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History Books » Historical Figures

The best books on gandhi, recommended by ramachandra guha.

Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948 by Ramachandra Guha

Gandhi's peaceful resistance to British rule changed India and inspired freedom movements around the globe. But as well as being an inspiring leader, Gandhi was also a human being. Ramachandra Guha , author of a new two-part biography of Gandhi, introduces us to books that give a fuller picture of the man who came to be known as 'Mahatma' Gandhi.

Interview by Sophie Roell , Editor

My Days With Gandhi by Nirmal Kumar Bose

A Week with Gandhi by Louis Fischer

Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action by Dennis Dalton

Gandhi's Religion: A Homespun Shawl by J. T. F. Jordens

Harilal Gandhi: A Life by Chandulal Bhagubhai

1 My Days With Gandhi by Nirmal Kumar Bose

2 a week with gandhi by louis fischer, 3 mahatma gandhi: nonviolent power in action by dennis dalton, 4 gandhi's religion: a homespun shawl by j. t. f. jordens, 5 harilal gandhi: a life by chandulal bhagubhai.

W e’re talking about books to read about Gandhi, but it’s hard to do that without mentioning your own biography. There’s the volume that covers Gandhi’s years in South Africa, Gandhi Before India , and then there’s another 900+ page volume, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World , covering the period from 1914 until his death in 1948. Especially for younger people who might not be as familiar with Gandhi, can you tell us why he’s so important and why we need to know about him?

We need to know about him for many reasons. One is that he is regarded as the father of the Indian nation, and India is the world’s largest democracy and its second most populous country. He is the major national figure in India, comparable to, say, Lincoln and Jefferson in the United States, De Gaulle in France, Churchill in the UK, Mao in China, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and so on. He was the preeminent nationalist leader of one of the world’s most important and largest countries.

But he was much more than merely a political leader. He was also a moral philosopher who gave the world a particular technique for combating injustice, namely nonviolent protest. He called this technique ‘satyagraha’, or ‘truth force’, and it has been followed and adopted in many countries across the world since his death, including in the United States.

Gandhi was also a very interesting thinker on matters of religion. He lived, and indeed died, for harmony between India’s two major religious communities, Hindus and Muslims. At a time when the world is riven with discord and disharmony between faith communities, I think Gandhi is relevant.

He lived a long life, almost 80 years, during which time he studied and worked in three countries, three continents—in the United Kingdom and South Africa as well as India. He wrote a great deal: his collected works run to 90 volumes. His autobiography was translated into more than 40 languages. An early political text he wrote, called Hind Swaraj, is still taught in universities around the world. So he was a thinker and writer as well as being an activist, which is not that common.

And he was also controversial. There were people who debated with him in India and outside it. There were people who took issue with his political views, his views on religion, his views on social reform.

He was a person who touched many aspects of social and political life in the 20th century. The issues he was grappling with are still alive with us today, not just in India, but across the world. That’s why he is so interesting and important. I wanted to write about him all my life.

I thought that was funny in your book: you write that you have been stalked by his shadow your whole life. Even when you were writing a social history of cricket, he came up—even though Gandhi hated cricket.

I’d say it was more that he was magisterially indifferent to cricket, which is in some ways worse than hating something. He was profoundly indifferent to films, cricket, even music. He was not someone who had a keenly developed aesthetic side.

As I say in the book, whatever I wrote about, he was there—somewhere in the background and sometimes in the foreground. Finally, I thought, ‘Let me settle my accounts with him.’ I was also fortunate that a very large tranche of archival papers connected with his life had recently opened up, which perhaps allowed me to give more nuance and detail than previous scholars had done.

I first heard about Gandhi when I was quite young and the film about him, directed by Richard Attenborough , came out. If you don’t know anything about Gandhi, is that a good place to start, in your view? 

I approve in a qualified sense. It’s a well-told story. Some of the acting is very good. Ben Kingsley in the title role, in particular, is absolutely stunning. It gives the contours of Gandhi’s political life and his struggle against the British quite accurately. It also talks about his family life and his problems with his wife.

But of course it’s a feature film, so it has to iron out all the complexities. For example, one of Gandhi’s greatest and most long-standing antagonists was a remarkable leader called B R Ambedkar, who came from an Untouchable background. He’s completely missing in the film, because if you bring him in, the story is too complicated to be told in a cute, Hollywood-y, good guy/bad guy kind of way.

“Attenborough’s Gandhi a good place to start because it’s a well-told story, the acting is good, and the cinematography is splendid—but it’s a very neat line”

Instead, the film brings in the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, as the stock villain, almost inevitably, because Jinnah divided India into two countries and based his politics on religion. It was narrow and divisive, and Gandhi, who thought Hindus and Muslims could live together, opposed it. So it’s understandable why Jinnah features, but Ambedkar was equally important in Gandhi’s life. The man with whom he battled as long and as spiritedly is missing.

So yes, Attenborough’s Gandhi a good place to start because it’s a well-told story, the acting is good, and the cinematography is splendid—but it’s a very neat line. The nuances, the shades and the ambiguities are missing.

Your biography of Gandhi obviously gives a much more comprehensive picture of him, but it’s also trying to give a balanced picture, I got the sense. You’re an admirer of Gandhi, but you’re also trying very hard to give the other side, is that right?

Very much so, because the job of a scholar, and a biographer in particular, is to suppress nothing. Whatever you find that is of interest or importance must be included, even if it makes you uncomfortable or makes your story less compelling or newsworthy.

Of course, I do largely admire Gandhi—I wouldn’t want to spend so many years of my life working on someone I was ambivalent about—but I can see that in his debates with the aforementioned Ambedkar he was not always right. He could be patronizing towards this younger, radical opponent of his.

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I can also see the ways in which he manipulated control over the Congress Party. He was a consummate politician, and did not want his main political vehicle to slip out of his grasp. He was a political manager, in that sense. He was also not a very good husband and an absolutely disastrous father. There’s a lot of moving correspondence between him and his first son, with whom he had a particularly problematic relationship. All my sympathies are with the son, and I think all the readers’ sympathies will be too.

When it came to his personal life, his political life, and his ideological views, there were times when I was profoundly out of sympathy with Gandhi and profoundly in sympathy with those who argued with him. All this also had to be part of the story.

Let’s go through the five books you’ve chosen. They’re not ranked in any particular order, but let’s start with the first one on your list, which is My Days with Gandhi, by his secretary and companion Nirmal Kumar Bose. This book deals with the last phase of his life. Could you tell me about it, and explain why it’s on your list of important books to read about Gandhi?

I put this book by Nirmal Kumar Bose on my list because I wanted a firsthand account of Gandhi. Bose was a considerable scholar. He wrote books, edited a scholarly journal and taught at universities. Although he’s not that well-known outside India, he was among the country’s most influential anthropologists, writing on caste and India’s tribal regions.

He was interested in Gandhi too. He joined the freedom movement in the 1930s, went to jail, and prepared an anthology of Gandhi’s writings. Then, in the winter of 1946–7, Gandhi was in the field in Bengal trying to bring about peace. This was a time when religious rioting was particularly savage in eastern Bengal and Gandhi needed an interpreter. Bose was a Bengali speaker and Gandhi knew of him and his writings. So Bose went with him.

This was a time which, at one level, saw Gandhi at his most heroic. Here is a 77-year-old man walking through the villages of eastern Bengal. Communication is awful; there’s malaria and dysentery and all kinds of other problems. He’s trying to bring Hindus and Muslims together, undertaking these heroic experiments to promote peace.

At the same time, he’s also experimenting with himself, because he’s obsessed with his own celibacy. He wants to test that his mind is absolutely pure by sleeping naked with a disciple of his, a young woman who also happened to be distantly related to him. And he was doing this in the open, because he never did anything behind curtains.

