mahatma gandhi autobiography book review

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How Gandhi Became Gandhi

By Geoffrey C. Ward

• March 24, 2011

Some years ago, the British writer Patrick French visited the Sabarmati ashram on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in the Indian state of Gujarat, the site from which Mahatma Gandhi led his salt march to the sea in 1930. French was so appalled by the noisome state of the latrines that he asked the ashram secretary whose job it was to clean them.

A sweeper woman stopped by for an hour a day, the functionary explained, but afterward things inevitably became filthy again.

But wasn’t it a central tenet of the Mahatma’s teachings that his followers clean up after themselves?

“We all clean the toilets together, on Gandhiji’s birthday,” the secretary answered, “as a symbol to show that we understand his message.”

Gandhi had many messages, some ignored, some misunderstood, some as relevant today as when first enunciated. Most Americans — many middle-class Indians, for that matter — know what they know about the Mahatma from Ben Kingsley’s Academy Award-winning screen portrayal. His was a mesmerizing performance, but the script barely hinted at the bewildering complexity of the real man, who was at the same time an earnest pilgrim and a wily politician, an advocate of celibacy and the architect of satyagraha (truth force), a revivalist, a revolutionary and a social reformer.

It is this last avatar that interests Joseph Lelyveld most. “Great Soul” concentrates on what he calls Gandhi’s “evolving sense of his constituency and social vision,” and his subsequent struggle to impose that vision on an India at once “worshipful and obdurate.” Lelyveld is especially qualified to write about Gandhi’s career on both sides of the Indian Ocean: he covered South Africa for The New York Times (winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for his book about apartheid, “Move Your Shadow” ), and spent several years in the late 1960s reporting from India. He brings to his subject a reporter’s healthy skepticism and an old India hand’s stubborn fascination with the subcontinent and its people.

This is not a full-scale biography. Nor is it for beginners. Lelyveld assumes his readers are familiar with the basic outlines of Gandhi’s life, and while the book includes a bare-bones chronology and is helpfully divided into South African and Indian sections, it moves backward and forward so often, it’s sometimes harder than it should be to follow the shifting course of Gandhi’s thought.

But “Great Soul” is a noteworthy book, nonetheless, vivid, nuanced and cleareyed. The two decades Gandhi spent in South Africa are too often seen merely as prelude. Lelyveld treats them with the seriousness they deserve. “I believe implicitly that all men are born equal,” Gandhi once wrote in the midst of one of his campaigns against untouchability. “I have fought this doctrine of superiority in South Africa inch by inch.”

It actually took a long time for the Mahatma to turn that implicit belief into explicit action, Lelyveld reminds us. When Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi arrived in Durban from Bombay in 1893, he was a natty 23-year-old British-trained lawyer, hired to help represent one wealthy Muslim Indian trader in a dreary civil suit against another, and primarily interested in matters of religion and diet, not politics: in an early advertisement he proclaimed himself an “Agent for the Esoteric Christian Union and the London Vegetarian Society.” But, Lelyveld writes, “South Africa . . . challenged him from the start to explain what he thought he was doing there in his brown skin.”

Initially, Gandhi was simply affronted that discriminatory laws and bigoted custom lumped educated well-to-do Indians like him with “coolies,” the impoverished mine, plantation and railroad workers who made up the bulk of the region’s immigrant Indian population. The nonviolent campaigns he waged to bring about equality between Indians and whites over the next 20 years would lead him — slowly and unsteadily, but inexorably — to advocate equality between Indian and Indian, first across caste and religious lines and then between rich and poor. (His identification with the aspirations of black people would not come until long after he had left Africa.)

As Lelyveld shows, the outcomes of Gandhi’s campaigns in South Africa were neither clear-cut nor long-lasting: after one, his own supporters beat him bloody because they thought he’d settled too quickly for a compromise with the government. But they taught him how to move the masses — not only middle-class Hindu and Muslim immigrants but the poorest of the poor as well. He had, as he himself said, found his “vocation in life.”

