How Mahatma Gandhi inspired two Charlie Chaplin classics

Mahatma Gandhi and Charlie Chaplin met only once, for one hour. But the meeting changed the world for better, by inspiring Charlie Chaplin’s all-time classics ~ Modern Times and The Great Dictator.

- SATISH KUMAR SHARMA

The first is a critique of the dehumanizing impact of machine-driven industrialization and the second, an emphatic rejection of fascism and totalitarianism driven by greed and fed by machine-based industrialization and, a call to universalism and humanism.

Mahatma Gandhi had become an international figure after American press’s coverage of his Salt Satyagraha of 1930, which came after the publication of the volume I and II of his autobiography ‘My Experiments in Truth’ in English in 1927 and 1929 respectively. So, when he travelled to London in September 1931, to participate in the Second Round Table Conference, insane crowds braving sheet rain and biting cold greeted him everywhere.

Charlie Chaplin happened to be in London at that time. One does not know if he had read Gandhi's auto-bio but he was curious to meet him. He wrote a letter seeking an appointment. On receiving the letter, Gandhi asked who he was. When told that Chaplin was a film actor, Gandhi laughed and said, “Films are not my cup of tea” and said that he had no time. But when he was told that Chaplin was sympathetic to India’s freedom struggle, Gandhi agreed to meet him.