![]() The Ashram had started with about 20 people, but the number doubled in a few months. “For one, the place was too small,” explains Gandhian scholar and author Tridip Suhrud. But it couldn’t continue at that location for long. The place was given the name of Satyagraha Ashram. The first ashram in India was set up in Ahmedabad’s Kochrab area in 1915. There was also hope that, the city being the capital of Gujarat, monetary help from its wealthy citizens would be more available here than elsewhere.” And then, as Ahmedabad was an ancient centre of handloom weaving, it was likely to be the most favourable field for the revival of the cottage industry of hand-spinning. But Gandhiji finally chose Ahmedabad for his first Ashram in India because, as he wrote later, “Being a Gujarati I thought I should be able to render the greatest service to the country through the Gujarati language. After his return, there were suggestions for him to settle in various places. But as he himself wrote, neither those who lived there nor anyone else referred to those institutions as ashrams. When Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915, he had already been practising commune living for a while, at the Phoenix Settlement and Tolstoy Farm that he had set up there. “… If, on weighing the merits of this Ashram against its drawbacks, it is found wanting, the world has a right and duty to say that I have lived my life in vain as I have attempted to put my whole soul into it,” Gandhi wrote in the 1920s, in reply to some allegations and criticisms against the Ashram. (Aalok Soni/HT Photo) Setting Up The Ashram The trust took a conscious decision to not put it on a pedestal. The museum, library and exhibition area is a later addition by architect Charles Correa, who has used brick piers, stone floors and tiled roofs to blend it with the rest of the Ashram and there are two book and memorabilia and khadi shops near the Ashram entrance. “The main attraction is Hridaykunj, Gandhiji and his wife, Kasturba’s living quarters at the Ashram.” The rest of the Ashram consists of Vinoba-Mira Kutir, a small hut that served as the residence, at different points, of Vinoba Bhave (best known for starting the Bhoodaan movement), and of Madeleine Slade or Mirabehn (daughter of a British rear-admiral, who moved to India and became involved in the country’s freedom struggle), Nandini (the Ashram guest house that is today locked and awaiting renovation), the prayer area, Udyog Mandir (where the khadi technology had been developed, now under renovation) and the living quarters of Maganlal Gandhi – Gandhi’s nephew, disciple and one-time manager of the Ashram, which has been turned into a Charkha gallery. “We get more than 4,000 visitors a day,” says Atul Pandya, director, Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust. In addition to his room, Hridaykunj also comprises Kasturba Gandhi’s room, a guest room, kitchen, store room and verandah.(Aalok Soni/HT Photo) Gandhi’s room at Hridaykunj, his living quarters at Sabarmati Ashram. This Sunday (June 17) marks the end of the Ashram’s centenary year. But the blistering June weather fails to keep away visitors – both domestic and international – from the Ashram founded by Mahatma Gandhi on June 17, 1917, which served as his residence for the next approximately 13 years till 1930. The heat outside is difficult to bear even for locals used to the worst of Indian summer. A couple of international tourists, guide in tow, wipe the sweat off their brows as they step inside the air-conditioned exhibition area of Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad.
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