Mohandas Karamchand GANDHI (1869-1948)


A photo gallery: Gandhi lived one of the extraordinary lives of our century (and surely of any century); who else would call his autobiography *The Story of My Experiments with Truth*?
The stages of his life are here treated in a series of small vignettes surrounding a central image, as in similar posters depicting the life of Krishna
He was depicted as Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan, sheltering other Congress leaders while playing his seductive flute-- and shown as other deities too
Gandhi was an irresistible subject for political cartoonists, and for journalists in general
Gandhi was also depicted as a universal religious-cultural-political synthesizer
When Gandhi chose spinning, he was consciously and astutely reinterpreting one of the common tasks of poor women all over India
His minimal clothing was also a public sign of solidarity with the poor and his commitment to (idealized) village life
One of his most prominent Western followers was Mirabehn (formerly Madeleine Slade), who was deeply committed to his program


After his *assassination* 1n 1948, Gandhi's ashes were entombed at Rajghat in New Delhi, and lit by an eternal flame
M. F. Husain interprets Gandhi hieratically, as an austere figure in the lineage of the Buddha
Richard Attenborough interprets Gandhi commercially, through a British actor of part-Indian ancestry named Ben Kingsley
Special commemorative attention has been given to the famous Salt March of 1930
Would Gandhi have liked being on rupee notes, and elsewhere? (There even used to be a "Gandhiji Bar and Grill" in Manhattan)



 
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