Soon after returning to India in 1915, Gandhi set forth what he called the “four pillars on which the structure of swaraj ” — self-rule — “would ever rest”: an unshakable alliance between Hindus and Muslims; universal acceptance of the doctrine of nonviolence, as tenet, not tactic; the transformation of India’s approximately 650,000 villages by spinning and other self-sustaining handicrafts; and an end to the evil concept of untouchability. Lelyveld shrewdly examines Gandhi’s noble but doomed battles to achieve them all.

He made a host of enemies along the way — orthodox Hindus who believed him overly sympathetic to Muslims, Muslims who saw his calls for religious unity as part of a Hindu plot, Britons who thought him a charlatan, radical revolutionaries who believed him a reactionary. But no antagonist was more implacable than Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the brilliant, quick-tempered untouchable leader — still largely unknown in the West — who saw the Mahatma’s nonviolent efforts to eradicate untouchability as a sideshow at best. He even objected to the word ­Gandhi coined for his people — “Harijans” or “children of God” — as patronizing; he preferred “Dalits,” from the Sanskrit for “crushed,” “broken.”

Sometimes, Gandhi said Indian freedom would never come until untouchability was expunged; sometimes he argued that untouchability could be eliminated only after independence was won. He was unapologetic about that kind of inconsistency. “I can’t devote myself entirely to untouchability and say, ‘Neglect Hindu-Muslim unity or swaraj ,’ ” he told a friend. “All these things run into one another and are interdependent. You will find at one time in my life an emphasis on one thing, at another time on [an]other. But that is just like a pianist, now emphasizing one note and now [an]other.” It was also like the politician he said he was, always careful to balance the demands of one group of constituents against those of another.

As Lelyveld has written in “Move Your Shadow,” “Gandhi had hoped to bring about India’s freedom as the moral achievement of millions of individual Indians, as the result of a social revolution in which the collapse of alien rule would be little more than a byproduct of a struggle for self-reliance and economic equality.” Foreign rule did collapse, in the end, “but strife and inequality among Indians ­worsened.”

Gandhi is still routinely called “the father of the nation” in India, but it is hard to see what remains of him beyond what Lelyveld calls his “nimbus.” His notions about sex and spinning and simple living have long since been abandoned. Hindu-Muslim tension still smolders just beneath the uneasy surface. Untouchability survives, too, and standard-issue polychrome statues of Ambedkar in red tie and double-breasted electric-blue suit now outnumber those of the sparsely clothed Mahatma wherever Dalits are still crowded together.

Gandhi saw most of this coming and sometimes despaired. The real tragedy of his life, Lelyveld argues, was “not because he was assassinated, nor because his noblest qualities inflamed the hatred in his killer’s heart. The tragic element is that he was ultimately forced, like Lear, to see the limits of his ambition to remake his world.”

Nonetheless, Lelyveld also writes, while he may have “struggled with doubt and self until his last days,” Gandhi “made the predicament of the millions his own, whatever the tensions among them, as no other leader of modern times has.” And, for all his inconsistencies, his dream for India remained constant throughout his life. “Today,” Gandhi wrote less than three weeks before he was murdered by a member of his own faith, “we must forget that we are Hindus or Sikhs or Muslims or Parsis. . . . It is of no consequence by what name we call God in our homes.”

That was a revolutionary notion when he first urged Indians to unite against their oppressors in South Africa before the turn of the 20th century. It was revolutionary when he came home to India at the time of World War I, and still revolutionary in 1947 when India was simultaneously liberated and ripped apart by the religious hatred he had repeatedly risked his life to quell, and sadly, it remains revolutionary today — for India and, by extension, for the wider world as well.

Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India

By Joseph Lelyveld

Illustrated. 425 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $28.95.

Geoffrey C. Ward, a biographer and a screenwriter for documentary films, spent part of his boyhood in India and is currently writing a book about partition.

Lifestyle & Travel Blog from Chennai, India

• Books - Non Fiction

My Experiments with Truth – M K Gandhi (Book Review)

• November 16, 2015

‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’  is a partial autobiography of M K Gandhi. He explains how various events molded his character, how he developed his philosophies, and how he followed them stringently even through periods of extreme trial. This book contains the important events of the his life from the time of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth (Oct. 02, 1869) to 1921, when the book was published.

