“Gandhi And The Spinning Wheel”: The picture was a photo essay of his life →

Gandhi And The Spinning Wheel, Margaret Bourke-White, 1946

The photo is the essay because it conveys the spirit of peace and resistance better than words.

Gandhi said, "The spinning wheel represents to me the hope of the masses. The masses lost their freedom, such as it was with the loss of the charkha”. He was convinced that the revival of hand-spinning and hand-weaving would make the most significant contribution to the economic and moral regeneration of India

Gandhi was a prisoner at Yeravda prison in Pune, India, from 1932 to 1933. The nationalist leader made his thread with a charkha, a portable spinning wheel. The practice evolved from a source of personal comfort during captivity into a touchstone of the campaign for independence, with Gandhi encouraging his fellow citizens to make their homespun cloth instead of buying British goods.