Where and when did Mahatma Gandhi make his first public appearance in India on coming back from South Africa after two decades?

Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in January 1915 [2]. On the advice of his political mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, he spent his first year traveling across the country to understand the Indian landscape and its people [3]. His first major public appearance occurred on February 4, 1916, during the opening ceremony of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) [2]. At this event, Gandhi addressed a distinguished audience including princes and philanthropists, marking his first public announcement of intent to make Indian nationalism more representative of the masses [3]. While he later led movements in Champaran (1917), Ahmedabad (1918), and Kheda (1918), the BHU speech remains his inaugural public engagement in India after his two-decade stay abroad [2].

Sources

1. [1] THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY PART III, History CLASS XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 11: MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT > 1. A Leader Announces Himself > p. 287
2. [2] https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/lehs303.pdf
3. [3] https://cuet.iitk.ac.in/sathee-cuet/student-corner/ncert-books/class-12/themes-in-indian-history/chapter-11-mahatma-gandhi-and-the-nationalist-movement-civil-disobedience-and-beyond/