As an anthropologist and as a biographer, Nirmal Kumar Bose saw this as interesting, but as a disciple, he was deeply upset by it and he left Gandhi. He wrote some letters, which Gandhi replied to.

So there is this whole arc of Nirmal Kumar Bose’s connection with Gandhi. He’s with him during this period in Gandhi’s life where he is putting his life on the line, but also indulging in rather bizarre, peculiar and inexplicable experiments on himself. You can see this complicates the story far more than Attenborough’s film does.

Bose is puzzled and disappointed by Gandhi’s experiment but, in the end, still remains an admirer. I think the book is useful in that it provides a firsthand account of Gandhi by someone who is a scholar and a writer. Bose is not just a starry-eyed naïve disciple, but someone who is himself a thinker and has an analytical mind. He wants to probe deeply into his subject’s moods and anxieties.

It’s also a picture of Gandhi at a point in his life when he’s a bit isolated and disillusioned because the country is going in the direction of Partition, isn’t it?

Yes, that’s also very important. Gandhi struggled his whole life to keep a united India. From his time in South Africa onwards, he promoted Hindu-Muslim harmony. He was a Hindu himself, a deep believer and also deeply immersed in Hindu traditions. But in South Africa, his closest associates were Muslims.

In India, he tried to bring about a compact between these two large and sometimes disputatious communities. Ultimately, he failed—because Partition happened and Hindus and Muslims turned on each other. It was an effort of will, at his age, to compose himself, get himself back on track and then undertake this foot march through eastern Bengal.

All the trauma of his life, and particularly this sense of failure he has, is not unconnected to the experiment in celibacy. Gandhi thought that because he was not absolutely pure in his own mind, and had not completely tamed his own sexual urges, he was in some ways responsible for the fact that society was turning on itself. It was an article of faith, maybe even an egoistic delusion that Gandhi had, that social peace depended on his inner purity.

Let’s turn to the next book you’ve chosen, which is A Week with Gandhi by Louis Fischer. He was an American journalist who visited Gandhi at his ashram in 1942. Tell me more.

Louis Fischer wrote more than one book on Gandhi. He also wrote a biography of Gandhi called The Life of Mahatma Gandhi , which was published after Gandhi’s death. That book was the basis for Attenborough’s film. I didn’t want that book; I wanted something else by Fischer. This book is set in 1942, again, a time of great political turmoil and anxiety. The Second World War was on.

Let’s go back to give some context. In 1937 the national movement had been going on for a long time and several significant concessions were granted by the British. There was a partial devolution of powers to Indians and there were Congress governments in seven out of nine provinces. If the Second World War hadn’t happened, India would probably have become independent in the same way Canada or New Zealand or South Africa did. India would have slowly shed British rule and may have still owed some kind of symbolic allegiance to the Crown, in the way Australia or Canada do.

The war queered the pitch completely, however, because the British had their backs to the wall. This is a time—1939, 1940, 1941—when the Americans hadn’t yet entered the war, and the British were fighting alone. Even the Soviets didn’t enter until 1941. At that point, the British couldn’t care at all about Indian independence; all they wanted was to save their own skin and defeat Hitler.

Gandhi and the Congress were confronted with a terrible dilemma. On the one hand, for all his political differences with Imperial rule, Gandhi had enormous personal sympathy with the British people. He had many British friends; he had studied in London, and he loved London to distraction. When the Luftwaffe bombed London, he actually wept at the thought of Westminster Abbey coming under German bombs.

Gandhi was willing to abandon his doctrinal commitment to non-violence and to tell the British ‘Hitler is evil, he must be defeated, we will help you defeat him.’ ‘We’ here means the Congress party, India’s main political vehicle, led by Gandhi and Nehru. They said to the British, ‘We will work with you, but you must assure us that you will grant us independence once the war is over.’ This was, in my view, a very reasonable condition—because if the British were fighting for freedom, then surely that meant freedom for Indians, too?

This was rejected by the then prime minister, Winston Churchill, who was a diehard imperialist—and whose viceroy in India, Linlithgow, was as reactionary as Churchill was.

So here is Gandhi in India wondering, ‘What do I do? I want to help the British, but I want my people to be free.’ The Americans are sympathetic to his predicament. Fischer goes to India in 1942, at a time when Gandhi is telling the British, ‘If you don’t assure us freedom, I will launch another countrywide protest movement against your rule.’ This was to become the Quit India Movement of August 1942; Fischer visits just before that.

He goes to Gandhi’s ashram in central India. Unlike Nirmal Kumar Bose, Fischer is a journalist and a keen observer. He deals less in analysis and more in description. So there’s a very rich and informative account of the ashram, of Gandhi’s rural settlement, what the daily life was like, what the food was like. The food was awful. After a week of eating squash and boiled vegetables Fischer was waiting to go back to Bombay and have a good meal at the Taj Mahal Hotel.

Fischer describes Gandhi’s entourage, the men and women around him, his wife, his disciples and then he talks to Gandhi. It’s an unusually frank and open conversation. As Fischer says later on in the book, one of the joys of talking to Gandhi is that it’s not pre-scripted. When you talk to other politicians, he says, it’s like turning on a phonogram. You hears these stock metaphors, and a certain kind of rhetoric: it’s a practised, programmed and rehearsed speech. But when you talk to Gandhi, it’s a conversation. You’re opening up new lines of thought, and Gandhi himself is so open and transparent and reacting so spontaneously that he sometimes says things that he’s surprised at himself.

The book conveys the essential humanity of Gandhi and his down-to-earth character. He lived in this simple village community, with bad food and no modern conveniences at all.

I really like this book because it’s Gandhi from close up. I wanted Bose and Fischer on my list: one an Indian, the other American, one a scholar, the other a journalist, meeting Gandhi at different points in his life: 1942 for Fischer, 1946/47 for Bose. Both were critical periods in the life of Gandhi and in the history of the world. I wanted to juxtapose an Indian firsthand account of Gandhi’s life with a non-Indian, first-hand account of Gandhi’s life.

The other three books I’ve chosen are not first-hand accounts. They are more based on documentation and scholarship.

One last thing about Fischer which may be of interest to your readers with a more general interest in the history of 20th century politics: Fischer began as a Communist. He spent many years in Russia and married a Russian woman. He spoke fluent Russian, and like several American journalists of his time was rather credulous about the Russian Revolution. But then Stalin’s brutality opened his eyes and he came to Gandhi on the rebound, as it were.

Fischer was one of the contributors to the volume called The God That Failed , along with Arthur Koestler and other writers who were disenchanted by Communism.

So Fischer is a person with wide international experience. He’s lived in Russia, he’s travelled through Europe and then he discovers Gandhi in India. So from that point of view, I think his book is particularly useful.

One thing that comes up in this book quite a bit is Gandhi’s emphasis on spinning. He’s always trying to get people to do more spinning. Could you explain what that’s all about?

There are three major aspects to this. One is that spinning is a way of breaking down the boundaries between mental labour and manual labour and dissolving caste distinctions. In the Indian caste system, the upper caste Brahmins read books and are temple priests, and the Kshatriyas own land and give orders and fight wars. Then you have the Vaishyas, who are businessmen. It’s only the Shudras and the Untouchables, the fourth and fifth strata, who do manual labour. Manual labour is despised in the Indian caste system, and Gandhi wanted to say that everyone should work with their hands.

The second aspect is that Gandhi believed in economic self-reliance. A major factor in India’s underdevelopment was that its indigenous industries had been destroyed under British colonial rule. We were importing cloth from England, particularly Manchester. So this was a way of saying, ‘We will spin our own cloth and we’ll do it ourselves using decentralized methods. Each of us will spin something.’

