# Mahatma Gandhi

The first fact about Gandhi is that the saint and the politician are the same file. A dossier that prints only Dandi is a poster. A dossier that prints only 1906 racial copy, or only Manu’s diary, as if that cancelled Champaran, is a smear engine.

South Africa is the laboratory. Pietermaritzburg 1893 is a racial ejection. Natal Indian Congress 1894 is a merchants’ body. Indian Opinion 1903 is a press. 11 September 1906 is a public oath against registration. Tolstoy Farm 1910 is a commune. In the same years his copy distinguishes Indians from Africans in civilisational language later quoted on a Ghana campus. Those sentences are his. They do not make the 1906 oath imaginary.

India is the mass phase. Champaran 1917 is an agrarian inquiry against planters. 1918 is recruitment for the British army — a humanitarian-cost row in his own campaign calendar. 1919 is the Rowlatt hartal, distinct from Jallianwala. 1920 is Non-Cooperation plus Khilafat. 4 February 1922 is Chauri Chaura: policemen burned, campaign suspended. He did not light the station. He had called a movement that local fury exceeded. 1930 is salt. 1931 is Irwin. 1932 is Yeravda and Poona: a fast against separate electorates that Ambedkar experienced as coercion. Harijan 1933 is anti-untouchability and still a varna apology. 1942 is Quit India. 1946 is Noakhali walking and, in the same season, brahmacharya tests. 15 August 1947 is a transfer he did not administer and a killing he did not stop. 13 January 1948 is a Delhi fast. 30 January is Godse.

Sex experiments are documented in diaries and later editions. The catalog records them as a power controversy in a spiritual household. It does not invent a courtroom rape count. Caste is not cleaned up by the word Harijan. Race in Natal is not cleaned up by later U.S. civil-rights reception, including the King Institute’s teaching file. Churchill’s insults are reception, not a salt-tax rebate.

What the score must not say: that he is the Indian state; that non-violence was empirically total; that Ambedkar secretly thanked him for Poona; that Ghana’s statue row is a hoax; that a UN day in 2007 rewrites 1922. Complex contribution is the honest type. Confidence is high on dated campaigns and the assassination, medium on welfare magnitudes of fasts, high on the existence of the ugly texts.

