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Primary sourceNewspaper article5 January 1931

Time Magazine Cover with Mahatma Gandhi, January 1931

Time Magazine · 5 January 1931

A 1931 Time magazine cover naming Gandhi 'Man of the Year', with a painted portrait of him reading.

A contemporary magazine cover showing Gandhi's growing international public image in 1931.

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Front cover of Time, The Weekly Newsmagazine, dated January 5, 1931, Fifteen Cents. A painted portrait shows a bald, bespectacled man in a plain wrap, reading a newspaper with his hand at his chin, against a yellow sunset sky. Caption reads Man of the Year.
Time magazine cover featuring Mahatma Gandhi, 5 January 1931.

About this source

What it is

This is the cover of Time magazine from January 1931, a weekly American newsmagazine. It carries a painted portrait of Gandhi, bald and bespectacled, wearing a plain wrap and reading a newspaper, under the headline "Man of the Year."

Why it matters

The cover shows how Gandhi's image and struggle were known and discussed far from India, reaching American readers through a major popular magazine. Naming him alongside other world figures in the headline line reflects how prominent he had become in global news by the early 1930s.

Look closer

  • What does the choice of image — Gandhi calmly reading — suggest about how the magazine wanted to portray him?
  • Why might an American magazine be interested in an Indian independence leader?
  • What does the headline comparing him to other named figures of the year suggest about his reputation?

This newspaper article is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Mahatma Gandhi on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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