The third aspect of it is that he is cultivating a spirit of solidarity among his fellow freedom fighters, and spinning is a way of doing that constructively and non-violently. How do fascists inculcate solidarity among the community? By marching up and down to show their enemies how menacing they can be. Consider spinning the Gandhian alternative to a fascist marchpast.

This is how you should read Gandhi’s interest in—you could even say obsession with—spinning. It was at once a program of social equality, of breaking down caste distinctions, of economic self-renewal and of nationalist unity: everyone will do the same thing.

But as a program for economic renewal—I mean, you’ve also written a very highly regarded book about India after Gandhi—don’t you think that Gandhi was sending the country in the wrong direction economically?

Well, it was rejected by his own closest disciple and anointed heir, Jawaharlal Nehru. When India became independent, Nehru launched the country firmly on the path to economic modernization, which included industrialization.

But it wasn’t wholly rejected because of another of Gandhi’s followers (who has a cameo role in my book), a remarkable woman called Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. She was the one who persuaded Gandhi that women must join the Salt March too. And after Gandhi died, while Nehru took the state in the direction of planned economic industrial development, Kamaladevi helped revive India’s craft traditions. Some of our textile and handwoven crafts are owed to Gandhi’s emphasis on spinning and to Kamaladevi, his preeminent female disciple. She really was a quite remarkable person who deserves a good biography of her own.

Let’s go on to the third book on your list, which is by Dennis Dalton.

Dennis Dalton is a retired American professor who is now in his eighties. I’ve never met him, but I have admired his work for a very, very long time. He did a PhD in England in the 1960s and later on taught at Columbia. In the 1970s and 1980s he wrote a series of pioneering articles on Gandhi, which greatly impressed me when I read them. Those articles then became the basis of this book, Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action,  the third of the five that I’ve recommended.

I want to say a little bit about the hallmarks of Dalton’s work and why it’s particularly important. The first thing is that it is absolutely grounded in primary research. Unlike other Gandhi scholars, Dalton does not restrict himself to the collected works. There are 90 volumes of Gandhi’s own writings and it’s very easy to write a book—or indeed many books—just based on analyzing and re-analyzing what Gandhi said himself. Dalton, while he knows Gandhi’s collected writings very well, also looks at contemporary newspapers and what they were saying about Gandhi.

He also looks at what Gandhi’s political rivals and adversaries were writing. In his book, he has a very interesting account of the Indian revolutionaries who disparaged nonviolence and thought armed struggle would be more effective and quicker in getting the British out. They saw nonviolence as weak, womanly and so on—a kind of macho attack on Gandhi’s nonviolence. He talks about Ambedkar, the great low caste revolutionary who disagreed with Gandhi. The book also has two very good set pieces: a fine account of the Salt March and as well as of Gandhi’s great fast of September 1947, which brought peace to Calcutta.

“Whether Gandhi or Marx or Hobbes or Mill, any great political thinker is living his or her life day to day and adapting and changing his or her views”

The other interesting thing about Dalton’s work—and this is very, very important—is that he looks at the evolution of Gandhi’s thought. Because a life is lived day to day. Whether Gandhi or Marx or Hobbes or Mill, any great political thinker is living his or her life day to day and adapting and changing his or her views. Those who don’t look at the evolution of a life, who don’t have a historical or chronological or developmental understanding of a life, are forced to cherry-pick. They want consistencies that don’t exist.

Dalton shows the evolution of Gandhi’s views. For example, he shows that Gandhi had very conservative views about caste and race, but how over time he shed his prejudices and arrived at a more capacious, universalistic understanding of humanity. It’s a good corrective to those ideologues who want to make a certain case and selectively quote Gandhi from that earlier period in his life.

So I think as an account of the development of Gandhi’s political philosophy and as an analysis of Gandhi’s Indian critics—who had serious, profound and sometimes telling political disagreements with Gandhi—Dalton’s book is particularly valuable.

He’s also drawing attention to the effectiveness of nonviolent protest. To quote from the book, “nonviolent power in action defined his career: the creative ways that he used it excite the world today.” There’s the issue of the continuing relevance of Gandhi’s methods.

Yes, and to elaborate on that point, the last chapter of Dalton’s book, before the conclusion, is called “Mohandas, Malcolm, and Martin.” It talks about Gandhi’s legacy in twentieth-century America and what Malcolm X did not take from Gandhi and what Martin Luther King did take from Gandhi. There’s an analysis of the ways in which you can trace the influence of Gandhi’s legacy on Martin Luther King and race relations in America. The book came out in the early 1990s, so it was a little early to assess Gandhi’s impact on Eastern Europe, but he did also have an impact there. The leaders of Solidarity, particularly thinkers like Adam Michnik, the great Polish writer, acknowledged their debt to Gandhi.

Dalton is telling you how particularly Gandhi’s technique of shaming the oppressor through nonviolent civil disobedience can still be relevant.

Do you think that nonviolence worked particularly well against the British? Gandhi knew the British Empire very well, as is very clear from reading your book: he only returned to India when he was already 45 years old. So he knew a lot about the way the British thought and the way the British Empire worked. Do you think his knowledge of who he was fighting against to get India free helped him realize that that technique would work—when maybe it wouldn’t under all circumstances?

I think you’re right on the first count, that nonviolence could work against the British whereas it may not have worked against a more brutal oppressor. There’s a nice story—possibly apocryphal, but worth telling nonetheless—of Ho Chi Minh coming to India in the 1950s and telling a gathering in New Delhi that if Mahatma Gandhi had been fighting the French, he would have given up nonviolence within a week.

Likewise, against either the Dutch (who were really brutal in Indonesia) or Hitler, it would be absurd to try it. In my book I have an account of Gandhi advocating nonviolence for resisting Hitler and the great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber taking issue with him–and rightly so. So yes, the British were embarrassed in ways in which maybe a more insensitive or callous ruler might not have been.

It’s also the case that one powerful segment of British opinion, represented by the Labour party, was always for Indian independence. From about 1905–6, well before Gandhi returned to India, Keir Hardie committed the Labour party to independence. Then, as the Labour party grew in influence within Great Britain through the 1920s and 1930s, there was an influential constituency of politicians and intellectuals supporting the Indian freedom movement. There were writers like George Orwell , Kingsley Martin of the New Statesman , Fenner Brockway and Vera Brittain (the remarkable pacifist who was a friend of Gandhi’s) writing in the British press about the legitimacy of the Indian demand for independence. It’s not clear whether Ho Chi Minh had similar people lobbying for him in France. So it is true that nonviolence had a better chance against the British as compared to the Dutch in Indonesia or the French in Vietnam.

“There is a moral core to Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence. He is trying to shame the oppressor in preference to obliterating the oppressor out of existence.”

Having said all that, it wasn’t simply tactical. There is a moral core to Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence. He is trying to shame the oppressor in preference to obliterating the oppressor out of existence. Gandhi is saying, If I were to shoot the colonial official who is oppressing me, it means I am 100 per cent right and he is 100 per cent wrong. Otherwise how am I justified in taking his life?

Tying in with that, shall we talk about Gandhi’s religion next? This is a book called Gandhi’s Religion: A Homespun Shawl , written by a Belgian Jesuit, J T F Jordens. His point is that it’s impossible to understand Gandhi without his religion.

First, a small factual correction: the author, J T F Jordens, is more accurately described as a lapsed Belgian Jesuit. He started as a Jesuit, came to India, joined a church and then left the church. He got interested in Gandhi, became a scholar and ended up a professor in Australia.

This is partly accidental, but if you look at the three books by foreigners on my list, one is by an American who lived in Russia, which is Fischer. The second is by an American who studied in England, which is Dalton. The third is by a Belgian who ended up teaching in Australia. I wanted people with a non-parochial, non-xenophobic understanding of the world. They’re all very unusual people who provided very interesting perspectives on Gandhi and have written, in my view, three first-rate books.

