mahatma

He instead became an outspoken and influential politician who lobbied for India's freedom in the heart of its coloniser's empire - the British Parliament - and even clashed with Mahatma Gandhi.

His strident views on communism often clashed with Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent approach to defeat their common adversary.

Then he heard Howard University President Mordecai Wyatt Johnson’s lecture on Mahatma Gandhi, whose conceptions of nonviolent protest as a “love-force,” along with Christian love, animated a transformative movement.

"Right from the first day our side was peace," Mr Modi argued, pointing out that he came from the land of Mahatma Gandhi, whose statue in Kyiv he visited earlier.

When asked by a journalist what he thought of Western civilization, Mahatma Gandhi quipped “I think it would be a good idea,” cementing the notion that America has rarely lived up to its ideals.