So clever, so simple, so approachable: Why India still needs Gandhi

So clever, so simple, so approachable. Aakar Patel on India's great good fortune to have had the Mahatma

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Wardha. This was the village in northeastern Maharashtra, and around the centre of India, where Gandhi set up the ashram he called Sevagram. He lived there for about a decade, from his mid-60s till his death in 1948 at the age of 78. It was not a place I was familiar with, except by way of its name – through references in school textbooks. And it certainly was not a place for regular visits, either as a pilgrimage or what we Indians refer to as “sight-seeing”. I know nobody