We know Mahatma Gandhi. But how did M K Gandhi become Mahatma Gandhi? How was one person able to live truthfully, able to convince millions of people to follow him – given his unconventional method of fighting, able to gain enough strength to bring a powerful empire to its knees, all by following non-violent methods of protest? 

Practically, he suffered, and asked people to suffer along with him. To understand how he was able to do it, we nee a glimpse of his early life. That’s exactly what the great man himself offers us in his own words.

If you are looking for history and details on his political activities, this book may not satisfy you, although some history is included. This book is more of a spiritual exploration where M K Gandhi tells us how he developed his life’s principles and how he kept up with them (successfully) in spite of huge obstacles.

Some interesting nuggets of info I found in this book:

• M K Gandhi studied law in England and ate only vegetarian food even there. He eventually gave up cow’s milk when he came to know how cows were mistreated on large farms, and drank only goat’s milk which also he tried to avoid. Practically, he was a vegan!
• He went to South Africa to practice law but found himself drawn towards public work (initially legal) after looking at the hardships faced by Indians in South Africa. He fought for their rights, while there.
• M K Gandhi supported the British Govt. during the Boer War in South Africa and during the First World war while in India by becoming a volunteer (nurse) and by recruiting volunteers for them.
• In South Africa when he came to know that a few Indians were affected with Plague, he (along with a few friends) personally attended to them in spite of a grave risk of getting affected themselves.
• In South Africa, he tried to set up a farm and live a simple life outside the city, but was not able to continue as friends kept calling him into the city to address their grievances.
• In India, he traveled around with a third class railway ticket, although the conditions of third class compartments were very bad in those days.
• One of his initial Satyagraha campaigns in India was the Champaran movement where he fought the law against farmers that forced them to cultivate indigo on a significant portion of their lands. His fight took two years but he was successful.
• There upon he led the protest for the Kheda farmers who were forced to pay a huge tax in spite of a famine. Although the lands were confiscated and people were arrested, the large majority did not flinch and the Govt. agreed to withdraw taxes for two years while returning the property.

I should agree that before studying this book, my knowledge about this great man was limited. Now I know something more. I love the way in which he brings his internal debates and confusions — no wonder he is the champion of truth!

This book (and others) are available to download for free from here .

Destination Infinity

5 thoughts on “ My Experiments with Truth – M K Gandhi (Book Review) ”

its good book Its autobiography in real sense , today majority biographies just glorify the person

I had read this book almost a decade before… Respects for the great man!

I want to read this book from a very long time… hope to do soon. Thanks for the link to download the book

i love this book..

Very inspire story but not much in detail.

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Review: Mohandas K. Gandhi Autobiography

Review Copyright © 1998 Garret Wilson — April 3, 1998, 11:00pm

Mohandas K. Gandhi subtitled his autobiography, "The Story of My Experiments with Truth," according to translator Mahadev Desai. In it, Gandhi relates, as best he can remember, events from his childhood to later struggles in India. Written in large part while jailed, Gandhi seems to set forth his experiences as objectively as he knows how, and in the process reveals a portrait of a man wise yet foolhardy, steadfast yet wavering. A portrait of a man striving to further humanity.

This autobiography was written in Gujarati, and translated into English by Mahadev Desai. It is an "unabridged republication of the edition published by Public Affairs Press" in Washington, D.C. There are two editions of the book, both with the exact same text by the same translator. The other edition, proclaiming to be the only official autobiography of Gandhi, is slightly more expensive.

Gandhi’s autobiography is about memories of "experiments," or Gandhi’s experiences of trying to better himself and others. It gives some historical information, but assumes in many places that the reader is familiar with the facts of the situation being described. Gandhi therefore refers the reader to his other works on Satyagraha in South Africa, for example. He also explicitly states, in one circumstance, that everyone knows so much about the facts that he is not going to repeat them.

