply. He regarded Gandhi as an example for future generations to follow.

For which South African general and future prime minister did Gandhi make a pair of sandals?

Jan Smuts, his adversary over Indian rights, received them as a parting gift in 1914. He sent them back for Gandhi's 70th birthday, saying he felt unworthy to stand in such a man's shoes.

Which day of the week did Gandhi set aside for a regular vow of complete silence?

Monday was his weekly day without speech, a discipline he would not break for any reason, whatever business was pressing.

Which scene in the 1982 biopic Gandhi was shot with more than 300,000 extras on screen?

The funeral scene holds the Guinness World Records mark for the most extras used in any film. It comes right after the opening, before the story jumps back to 1893.

Which animals form the small statue that was Gandhi's main exception to a life without possessions?

Monkeys, three of them, made up the statue, said to have been a gift from a visiting Japanese Buddhist monk. A larger copy is displayed at his old ashram in Gujarat.

Which American author's 1849 essay on resisting government did Gandhi liken to his own satyagraha?

Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail for refusing a poll tax. In 1907 Gandhi published a synopsis of the essay, calling it exactly applicable to Indians in the Transvaal.

Which Bengali poet is said by some authors to have used the title 'Mahatma' for Gandhi in 1915?

Rabindranath Tagore is one of several claimed sources of the title. The earliest written use on record is a 1909 private letter by Gandhi's friend Pranjivan Mehta.

Which Sanskrit term for doing no harm to any living being lay at the heart of Gandhi's protests?

Ahimsa has a long history in Indian religious thought, where it counts as the highest ethical duty. It is owed to all living beings in action, word and thought.

What do Indians call the hand-cranked yarn wheel that Gandhi made a symbol of the freedom struggle?

Charkha use was meant to make Indians self-sufficient, so the wheel appeared on early versions of the national flag. The word is related to the Sanskrit for circle.

Which coarse hand-woven cloth did Gandhi promote as swadeshi, a home-made rival to imports?

Khadi was first woven at his Sabarmati ashram in 1917-18. Gandhi wanted every Indian to spin and wear it rather than buy foreign cloth.

Which Hindu scripture did Gandhi call his spiritual dictionary and translate into Gujarati in 1930?

The Bhagavad Gita was, by his own account, the greatest single influence on his life. He studied it in South Africa alongside many other religious texts.

Which Indian musician co-wrote the score of the 1982 film Gandhi with a British composer?

Ravi Shankar and his co-composer were nominated for the Best Original Score Oscar. Theirs was one of eleven nominations for the film, which won eight Academy Awards.

Which former South African president shared India's Gandhi Peace Prize for 2000 with a microcredit bank?

Nelson Mandela shared the honour with Grameen Bank. India created the prize in 1995 to mark the 125th anniversary of Gandhi's birth.

On the Sabarmati in which Gujarat city stood the ashram where Gandhi's Salt March began?

Ahmedabad's ashram never had him back as a resident. Setting off, he vowed not to return to it until India was free, and later made his home near Wardha instead.

In which city did Gandhi give his Quit India speech at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in August 1942?

Bombay hosted the Congress committee session that launched the campaign. Within hours the Raj had jailed almost the entire Congress leadership without trial.

On which charge was Gandhi tried in March 1922 and sentenced to six years in prison?

Sedition was the charge, brought within weeks of his calling off the non-cooperation campaign because a mob had killed policemen. He was arrested on 10 March 1922.

In which city did troops fire on a crowd at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919, enraging the subcontinent?

Amritsar's crowd had gathered during the annual Baisakhi fair. In the aftermath Gandhi, recently back in India, emerged as the leader of fast-growing civil disobedience campaigns.

In which present-day Indian state is Champaran, where Gandhi won his first major victory in 1917?

Bihar's Champaran campaign was the first satyagraha Gandhi led in British India. Among those who joined him there was Rajendra Prasad, later India's first president.

What does India call 30 January, the date of Gandhi's assassination, kept with a two-minute silence?

Martyrs' Day brings the president, the prime minister and the service chiefs to lay wreaths at his memorial in Delhi. The whole country falls quiet at 11 am.

Which term, meaning 'children of God', did Gandhi adopt in 1933 for people then called untouchables?

Harijan was coined in the 15th century by the Gujarati poet-saint Narsinh Mehta, whose work Gandhi admired. Mehta meant it for every devotee of his god, whatever their caste, class or sex.

Which English-language journal did Gandhi publish from 1919 to 1931 to argue the case for self-rule?

Young India shared its title with a 1916 book by the nationalist Lala Lajpat Rai. Gandhi used its pages to urge readers to organise and plan for freedom from the Empire.

Which 2006 Bollywood comedy about a gangster who sees Gandhi's apparition popularised 'Gandhigiri'?

Lage Raho Munna Bhai revived interest in Gandhi's ideas across India. Protesters began handing roses to their opponents, and interest in books about him picked up.

What name did Gandhi give Madeleine Slade, the British admiral's daughter who joined his ashram?