Coming to Jordens and Gandhi’s Religion : Gandhi was a person of faith, but he had a highly idiosyncratic, individual, eccentric attitude to faith. He called himself a Sanatanist Hindu—which means a devout or orthodox Hindu—but didn’t go into temples. He did once enter a famous temple in south India, when they admitted Untouchables for the first time. Other than that, he was a Hindu who never entered temples. He was a Hindu, but he radically challenged some of the prejudices of the Hindu tradition, particularly the practice of untouchability. He was a Hindu whose closest friend was an English Christian priest, CF Andrews. He was a Hindu whose political program was that Hindus should not oppress Muslims and Muslims must have equal rights in an independent India.

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Gandhi’s views on religion are very distinct. You’re talking about a person who is growing up in the late 19th century, a time when there is a burst of rationalistic atheism, particularly following the publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species . Hardy writes his poem God’s Funeral because intellectuals and scientists have turned their back on God.

But it’s also a time of aggressive proselytization, with Christian missionaries going to India, Muslim missionaries working in Africa and so on and so forth.

Now, too, we live in a time of intellectuals disparaging religion, with an arrogant atheism on one side and religious fundamentalism on the other. Gandhi gives us a way out of this false choice. Gandhi tells us that you can be religious, that there is a wonder and mystery to life which cold-blooded rationality and science can’t completely explain.

But, at the same time, there is no one true path to God. Gandhi says, Accept your fate. You’re born a Hindu, fine. Your parents, your grandparents were Hindus for many generations. But think about what you can learn from other faiths. Cultivate friendships with Christians and Muslims and Jews and Parsis. If you see your faith in the mirror of another, you may find out its imperfections. It’s a very interesting, heterodox approach to religion.

But religion was central to Gandhi’s life. I don’t talk about his in my biography, but when I was very young, in my early 20s, I went through a phase where I wanted to secularize Gandhi. I was brought up an atheist. My father and grandfather were scientists and I’d never went to temples. When I got interested in Gandhi, I thought, This religious business is all a distraction. What is really relevant about Gandhi, is equal rights for the low castes, equality for women, nonviolence, democracy and economic self-reliance. Let me try and have Gandhi without faith.

But ultimately I realized that was futile and wouldn’t give me a ready window into understanding Gandhi, because Gandhi was a person of faith. He’s someone to whom religion matters a great deal, but though he calls himself a Hindu he’s a rebel against orthodoxy. There’s a wonderful passage where a Christian disciple of his was thrown out by the church (Verrier Elvin, about whom I wrote a book many years ago). He writes to Gandhi saying that his bishop has excommunicated him. Gandhi writes back saying that it doesn’t matter, that his altar is the sky, and his pulpit the ground beneath him. You can still communicate with Jesus without being in a church. In this, Gandhi is influenced of course by Tolstoy and his writing, Tolstoy’s sense, as he puts it, that the kingdom of God is within you.

I think Jordens’s book is the most scrupulous, fair-minded and persuasive account of why faith is so central to Gandhi and what makes Gandhi’s faith so distinctive. That is why it is on my list.

And ultimately we should point out that Gandhi was killed by a Hindu for being too good to Muslims.

Absolutely.

And that focus of Gandhi’s on celibacy, does that come from religion?

Celibacy, or the struggle to conquer your sexual desires, is prevalent in several religious traditions: Catholicism, Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism, and it’s totally absent in some other religious traditions: Islam, Protestant Christianity and Judaism. The idea that you must eschew sexual pleasures and that would bring you closer to God, is part of Buddhism and Catholicism and Hinduism, but it’s totally antithetical or alien to Islam, Judaism and the modern world.

Let me tell you a story. Some years ago an American scholar called Joseph Lelyveld wrote a book suggesting Gandhi was gay. Gandhi had a close Jewish friend called Hermann Kallenbach, with whom he lived in South Africa. Both were followers of Tolstoy and both wanted to be celibate. Lelyveld couldn’t understand two people living together wishing to be celibate so he concluded they were gay. His clinching piece of evidence was a letter that Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach when Gandhi was in London, temporarily separated from his friend and housemate. He wrote to Kallenbach saying, There is a bottle of Vaseline on my mantelpiece and it reminds me of you. The American scholar jumped to a very quick conclusion, but the bottle of Vaseline was actually there because both Gandhi and Kallenbach had taken a Tolstoyan vow not to wear shoes. They walked barefoot or in slippers and in London he was getting corns under his feet.

A modern man like Joseph Lelyveld, a 21st-century writer living in New York, attending the gay pride parades every year, can’t understand men wanting to be celibate voluntarily, rather than because it’s imposed on them. But this was not, as is the case in many countries around the world, an eight-year-old child being shipped off to a seminary and told to become a priest. Kallenbach was a successful architect, Gandhi was a successful lawyer. They were both inspired by Tolstoy, the successful novelist, to give up everything and live the simple life. I had a great deal of fun in my first volume, Gandhi Before India , writing a two-page footnote addressing Joseph Lelyveld’s misunderstanding.

But the point is that celibacy is there in Hinduism and also in Jainism, an allied religion to which Gandhi was pretty close, because as a native Gujarati he had many close Jain friends. Jain monks are absolutely committed to this kind of sexual abstinence. So it was a core part of his religious beliefs. It comes from his faith and it is something which modern men and women just can’t comprehend.

But despite Gandhi’s religious openmindedness, he wouldn’t let his son marry a Muslim.

That leads us nicely to your last book. Gandhi was a man who always put the political and the public before his private life. And, as you said earlier, the result is that he treated his family pretty badly. The last book on your list is a life of his son Harilal. It’s called Harilal Gandhi: A Life . Some quotes from his son that appear in the book: “No attention was paid to us” and  “You have spoken to us not in love, but always in anger.” It’s very sad, isn’t it? Tell me about his son and this book.

This was a book written in Gujarati by a scholar called Chandulal Bhagubhai Dalal and translated into English by one of the preeminent Indian Gandhian scholars of the day, Tridip Suhrud, who was, for many years, the curator of Gandhi’s own personal archive in Ahmedabad. Suhrud has provided a very detailed introduction and notes, so it’s a very good edition of this biography.

To, again, put things in context, Gandhi married very young. He was married in his teens and he had his first child, Harilal, in 1888 when he was not even 20. Shortly after his Harilal is born, Gandhi goes to London to get a law degree. So he’s absent for the first two years of his son’s life. Then he comes back and spends a year and a bit in India and then goes off again, to South Africa, to make a living and leaves his wife and children behind. Then, after some years, his wife and children join him in South Africa. But then Harilal, the eldest son, is sent back to India, to matriculate. So for many of the formative years of Harilal growing up, his father is absent.

Also, because Gandhi has his son so early, by the time Harilal comes to maturity and is thinking about his own career and his own future, Gandhi is himself only in his thirties. Gandhi is having his midlife crisis. He is abandoning his career as a prosperous lawyer to become a full-time social activist. At the same time, Harilal is having his adolescent crisis.

Now, I don’t want to bring the biographer into it, but if I was to look at myself, like many people, I also had a midlife crisis. When I was 36 or 37 I gave up a university job and became a freelance writer. I said to hell with institutions and tutorials—I just want to be on my own. When that happened, my son was four years old, because I’d had him in my early 30s. In Gandhi’s case, unfortunately, his own midlife crisis and change of career coincided with his son’s adolescent crisis. And this, partly, was responsible for the clash. Gandhi is telling his son, Go to jail. Follow me, become a social worker, give up everything for the community like I have done. And the son is saying, Hey, but when you were my age you went to London to become a lawyer. Why can’t I go to London and become a lawyer too?

And Gandhi is profoundly unsympathetic to his son’s hopes, his desires. It’s also the case that the son has a love marriage, which Gandhi doesn’t really approve of. The son is devoted to his wife but the wife dies leaving him bereft of his emotional anchor.

