Gandhi Memorial Museum

Gandhi's biography told inside a Nayak-era palace

The Gandhi Memorial Museum is housed in the 17th-century Rani Mangammal palace and is one of five national Gandhi museums in India. The exhibits trace the freedom movement from 1757 onward, with a strong focus on Tamil Nadu and on Gandhi's many visits to Madurai.

The displays are old-fashioned but unexpectedly powerful — large reproduction photographs, hand-written letters, and the dhoti Gandhi wore at his assassination. There is also a small khadi handicrafts shop selling cloth and books. Admission is free; closed Fridays.

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On display, behind glass, is the blood-stained dhoti Gandhi was wearing when Nathuram Godse shot him on 30 January 1948. Madurai was significant to Gandhi for another reason too: it was here in September 1921 that he first decided to wear only a loincloth, after meeting agricultural labourers who could afford nothing else.

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