---
title: Gandhi spins while addressing a crowd (1930)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gandhi-spinning-1930/
description: Gandhi spins khadi by hand on a raised platform while addressing a crowd during the 1930 Civil Disobedience movement, performing the boycott's own…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Gandhi spins while addressing a crowd (1930)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gandhi-spinning-1930.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gandhi-spinning-1930.jpg)

# Gandhi spins while addressing a crowd (1930)

Gandhi spins khadi by hand on a raised platform while addressing a crowd during the 1930 Civil Disobedience movement, performing the boycott's own discipline in public so the charkha stood for the whole campaign rather than one man's habit.

- **Date:** 1930
- **Period:** [Interwar](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=interwar)
- **Made by:** Indian National Congress (Civil Disobedience movement)
- **Region:** [South Asia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=south-asia)
- **Country:** [British India](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=british-india)
- **Medium:** [Photograph](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=photograph)
- **Issuer type:** [Movement](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=movement)
- **Regime:** [British Raj](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=british-raj)
- **Leader:** [Edward Wood](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=edward-wood)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Themes:** [Empire and colonialism](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=empire-colonialism), [Economy and finance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=economy-finance)
- **Event:** [Civil Disobedience Movement 1930](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=civil-disobedience-movement-1930)
- **Techniques:** [Plain folks](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/plain-folks/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:While_addressing_his_followers,_Gandhi_spins_by_hand.jpg), retrieved September 27, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (PD-India; 1930 publication, PD in India before 1996 so not restored in the US) Unknown news-bureau photographer, 1930; scan via Frances Pritchett, Columbia University

## Text on the object

Checked for printed text

No printed or legible text on this object.

Checked closely: no banners, signs, placards or lettering are visible on the platform, the crowd, the flag/pennant held at the platform's edge, or the photograph's white mounting border. A plain documentary photograph with nothing printed on it.

[← Bande Mataram (Lahore), commemorative page for Lala Lajpat Rai, 16 November 1929](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bande-mataram-lahore-lajpat-rai-1929/) ["The Good Shopper" (Empire Marketing Board) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/good-shopper-emb/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Trois Tetes sous l'meme bonnet (three heads under the same cap)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/trois-tetes-sous-le-meme-bonnet-1789/) (1789 · Plain folks, Glittering generalities)
- [Бо війна війною (For War Is War), Sich Riflemen postcard series II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kurylas-bo-viina-viinoiu-sich-riflemen-postcard-1917/) (1917 · Plain folks)
- ["The Good Shopper" (Empire Marketing Board)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/good-shopper-emb/) (1930 · Plain folks, Glittering generalities)
- [Allen in de Nederlandsche Unie (All in the Netherlands Union)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/allen-in-de-nederlandsche-unie-1940/) (1940 · Plain folks, Bandwagon)
- [The More Women at Work the Sooner We Win!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/more-women-at-work-sooner-we-win-1943/) (1943 · Plain folks, Glittering generalities)
- [Sedari Menanam Hingga Memetik (From Planting to Harvest)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sedari-menanam-hingga-memetik-1943/) (1943 · Plain folks)
- [We Can Do It!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/we-can-do-it-1943/) (1943 · Glittering generalities, Plain folks)
- [Still from "Japanse propaganda tentoonstelling", Japanese military propaganda film shot in Java (c. 1944)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-propaganda-film-exhibition-java-1944/) (1944 · Plain folks)