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Britain and other parts of Europe from France to Netherlands take another look at the racism during the period of British, Dutch and French rule in India, Indonesia and Indochina, as well as in British East Africa, French West Africa, South Africa where Gandhi began his Satyagraha before coming back to India.

Gandhi's Story of My Experiments With Truth is an autobiography that provides glimpses of life in South Africa and his life from childhood to 1921. It was published in Gandhi's journal Navjivan from 1925 to 1929. It also gives one a real feel of how he experienced the impact of the British Empire and ideas he derived from John Ruskin during the period he spent in London, and the gradual evolution of his philosophy of preserving the dignity of the individual in the context of the ideals of Vedanta and the Indian Upanishads.

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India's Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington D.C. that estimates have been made of what the British took out of India over two centuries and this has come to $45 trillion in today's value. India suffered humiliation for two centuries from 1756 to 1947 with British rule. The country was "bled" and this was first documented by a member of parliament Dadabhai Naoroji in 1901 in London in his book explaining the causes of India's deep poverty in his book with the title- Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. For the first time detailed financial figures were put together on what Britain took out of India and India's Mohandas Gandhi says this was how he learned about how much India suffered economically under British rule with the neglect of agriculture, the peasants and landless laborers making up the vast population of India. Taxation was burdensome on a poor population during most of the period. Railways and mass communication only helped keep the vast region together under British rule and most of the budget went into security and policing for the Empire. Investment in industry or agriculture was neglected for most of the nineteenth century and half of the twentieth. Strangely the first Indian edition of Naoroji's book was only in 1962 with most Indians unaware of what had happened and where this was first documented. Even Cambridge educated Nehru looked at the railways and mass communication as British contributions to india when in actual fact this was of a strategic security aspect for the British in a vast region, and little was done to improve the standard of living of the people in the villages who worked in subsistence agriculture. Gandhi's task was to increase awareness at the grassroots level of the condition of the country. Something he never hesitated to do even writing to the Viceroy who was in charge directly showing how the budget in the 1920's was entirely lacking in any funds for India's development. This letter can be seen today in the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, the museum for Gandhi in his home state of Gujarat. One of the lesser known facts about the independence struggle is that Gandhi wrote a little book in 1910 with title "Hind Swaraj" on a steamship making its way back to South Africa from Britain where Gandhi led a deputation for rights of Indian coolie laborers in South Africa. I picked up this book at the original home of Gandhi and his parents in Porbandar, India, recently. In this book "Hind Swaraj" written in 1910 we find astonishingly all the details of the planned struggle for independence that were to happen over the next 20 years. In 1930 with a new edition Gandhi wrote that he had followed this unchanged for 20 years and would change nothing except one line in the book. The book in 1910 was promptly banned by the government of Bombay, yet Indian editions appeared soon afterward. It is written in question and answer format with Gandhi himself posing the questions which he answers, some challenging his view of India, Britain, Indians and the British. He did not blame the British, and called for Indians to take responsibility for letting the British rule in India happen and what was the best way out.  ...

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With the Quit India Movement and Gandhi's call for independence, India pushed hard for freedom during the 1940's. Still 2.5 million Indians volunteered for the war effort in the second world war in every theater in Europe including Italy, and in the air war waged from Assam by Indian pilots. These pictures show them in a forgotten role.

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BBC's Mark Tullly reflects on the period of coverage from 1962-1994 of South Asia. He says of Indira Gandhi that she took the democratic process out of the Indian National Congress party, and set up her sons as future leaders that was undemocratic. Here he reflects on that period in an intervew with the BBC after he left the BBC.  He has deep connections to the Indian period after 1800 as his great grand father on his mothers side was around 1840 in a part of Uttar Pradesh where British planters had farmers plant opium that would later be bought by planters for export. This coincides with the period when Britain in Hong Kong traded in opium as part of British trading in the emerging colonial culture British Empire. There is mixed legacy for Britain in India and China. The history of the Opium Wars in the 1850's and opening up of colonial ports ended with the 1900's revolution and the emergence of the CCP in China by 1950. In India the legacy was mixed bringing together this part of Asia into a new nation and bringing parliamentary traditions of Britain that provided the basis for good governance.  Tully is a softspoken thoughtful Englishman who revolted against British classical education in his youth and studied history and religion at Cambridge, made friends with the future bishops of Canterbury and Lincoln at Cambridge. He is not the Englishman of the Empire as his fondest memories are of the servants verandahs on the bungalows of Britishers and the smoke from their quarters, and the language. So it is a thoughtful view that he gives of the undemocratic nature of Indira Gandhi and mismanagement of the economy that could have changed if India had gone in a different direction under other leaders in the the 1990's. Why is this significant? China's modernization drive started in the 1990's. India's by the undemocratic nature and mismanagement under Indira Gandhi did not start its modernization till 2010, about 20 years after China, opening up a huge gap that is only now being corrected leading to problems for world security, US security, European security and Indian security. And delaying the aspirations of development of 1.4 billion people for 2 decades. Vikshit Bharat cannot come fast enough for both Merz in Germany and Leyen at the European Union, who last week and this week visit Ahmedabad and India for the Kite festival and for Republic Day 2026. ...

