{"id":262983,"date":"2023-10-05T19:27:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T13:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=262983"},"modified":"2024-12-11T12:13:56","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T06:43:56","slug":"how-gandhi-crafted-his-own-public-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/how-gandhi-crafted-his-own-public-image\/","title":{"rendered":"How Gandhi crafted his own public image"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-319343 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/How-Gandhi-crafted-his-own-public-image.png?resize=746%2C497&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"How Gandhi crafted his own public image\" width=\"746\" height=\"497\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/How-Gandhi-crafted-his-own-public-image.png?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/How-Gandhi-crafted-his-own-public-image.png?resize=1024%2C682&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/How-Gandhi-crafted-his-own-public-image.png?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/How-Gandhi-crafted-his-own-public-image.png?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 746px) 100vw, 746px\" \/><\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: The post is based on the article\u00a0<strong>\u201cHow Gandhi crafted his own public image<\/strong>\u201d <strong>published in <\/strong><strong>The Indian Express <\/strong>on <strong>5<sup>th<\/sup> October 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS 1 \u2013 Modern Indian History \u2013 Famous Personalities<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance: <\/strong>About Mahatma Gandhi<\/p>\n<p><strong>News: <\/strong>The article explores Gandhi&#8217;s willingness to be photographed.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are some of the details of Gandhi&#8217;s fondness for being photographed?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Gandhi was one of the most photographed people of the 20th century<\/strong>. He understood the power of images and used them to his advantage in the fight for Indian independence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gandhi was willing to make his private life as accessible as his public actions<\/strong> if it served the purpose.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For instance,<\/strong> he deliberately created a photo opportunity by collecting salt granules three days after making salt at Dandi in 1930, which became an iconic image associated with the salt march.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>When did the documentation of Gandhi&#8217;s life through photographs start?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Gandhi&#8217;s life began to be documented in photographs while he was still in South Africa.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Initially, he was photographed as a practicing lawyer, and later, as an advocate for Satyagraha, fighting against the Black Act that restricted Indian entry into Transvaal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>When he returned to India in 1915<\/strong>, the camera continued to capture his journey, starting from his arrival with his wife Kasturba at Apollo Bunder in Bombay.<\/p>\n<p>Gandhi allowed his life and work to be documented in pictures throughout his life. <strong>In his later years, he started charging Rs 5 for autographs,<\/strong> to raise money for the underprivileged.<\/p>\n<p>Gandhi&#8217;s interaction with the camera evolved from a formal relationship to a more intimate one by the 1930s.<\/p>\n<p>Swiss photojournalist Walter Bosshard noted in his book &#8220;Indien k\u00e4mpft!&#8221; (1931) that Gandhi had sworn not to pose for photographers anymore. However, he was lucky to take some pictures by just being around Gandhi.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This resulted in a collection of photographs showing a relaxed and unguarded Gandhi engaged in various activities like <\/strong>shaving, reading, spinning the charkha, etc.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Which photographer had a closer relationship with Gandhi?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Gandhi&#8217;s grandnephew, Kanu, was one of the most privileged photographers to document his life. <\/strong>Kanu closely followed Gandhi until his death. However, he was absent from Birla House on the day of Gandhi&#8217;s assassination.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kanu began working at Gandhi&#8217;s ashram in Sevagram in the mid-1930<\/strong>s, when he was still a teenager. He had the unique privilege of being able to take pictures of his grand-uncle at any time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The only rules were <\/strong>no flash photography, no posing of Gandhi, and no funding from the ashram for his photography.<\/p>\n<p>Kanu became Gandhi&#8217;s photo-biographer, documenting both everyday moments and significant events, such as Gandhi&#8217;s 1940 meeting with Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, <strong>Margaret Bourke-White was one of the last journalists to interview Gandhi before he was assassinated.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cHow Gandhi crafted his own public image\u201d published in The Indian Express on 5th October 2023. Syllabus: GS 1 \u2013 Modern Indian History \u2013 Famous Personalities Relevance: About Mahatma Gandhi News: The article explores Gandhi&#8217;s willingness to be photographed. What are some of the details of Gandhi&#8217;s fondness&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/how-gandhi-crafted-his-own-public-image\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How Gandhi crafted his own public image<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":319343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[11880,263,7977,10500],"class_list":["post-262983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-art-and-history","tag-gs-paper-1","tag-history","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/How-Gandhi-crafted-his-own-public-image.png?fit=1280%2C853&ssl=1","views":{"total":8,"cached_at":1698382470,"cached_date":1698410098},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}