Related people are Kasturba, Gokhale, Nehru, Jinnah, Ambedkar, Smuts, Churchill, Tagore, Patel, Tolstoy, Godse. They are specific roles. The formula writes the score if public evidence and existing driver-indicator links can see these paths. If the number looks like a calendar saint, the Chauri Chaura and Poona and Natal rows were dropped. If it looks like a cartoon villain, Dandi and Champaran were dropped. Keep each campaign on its date. A fast is not a vote. A diary is not a conviction. A pinch of salt is not a constitution. Mahatma Gandhi is scored from dated instruments, not from a later museum caption or a later encyclopedia heading. Shared work remains named. Mahatma Gandhi is scored from dated public instruments, not from a later museum caption. Shared work with named collaborators, later editors, and institutions remains named. Complex contribution is the honest type where later carriers are the surviving public file. Day-precision is not invented where the named records are year-level. 1893-05-31 (offset, driver `protection-of-minority-rights`): [Gandhi is thrown off a Pietermaritzburg train for occupying a first-class berth](/facts/ga-pietermaritzburg-1893) — South African History Online — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mohandas-karamchand-gandhi); Britannica — Mahatma Gandhi (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi). 1906-09-11 (offset, driver `democratic-resilience`): [Johannesburg meeting adopts satyagraha against the Asiatic Registration ordinance](/facts/ga-black-act-satyagraha-1906) — South African History Online — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mohandas-karamchand-gandhi); Gandhi Heritage Portal (https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/). 1930-03-12 (offset, driver `democratic-resilience`): [Gandhi leaves Ahmedabad on the Salt March toward Dandi](/facts/ga-salt-march-1930) — Incredible India — Dandi (Salt March site) (https://www.incredibleindia.gov.in/en/gujarat/navsari/dandi); Britannica — Salt March (https://www.britannica.com/event/Salt-March). 1922-02-04 (cost, driver `humanitarian-access`): [Police station is burned at Chauri Chaura during Non-Cooperation; Gandhi suspends the campaign](/facts/ga-chauri-chaura-1922) — Britannica — Chauri Chaura incident (https://www.britannica.com/event/Chauri-Chaura-incident); Gandhi Heritage Portal (https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/). 1948-01-30 (cost, driver `political-polarization`): [Nathuram Godse shoots Gandhi at Birla House, New Delhi](/facts/ga-assassination-1948) — Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti (https://gandhismriti.gov.in/); New York Times — Gandhi is killed by a Hindu assassin (31 Jan 1948) (https://www.nytimes.com/1948/01/31/archives/gandhi-is-killed-by-a-hindu-assassin-india-shaken-world-mourns-60.html). 1894-08-22 (offset, driver `protection-of-minority-rights`): [Gandhi helps found the Natal Indian Congress](/facts/ga-natal-indian-congress-1894) — South African History Online — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mohandas-karamchand-gandhi); British Library — Mahatma Gandhi (https://www.bl.uk/people/mahatma-gandhi). 1910-06-01 (offset, driver `social-cohesion`): [Tolstoy Farm is established near Johannesburg as a satyagraha settlement](/facts/ga-tolstoy-farm-1910) — South African History Online — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mohandas-karamchand-gandhi); Tolstoy, Letter to a Hindu (1908) (https://www.marxists.org/archive/tolstoy/1908/letter-to-a-hindu.html). 1909-11-22 (offset, driver `industrial-policy-activism`): [Gandhi writes Hind Swaraj on the voyage from London to South Africa](/facts/ga-hind-swaraj-1909) — Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (1909) — MKGandhi.org text (https://www.mkgandhi.org/hindswaraj/hindswaraj.htm); Britannica — Mahatma Gandhi (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi). 1917-04-15 (offset, driver `income-inequality`): [Gandhi opens the Champaran inquiry into indigo planters’ tinkathia grievances](/facts/ga-champaran-1917) — Gandhi Heritage Portal (https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/); Britannica — Mahatma Gandhi (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi). 1920-09-04 (offset, driver `democratic-resilience`): [Congress at Calcutta adopts Non-Cooperation with Gandhi as the programme’s author-leader](/facts/ga-non-cooperation-1920) — Gandhi Heritage Portal (https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/); Britannica — Mahatma Gandhi (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi). 