If Mohandas Gandhi hadn't failed at his attempts – twice – to set up a law practice soon after returning from his studies in England, he wouldn't have had to take a job in South Africa. And he probably wouldn't have become the inspirational leader that the world now admires, historian Ramachandra Guha told US television personality Jon Stewart on the Tonight Show.

Listen to Guha discuss why Gandhi's South Africa years were so crucial to the development of his ideas.