Gandhi turns increasingly angry, judgmental and frustrated at his son not doing what he wants him to do. And Harilal is broken by this. At one level he resents his father’s overbearing, authoritarian manner and at another level he craves his father’s attention. So Harilal goes to jail several times in South Africa and several times in India too because he wants his father to know that he’s as much of a patriot as anybody else.

The son tries several times to matriculate, but fails. His wife dies. Then he tries several times to become a businessman, but all his business ventures fail. Then he becomes an alcoholic, then he becomes a lapsed alcoholic, then he goes back to the bottle again. Then, because he’s so angry with his father, he converts to Islam merely to spite Gandhi. This leads to a very anguished letter by his mother, Kasturba Gandhi. She’s very rarely in the public domain but is so angry at her son’s spiteful act, that she writes in the press saying, Why are you doing this just to shame your father?

So it’s a very tragic and complicated relationship and of course it’s not unusual. Many driven, successful people are not very good husbands or fathers. Modern history is replete with such examples. But in Gandhi’s case, because we have this book by Dalal, we can read all their letters. We can see the exchanges between father and son, the pervasive lack of comprehension and the progressive anger and exasperation at Gandhi’s end and the anger and resentment at the son’s end. It all comes out very vividly in this account.

Again, it’s a factual account. It’s written by a scholar who wants to tell you the truth in an unadorned, factual, dispassionate way. But I think it’s very effective for not being overwritten or overblown or excessively hyperbolic or judgmental.

And Harilal doesn’t go to Gandhi’s funeral right? He was so estranged from his father that he didn’t go?

He wanted to go to the funeral, actually. There’s one version that the news came too late, and that he went to Delhi. But it’s a very sad story. We talked earlier about the Attenborough movie. There is also a very nice film based on this book called Gandhi, My Fathe r. It’s a feature film, made in English, by the Indian director Feroz Abbas Khan. It started as a play. So it was a play and then a film on this very complicated, tormented relationship between the father of the nation and his own son. I would urge readers to watch the film because it’s very good.

One last question: you didn’t include Gandhi’s autobiography on this list of books. Is that because you wanted them to be books about him rather than by him or was there a more fundamental reason?

Gandhi’s autobiography is indispensable, but it’s so well known. It’s available in hundreds of editions, and in dozens of languages. Every major publisher has published it and you can get it anywhere. I wanted readers of Five Books to get some fresher, more vivid, less-known perspectives on Gandhi.

But certainly, they should read the autobiography too. It’s now available in a new annotated edition by the scholar I mentioned, Tridip Suhrud. It’s a first rate edition brought out by Yale University Press.

And the autobiography is very readable, is that right?

Yes, Gandhi was a master of English and Gujarati prose. He transformed Gujarati writing. He wrote beautiful, economical, clear prose with no affectation and no pomposity. He was a marvellous writer.

In the course of my research for my first volume about Gandhi, one of my most pleasurable discoveries was an obscure book published in the 1960s that had compiled Gandhi’s school marksheets. Someone found out that when Gandhi  matriculated from school, he got 44% in English and more or less the same in Gujarati. So I always use this example when I speak at colleges in India: here is a master of Gujarati and English who got a mere 44% in his examinations.

The autobiography was written in Gujarati but then translated by Gandhi’s secretary Mahadev Desai, who was quite a remarkable man himself. But since the autobiography is so well known and so easily and widely available, I thought I should recommend some other books.

September 3, 2019

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Ramachandra Guha

Ramachandra Guha is a historian based in Bengaluru. His books include a pioneering environmental history, The Unquiet Woods (University of California Press, 1989), and an award-winning social history of cricket, A Corner of a Foreign Field (Picador, 2002), which was chosen by The Guardian as one of the ten best books on cricket ever written. India after Gandhi (Macmillan/Ecco Press, 2007; revised edition, 2017) was chosen as a book of the year by the Economist , the Washington Post , and the Wall Street Journal , and as a book of the decade in the the Times of London and The Hindu .

Ramachandra Guha’s most recent book is a two volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi. The first volume, Gandhi Before India (Knopf, 2014), was chosen as a notable book of the year by the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle . The second volume, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World (Knopf, 2018), was chosen as a notable book of the year by the New York Times and The Economist .

Ramachandra Guha’s awards include the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History, the Daily Telegraph/Cricket Society prize, the Malcolm Adideshiah Award for excellence in social science research, the Ramnath Goenka Prize for excellence in journalism, the Sahitya Akademi Award, and the Fukuoka Prize for contributions to Asian studies.

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6 Best Books on Mahatma Gandhi Ever Written

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly referred to as Mahatma – a great soul, fought for the freedom of India by non-violence. Rabindranath Tagore gave him the title of Mahatma. Gandhiji has been the most distinct and unusual leader ever walked on the earth. He followed and spread the ideals of fasting (Satyagraha), Non-violence (Ahimsa) and simplicity among his followers. Mahatma Gandhi, the man who had made the whole country respond to his call, has been much talked and written about. Here is the list of books on Mahatma Gandhi which would provide you enough information from different sources and perspectives.

Mahatma Gandhi: The Father of the Nation Author: Subhadra Sen Gupta

In this book, the author Subhadra Sen Gupta, has caught the essence from the exceptional life and legacy of unparalleled leader. The book gives glimpses of the simple man who wove clothes, ate salt less vegetable, believes in truth and non-violence and walked 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi to break the salt law . The book talks about Mahatma Gandhi’s passion for truth and peace. The world has changed a lot from the time of Gandhiji, but his life and ideals are still quite relevant to present generation. This is one of the best books on Mahatma Gandhi ever written describing his life and principles.

The Life of Mahatma Gandhi Author: Louis Fischer

In this minor biographic book, the author Louis Fischer talks about the epic journey of Mahatma Gandhi and how he led the people of whole nation for the freedom. In addition of being a genius historian, Louis Fischer was a close friend of Gandhiji. The book gives us a glimpse of the unique and shrewd strategies used by Gandhiji to bring the independence of India . Richard Attenborough adapted this book into the award-winning motion picture “Gandhi”.

Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India Author: Joseph Lelyveld

Joseph Lelyveld has won Pulitzer prize in General Non-fiction. In this moving book, author talks about the struggles Mahatma Gandhi faced while fighting for the freedom of people in two different continents. Book gives the insight of both the achievements and failures faced by Gandhi. Author narrated the disappointments faced by Gandhiji following his fierce struggle to bring social change.

Mahatma Gandhi: His Life and Ideas Author: Charles F. Andrews and Arun Gandhi

This book tried to bring out the warm and personal biography of the great social and religious reformer, Mahatma Gandhi. Authors talk about the introduction of non-violence by Mahatma Gandhi to fight the oppressor. Though we take the ideals of non-violence very lightly, they were meant much more to Gandhiji. He didn’t deviate from his ideals even under harsh situations. Gandhiji promoted peace, equality among humans and showed love and compassion to all. If you’re interested to know about the beliefs of Gandhiji, then this is one of the best books on Mahatma Gandhi for you.

Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope Author:  Judith M. Brown

In this book, author has included the recently available information to write this definitive biography on Gandhiji. Author gives us a new and surprising view of Gandhiji’s life. In the book, she presents him as powerful man with his own weaknesses. Judith also delves deeply into Gandhiji’s career as a lawyer in South Africa from 1893 to 1914; and about his struggle against racism in South Africa. In the book, author talks about the inner conflicts faced by Gandhiji and his response to the socio-political conflicts.

Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth Author: M.K. Gandhi

When it comes to books on Mahatma Gandhi, nothing can beat his classic autobiography ‘The Story of My Experiments With Truth’. In this book Gandhiji recounts the incidents of his life which shaped his beliefs and developed his concept of non-violence resistant to the tyranny of colonial rule. The book covers the life of Mahatma Gandhi from his childhood to 1921.

