Gandhi Is Deeply Revered, But His Attitudes On Race And Sex Are Under Scrutiny

When Martin Luther King Jr. visited the villa in Mumbai, India, where Mohandas Gandhi stayed in the 1920s, he had a special request: He wanted to spend the night in Gandhi's bedroom.

It was 1959, 11 years after Gandhi's death. The house, called Mani Bhavan, where the Indian leader taught followers to spin their own fabric and where he launched satyagraha — his movement for truth and nonviolent resistance — had been converted into a museum. In an austere top-floor room where Gandhi's mattress and shoes still lay, King said he could feel "vibrations" of the Mahatma, or great soul.

"[King] was booked in a very good hotel. But he said, 'I am not going anywhere else. I am going to stay here, because I am getting vibrations of Gandhi,' " recalls curator Usha Thakkar.

So curators hauled in two cots, and the that he'd decided to adopt Gandhi's method of civil disobedience as his own.