1931-03-05 (offset, driver `humanitarian-access`): [Gandhi and Lord Irwin sign the Delhi Pact ending this round of civil disobedience](/facts/ga-gandhi-irwin-pact-1931) — The National Archives — Gandhi and the Cabinet Mission (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/the-road-to-partition/gandhi-and-the-cabinet-mission/); Britannica — Mahatma Gandhi (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi). 1932-09-24 (cost, driver `protection-of-minority-rights`): [Yeravda fast ends in the Poona Pact on depressed-class electorates](/facts/ga-poona-pact-1932) — Britannica — Poona Pact (https://www.britannica.com/event/Poona-Pact); Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (gov. reprint path) (https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/attach/amb/Volume_09.pdf). 1933-02-11 (offset, driver `protection-of-minority-rights`): [Gandhi founds the weekly Harijan after the Poona Pact](/facts/ga-harijan-1933) — Harijan journal pages — MKGandhi.org (https://www.mkgandhi.org/harijan/harijan.htm); Britannica — Mahatma Gandhi (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi). 1942-08-08 (offset, driver `democratic-resilience`): [All-India Congress Committee adopts the Quit India resolution after Gandhi’s do-or-die speech](/facts/ga-quit-india-1942) — Gandhi Heritage Portal (https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/); The National Archives — Gandhi and the Cabinet Mission (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/the-road-to-partition/gandhi-and-the-cabinet-mission/). 1948-01-13 (offset, driver `social-cohesion`): [Gandhi fasts in Delhi for communal peace after Partition killings](/facts/ga-delhi-fast-1948) — Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti (https://gandhismriti.gov.in/); New York Times — Gandhi is killed by a Hindu assassin (31 Jan 1948) (https://www.nytimes.com/1948/01/31/archives/gandhi-is-killed-by-a-hindu-assassin-india-shaken-world-mourns-60.html). 1921-01-01 (offset, driver `industrial-policy-activism`): [Congress-era khadi and charkha programme makes homespun a mass political-economic instrument](/facts/ga-khadi-spinning-1920s) — Sabarmati Ashram official site (https://gandhiashramsabarmati.org/); Britannica — Mahatma Gandhi (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi). 1918-07-01 (cost, driver `humanitarian-access`): [Gandhi campaigns to recruit Indians for the British army in the last year of the World War](/facts/ga-wwi-recruitment-1918) — Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi — Sevagram listing (https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/collected-works-of-mahatma-gandhi.php); Britannica — Mahatma Gandhi (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi). 1906-01-01 (cost, driver `protection-of-minority-rights`): [Gandhi’s South African journalism prints hierarchical remarks about Africans](/facts/ga-south-africa-african-writings) — South African History Online — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mohandas-karamchand-gandhi); Guardian — Ghana campus statue row over Gandhi’s African writings (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/01/gandhi-statue-removed-university-of-ghana-africa-racism-row). 1933-06-01 (cost, driver `income-inequality`): [Harijan-era Gandhi defends varna as a division of labour while attacking untouchability](/facts/ga-varna-defence-harijan) — Harijan journal pages — MKGandhi.org (https://www.mkgandhi.org/harijan/harijan.htm); Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (gov. reprint path) (https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/attach/amb/Volume_09.pdf). 1946-12-01 (cost, driver `personal-data-protection`): [Late ashram brahmacharya tests with young women, including Manu Gandhi, enter the documentary record](/facts/ga-brahmacharya-experiments-1946) — Gandhi Heritage Portal (https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/); Time — Gandhi anniversary reporting (https://time.com/5737500/gandhi-anniversary-india/). 1915-05-25 (cost, driver `protection-of-minority-rights`): [Sabarmati Ashram vows impose patriarchal household rules as public discipline](/facts/ga-ashram-gender-rules) — Sabarmati Ashram official site (https://gandhiashramsabarmati.org/); An Autobiography, or The Story of My Experiments with Truth (https://www.mkgandhi.org/autobio/autobio.htm). 1947-08-15 (cost, driver `social-cohesion`): [Independence arrives with Partition massacres Gandhi could not prevent](/facts/ga-partition-1947-limit) — National Portal of India (https://www.india.gov.in/); The National Archives — Gandhi and the Cabinet Mission (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/the-road-to-partition/gandhi-and-the-cabinet-mission/). 1935-02-20 (cost, driver `politi

