Andrew Malcolm wonders whether the White House has flunked history yet again in Barack Obama’s statement hailing Mohandas K. Gandhi, often given the honorific “Mahatma”, which means “venerated” or “holy.” In this passage, Obama seems to imply that Gandhi personally passed on his lessons of nonviolence to Martin Luther King Jr when he visited India in 1959, which would have been a neat trick, since Gandhi was assassinated in 1948:

On behalf of the American people, I want to express appreciation for the life and lessons of Mahatma Gandhi on the anniversary of his birth. This is an important moment to reflect on his message of non-violence, which continues to inspire people and political movements across the globe. …

Americans owe an enormous measure of gratitude to the Mahatma. His teachings and ideals, shared with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1959 pilgrimage to India, transformed American society through our civil rights movement. The America of today has its roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi and the nonviolent social action movement for Indian independence which he led.

At best, it’s clumsily written. I’m pretty sure that King had been quite aware of Gandhi’s teaching and ideals prior to visiting India in 1959, since he’d been applying them for several years before that. Even if one gives the White House the benefit of the doubt, though, it’s worth pointing out that they fail to use Gandhi’s full and correct name even once in this birthday announcement, appearing to fall into the common error of assuming his first name was “Mahatma”.

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