The success that Gandhi had in India

The real magic of the Mahatma was not a trick of popular charisma, but in fact a deft ability to recruit, manage, and inspire a team of talented individuals who worked tirelessly in his service. Gandhi himself was one of the few people to recognize how this phenomenon worked. “With each day I realize more and more that my mahatmaship, which is a mere adornment, depends on others. I have shone with the glory borrowed from my innumerable co-workers,” he wrote in 1928 in Navajivan.
Recognizing this fact does not diminish the rare and valuable qualities Gandhi himself possessed. Rather, it acknowledges that great work is the product of collaborative processes, and that many hands working together toward a common purpose can achieve monumental results. In Gandhi’s case, it was the relationship between a visionary leader and the team supporting him—and their collective use of the right resources, such as the books in Mahadev Desai’s library—that paved the way for extraordinary and lasting accomplishments.

An excerpt from a wonderful essay, after reading which I am all the more blown away with how effortlessly Gandhi was able to get so many talented, eager, and committed people to sign on to his ideas.  One heck of a personality he must have had.  Gandhi died barely 60 years ago, but the events of his life time now seem quite a few centuries old.  At the speeds at which we seem to move now, it is all the more real when I think about Einstein's comment that future generations will find it impossible to believe that such a real life person in flesh and blood actually existed on this planet.