Gandhi does not seem to be writing for the generations later that will be interested in him, but rather for the admirers of Mahatma who wish to know more about their hero. It would therefore be useful to use either a biography of Gandhi or a history book or both as supplements — I for one am still left unclear on how Gandhi’s work effected India as a whole, for example. This autobiography is more of an inward explanation, a picture of Gandhi as Gandhi seems himself, an appeal to others to learn from his mistakes and to partake in his discoveries.

Late 19 th century India certainly does not have a reputation for protecting the rights of women, children, and lower castes. Tolerance of differences was not popular. Gandhi in many areas is clearly seen to be progressive, even revolutionary. He relates his arranged child marriage with honesty, and rebukes the practice. Throughout his life, he fought against the treatment of "untouchables." With Gandhi, tolerance to other religions and belief systems was the rule. At many places, one wants to cheer him on as he seems to press for equality for all.

But that is not the entire picture of Gandhi the man. Just as Washington owned slaves, just as other great leaders had problems, Gandhi is in some ways a product of his times, and some beliefs and attitudes, however painfully blemishing, are certainly inevitable. However Gandhi tried to raise himself to a holy level of truth, hindsight reveals his shortcomings.

Gandhi’s arranged marriage as a child certainly put Gandhi in a ripe situation for making mistakes, something Gandhi readily admits in his account. But some things which to me seem quite incorrect are recounted as if they were usual, as if they were the correct position to take. Although renouncing arranged child marriages, the fact that Gandhi treated his wife as less than his equal is never questioned. Gandhi constantly refers, for example, of various time when he attempted, or at least intended, to teach his illiterate, uneducated wife, Kasturbai. Somehow, he never got around to it.

We can also perhaps forgive Gandhi for the scientific limitations of the day. While in some places denouncing superstition, he nevertheless had no scientific data to instruct him on, for example, the benefits or detractions of milk, meat, and vegetables. Gandhi at a very early point claimed that his vegetarianism was not only because of religious beliefs but also because of health reasons. While his abstinence from milk and other foods ranged from religious beliefs, vows, the treatment of cows, "scientific" books, and various other reasons, the scientific aspect left much to be desired. His belief in earth treatments abounded, and one cringes at the thought of him binding up a wound in a bandage filled with dirt.

What pained me so much in the book was not Gandhi’s limited scientific knowledge — he readily admitted that many remedies and ideas had no proof and were simply his beliefs on faith — but his attitude toward others. Gandhi searched for truth, and when he at times determined that he had found it, or part of it, the rest of the world was treated as though it were an extension of Gandhi. If Gandhi thought that he should grind his own meal, the boys at the school at which he was teaching would grind their own meal, too.

Once, his admirers in South Africa gave him a large amount of gifts as a going-away present. He decided they were simply unneeded, so he put them in a fund for the help of the community. That’s fine, but some of those gifts were meant for his wife, who had never had much jewelry. In her words, as Gandhi remembers them:

You may not need them... Your children may not need them. Cajoled they will dance to your tune. I can understand your not permitting me to wear them. But what about my daughters-in-law? They will be sure to need them. And who knows what will happen tomorrow? I would be the last person to part with gifts so lovingly given... You deprived me of my ornaments, you would not leave me in peace with them. Fancy you offering to get ornaments for the daughters-in-law... No, the ornaments will not be returned. And pray what right have you to my necklaces? (193-194)

Needless to say, the ornaments were returned, because Gandhi was "definitely of the opinion that a public worker should accept no costly gifts" (194). As might be expected by reading this far, Gandhi "never since regretted the step," and his wife "also [saw] its wisdom" (194). It seems that, ultimately, Gandhi always got his way with Kastrubai, even when he got to the point where he felt it necessary to purge himself from lust, ultimately refusing to even sleep in the same room with her for fear it would tempt him sexually.

At one point Kasturbai was seriously ill. Her doctor recommended beef tea and asked permission from Gandhi, but on Gandhi’s arrival he found the doctor had already given her some. Gandhi was "deeply pained," and the doctor explained that "so long as you keep your wife under my treatment, I must have the option to give her anything I wish. If you don’t like this, I must regretfully ask to you remove her. I can’t see her die under my roof" (289).

