Aga Khan Palace

The Aga Khan Palace in Pune is a late-Victorian palatial structure built in 1892 by Sultan Muhammed Shah Aga Khan III — conceived not as a royal residence but as a famine-relief employment project for the surrounding population. Its deeper historical weight comes from a darker chapter: between August 1942 and May 1944, British colonial authorities used it as a detention site for Mahatma Gandhi, his wife Kasturba Gandhi — who died here in 1944 — and other leaders of the Quit India Movement. In 1969, Aga Khan III's son gifted the palace to the Indian people. It now houses a Gandhi museum with personal artifacts and movement documents, while the landscaped grounds contain the samadhi memorials to Kasturba Gandhi and Gandhi's secretary Mahadev Desai.