When Gandhi returned

Exactly 100 years after Mahatma Gandhi and his wife Kasturba landed at Bombay’s Apollo Bunder on January 9, 1915 on their return from South Africa, a number of Gandhian organizations planned to re-enact the historic event with actors portraying the personalities involved, reported The Indian Express (IE) on January 2015.

Sarvodaya Mandal member T. R. K. Somaiya, now in his 70s, wondered how Gandhi would have reacted to such a grand reception by the enthusiastic youngsters. In his autobiography Gandhi had recalled that the receptions in Bombay gave him the opportunity "for offering a little satyagrah (passive resistance).” He wrote that he had been accorded a grand welcome the next day at Jehangir Petit’s bungalow Mount Petit on Pedder Road. "In those palatial surroundings of dazzling splendor I, who had lived my best life among indentured laborers, felt myself a complete rustic,” he penned. He also admitted that he "did not dare speak in Gujarati” at Mount Petit. However, at a subsequent Gujarati function, also attended by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, he ventured to protest against the use of English, which did not go unheeded by those present, IE notes. Gandhi later recorded: "The meeting thus emboldened me to think that I should not find it difficult to place my newfangled notions before my countrymen.”