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Much of India's relations with Britain as a colonial power, and the US as the first real democracy (defined in a new way without colonial interests) after Britain in the modern world, were set in the period when Gandhi mentored by Gokhale and Tilak in 1900 set the independence struggle of the 1930's and 1940's. Modi merely restored the Gandhian spirit with a development focus and honest administration. This enormous contribution of Gandhi revered by all leaders including Modi is a benevolent one recognizing the important and one might say virtuous role played by the US under Wilson and Roosevelt to colonized nations such as China and India as can be seen in the personal letter to FDR written in the 1940's by Gandhi. There are two defining relations of the US, the first related to its founding as a British colony and a war of independence fought with the help of the French. And the other related to Asia, to Japan, China, and India as they modernized in 1900-2000. Of this the relationship with the most ancient of ancient civilizations in India is the dominant US relationship in 2025, because it unlocks the mysteries of westernization without the religious ethos of Buddhism in an imperialist Japan and now expanding Communist China. This religious ethos of China, Japan and Vietnam lies in Indian soil and in the ethos of the Indian people, and where Gandhi drew his inspiration. From this ethos comes the idea that India as a true friend of America and a Europe (that includes Russia) cannot ignore the devastation of Ukraine and inadvertently find itself a participant through its purchase of Russian oil at $119 billion a year (even when China under a expanding Communist government purchases Russian oil at $136 billion a year). The cost of the war is about $213 billion in a Russian wartime economy which also hurts the Russian economy and the cost of living through inflation for the Russian people. India will seek to do some soul searching and find the right path Gandhi would hold on to for Britain, America, and rest of Europe including the Russian people. ...

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The Swachh Bharat mission on the 150th anniversary of Gandhi, ODF Gandhi@150 mission with target date of October 2, 2019. This report in the Indian Express looks at how this was achieved and the way it was implemented with 1 lakh crore funding, participation and partnerships, leadership at multiple levels, and 1 lakh Swachhgrahis trained to implement this.

Mohandas Gandhi always looked at open defecation as an insult to human dignity and this has been a transformatory challenge for India, and one of the key successes of recent years showing that things that should be done can be done in India.

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Billie Jean King whose effort and persistence created the game of Women's Tennis, is alive and well with some words of encouragement, advice. Billie Jean King Commencement address at California State University Los Angeles, where she graduates in history in 2026, sixty two years after letting go college to play tennis. She grew up in Long Beach, with her brother, her parents a fireman who played basketball and a mother who was a teacher. For those who remember she comes from the period of Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith and in Australia Rod Laver, in the seventies. Stadiums are named after her at the US Open Tennis championships, and it was Billie Jean who helped create women's tennis. Some of her advice- "We can never understand inclusion unless we have been excluded." (the first African American player Althea Gibsen is celebrated in a postage stamp yet African Americans barely made it into the sport during her time. Billie Jean asked why it was all white dress, white people, white clubs.) "I like completing things. Finish what I started." (Sixty two years after postponing college in 1962 Bille Jean completes her history degree at Cal State LA in 1986). Billie Jean in another interview says history is so important and the only way to effect change that is good is to know what happened before and why. This is true for another pioneer for women a law student at Stanford named Sandra Day O'Connor of Arizona ranch territory that in those days stretched endlessly on all sides. Gandhi would agree. Hind Swaraj could not be written in 1909 by Gandhiji on a steamship to South Africa from London without asking about history and what had happened to create the Empire in India for the British East India Company traders, with warehouses and private armies, one that extended to Shanghai and Hong Kong in China. Gandhi says in 1909 "English merchants were able to get a footing in India because we encouraged them. When our princes fought among themselves they sought the assistance of Company Bahadur. That corporation was versed alike in commerce and war. We created the circumstances that gave the company control over India." Billie Jean gives some perspective on life and its lessons-"Wherever we are in life we can connect and we can impact change." "At 82 I have learnt about perspective and a few life's lessons- Champions practice their strengths. Concentrate on what you are strong and practice it." "Anything you do winning or losing, good or bad, its feedback not failure. Don't take things personally." "Don't let others define you. You define yourself." "Pressure is a privilege and champions adjust or adapt." "Just remember legacy is what others think about you, what is important is the value of the contributions you make." "Three principles for inner and outer success. Relationships are everything. Relationships with yourself, your family, your loved ones, your faith, and your friends. No. 2- Keep learning and keep learning how to learn. Be a problem solver and a innovator. Our decisions, our actions, our voices will shape what comes next. Have fun. Be fearless and make history." ...