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8 Books on Mahatma Gandhi every Indian should read

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TIMESOFINDIA.COM | Last updated on - Oct 1, 2019, 17:19 IST Share fbshare twshare pinshare Comments ( 0 )

01 /9 the mahatma and his life.

02 /9 ​'The Story of my Experiments with Truth' by Mahatma Gandhi

03 /9 'Gandhi before India' by Ramachandra Guha

04 /9 ​My Dear Bapu: Letters from C. Rajagopalachari to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Devadas Gandhi and Gopalkrishna Gandhi

05 /9 'The Good Boatman' by Rajmohan Gandhi

06 /9 ​'Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope' by Judith M. Brown

07 /9 'The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi' by Makarand R Paranjape

08 /9 ​'Why I Assassinated Mahatma Gandhi' by Nathuram Godse, Gopal Godse

09 /9 ​'I am Gandhi' by Brad Meltzer

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rockridge Press (December 22, 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 64 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1647399459
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1647399450
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 6 - 9 years, from customers
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 880L
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 1 - 2
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.4 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.83 x 0.19 x 8.27 inches
• #74 in Children's Social Activists Biographies (Books)
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About the author

Susan b. katz.

Susan B. Katz is an award-winning of over 60 children's books. She is a Spanish bilingual author, National Board Certified Teacher, educational consultant, and social media strategist. As a former bilingual educator of over 25 years, Susan incorporates props, puppets and multimedia into her presentations making them interactive and engaging. Susan has published books with Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Capstone, Lerner, Bala Kids, and Little Bee. MEDITATION STATION won the International Book Award for Best Children's Mind/Body/Spirit title. THE STORY OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG hit #18 on Amazon overall and #9 among all kids books. ALL YEAR ROUND was named "Best New Book" by The Children's Book Review. She translated it into Spanish as Un Año Redondo. MY MAMA EARTH (Barefoot Books), won the Moonbeam Gold Award for Best Picture Book as well as being named "Top Green Toy" by Education.com. Her most recent book, GAUDI: ARCHITECT OF IMAGINATION got a Starred Review from School Library Journal. Susan is also the Founder and Executive Director of www.ConnectingAuthors.org, a national non-profit bringing children's book authors and illustrators into schools and libraries as role models of literacy and the arts. Ms. Katz served as the Strategic Partner Manager for Authors at Facebook. When she's not writing, Susan enjoys salsa dancing and spending time at the beach. She is also an avid wildlife photographer: www.behance.net/susanbkatz Her website is: www.susankatzbooks.com

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Mahatma Gandhi

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 6, 2019 | Original: July 30, 2010

Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or “the great-souled one.” He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s, and in the years following World War I became the leading figure in India’s struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Known for his ascetic lifestyle–he often dressed only in a loincloth and shawl–and devout Hindu faith, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation, and undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India’s poorest classes, among other injustices. After Partition in 1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. His father was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar; his deeply religious mother was a devoted practitioner of Vaishnavism (worship of the Hindu god Vishnu), influenced by Jainism, an ascetic religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence. At the age of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in London at the Inner Temple, one of the city’s four law colleges. Upon returning to India in mid-1891, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.

Did you know? In the famous Salt March of April-May 1930, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.

Gandhi was appalled by the discrimination he experienced as an Indian immigrant in South Africa. When a European magistrate in Durban asked him to take off his turban, he refused and left the courtroom. On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten up by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give up his seat for a European passenger. That train journey served as a turning point for Gandhi, and he soon began developing and teaching the concept of satyagraha (“truth and firmness”), or passive resistance, as a way of non-cooperation with authorities.

The Birth of Passive Resistance

In 1906, after the Transvaal government passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian population, Gandhi led a campaign of civil disobedience that would last for the next eight years. During its final phase in 1913, hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from the British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax for Indians.

In July 1914, Gandhi left South Africa to return to India. He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. In 1919, Gandhi launched an organized campaign of passive resistance in response to Parliament’s passage of the Rowlatt Acts, which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to suppress subversive activities. He backed off after violence broke out–including the massacre by British-led soldiers of some 400 Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar–but only temporarily, and by 1920 he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence.

Leader of a Movement

As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain. Gandhi’s eloquence and embrace of an ascetic lifestyle based on prayer, fasting and meditation earned him the reverence of his followers, who called him Mahatma (Sanskrit for “the great-souled one”). Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress Party), Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.

After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March 1922 and tried him for sedition; he was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1924 after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. He refrained from active participation in politics for the next several years, but in 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government’s tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian’s poorest citizens.

A Divided Movement

In 1931, after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London. Meanwhile, some of his party colleagues–particularly Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a leading voice for India’s Muslim minority–grew frustrated with Gandhi’s methods, and what they saw as a lack of concrete gains. Arrested upon his return by a newly aggressive colonial government, Gandhi began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India’s so-called “untouchables” (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or “children of God.” The fasting caused an uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government.

In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II , Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort. Instead, British forces imprisoned the entire Congress leadership, bringing Anglo-Indian relations to a new low point.

Partition and Death of Gandhi

After the Labor Party took power in Britain in 1947, negotiations over Indian home rule began between the British, the Congress Party and the Muslim League (now led by Jinnah). Later that year, Britain granted India its independence but split the country into two dominions: India and Pakistan. Gandhi strongly opposed Partition, but he agreed to it in hopes that after independence Hindus and Muslims could achieve peace internally. Amid the massive riots that followed Partition, Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots in Calcutta ceased.

In January 1948, Gandhi carried out yet another fast, this time to bring about peace in the city of Delhi. On January 30, 12 days after that fast ended, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma’s efforts to negotiate with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi’s body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.

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By Alex von Tunzelmann

• Oct. 10, 2018

GANDHI The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948 By Ramachandra Guha Illustrated. 1,083 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $40.

“The number of books that people write on this old man takes my breath away,” complained the politician B. R. Ambedkar of the proliferation of Gandhiana. That was in 1946. Ramachandra Guha must have smiled when he quoted that line in his new book, the second — and final — volume of his biography of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Few figures in history have been so extensively chronicled, including by himself (Gandhi’s own published collected works run to 100 volumes and over 50,000 pages). The really surprising thing is that there is still so much to say.

“Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948,” encompassing both world wars and the struggle for Indian independence, is a portrait of a complex man whose remarkable tenacity remained constant, even when his beliefs changed. It is also extraordinarily intimate. Gandhi drew no distinction between his private and public life. He made his own body a symbol, mortifying it through fasting or marching for political and spiritual change. He even went public with his sexual life — and the negation of it through brahmacharya , or chastity.

It is difficult to write about a man who was a revered spiritual leader as well as a keen political operator. Guha, the author of “India After Gandhi” and “Gandhi Before India” (the first volume of the monumental biography that this book concludes), approaches Gandhi on his own terms while trying not to gloss over his flaws. Perhaps inevitably, with one who has been regarded almost as a saint, it is the flaws that will capture many readers’ attention. A key theme that emerges is Gandhi’s effort to control himself and those around him. This extended from his own family to his political allies and opponents.

The most compelling political relationship Guha reveals is the antagonism between Gandhi and the aforementioned B. R. Ambedkar , the pre-eminent politician of outcaste Hindus then known as “untouchables” and now as dalits. Guha’s book charts the two men’s interactions over decades, along with Gandhi’s own changing views on caste.

Even while he still saw some value in the caste system, Gandhi opposed untouchability. Guha is at pains to refute Arundhati Roy’s dismissal of Gandhi as a reactionary on caste. He details Gandhi’s exhaustive campaigns to allow untouchables into temples, and his many attempts to persuade other Hindus of his caste to accept them. Certainly, Gandhi did much brave and important work. Yet he still characterized untouchables as “helpless men and women” who required a savior — namely, him. As Guha says, Gandhi’s rhetoric “sounded patronizing, robbing ‘untouchables’ of agency, of being able to articulate their own demands and grievances.”

