In January 1915, Mohandas Gandhi returned to India after twenty-one years in South Africa. He was forty-five years old, internationally famous, and uncertain where to plant his next act.
Bombay was the obvious choice — India's commercial capital, cosmopolitan, politically active. Several prominent figures offered support. Gandhi was tempted.
But a conversation tipped the balance. Ahmedabad's textile merchants, led by industrialist Ambalal Sarabhai, pointed out several practical advantages: Ahmedabad was the heart of Gujarat, Gandhi's home region; its textile industry made it a natural laboratory for his ideas about handloom and economic self-reliance; and the city had a tradition of merchant philanthropy that would fund the ashram Gandhi envisioned.
There was also a personal factor Gandhi later acknowledged: the Sabarmati River. He had lived his adult life near water. The Sabarmati offered the possibility of the contemplative walks he needed to think.
The Sabarmati Ashram was established in May 1915. For the next fifteen years, it was the nerve centre of India's independence movement. The Dandi Salt March began here on March 12, 1930 — Gandhi leading 78 followers on a 241-mile walk to the sea. He vowed not to return until India was free. He never did. The ashram is preserved exactly as he left it.