Mirabehn, named after the Hindu mystic Mirabai, found him through Beethoven. The French author of her favourite books on the composer told her about his new one on Gandhi.

Which village near Wardha in central India was Gandhi's home and ashram from 1936 until his death?

Sevagram was called Segaon when he settled there. He renamed it with a word meaning village of service, partly to end confusion with another place called Shegaon.

Which British minister led the 1942 delegation whose failure prompted Gandhi's Quit India call?

Stafford Cripps offered full dominion status once the war was over in exchange for India's support. Gandhi doubted Britain's sincerity and would not morally endorse a war.

Which Hindu nationalist body did India ban in February 1948, days after Gandhi's assassination?

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, to which the assassin had once belonged, saw some 20,000 of its volunteers arrested over the following months.

At the Sangam in which Ganges city were most of Gandhi's ashes immersed in February 1948?

Allahabad received most of the ashes, but some urns were secretly taken away. One surfaced in a bank vault and was immersed at the same spot by Tushar Gandhi in 1997.

In which city of Tamil Nadu did Gandhi first adopt the loincloth as his dress in September 1921?

Madurai is where he gave up fuller clothing as a symbol of his identification with India's poor. A memorial museum to him stands in the city.

In which present-day Indian state did Gandhi back the 1924-25 Vaikom Satyagraha over road access?

Kerala's Vaikom then lay in the Kingdom of Travancore, where lower castes were barred even from the roads around its temple. Gandhi's intervention led to a compromise that opened three of the four roads.

Which cleanliness campaign did India's government launch on Gandhi Jayanti, 2 October, in 2014?

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched at his cremation site in New Delhi. Its first target date was 2 October 2019, the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Which bhajan, set to a tune by Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, was sung on Gandhi's 1930 Salt March?

Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram, also called Ram Dhun, kept the walkers' spirits up. It is the song usually sung in his memory on Gandhi Jayanti.

Whom did Gandhi name in 1940 as the first individual satyagrahi, the future Bhoodan land campaigner?

Vinoba Bhave, regarded as Gandhi's spiritual successor, began the Bhoodan campaign in 1951. He persuaded large landowners to donate their land to the poor.

Who was Gandhi's personal secretary for 25 years, keeping a diary of life at his side until 1942?

Mahadev Desai wrote his last entry on 14 August 1942 and died of a heart attack the next day. He had been arrested with Gandhi less than a week earlier.

Which imperial decoration, given to Gandhi in 1915 for work in South Africa, did he return in 1920?

The Kaisar-i-Hind medal was presented to him by the viceroy Hardinge. He sent it back in protest after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Near which South African city did Gandhi found the Phoenix Settlement in the early 1900s?

Durban was the port where he first landed in South Africa in 1893. The settlement on the edge of Inanda outlasted his departure in 1914, and his son Manilal later returned to live and work there.

Which last viceroy of India was sent in 1947 with instructions to avoid partition, then oversaw it?

Louis Mountbatten had been told to preserve a united India if he could. Faced with the risk of rising violence, he advanced the handover date, leaving under six months to agree a plan.

Which British lawyer who had never visited India was given five weeks to draw the partition border?

Cyril Radcliffe chaired the boundary commissions for both divided provinces. His line was published on 17 August 1947, two days after the transfer of power.

Which Muslim-majority province, like Bengal, was split in two by the 1947 partition?

Punjab, like Bengal, was divided by a boundary commission of two Muslim and two non-Muslim judges, both commissions sharing one British chairman.

In which district of eastern Bengal did Gandhi spend four months touring riot-hit villages barefoot?

Noakhali had 20 camps under his one-village, one-worker plan. Gandhi himself walked from village to village on a mission to restore peace between Hindus and Muslims.

In which city did the Muslim League pass its 1940 resolution for independent Muslim-majority states?

Lahore hosted the League's three-day general session. The resolution passed there on 23 March 1940 became the foundation of the campaign for a separate country.

Which 1946 British initiative proposed a three-tier union of grouped provinces to keep India united?

The Cabinet Mission pictured a federal union on top, provinces below and three regional groups between. Distrust between Congress and the Muslim League sank the plan.

Which Pashtun leader, nicknamed the 'Frontier Gandhi', stood with Gandhi against partition?

Abdul Ghaffar Khan earned the nickname through his close friendship with Gandhi. He felt deeply betrayed when Congress accepted the partition plan without consulting his Khudai Khidmatgar followers.

Which Muslim scholar, an opponent of partition, became free India's first education minister?

Maulana Azad was elected Congress president at Ramgarh in the very year the Muslim League adopted its separate-state resolution. He went on attacking that demand during the 1946 negotiations.

Which Muslim League premier of Bengal toured its riot districts with Gandhi to restore order?

Huseyn Suhrawardy was Bengal's last premier before partition. A decade later he served as prime minister of the country his party had campaigned to create.

In which Karnataka city did Gandhi preside over the Congress party's session of December 1924?

Belgaum was then a major British military station, valued for its closeness to Portuguese-held Goa. The gathering Gandhi chaired there was the party's 39th session.