Gandhi fought Ambedkar over establishing separate electorates for untouchables, arguing that these would “vivisect” Hinduism. “I want political power for my community,” Ambedkar explained. “That is indispensable for our survival.” Gandhi’s reply, as quoted by Guha, was that “you are born an untouchable but I am an untouchable by adoption. And as a new convert I feel more for the welfare of the community than those who are already there.” Gandhi cared passionately about untouchability: He repeatedly emphasized his willingness to die if that was what it took to end it. What he could not seem to do was let untouchables themselves take the lead.

Some of the most interesting parts of this book concern another group Gandhi sought to instruct: women. Two sections in particular are likely to raise eyebrows. The first is Guha’s account of Gandhi’s relationship with the writer and singer Saraladevi Chaudhurani in 1919-20. Gandhi was, by then, celibate; both he and Sarala were married to other people. Yet their letters speak openly of desire — “You still continue to haunt me even in my sleep,” he wrote to her — and he told friends, “I call her my spiritual wife.” He signed his letters to her Law Giver, which, as Guha observes, was “a self-regarding appellation that reveals his desire to have Sarala conform to his ways.” Gandhi’s friends appear to have talked him out of making this “spiritual marriage” public. Eventually he distanced himself, confessing that he did not have the “infinitely higher purity” in practice “that I possess in thought” to maintain a “marriage” that was perfectly spiritual.

The second section that will provoke controversy tackles an even more sensitive subject: Gandhi’s notorious brahmacharya experiments, beginning in 1946. When Gandhi was involved with Sarala, he was 50 and she was 47, a mature woman exercising her own free will. Nearly three decades later, when he was 77, he made the decision to “test” his vow of chastity by sleeping in a bed with his teenage grandniece, Manu Gandhi .

Manu was vulnerable. She had lost her mother at a young age and had been taken in by Gandhi and his wife (who was deceased by the time the “experiments” started). Manu grew up in an ashram in which everyone was devoted to her great-uncle. She wrote a diary mentioning the “experiments” that Guha quotes, though it is a compromised source: Gandhi read it as Manu wrote it and his own writing appears in the margins.

Guha has found a letter written by Horace Alexander, a close friend of Gandhi’s. Alexander said that Gandhi told him Manu wanted to test her own vow of chastity. Guha suggests that this puts a new light on the “experiments,” and that Manu may have become involved partly to deter another man who was pursuing her romantically: “There may have been, as it were, two sides to the story. Both Gandhi and Manu may have wanted to go through this experiment, or ordeal. To be sure, there was a certain amount of imposition — from his side.”

That caveat is important, for, as Guha allows, there was an enormous power differential between Gandhi and Manu. It is not clear that the letter from Alexander changes how we view the “experiments”: He spoke only to Gandhi, not Manu. In the wake of #MeToo, we know that the powerful may delude themselves about the willingness of those they manipulate, and that their less powerful victims may go along with things they do not want because they are overwhelmed by the status of their abuser.

Lest anyone think this applies modern standards to a historical event, Guha provides extensive evidence of the horrified reaction of many of Gandhi’s friends and followers at the time. Most were appalled that a young woman should be used as an instrument in an “experiment,” and some of his political allies, like Vallabhbhai Patel, feared it would become a scandal. At least one, the stenographer R. P. Parasuram, left Gandhi’s entourage when Gandhi refused to stop sharing a bed with Manu.

Guha does as much as any reasonable biographer could to explain the “experiments” with reference to Gandhi’s 40-year obsession with celibacy. Ultimately, though, the reader is left feeling that Gandhi’s own defenses of his behavior are riddled with self-justification, and Manu’s voice may never truly be heard.

Gandhi posed a huge challenge to his world in his time, and still does. Guha’s admiration for his subject is clear throughout this book. He tries to explain controversial aspects of Gandhi’s life by contextualizing them within Gandhi’s own thinking. Some of Gandhi’s fiercer critics may feel this is soft-pedaling, but it does help build a fair, thorough and nuanced portrait of the man. Gandhi spoke for himself more than most people in history, but even the most controlling people cannot control how history sees them. Guha lets Gandhi appear on his own terms, and allows him to reveal himself in all his contradictions.

There is much truth in a verse Guha quotes, written by Gandhi’s secretary, Mahadev Desai:

To live with the saints in heaven Is a bliss and a glory But to live with a saint on earth Is a different story.

Alex von Tunzelmann is the author of “Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire.”

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Mahatma Gandhi Biography, January 30th Commemorates 76th Death Anniversary of Gandhi Ji

January 30th commemorates 76th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, revered father of the nation, assassinated by Nathuram Godse in 1948. Know all about Mahatma Gandhi Biography, Ideology and more.

Table of Contents

76th Mahatma Gandhi Death Anniversary

January 30th commemorates the 76th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the revered father of the nation, assassinated by Nathuram Godse in 1948. Known as “Bapu,” Gandhi’s pivotal role in India’s freedom movement showcased the power of non-violence. This day, also observed as Martyrs’ Day or Shaheed Diwas, pays homage not only to Gandhi but to all martyrs sacrificing for their country. On that fateful day in 1948, Godse fatally shot Gandhi as he headed to a prayer meeting.

Gandhi’s influence in promoting peace and non-violence during movements like the Salt Satyagraha and Quit India Movement remains significant. The day is marked by nationwide prayers, government officials, and citizens gathering at memorials to honor freedom fighters. Rituals include a two-minute silence to reflect on the sacrifices made by martyrs. Know More about Mahatma Gandhi’s Biography, Ideology, Major Movements, and Books in this Article.

Mahatma Gandhi Biography

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a renowned freedom activist and the most influential political leader of India. He played a Predominant role in India’s struggle for Independence through his ideology of non-violence. He was also known as Father of India, (Bapu) and Mahatma (Great Soul). Mahatma Gandhi also worked for India’s poor people and depressed classes. Martin Luther and Nelson Mandela were also influenced by his ideology of truth and non-violence.

Mahatma Gandhi was born on 2 nd October in Porbandar, Gujarat. This date is observed as International Day for non-violence and Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti is also celebrated on 2 nd October. His father’s name was Karamchand Gandhi who was the dewan of Porbandar and his mother’s name was Putlibai. He was married at an early age his wife’s name was Kastubai Makhanji Kapadia and has 4 sons Harilal, Devdas, Manilal, and Ramdas.

Mahatma Gandhi Education

He received his primary education in Rajkot where his father had relocated as dewan to the ruler Thakur Sahib. At the age of 11 years, he went to Alfred High School in Rajkot. Gandhiji at the age of 18, graduated from a high school in Ahmedabad. To study law he went to London University to become a barrister. He returned to India in 1891 at the age of 22 after his mother passed away.

Mahatma Gandhi’s Important Books

Here is a list of some important books written by Mahatma Gandhiji given below:

Mahatma Gandhi Slogans

He gave various slogans during his freedom struggle such as,

• Nonviolence is a weapon of strong
• Be the change that you want to see in the world
• In a gentle way, you can shake the world

Mahatma Gandhi Assassination

Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination was done by Nathuram Godse. At the age of 78, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948, in the courtyard of Birla House, a large palace in the centre of New Delhi that is now known as Gandhi Smriti.

Mahatma Gandhi’s Contribution in South Africa

In 1893, Gandhiji travelled to South Africa due to his client case named Dada Abdullah where he witnessed apartheid (racial discrimination against blacks and Indians). After he witnessed such an issue he decided to stay in South Africa to bring the Indian workers together and enable them to fight for their rights.