Gandhi thought it was his "painful duty" to consult his wife. Even though she had for some reason complied with the doctor’s recommendation before Gandhi arrived, her story now was suddenly, "I will not take beef tea... I would far rather die in your arms than pollute my body with such abominations" (289). With six men carrying her in a hammock through the rain, Gandhi removed his nearly-dead wife from the doctor’s house so that she would not partake in something that was against his beliefs.

After getting well for a short while, she again started getting worse. Gandhi at the time had been deliberating giving up salt and a few other things that did nothing but give "mere satisfaction to the palate." He therefore "entreated her to give up salt and pulses. She would not agree, however much [Gandhi] pleaded with her," and she noted that he had not in fact given up these articles. He therefore "got an opportunity to shower [his] love on her," and declared that he would give up salts and pulses for a year, whether she did or not. She was shocked, asked for forgiveness, and asked him to take back his vow, but he would not. "‘You are too obstinate. You will listen to none,’ she said, and sought relief in tears" (291-292). A poor way, in my opinion, to shower someone in love.

These sections indicate that at times Gandhi’s obsession for his "truth" seemed to cloud his mind to the conditions and feelings of others. While feeling humble and unworthy of praise, Gandhi nevertheless seemed to have some innate egotistical tendencies that constantly made questioning his opinion unthinkable, almost hideous to him. During his "experiments with the truth," many times those around him seem to become his guinea pigs. Gandhi "did not hesitate," for example, to sacrifice his sons’ academic education for "service to the community" (276).

To further illustrate the atmosphere of "tread softly around Gandhi," as it were, which seemed to follow him, consider that, "We were all vegetarians on Tolstoy Farm, thanks, I must gratefully confess, to the readiness of all to respect my feelings. The Musalman youngsters must have missed their meat during ramzan , but none of them ever let me know that they did so" (296). Indeed, this seems to be quite a typical attitude: quietly obey the great Gandhi’s wishes and don’t let him know that you have a problem with it — it’s better that way for everyone involved.

Gandhi wrote an autobiography in his own words, so honest and objective that one can see his good points and bad points, his successes and failures, his triumphs and mistakes. Reading this book has its highs and lows, because at times you feel proud of the central character, and at times you feel ashamed. Gandhi does a good job of showing us, not so much what happened (although I assume the work is more or less historically accurate), but what and why Gandhi thought and did everything. This frankness allows us to see the good and bad, the internals of a very wise and successful man, but ultimately we see a Gandhi who was limited by the same thing that limits us all: our humanity.

April 4, 1998, 7:24 pm I realized today that, even in America, women did so much as gain the right to vote until the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 26, 1920. Taking into consideration the conditions the position of women in India and the world in general in the early 20th century, Gandhi’s attitudes towards his wife as presented in his autobiography should be reconsidered. While certain of his actions leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, as it were, as I sit in the last years of the 20th century, I’m sure that an examination of other sources, both on the life of Gandhi and the common treatment of Indian women at the time could very well put Gandhi’s actions in this regard in a different light.

Copyright © 1998 Garret Wilson

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Book Review- An Autobiography or The story of my experiments with Truth

In this review, I gave a brief account of the author of this book M.K. Gandhi and the reason behind him in writing this autobiography. I gave an explanation why Gandhi gave the tittle 'The story of my experiments with truth' rather than 'An autobiography' to his book which he used it only as a sub-tittle. I gave a brief summary of the various things present in different parts of this book for the benefit of the reader. I gave my personal opinion about this book as well as what makes this book worth reading.

