Rena Effendi

Photographer

refendi.com

Gandhi

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

Nationality: Azerbaijan

Biography: Rena Effendi’s early work focused on oil industry’s effects on people’s lives. As a result, she followed a 1,700 km oil pipeline through Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, collecting stories along the way. This work was published in 2009 in... read on

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At sunset, sixty-five year old Pattli Bhen is in the final stages of salt collection on her family salt flat in Dasada, the little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat. Satyargha or “passive resistance” was a Gandhian action campaign method of non-violent disobedience. It reached its pivotal point at the Salt March in 1930 where Gandhi walked along the coastal villages of Gujarat in an act to resist the salt tax imposed by the British colonial authorities.

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Gandhi's passive resistance campaigns have inspired political movements all around India. These villagers, whose homes were flooded by the government dam project in Madya Pradesh have been practicing a non-violent civil disobedience campaign by standing in the water and demanding better court ruling on their land compensation.

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Loyal to a dying craft, Pramod Shah spins cotton thread on an old-style wheel, or charkha, at his home in Bihar. Millions of Indians once made cloth by hand, inspired by Gandhi’s vision of spurning British goods and reviving village economies. The market for hand-spun cloth, or khadi, is small today, though staunch Gandhians wear it religiously.

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Gandhi believed that education is how one can rise above cast bias. He established hundreds of institutions around India. This is a school for children of lower castes in New Delhi.

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Gandhi discovered the soul of India by traveling on trains in low-cast compartments. This is where he came face to face with the country’s social divide. Payal and her father boarded this Pratap Nagar narrow gauge inter-city train terminating in Jambusar. The latter stages of this train’s itinerary pass along the Salt Marsh route across Gujarat.

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Workers harvest salt in Dharasana, Gujarat. In May 1930, the month after Gandhi led a march to protest British restrictions on salt, activists trained in nonviolent resistance marched here and were savagely beaten, a seminal event that advanced India’s drive for independence.

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On October 2 children dress like Bapu, a nickname for Gandhi meaning “father,” to mark his birthday in Rajkot, Gujarat, where he spent most of his boyhood. Many Gandhi followers fret that as India grows more urban and materialistic, the young will ignore his injunction to serve the less fortunate.

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Porbandar city, birth place of Gandhi. Gandhi came back to this Chawpathi beach and boulevard 12 years after his initial marriage to Katurba and renewed his marriage vows here. The ceremony took place on the beach and was performed by the Mahatma himself.

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In this small Gujarati village SEWA, a Gandhian organization founded by Ela Batti, focuses on women enterprise development and income generation activities and has a strong client base.

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SEWA economic initiative for sari and cloth makers in Sinhol town of Gujarat. All cloth is pre-ordered and made with traditional methods on wooden looms and using organic fabric, such as cotton. SEWA member Geeta Bhen 38 y.o. has worked there for 6 months and is planning to save the money she earns here for her retirement fund.

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Over two thousand women walked the streets wearing Khadi, a traditional cotton dress in a peaceful procession to commemorate Gandhi in Kodaikanal town of Tamil Nadu.

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Manav Sadhna Gujarat Harijan Sevac Sangha, school for untouchable children is a Gandhian Institution in Sabarmati Ashram. Harijan means “God’s People” a term used by Gandhi for all untouchable castes. Clothes washed by the older children laid out to dry in the courtyard of the school. Most of the children's parents work in public sanitation in and around Ahmedabad.

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Where Gandhi once walked his famous Salt March to protest British rule, tribal women in Kapletha are still weighed down by poverty. At a brick kiln in Gujarat they earn less than three dollars a day.

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Gandhi promoted Khadi, the traditional dress made of handspun cotton. Mahatma modeled his famous look after a simple farmer like the one seen here in the Champaran district of Bihar.

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Bewildered crowds gather to watch a woman in a trans-like state beating against the ground, accompanied by village musicians. Women who embody the spirit of Durgha goddess perform this ritual at the end of Nauratra celebrations after they had broken their 9-day fast in Barharwa Lakansen village, where Gandhi lived during his Champaran satyagraha.

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Gandhi often spoke of religious unity and read from the Koran, Gita, Ramayana and the Bible in his daily prayers. Beside the Gandhi Adarsh school in Champaran, the priests are performing a prayer ritual in the makeshift temple set up for the Durgha Puja, a popular Hindu festival.

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A tree with old sari tied to it for a religious ritual in Surat, along the Salt March route in Gujarat.

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Gandhi worked towards improving access to quality healthcare in India. Manku Chaturkar a nineteen year old Korku tribal woman from Mailghat is a patient of a Gandhian mobile clinic in remote tribal areas of the country where modern medicine is inaccessible. Manku has just naturally delivered a healthy baby girl who was in breech position. She could have easily died if she had delivered her baby in a traditional way. The family was initially set to do a home birth, however during the visits by the medical staff of the community based maternal and neonatal care program, it was revealed that the baby is in breech position and due to this complication, the birth should have to be administered by the hospital in Mailghat, Maharashtra.

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Maya Rathore fishing under a banyan tree in Kavi Kamboi village 500 meters away from Sumeshwar temple on the banks of the estuary of the Mahi River where Gandhi attempted a crossing during the Dandi march but ended up being stuck in mud.

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Manish and his younger brother Anand are playing with tires outside the salt flat in the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. Seventy five percdent of India’s salt is produced in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat.

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Dharmistha Vasawa lying on a cot next to the village pond in Samni village along the Salt March route in Gujarat.

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A farmer carrying straw in Samni village along the Salt March route in Gujarat.

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Gandhi discovered the soul of India by traveling on trains in low-cast compartments. This is where he came face to face with the country’s social divide. Man sleeping on a Pratap Nagar narrow gauge inter-city train terminating in Jambusar. The latter stages of this train’s itinerary pass along the Salt Marsh route in Gujarat.

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People standing in the sea at low tide on Dandi beach, where Gandhi and his Salt March followers ended their journey. This is where Gandhi picked up a handful of salty mud, shook it and said: “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire!” and then made illegal salt by boiling it in water and encouraged others to join the act.

Public Story

Gandhi

Credits: rena effendi

Date of Work: 03/01/13 - 11/20/13

Updated: 04/21/18

Archived as: Documentary, Photography, Photojournalism

This story portrays Mahatma Gandhi and his enduring legacy in modern-day India trailing across the sub-continent with an attempt to put “flesh and bones” on Gandhi’s ideas and values, finding people on whose life and work Gandhi made a lasting impact. The story also follows along the path of the Salt March in Gandhi’s home state of Gujarat, photographing the modern day landscape from the historic route that was a pivotal point in India’s fight for independence.

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Rena Effendi

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