The conventional wisdom has it that it was the poet Rabindranath Tagore who, around 1919, first began to call Gandhi ‘Mahatma’, after he had become a major figure in Indian politics. An alternate claim has been made on behalf of the Gujarat town of Gondal, which seems to have conferred the title on Gandhi when he visited it on his return from South Africa in 1915. Pranjivan Mehta preceded them both – although, of course, in a private letter rather than a public declaration.
Mahatma
