Porbandar

The port city at Porbandar on the Saurashtra coast of Gujarat — the birthplace of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on 2 October 1869. Gandhi's three-storey ancestral haveli (Kirti Mandir) in old Porbandar, now a national monument, preserves his birth-room. Porbandar was ruled by the Jethwa Rajput Rana dynasty from the 10th century until the 1948 Indian accession; Gandhi's father Karamchand was the dewan of the Porbandar state and later of Rajkot. The port was a major Arabian Sea trading centre in the 18-19th centuries, with its distinctive Bedi Bandar harbour handling Oman-Zanzibar trade. The 1872 British protectorate over Porbandar and the 1948 integration with Saurashtra Union are the modern political history. Modern Porbandar is a cement-manufacturing and fishing town; the Gandhi Smriti museum draws over a million visitors annually.