Sabarmati Ashram (Gandhi Ashram)

Sabarmati Ashram, also called Gandhi Ashram, sits on the west bank of the Sabarmati River at Hridaya Kunj in north Ahmedabad. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi founded it in 1917, after moving from his earlier Kochrab settlement, and lived here until 1930, making it the base of much of India's non-violent freedom movement. From this ashram he directed campaigns including the Champaran and Kheda satyagrahas, the non-cooperation movement and the Salt March. On 12 March 1930 Gandhi set out from the ashram with 78 followers on the march to Dandi on the Arabian Sea, about 385 kilometres away, to break the British salt law, and he vowed not to return until India was free. He never returned, and the ashram was later handed over to a trust. The site is a plain, tree-shaded campus of simple buildings. Hridaya Kunj, Gandhi's own modest cottage, still holds his desk, spinning wheel, writing implements and sleeping mat, and the neighbouring cottages associated with Vinoba Bhave and with Kasturba Gandhi are also open to view. Other elements include the prayer ground, the guest house Nandini, the Magan Niwas, and a small museum, the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, which displays letters, photographs and personal objects, with a library and archive of related material. The ashram is a place of memorial rather than of grandeur, and the atmosphere is contemplative. The trust, the Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust, manages the site, and it has been conserved and, more recently, subject to a large redevelopment plan for the wider campus, which has been the subject of public debate. The core cottages are well preserved. Visitors can walk the grounds, watch spinning demonstrations, attend the morning prayer, and see a sound-and-light programme in the evening where offered. It is free to enter and easily reached from central Ahmedabad by taxi or auto-rickshaw.