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{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2013}}
{{Use Indian English|date=July 2013}}
{{for|the scientist|Kanu Gandhi (scientist)}}{{Infobox person
| name = Kanu Gandhi
| birth_date = {{birth year|1917}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|1986|02|20|1917}}
| family = [[Family of Mahatma Gandhi|Gandhi family]]
}}
'''Kanu Gandhi''' (1917 – 20 February 1986) was an Indian photographer. He was a grandnephew of [[Mahatma Gandhi]] who lived with him in several of his [[ashrams]] and was a member of his personal staff. He is best remembered as Gandhi's photographer, recording many moments of Gandhi's life on film from 1938 until his assassination in 1948. Following Gandhi's death, Kanu and his wife Abha moved to [[Rajkot]] where they ran a rural centre named after [[Kasturba Gandhi]]. Abha was one of the companions with Gandhi at Birla House Delhi, when Godse shot Gandhi .<ref name="gandhiserve">{{cite web|title=Kanu Gandhi|url=http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/our_photographers/kanu_gandhi.html|access-date=19 June 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Gandhi|first=Rajmohan|title=Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People, and an Empire|year=2006|publisher=Penguin India|location=New Delhi|page=688|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TEyXCoc76AEC&q=kanu+gandhi&pg=PA688|isbn=9780143104117}}</ref>

== Early life ==
Kanu was born to Narandas Gandhi, a nephew of the Mahatma's and a manager at his [[Sabarmati Ashram]], and Jamuna Gandhi in 1917. Kanu spent his early life with his parents in the ashram at Sabarmati – where his parents moved to when he was only two - and, later, at [[Wardha]]. He received his education at the Sabarmati Ashram, [[Ahmedabad]].<ref name="hindu">{{cite news|title=The Mahatma as his muse|url=http://www.hindu.com/mag/2005/03/13/stories/2005031300060500.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050401122813/http://www.hindu.com/mag/2005/03/13/stories/2005031300060500.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=1 April 2005|access-date=19 June 2013|newspaper=[[The Hindu]]|date=13 March 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Dhupelia-Mesthrie|first=Uma|title=Gandhi's Prisoner?: The Life of Gandhi's Son Manilal|year=2004|publisher=Permanent Black|location=New Delhi|pages=294|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hCR0AJx-9pwC&q=kanu+&pg=PA294|isbn=9788178241166}}</ref>

== With Gandhi ==
Only 15, he was jailed for his participation in the [[Civil Disobedience Movement]]. Although he wanted to be a doctor, that was not to be and he joined Gandhi's personal staff at Wardha where he supervised clerical, correspondence and accounting functions from 1936 till 1948.<ref name="hindu" />

Kanu was nicknamed "Bapu's [[Hanuman]]" and was close to the Mahatma. In 1944, on Kasturba's wishes and Gandhi's blessings, he married Abhaben Chatterjee, who had been adopted by the Gandhis and had been with them since she was 13 and who came to be known as "one of Gandhi's walking sticks".<ref name="outlookindia">{{cite news|title=Mahatma: An Intimate View|url=http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?204994|access-date=19 June 2013|newspaper=Outlook|date=2 February 1998}}</ref>

== Gandhi's photographer ==
It was Shivaji Bhave, [[Vinobha Bhave|Vinobha Bhave's]] brother, on a visit to [[Sevagram|Wardha]], who first asked Kanu to take up photography to capture events at the Ashram. When Kanu approached Gandhi with the request, Gandhi turned him down due to paucity of funds. The industrialist [[GD Birla]], an associate of Gandhi's gave Kanu {{INR}}100 to buy his camera, a Rolliflex, and a roll of film. From 1938 until Gandhi's death ten years later, Kanu took many personal photographs of the Mahatma.<ref name="hindustantimes">{{cite news|title=Rare portraits of the Mahatma|url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/Art/Rare-portraits-of-the-Mahatma/Article1-751959.aspx|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130620061620/http://www.hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/Art/Rare-portraits-of-the-Mahatma/Article1-751959.aspx|url-status=dead|archive-date=20 June 2013|access-date=19 June 2013|newspaper=The Hindustan Times|date=30 September 2011}}</ref><ref name="gandhimedia">{{cite web|title=Mahatma Gandhi - Our Father|url=http://www.gandhimedia.org/read_more/writings/books/books_on_gandhi/english/WRBOOGEN0218_rs.pdf|access-date=19 June 2013}}</ref>

Gandhi allowed Kanu to photograph him on three conditions: that he use no flash, that he never be asked to pose and that his photography would not be funded by the Ashram.<ref name="gandhiserve" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Gandhi - A Photo Biography|url=http://www.phaidon.com/store/general-non-fiction/gandhi-9780714841038/|publisher=Phaidon|access-date=19 June 2013}}</ref> Kanu met the costs of photography through a monthly stipend of {{INR}}100 paid to him by Amritlal Gandhi of ''Vandemataram'' who had purchased a photograph of [[Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel]] from him.<ref name="hindu" /> He also sold some of his photographs to newspapers and over time he began to produce images on a daily basis. Kanu also made films of Gandhi including one of his march in Noakhali in 1947.<ref name="gandhimedia" /><ref>{{cite web|title=MAHATMA GANDHI NOA KHALI MARCH (Archive)|url=http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/635|access-date=19 June 2013}}</ref>

