60 Fun Facts About Mahatma Gandhi

What does the honorific 'Mahatma' mean in Sanskrit?

It was first applied to him in South Africa in 1914; Indians also called him Bapu, roughly 'father'.

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

His father served the small princely state of the same name.

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

He had only an elementary education and had been a clerk, but proved a capable minister; he married four times.

According to his sister, what was one of the young Gandhi's favourite pastimes?

She described him as 'restless as mercury'; the stories of Shravana and King Harishchandra made a deep impression on him.

How old was Gandhi when he married Kasturbai Kapadia in May 1883?

His brother and cousin were married at the same joint ceremony; he later wrote with regret about his teenage lust.

What three things did Gandhi vow to his mother to abstain from before she let him go to London?

The Modh Bania elders of Bombay excommunicated him anyway for going.

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

He also took English literature classes at University College London under Henry Morley.

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

Its president Arnold Hills, a shipbuilder, later founded West Ham United football club.

How old was Gandhi when he was called to the bar in June 1891?

Back in India he learned his mother had died while he was away; his Bombay practice failed because he could not cross-examine witnesses.

For roughly what annual salary did Gandhi agree in 1893 to go to South Africa as a lawyer?

The one-year job turned into 21 years in South Africa.

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

He sat shivering on the platform all night deciding whether to go home or fight; he fought.

How many years did Gandhi live in South Africa?

He arrived aged 23 in 1893 and left in 1914; he briefly returned to India in 1902.

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

It grew out of a farewell party that turned into a working committee against a bill to strip Indians of the vote.

What did Gandhi organise during the Boer War in 1900?

He raised 1,100 volunteers and won the Queen's South Africa Medal for carrying wounded from Spion Kop.

What 1906 Transvaal law prompted Gandhi to first adopt satyagraha at a mass meeting in Johannesburg?

Historians note it was also a protest against biometric identification treating Indians as criminals.

What does 'satyagraha' mean?

He first tabled it as a political principle in a 1920 Congress resolution on non-cooperation.

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

Each issue carried material in English, Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil.

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

Tolstoy had written to him 'A Letter to a Hindu'; Gandhi nurtured peaceful resistance on the farm.

At whose request did Gandhi return to India in 1915?

The moderate Congress leader introduced him to Indian politics; Gandhi Indianised his liberal approach.

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

Demand for the dye had been falling for twenty years, yet planters made them sell at a fixed price.

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

Patel negotiated with the British, who suspended revenue collection and released prisoners.

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

He wrote 'Appeal for Enlistment' but admitted in July he had not won a single recruit: 'They object because they fear to die.'

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

The protests that followed ended in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

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

It collapsed in 1922 with his arrest, and Muslim leaders drifted away from Congress.

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

Its English translation carried the copyright legend 'No Rights Reserved'.

To how many years' imprisonment was Gandhi sentenced for sedition in March 1922?

He was released in 1924.

How far did Gandhi and his volunteers march from Ahmedabad to Dandi in 1930 to make salt?

The march ran from 12 March to 6 April; the British responded by jailing at least 60,000 people.

On what date did the Indian National Congress, led by Gandhi, declare India's independence in Lahore?

The British ignored it; the date is now Republic Day.

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

Under the pact Gandhi went to London as sole Congress representative at the Round Table Conference.

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

He got the Inn wrong. Churchill also called him a 'Hindu Mussolini'.

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

He turned down a West End hotel; local children gave him toys for his birthday, which he took back to India.

How many times did Gandhi leave India between 1914 and his death?

The one trip was to the Second Round Table Conference in London in 1931.

Gandhi's 1932 fast in Yerwada Jail replaced the Communal Award with which compromise?

It was negotiated with B. R. Ambedkar over separate electorates for untouchables.

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

Bose had openly doubted nonviolence; he left Congress after the leadership resigned en masse.

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

He was arrested at once and held for two years, until failing health got him released in May 1944.

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

An urn of his ashes remains there; his wife Kasturba died in detention in February 1944.

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

Calcutta's police were given the day off, and mass killings followed.

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

He refused to celebrate while religious violence filled the streets with corpses.

How old was Gandhi when he began his last fast, in Delhi on 12 January 1948?

It lasted until 18 January, days before his assassination.

Who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948?

A Hindu nationalist from Pune, he fired three bullets into Gandhi's chest at close range and made no attempt to escape.

In whose garden in Delhi was Gandhi shot on his way to a prayer meeting?

The site is now the Gandhi Smriti memorial.

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

'Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more.'

How many witnesses did the prosecution call at the eight-month trial of Gandhi's assassins?

The defence called none; Godse and Apte were hanged, Savarkar acquitted, and six others jailed for life.

How was the vehicle carrying Gandhi's body to Raj Ghat propelled?

It was a weapons carrier with a raised floor so the million-strong crowd could see him.

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

Most were immersed at the Sangam in Allahabad; one urn was found in a bank vault in 1997.

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

The black marble platform marks the spot near the Yamuna where he was cremated.

At what age did Gandhi take a vow of sexual abstinence, in 1906?

His experiments in abstinence extended to food: he gave up cow's milk in 1912 on the advice of the Jain scholar Rajchandra.

What is the title of Gandhi's autobiography?

He bought the entire first edition to make sure it was reprinted.

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

Ambedkar dismissed Gandhi's ideas as a 'spurious brew' of two foreign writers.

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

They fill about 100 volumes; a flawed revised edition in 2000 had to be withdrawn.

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

In India it is Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday.

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

He is also formally regarded as the Father of the Nation in post-colonial India.

How many sons did Gandhi and Kasturba raise to adulthood?

Harilal, Manilal, Ramdas and Devdas followed a first child who lived only a few days.

Where and when was the honorific 'Mahatma' first applied to Gandhi?

It came at the end of his 21 years there, just before he sailed home to India at Gokhale's urging.

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

He also tried dancing lessons in an effort to adopt English customs, but went hungry until he found a vegetarian restaurant.

At which Boer War battle did Gandhi's stretcher-bearers carry the wounded for miles over rough ground?

He had raised 1,100 Indian volunteers partly to disprove the stereotype that Hindus were unfit for dangerous 'manly' work.

Whose writing influenced Gandhi to join the London Vegetarian Society?

He was elected to the society's executive committee and helped set up a Bayswater chapter.

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

He wrote that the tale haunted him and that he acted the king to himself 'times without number'.

Gandhi's mother Putlibai belonged to which Krishna-bhakti tradition?

Its texts include the Gita and Bhagavata Purana plus 14 works said to distil the essence of the Vedas, Quran and Bible.

Which Catholic prelate did the student Gandhi visit to thank for mediating the 1889 London dock strike?

The dockers won, and Gandhi and an Indian friend made a point of paying their respects.