The making of the Mahatma

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (second row, sitting fifth from left) with the Indian ambulance corps during the Boer War in 1899

A policeman confronts Gandhi as he leads striking Indian mine workers from Newcastle to the Transvaal in protest of the Immigration Act, or the ‘Black Act’ on November 6, 1913. During this strike, Gandhi was arrested thrice in a span of four days

Gandhi (left) with a friend, Haji Ojer Ali, in South Africa

Medals awarded to Gandhi for his services during the two campaigns in South Africa — the Boer War and Zulu Rebellion

Gandhi (centre) with the hollywood actor and showman, Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was eager to meet Gandhi but Gandhi had never heard of him or seen his films. He agreed to meet Chaplin when he heard that Chaplin came from a poor family

Gandhi (centre) seated with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (to Gandhi’s left) at a public meeting in Surat in 1929

Gandhi and Kasturba during their visit to Santiniketan in 1940. Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore (right) would address each other as ‘Gurudev’ and ‘Mahatma’, and despite being close friends, often agreed to disagree

Six weeks after his wife, Kasturba Gandhi, passed away, Gandhi fell ill with a severe attack of malaria. He was released from the Yeravda Jail on May 6, 1944 and he went to his friend Shanti Kumar Morarjee’s house in Juhu, Bombay. He is seen here with his son, Devdas, at Juhu Beach

Gandhi with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Sushila Nayyar and another associate, Amtus Salam, during their visit to the North West Frontier Province in 1938

Newspapers in Pakistan carried the news of Gandhi’s death with equal shock. Dawn, which was founded by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, devoted the full front page, treating the assassination as a shared tragedy