mahatma

Gandhi, by then largely known as the mahatma, or “great soul,” had helped lead India into its independent future less than a year before, with millions of Indian nationalists by his side.

He called Tribe, one of country’s foremost constitutional scholars, “a big mahatma” who “thinks he can get away with this sort of thing.”

It centers around a towering bronze statue of Indian independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, also known as the mahatma or “great soul.”

But a statue of Mohandas Gandhi in a Delhi park seemed girded for the struggle ahead: Antipollution campaigners had fitted the mahatma with a respirator mask.

Certain subjects, like Gandhi, who is often referred to as mahatma, or great soul, are particularly guarded.