SEVAGRAM

town, eastern Maharashtra state, western India. Originally called Segaon, the village was given its present name (Hindi: Village of Service) by Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader. In 1936 he left his ashram (hermitage) on the Sabarmati River, near Ahmadabad, and settled at Sevagram. There he founded another ashram and directed the independence movement. Within this he created a model community that still flourishes, in which the inhabitants live a simple existence. The town is also the site of the Nai Talimi Sangh, the educational centre established by Gandhi. He gave it the tasks of building a self-sufficient community by providing its own food, clothing, shelter, and tools and of establishing a society able to fulfill its aesthetic, spiritual, and intellectual needs by creating its own art, music, literature, and drama.