Mani Bhavan, a modest two-storied building on the Laburnum Road in the comparatively quiet locality called Gamdevi, served as Gandhiji's Bombay head-quarters for about seventeen long and eventful years (1917-1934). It belonged to Shri Revashankar Jagjeevan Jhaveri, who was Gandhi's friend and a host during that period. It was from Mani Bhavan that Gandhi initiated Satyagraha against Rowlatt Act and propagated the causes of Swadeshi, Khadi and Hindu-Muslim Unity. In 1955 the building was dedicated as a memorial to Gandhiji and to the very important activities of great significance he initiated from that place.

Mani Bhavan has a story to tell as it housed Gandhiji occasionally during the times when he grew in stature and strength, from an agitator to a world figure by successfully introducing satyagraha (individual as well as mass) as a new and effective weapon to fight all evil and injustice. It is obviously impossible to draw the full picture or tell the whole story here. This is an humble attempt to give the reader a few glimpses of the great drama enacted in this small corner of Mumbai by Gandhiji and his illustrious colleagues. To the visitors, it will give an idea of the dynamism of the great Mahatma even while he was shaping himself and the nation, along the uncharted path of non-violent resistance to foreign rule and to all evil.

The visitors from all over the world come to Mani Bhavan, to see the Room that Gandhiji occupied, its Picture Gallery, the Library Hall and the Terrace where he was arrested on January 4, 1932.
Gandhiji was a dynamic person and he kept on evolving. Even a change in his outward dress indicated an inner change. On his return from South Africa, he flung away the European style of dressing and took to the Indian style. Then again his original Kathiawadi turban was replaced by a Kashmiri cap which in its turn was discarded in favor of a white-cap popularly known as the Gandhi cap. The change ultimately culminated in a bare loin cloth- a significant symbol representing the Indian peasantry and its poverty. Perhaps Mani Bhavan is the only place besides the Sabarmati Ashram, where he donned all these dresses in their sequence.