Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)

Not what I was expecting.

Of late I have been more and more interested in Gandhi and Gandhisim. Born and brought up in India, Gandhiji was a well known figure introduced to all children very early and quite frequently. However, what we heard where only glimpses of what transpired during the freedom struggle. So, I wanted to read more about Gandhiji to understand his thoughts and ideas about non-violence and Satyagraha, which he pioneered in the early nineteen hundreds. I became more interested in Gandhiji after watching Shyam Benegals "Making of the Mahatma", which provides a glimpse of Mohandas K Gandhi became Mahatma Gandhi. Earlier movies only focused on the freedom struggle and cursorily skimmed over his stay in South Africa.

To quite some extent, the book did satisfy my desire to understand Gandhiji. His early life during childhood days and then his days in South Africa do provide and adequate introduction to Gandhiji as a person. Gandhiji as a Mahatma is well known to most Indians. I also read some reviews of the book and a few complained that the book was fairly mundane and went into several details that weren't necessary to understand him. However, I beg to differ. The very fact that Gandhiji goes into those details, we get better acquainted with him. He was a humble person was well know and very few might ever refute this. So, obviously, he spoke more about his environment than himself in the book. It provides a human side to the Mahatma. Quite often, I felt that he wasn't quite right with this decisions but it was clear that Gandhiji rarely ever did something that he himself didn't believe in. He obviously was a learned man and build his philosophy over several years, correcting it on the way. True some of his methods did seem to be outdated but then this was in the early nineteen hundreds. Had he been born in this era, he might have just been the same, albeit modern w.r.t other aspects such as his beliefs in medicine and tradition.

Overall, this is a good read. If you like to understand the mundane aspects of Gandhiji and his early life then this is worth reading. You might want to read other biographies to understand the history better as this book delves more on the why than the what and when.… (mais)