Spanish Influenza in India

Spanish Influenza was the deadliest global disease epidemic in human history, spreading throughout the world in successive waves and resulting in the deaths of an estimated fifty million people or more. India was hit especially hard by the Spanish flu; more than twelve million people died. For India’s independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, the epidemic was evidence of God’s punishment of Western civilization for its colonialism. Gandhi’s interpretation of natural catastrophes as God’s will was vehemently criticized, even by some of his own followers.