60 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.