Gandhi rarely figures in British school curriculum, but there is a distinct recall value to the name, even though many spell and pronounce his name as ‘Ghandy’. Such was London’s influence that Gandhi was to say in 1909 that “next to India, I would rather live in London than any other place in the world”.Īlso Read: On authentic leadership of Mahatma Gandhi | Opinion It was in London as a young man that Gandhi first learnt to petition, to draft letters and make speeches… in putting Gandhi in this famous square we are giving him an eternal home in our country.” Historians have noted his struggle with securing vegetarian food, joining the Vegetarian Society and rising to be its secretary and imbibing the value of rule of law that laid the foundation for his later battles against segregation and discrimination.įormer Prime Minister David Cameron noted while unveiling his statue in Parliament Square in 2015, “That inspirational man worked out who he was and what he stood for right here in Britain. HT Archive.īy all accounts, Gandhi’s stay in London as a student had a formative influence on him.

Mahatma Gandhi as a young student in London.

It is a measure of the distance India and Britain have travelled since de-colonisation in the mid-20th century that today Indian ministers pay tributes to Britain’s liberalism and Britons honour the man who fought doggedly against them and whom Churchill derisively called “a half-naked fakir”. India’s longstanding love-hate relationship with England is best symbolised in the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi, whose engagement with London first as a student of law and then as an activist and freedom fighter from South Africa and India has been chronicled in some detail.

Mahatma gandhi young