Mahatma Gandhi A Biography Complete and Unabridged Book

The role of Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi in the psyche of Indian independence is often problematic. On the one hand, due to the hegemony of the Indian National Congress and particularly the Gandhi-Nehru family, in the political and administrative set-up of independent India has often meant the crowding out of other, non-Gandhian figures from the narrative of the Indian freedom struggle. On the other hand, to Gandhi's ideals of a village-based economy only lip-service has been paid, by the same political dispensation, that undertook a massive industrialisation drive post independence, though, in all fairness, the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, always and quite publicly differed with Gandhi on this issue. In fact, what is often presented to the Indian public as Gandhian thought is only an oversimplified version of it, that creates misunderstandings and prevents people from truly appreciating the intellectual and, more importantly, ethical richness of Gandhian thought. Even Gandhi's own autobiographical works, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth and Satyagraha in South Africa: The Making of Mahatma Gandhi are more historical records than political tracts. His only truly political work, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule does give an inkling of his political thought, but it is quite an early work (written in 1909) and does not reflect the later developments he made to his theories of ahimsa, satyagraha etc. in the course of the three movements (1920-21, 1930-32, 1942) that he led in the cause of India's freedom. B.R. Nanda's biography fills an important lacuna in this regard, providing as it does an account of the interrelation between the development of Gandhi's philosophy and the material conditions that gave rise to them. Beginning with an anecdote from when Gandhi was fourteen, that demonstrates quite splendidly how, even at that age, how concerned Gandhi was with uniting thought with deed, he traces the course of Gandhi's life, through the South African "laboratory" where Gandhi conducted his first experiments in satyagraha, the euphoria (and subsequent dejection) in the till then passive Indian public during the course of the Non-Cooperation Movement, the phenomenal response to the 1930-32 Civil Disobedience Movement, and the chaotic 1942 Quit India Movement, to the communal conflagrations of 1946-47, that orgy of violence that Gandhi tried everything in his power to stop, that ultimately culminated in his assassination on that fateful January day in 1948, and the quenching of the flames of violence finally with this great sacrifice of the apostle of nonviolence on the altar of violence.
The problem of writing the biography of such a personality, who inspired world leaders and religious figures alike, whose ideals lived on in movements like the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement and the American Civil Rights Movement, that have shaped both the world and the century we live in, whose omission from the list of Nobel Peace Prize awardees was called the single greatest omission by the organisation, is the risk of it turning into a hagiography instead. Nanda skirts this pitfall quite adeptly, despite occasional lapses. For instance, during his discussion of the Harijan problem and the Poona Pact, he hardly dwells on the nuances of the Gandhi-Ambedkar debate and Ambedkar's critique of Hinduism. Again, discussing the events that led to Gandhi's "resignation" from the Congress in 1934, Nanda deals with the growing divergence between the socialists within the Congress and Gandhi in one line, without elaborating the influence exercised by the right-wing of the Congress upon him. Nor does Nanda mention the problematic approach of Gandhi to the election and Presidentship of Subhas Chandra Bose during the Tripuri session of the Congress in 1938. Impressively enough, Nanda manages not to lose sight of Gandhi the man while discussing Gandhi the legend. He wonders, for instance, whether Gandhi's reaction to the shameful eviction from the railway compartment at Pietermaritzburg was only due to the racial arrogance of the Europeans, or was the deflation of the ego of a barrister recently returned from London and used to a degree of respect on that account also a factor. He is also quite honest in reporting Gandhi's own self-doubts at crucial stages (something Gandhi himself never attempts to gloss over in his autobiographical works) as well as Gandhi's naivete, for instance, in taking the British at their word when temporarily withdrawing the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1931. In fact, Nanda acts as an impartial observer, reporting the facts and details of the case as they are, attempting at times to explain them, but never actively trying to hide them. The truly appreciable contribution of this book is that it brings out clearly the mortal, flesh-and-blood Gandhi, bringing him down from the Olympus of the protagonists of the Indian freedom struggle, and placing him in the realm of the flawed, emotional, irrational beings that Gandhi so loved, making him approachable by those to whom the Mahatma dedicated his life.