Mahatma In A Makeover
Gandhi goes glitzy for Gen Y, and the signs are everywhere
Museum muse
- One of the world’s first digital multimedia museums in Delhi’s Gandhi Smriti has sent footfalls soaring to 2,000 visitors a day.
- A mobile Gandhi museum begins countrywide tour after an extended show in Mumbai.
- Gandhi Smriti goes for makeover in ethnic chic, adding cafeteria, shops, live demo-exhibits of pottery, spinning.
- Becomes hub of activities for schoolkids and underprivileged, including computer classes.
Gandhiana for the kids
- Schoolkids open new version of Gandhi’s newspaper.
- A Gandhi quiz competition for schoolkids goes national.
- Over one lakh school and college children pay to take an exam on Gandhi’s life.
- Debating and elocution competitions on Gandhi’s relevance.
Summer camps, tours, workshops
- Summer camps at Sevagram ashram becoming popular.
- Chennai schoolkids line up for ‘In Gandhi’s Footsteps’ tour of four states
- Free radio/newspaper/comicbook workshops on Gandhi’s principles.
- Kids go as volunteers to work in slums/villages.
- Workshops on non-violent communication.
Bestselling icon
- An audiotape abridging Gandhi’s autobiography with Shekhar Kapoor and Nandita Das launched in Planet M music stores in five metros.
- Regional translations of My Experiments with Truth in last five years sell in lakhs of copies.
- Publishers/authors applying for rights of Gandhi’s works doubled in last 2-3 years.
- Between 1,000 and 2,000 new books on Gandhi every year across the world—publishers here say huge demand for new, attractive, relevant books on Gandhi for young readers. New Gandhi picturebooks coming up.
- A Times Music cassette on Gandhi’s bhajans climbs to top of music bestseller list.
- Renewed interest in Gandhi seeps into popular cinema; Rakeysh Mehra, director of Rang de Basanti, claims Gandhi is India’s single-largest export; filmmakers and playwrights try to reinvent Gandhi for a new generation.
- Buddhists from across the world begin their pilgrimage to Buddhist holy places with a visit to Gandhi museum.
- A new breed of social activists drawn from young, middle-class urban India start innovative schemes in slums and villages across India, claiming their inspiration is Gandhi—recent campaigns include the tribal land struggle campaign in Umariya district of Madhya Pradesh, and the campaign against multinational steel company POSCO in Orissa.
- Universities open centres for Gandhian studies, search begins for postmodern lessons on Gandhi.
Brand Gandhi
- T-shirts with Gandhi quotes
- Car screens with his sayings
- Posters of Gandhi hottest item at museum shops.
- A new fashion collection for satyagraha centenary.
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