Moderate Phase of Resistance (1894 -1906): He set up the Natal Indian Congress along with a newspaper named ‘Indian Opinion’ to unite different sections of Indians.

Passive Resistance Phase (1906-1914): In this phase, Gandhiji used the method of Civil Disobedience which he called Satyagraha. In this process, he also set up Tolstoy Farm for the family of satyagrahis. He with his followers was jailed for their resistance.

Eventually, through several phases of negotiations, an agreement was reached, by which the government agreed to accept the major demands of the Indians and promised to treat the issue of Immigration in a lenient manner.

Mahatma Gandhi in India 1915

On the solicitation of Gokhale, conveyed by CF Andrews (Deenbandhu), Gandhiji got back to India to assist with the Indian battle for freedom. The last period of Indian Public development is known as the Gandhian period.

Mahatma Gandhi became the most prominent leader of the Indian National Movement . He employed his principles of nonviolence and Satyagraha against the British. Gandhi made the nationalist movement in India a mass movement.

Mahatma Gandhi soon after his return from South Africa joined the INC (Congress) and was introduced to Indian issues and politics and Gopal Krishna Gokhale became his political Guru.

Mahatma Gandhi’s Early Movements

Gandhiji after returning from Africa in 1915 and joining the Indian National Congress , his political guru was Gopal Krishna Gokhale. In 1916 at Ahmedabad, he established Sabarmati Ashram so that his followers could practice truth and nonviolence.

1. Champaran Satyagraha 1917

Champaran Satyagraha  was the first civil disobedience movement organised by Mahatma Gandhi. Rajkumar Shukla asked Gandhiji to look into the problems of the indigo planters in Bihar. The European planter been forcing the farmers to grow Indigo on 3/20 of the total land called the Tinkatiya system against which Gandhiji launched passive resistance or civil disobedience.

Prominent leaders such as Rajendra Prasad, and Anugrah Narayan Sinha stepped forward with Gandhiji to fight for the indigo farmers. Gandhiji was able to convince the Britishers to abolish the system and the peasants were compensated for the illegal dues extracted from them.

2. Kheda Satyagraha 1918

Kheda Satyagraha was the first non-cooperation movement organised by Mahatma Gandhi. Due to the drought of Kheda, Gujarat in 1918, the people of Kheda were unable to pay high taxes levied by the British due to the failure of crops and the plague epidemic.

Peasants were supported by Gandhi who asked them to withhold revenue. During the Kheda Satyagraha , young leaders such as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Indulal Yagnik became followers of Mahatma Gandhi. The government finally agreed to form an agreement with the peasants and hence the taxes were suspended for the years 1919 and 1920 and all confiscated properties were returned.

3. Ahmedabad Mill Strike, 1918

Ahmedabad Mill Strike : Gandhiji did his first hunger strike during this movement. He intervened in the dispute between Mill owners of Ahmedabad and the workers over the issue of discontinuation of the plague bonus. The demand for workers was a rise of 50% in their wages while the employees were willing to concede only a 20% bonus.

Workers under the leadership of Anusuiya Sarabai asked Mahatma Gandhiji for his support, who asked the workers to go on strike without being violent and Gandhiji went on fast until death. Mill owners at last agreed to submit the issue to the tribunal and with the hike of 35% wage the strike was withdrawn.

Mahatma Gandhi in Indian National Movement

1. khilafat movement 1919.

At the time of World War I , Gandhi sought cooperation from the Muslims in his fight against the British by supporting the Ottoman Empire which had been defeated in the world war. The British passed the Rowlatt Act to block the movement by the Indian nationalists. Mahatma Gandhi called for a nationwide Satyagraha against the act.

It was Rowlatt Satyagraha that gave Gandhiji the recognition of a national leader. Rowlett Satyagraha was against the unjust law passed by the British in the name of the Rowlatt Act. The  Jalliawala Bagh Massacre took place on April 13th, 1919 Gandhiji seeing the violence spread called off the Rowlatt Satyagraha on the 18th of April.

2. Non-Cooperation Movement 1920

Mahatma Gandhi advised the leaders of Congress to begin the Non-Cooperation Movement in support of the Khilafat Movement . At the Nagpur congress session in 1920, the non-cooperation program was adopted.

The incidence of Chauri Chaura took place in 1922, which became the reason why Mahatma Gandhi called off the non-cooperation movement. After the end of the non-cooperation movement, Gandhi focused on his social reform work and was not very active in the political sphere.

3. Salt March and Civil Disobedience Movement, 1930

Gandhi announced that he would lead a march to break the salt law as the law gave the state the Monopoly on the manufacturing and sale of salt.

Gandhi along with his 78 followers started his march from his ashram in Sabarmati to the coastal town of Dandi in Gujarat where they broke the salt law of the government by gathering natural salt and boiling seawater to produce salt which also marked the beginning of Civil Disobedience Movement .

4. Gandhi Irwin Pact 1931

Mahatma Gandhi accepted the truce offered by Irwin and called off the civil disobedience movement and accepted to attend the second-round table conference in London as the representative of INC. After returning from London, he relaunched the civil disobedience movement but by 1934 it had lost its momentum.

Read More: Gandhi Irwin Pact

5. Incidences after Civil Disobedience Movement

Communal Award , 1932: The Communal Award was created by British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald on 16 August 1932. It was introduced following the Round Table Conference (1930–1922) and expanded the separate electorate to depressed Classes and other minorities. It is also known as the MacDonald Award. The main purpose of the communal award was to maintain a separate electorate for Muslims, Sikhs and Europeans.

Poona Pact , 1932 : It was the pact reached between B.R Ambedkar and Gandhiji concerning the communal awards provided for the depressed class but, in the end for the upliftment of the marginalized communities of the Indian society both came on the same understandings.

Mahatma Gandhi Resigned INC, 1934 : He did not agree with INC’s positions on various matters but he returned to active politics in the Lucknow Session of Congress (1936) which was presided over by Jawahar Lal Nehru.

Quit India Movement 1942 : The outbreak of World War II in 1939 and the last and crucial phase of the national struggle in India came together with the failure of the Cripps Mission in 1942 which gave the immediate reason for the launch of the Quit India movement.

At the Bombay Session of the All-India Congress Committee on 8 th August 1942, Gandhiji launched the Quit India movement. Gandhiji demanded British leave India with immediate effect. He called for a mass movement that was followed by non-violence. Most of the major leaders of Congress including Mahatma Gandhi were arrested.

Mahatma Gandhi Ideologies

Mahatma Gandhi developed a set of religious and social ideas initially during his period in South Africa from 1893 to 1914 and later during the freedom struggle movement in India. He developed these ideologies from various sources that inspired him including Bhagavad Geeta, Jainism, Buddhism, Bible and Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

These ideologies have been further developed by followers of Mahatma Gandhi most notably, in India by Vinoba Bhave and Jayaprakash Narayan, outside of India by Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and others. Major Gandhian ideologies are as follows.

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Mahatma Gandhi FAQs

Where was mahatma gandhi born.

He was born in Porbandar in Gujarat on 2nd October 1869.

Which newspaper Gandhiji started in South Africa?

He started the newspaper ‘Indian Opinion’ in Johannesburg.

When did Gandhiji started civil disobedience in South Africa?

He started in in 1906 in Johannesburg which also gave birth to his ideology od ‘satyagraha’.

When did Gandhiji came to Indian first from South Africa?

He came to India in 1901 to attend the meeting of Indian National Congress, after which he went back to South Africa again

When did Gandhiji founded Harijan Sevak Sangh?

He founded it in 1932 and also started a journal named Harijan which means ‘People of God’

How did Mahatma Gandhi died on 30 January 1948?

On January 30, 1948, Nathuram Vinayak Godse assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in the compound of Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti), a large mansion in central New Delhi.

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