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The story of hand woven cloth or khadi is also the story of Mohandas Gandhi and India. Here in Scroll.in Pramod Kapoor tells the story of Mohandas Gandhi's search for the tools that would drive the independence struggle and how in 1921 in Madurai he found the idea of khadi. It was like the idea of the salt march. Always about the dignity of man. Kapoor tells the story of Pamela Hicks, daughter of Mountbatten, the first governor general of India, who says her father told Gandhi, that sending a piece of his hand woven cloth would be like sending the crown jewels. Later, years later, Elizabeth was to tell about this treasured possession to Modi during her two meetings with the Indian leader who started his own version of khadi with Har Ghar Jal, water, life's basic necessity, to all Indian homes by 2024.

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This means Lal Bahadur Shastri as much as Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi in her own way, other prime ministers such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee till today. In a way this would include all of the leaders such as Govind Vallabh Pant and Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Subhas Bose and presidents Rajagopalchari, Rajendra Prasad, and Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, southerners and northerners alike, westerners like Babasaheb Ambedkar and northeasterners like Syama Prasad Mukherjee. And above all Mohandas Gandhi and his mentors Tilak, Gokhale. It all started with Dadabhai Naoroji, a member of the British parliament in the Victorian period of prime minister Gladstone, who wrote the classic "Poverty and UnBritish Rule in India" which inspired Gandhi to write his own Hind Swaraj in 1910 on a ship from South Africa to London to negotiate for the rights of overseas Indians. Naoroji and Gokhale provided the tactical approach for Gandhi to learn and combine with his own ideas for Swaraj.

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Azimji Premji of Wipro is one of the few Indian business leaders with a strong bonding with Gandhi's ideas of personal responsibility for India's betterment and the betterment of millions of ordinary people in India. He says Gandhi influenced him only next to his mother who ran an orthopaedic hospital for disabled children for 50 years, and learned what it took to do this as well as the difference it made in people's lives. He quotes Gandhi as his own personal philosophy-  "Supposing I have come by a fair amount of wealth- either by way of legacy, or by means of trade and industry- I must know that all that wealth does not belong to me; what belongs to me is the right to an honorable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by millions of others,. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community." Azimji Premji gives as three enduring parts of Gandhi's leadership- the pursuit of truth, the importance of means over ends, and empathy for all human beings. He cites a saying of Gandhi to be seen at Sabarmati Ashram and Gandhi Smriti- "I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man (woman) whom you may have seen, and ask yourself of the step you contemplate is going tobe of any use to him or her. Will he or she gain anything by it? Will it restore him (her) to control over his (her) own life and destiny? In other words will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away." ...

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Dilip Hiro's new book on the emergence of two states India and Pakistan in 1947 presents the story in terms of the two founding leaders Mohandas Gandhi and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The division of the region into conflicting states is shown as a result of the divergent views and politics of the two leaders. Jinnah who was skeptical of the mass civil disobedience movement of Gandhi and preferred a legislative approach, and Gandhi who appealed to the masses and oppressed millions in British India. Jinnah and Gandhi's style and approach were fundamentally different. Seven decades later Pakistan has failed to build a genuine participatory democracy for most of this period with military actively involved in government, and India in the manner of Gandhi built institutions of participatory democracy under different political parties. Jinnah was an assistant to Dadabhai Naoroji, India's first nationalist leader at the turn of the century, when the two were in London. Naoroji passionately argued against the British policies that entrenched the poverty of millions of Indians in the countryside. Ironically it was Gandhi, not Jinnah, who took up Naoroji's call for bringing hope to the hundreds of millions of people on the subcontinent in "Poverty and Un-British Rule in India," first published in 1901, and showing how the draining of the country by the British was leaving India weak and oppressed. In 2015 that struggle of Naoroji for bringing hope and economic opportunity to millions of people is the task taken up by India's new government and the new government in Pakistan. Naoroji, the first Asian to be elected as a member of the British parliament, established the East India Association in 1867, the predecessor organization to the Indian National Congress which he founded with Hume, and is the leader Gandhi and Jinnah most respected in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Naoroji was elected to the British parliament for the Liberal party from Finsbury Central in 1892, and was assisted in his campaign and duties as a member of parliament by Mohammed Ali Jinnah. In the light of this common upbringing for Gandhi and Jinnah, the nineteen forties and their aftermath could be seen as a detour, not the substance of political life on the subcontinent- just as Mao and Chiang Kai Shek are a sort of detour for today's China. Particularly in a globalized world where technology continues to open up unbelievable economic opportunity, interchange and communication. ...