Kanu however was forbidden by Gandhi from capturing Kasturba's last moments as she lay dying on his lap during his incarceration at the [[Aga Khan Palace]] in [[Pune]]. Years later as Gandhi breathed his last in Abha's lap at [[Birla House]], [[Delhi]], Kanu was away at [[Noakhali]] where Gandhi had ordered him to stay.<ref name="outlookindia" /> Kanu's interest in photography came to an end with [[Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi|Gandhi's assassination]] although he did undertake a few assignments including one in [[famine]] affected [[Bihar]] in the 1950s.<ref name="gandhimedia" />

Having had no formal training in photography, Kanu learnt the art on the job. There is variation in the quality of his work which chronicles many of the events, both momentous and mundane, in the life of Gandhi and the Ashram. His work thus forms what [[The Independent (newspaper)|The Independent]] called a corpus of "naturally-lit black-and-white photographs, which offer an extraordinary insider's view of Gandhi's life".<ref name="independent">{{cite news|title=Exhibitions Kanu Gandhi's Mahatma|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/exhibitions-kanu-gandhis-mahatma-1593465.html|access-date=19 June 2013|newspaper=The Independent|date=27 July 1995}}</ref> Kanu's original photographs remained in obscurity until they were acquired by a [[German people|German]] collector, Peter Ruhe, in the 1980s who traced similar material and began to market them. In 2007, Ruhe proposed to sell his collection of photographs and film to the Sabarmati Ashram Trust for {{INR}}5 million. These again came up for a private sale in 2012. The attempts to auction off Gandhi memorabilia generated much controversy in [[India]].<ref name="dnaindia">{{cite news|last=Shah|first=Bhavesh|date=25 October 2012|title=4,600 rare Gandhi photos offered for Rs4.3 crore|newspaper=DNA|url=http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1755907/report-4600-rare-gandhi-photos-offered-for-rs4-3-crore|access-date=19 June 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Mahurkar|first=Uday|date=7 January 2010|title=Harvesting a legacy|newspaper=India Today|url=http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/Harvesting+a+legacy/1/78191.html|access-date=19 June 2013}}</ref>

== After Gandhi ==
Following Gandhi's assassination in 1948, Kanu and Abha Gandhi shifted to Rajkot where they ran the Kasturbadham and Rashtriyashala institutes.<ref name="dnaindia" /> The Kasturbadham was the site of Kasturba Gandhi's house arrest in 1939 and had been acquired by the government after [[Independence of India|independence]]. Kanu ran the centre of behalf of his father to whom the government had entrusted its operations and developed it to function as a centre for [[Small Scale Industry|small scale industries]] and into a secondary school. Kanu Gandhi died of a [[heart attack]] on 20 February 1986 while on a pilgrimage in [[Madhya Pradesh]].<ref name="gandhimedia" />

== Legacy ==
Although Kanu's photographs of Gandhi are renowned in India and printed in many books on Gandhi, the man himself remained out of the limelight and largely uncredited for a long while with only one exhibition in Delhi displaying them under his own name.<ref name="hindustantimes" /><ref name="independent" /> His photographs were acquired by Ruhe from Abha following Kanu's death in 1986 and she had planned to dispose them off seeing no use for them. In 1995, the first international exhibition of Kanu's photographs was staged at the [[Leicester Museum & Art Gallery]] through the efforts of the [[London]] based artist Saleem Arif.<ref name="independent" /> Several scenes from [[Richard Attenborough|Richard Attenborough's]] biopic [[Gandhi (film)|Gandhi]] were shot on the basis of Kanu's photographs.<ref>{{cite news|title=Documenting history|url=http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/lr/2002/05/05/stories/2002050500260300.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031106232443/http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/lr/2002/05/05/stories/2002050500260300.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=6 November 2003|access-date=19 June 2013|newspaper=[[The Hindu]]|date=5 May 2002}}</ref> Kanu's ultimate legacy remains "as not just a photographer but a photo-biographer of Gandhi" who did through his camera "what [[Mahadev Desai]] and [[Pyarelal]] did to immortalise Gandhi through their memoirs and biographical writings".<ref name="gandhimedia" />

== References ==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/our_photographers/kanu_gandhi.html Photographs by Kanu Gandhi]

{{Gandhi|state=collapsed}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gandhi, Kanu}}
[[Category:1917 births]]
[[Category:1986 deaths]]
[[Category:Gandhians]]
[[Category:Mahatma Gandhi family|Kanu]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian photographers]]
[[Category:Indian photojournalists]]
[[Category:Indian portrait photographers]]
[[Category:Journalists from Gujarat]]
[[Category:Artists from Ahmedabad]]
[[Category:Photographers from Gujarat]]

Kanu Gandhi - Revision history

imported>GreenC bot at 01:50, 9 August 2021