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Mohandas K Gandhi’s decades-long campaign against British rule was the driving force behind Indian independence in August 1947.

The way he did it - through ‘satyagraha’, or non-violent resistance - made him one of the most famous and revered thinkers of the 20th century, and has inspired protest movements around the world.

Rajan Datar explores the experiences, ideas and people that turned Gandhi from a timid schoolboy and failed lawyer into a man bold enough to take on the might of the British Empire.

Plus, we ask whether he achieved the kind of Indian independence he really wanted, and find out why his legacy is the subject of intense debate in India to this day.

Producer: Simon Tulett

Contributors:

Tridip Suhrud, a professor at CEPT university, in Ahmedabad, India, and a Gandhi scholar who has translated many of his works into English, including the first critical edition of Gandhi’s autobiography, ‘My Experiments with Truth’;
Karuna Mantena, a professor of political science at Columbia University in the US, currently working on a book about Gandhi’s political thought;
Anil Nauriya, a writer on freedom struggles in India and Africa and a lawyer based at the Supreme Court in New Delhi.

(Picture: A photo of Gandhi taken around 1940. Credit: Dinodia Photos/Getty Images)