### Documented record and accountability

Gandhi’s moral authority is strongest when it is not insulated from criticism. Nonviolent mass mobilization against colonial rule became his defining method, but his politics also involved paternalism, strategic compromise, highly personal use of fasting, and conflicts with leaders representing oppressed communities. The 1932 Poona Pact is a crucial example. Gandhi’s fast against separate electorates for the Depressed Classes created extraordinary pressure during negotiations with B. R. Ambedkar. The agreement replaced separate electorates with reserved seats inside a joint electorate. It cannot be honestly narrated only as reconciliation; it also belongs to a long dispute over who had the authority to represent Dalits and what forms of political safeguard were adequate.

The 1930 Salt March shows a different dimension of his method. Gandhi deliberately selected the colonial salt monopoly as a mass issue, marched to the coast, and helped turn civil disobedience into a nationwide confrontation with British rule. The campaign’s power came from disciplined political symbolism joined to organized participation, not from a single heroic gesture. Later imprisonment, the Quit India movement, communal violence, Partition, and his final fasts show that nonviolence operated inside circumstances he could influence but never fully control.

The record therefore supports neither hagiography nor dismissal. Gandhi changed the repertoire of anti-colonial politics and helped mobilize millions, while some of his social views, political tactics, and private practices remain legitimate subjects of criticism. Distinct episodes need distinct judgments.

The documentary record supports a bounded reading rather than a personality verdict. The archived text and context document the 1932 Poona Pact associated with Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar after Gandhi's fast against separate electorates. The article documents Gandhi's 1930 Salt March and civil-disobedience campaign against the British salt monopoly. Those sources establish particular events and institutional positions; they do not license claims about motives that are not documented, and they do not turn later reputation into evidence for earlier conduct.

The internal chronology can be followed through the 1942 Quit India movement, the brahmacharya experiments, the limits of his influence during Partition, the 1948 Delhi fast, [democratic resilience](/drivers/democratic-resilience). These entries are most useful when treated as separate dated acts rather than merged into one continuous narrative. Office, authorship, causation, and consequence are different questions: holding authority can increase responsibility for policy direction without making one person the sole cause of every result, while acting through a cabinet, army, court, workshop, movement, or institution does not erase individual choices that are directly documented.

Related record on Factrail: [Digital Learning Access](/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access).

## Dated facts

- 2017: UNESCO Memory of the World documentation includes Gandhi papers as documentary heritage. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-memory-of-world-papers. Sources: https://www.nationalarchives.nic.in/, https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world.
- 2007: The United Nations designates 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-un-non-violence-day-2007. Sources: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/gandhi-mohandas-k, https://www.un.org/en/observances/non-violence-day.
- 1958: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi begin appearing as a public documentary series. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-collect-works-public. Sources: https://www.loc.gov/item/2006686206/, https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/collected-works-of-mahatma-gandhi.php.
- 1948: Nathuram Godse shoots Gandhi at Birla House, New Delhi. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-assassination-1948. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/1948/01/31/archives/gandhi-is-killed-by-a-hindu-assassin-india-shaken-world-mourns-60.html, https://gandhismriti.gov.in/.
- 1948: Gandhi fasts in Delhi for communal peace after Partition killings. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-delhi-fast-1948. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/1948/01/31/archives/gandhi-is-killed-by-a-hindu-assassin-india-shaken-world-mourns-60.html, https://gandhismriti.gov.in/.
- 1947: Independence arrives with Partition massacres Gandhi could not prevent. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-partition-1947-limit. Sources: https://www.india.gov.in/, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/the-road-to-partition/gandhi-and-the-cabinet-mission/.
- 1946: Late ashram brahmacharya tests with young women, including Manu Gandhi, enter the documentary record. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-brahmacharya-experiments-1946. Sources: https://time.com/5737500/gandhi-anniversary-india/, https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/.
- 1946: Gandhi walks in Noakhali after communal massacres. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-noakhali-1946. Sources: https://gandhismriti.gov.in/, https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/.
- 1942: All-India Congress Committee adopts the Quit India resolution after Gandhi’s do-or-die speech. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-quit-india-1942. Sources: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/the-road-to-partition/gandhi-and-the-cabinet-mission/, https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/.
- 1936: Gandhi settles at Sevagram as a village ashram base. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-sevagram-1936. Sources: https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi.
- 1935: British parliamentary and Churchillian opposition treats Gandhi as a seditious half-naked fakir. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-churchill-india-debates. Sources: https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-137/churchill-and-gandhi/, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1935/feb/20/india.
- 1933: Harijan-era Gandhi defends varna as a division of labour while attacking untouchability. https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-varna-defence-harijan. Sources: https://www.mkgandhi.org/harijan/harijan.htm, https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/attach/amb/Volume_09.pdf.

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/mahatma-gandhi