KANU GANDHI / © GITA MEHTA
He's one of the most photographed among the leaders of India's independence movement but a new collection of almost 100 photographs of Mahatma Gandhi taken by his grand nephew offer another perspective on the man whose appearance was as distinctive as his approach to ending British colonial rule.
The photo above shows Mahatma Gandhi standing on a weighing scale at Birla House in Mumbai, a sprawling multi-storied home built by Ghanshyam Das Birla, an Indian businessman and a close associate of Gandhi.
This and 91 other Gandhi images feature in the book titled "Kanu's Gandhi."
The work is a compilation of the images Kanu Gandhi took during the last decade of his grand-uncle's life and was produced by Nazar Foundation, a Delhi-based non-profit trust that works to promote photography.
Some of the images are on display at an ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati River in Gujarat in the west of India, where Gandhi lived for 13 years after returning from South Africa.
The photographs, however, chronicle the time Gandhi spent in Sevagram, a village in the neighboring Indian state of Maharashtra.
KANU GANDHI /© GITA MEHTA
Kanu Gandhi joined the staff at Sevagram, the nerve center of many of the activities initiated by India's independence leader, aged 19.
Meeting the photographers and journalists who visited Gandhi developed his interest in photography, although his uncle said there was no money to buy a camera. Eventually, Gandhi asked Ghanshyam Das Birla for a 100 rupee contribution that would fund a camera and some rolls of film.
Gandhi gave his nephew three non-negotiable conditions: he mustn't use flash, ask him to pose or request the ashram to fund his photography.
Kanu Gandhi was able to continue photographing thanks to a stipend from someone who bought his photographs and from newspapers he eventually started selling the images to.
The photograph above is one among a sequence that shows Gandhi collecting funds for Harijans, who were known as "untouchables," during a three-month train journey he undertook in November 1945. The trip took him to Bengal and Assam in India's east and extended to the southern parts of the country.
Gandhi worked to uplift the "untouchables" who sit at the bottom of India's caste ladder. "I was wedded to the work for the extinction of 'untouchability' long before I was wedded to my wife," he wrote in "Young India," an English weekly he edited.
In this 1940 photograph, below, taken at the Sevagram ashram, Gandhi is seen cross-legged at the wedding of a Christian man and an "untouchable" woman.
KANU GANDHI /© GITA MEHTA
The frail, cotton-clad Gandhi embarked on many hunger strikes to protest against British rule.
Some of his fasts were in support of other causes. He starved himself, for instance, to protest against the idea of creating a separate electorate of the so-called untouchables and in the early 1900s, he fasted to support mill workers in Ahmedabad who went on strike over wages.
In the photo below, Gandhi is seen lying down during a three-day fast he in Rajkot in 1939. On his right, is his sister, Raliatbehn and on his left, is one of his relatives, Vijaylaxmi Gandhi.
KANU GANDHI /© GITA MEHTA
This image below is a 1940 photograph of Gandhi at Mumbai's Birla House.
KANU GANDHI /© GITA MEHTA
In 1946, Kanu Gandhi took this photograph of a massive crowd that had gathered to meet the independence leader in what was the Madras Presidency, which covered large parts of southern India.
KANU GANDHI /© GITA MEHTA
Gandhi is seen with a pillow on his head in this 1940 photograph, below, while leaving his hut at Sevagram ashram. The pillow served as a shade against the severe heat.
KANU GANDHI /© GITA MEHTA
In the photograph below Gandhi is seen talking to journalists on a boat. Gandhi edited three English weeklies, the "Indian Opinion" between 1903-1915 during his time in South Africa, "Young India" which ran for almost a decade until 1942, and "Harijan" a journal that operated between 1946 and 1948.
KANU GANDHI /© GITA MEHTA
Below, in this 1940 photograph, Gandhi is seen weaving thread on a spinning instrument called the "dhanush takli." "Dhanush" means bow and "takli" is a Hindi word used to describe a hand spindle. "My emphasis on the dhanush takli is based on the fact that it is more easily made, is cheaper than and does not require frequent repairs like the wheel," Gandhi wrote in 1941.
KANU GANDHI /© GITA MEHTA
Kanu Gandhi took this photo of Gandhi getting out of a van in the North-West Frontier Province, now in Pakistan, in October 1938.
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