Here, there, everywhere: Gandhi in your world

From street art to T-shirts and restaurant bills, Gandhi’s ideals – of truth, purpose, simplicity – continue to permeate our everyday.

His face is on every Indian currency note, a stamp of trust. He features on postage stamps, and in our road signs. Over and over, in the early years of independence, major cities christened streets or neighbourhoods after him (MG Road; Gandhinagar).

The Gandhi memorial in Washington DC. (Getty Images)

Children dress up as him at fancy-dress events. His words find their way into ad slogans and school assemblies, T-shirts and Instagram posts (“Live as if you were to die tomorrow”).

His spectacles alone feature in campaigns, indicators