About the Author The author of this book is the most popular legendary person of the twentieth century, Father of our Nation, Mahatma in the eyes of people, the person who sacrificed his whole life for the cause of independence to the country, the person who advocated principles of Truth, Satyagraha, Non-violence and spiritual thoughts of Self realization to the people, who is none other than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Why Gandhi wrote his Autobiography? At around year 1920, some of his co-workers insisted him to write his autobiography. He was unable to carry out this work at that time because he was deeply involved in independence movement. Later on the insistence of one of his co-worker Swami Anand, Gandhi agreed to write his autobiography little by little in the form of small chapters to a magazine Navajivan to which Gandhi usually write his articles. But one of his close friend advised him that the principles what he advocate today in his autobiography, for any reason, if he changes in future there may not be any value for his words in people. This advise affected Gandhi very much and so he changed his mind regarding this autobiography. Finally Gandhi decided to write his personal experiences of the experiments what he has conducted on truth during his life time. The reason for this Gandhi made it clear in his introductory words of this book that he never want to boast himself as a hero in the minds of the people but he wants to transfer some good thoughts to the reader that he experienced during his life time. What is there in this book? 'The story of my experiments with truth' is in five parts which begins with Gandhi's birth and his experiences in his personal life till 1921. The original script was written in Gujarati language by M.K. Gandhi to Navajivan magazine and it was later translated into English by Mahadev Desai. According to Mahadev Desai the sub-tittle Autobiography was given by Gandhi himself for his 'The story of My experiments with Truth'. In this book, Gandhiji mainly emphasized his experiments on his principles of truth, non-violence, spiritualism, celibacy, self realization, vegetarianism etc. Gandhi requested the readers to conduct similar such experiments in their life in their own way in quest of truth. A brief summary of the five parts found in this autobiography was given below for the interest of the readers. Part one In this part Gandhiji introduced his family members and the details about his birth to the readers. He narrated about his childhood days in this part in an interesting way. He rated himself as an average student with a shy character to intermingle with others. At the same time Gandhi's rejection to copying incident at school, an anecdote one has to know through Gandhi's words only. Two things which literally helped in his character building at this age are a play let Shravana Pitribhakti Nataka (a story about Shravanas devotion to his elderly parents) and the other is Satyaharischandra (a character of purana who never speaks lie even at the cost of his life) play. His child marriage with Kasturba, death of his father, his journey to England to earn law degree, the problems he faced there with their culture as well as his strict adherence to vegetarianism, religious foundation he got through Gita and Bible are the interesting things that the reader can get a first hand information from this part. Part Two To deal with a case Gandhi went to South Africa and there he was humiliated by racial discrimination incident in a first class coach. Gandhiji was very much moved by the oppressive and racial discrimination methods shown by South African rulers over the Indians who are living there. This heart throbbing situation of local Indians in South Africa made him a confident and strong leader. Part three Along with his family Gandhi went to South Africa to work with local Indians. He decided to completely dedicate his life to human service. He used to attend hospitals daily for two hours to clean the wounds of the patients and even clean toilets. At this time he developed the concepts of Brahmacharya, Non-violence and Satyagraha which later helped in the battle against British rulers in India. Finally the mission lead by Gandhi in South Africa has tasted success and that is the first win for Gandhi as a leader. Part Four Gandhi's increased interest in practicing vegetarianism, experiments of truth in court cases, experiments with satyagraha, experimenting Naturopathy in treating diseases, fasting method to self restraining, training of the spirit, meeting with Gokhalae are the interesting things found in this part. Part Five People treated Gandhiji as hero after his successful mission at South Africa. On the request of his political guru Gokhale, Gandhiji traveled throughout India and that made him realize the poor condition of Indians at the hasty rule of British. Champran satyagraha, Ahamedabad satyagraha, Kheda satyagraha, Satyagraha against Rowalat's act are important events we can know from this part. What makes this book worth reading? 1. A legendary and most popular person like Gandhi in his own words giving about the experiences of his personal life and an account of various events which occurred during independence struggle at that time will create a lot of interest among the people to read this book. Those who want to know history of Indian independence struggle, by reading this book they get a first hand information from a person who actually lead the struggle from front. 2. In writing this book Gandhi hide nothing the information that can reach the people whether it is good or bad.He was harsh on himself in admitting his mistakes as well as the ways he used to correct his mistakes. This sincerity or honesty of this great person had an influence on increasing the value of this book. 3. An average ordinary person who is shy even to mingle with others how he became 'Mahatma (great soul)' in the eyes of the people? How this simple person with his magnificent power of attraction able to bring millions of people together to fight against British?To know the answers for these questions one has to read the autobiography of M.K. Gandhi. 4. The simple and lucid style of his writing will help the readers to understand things easily. The various events and incidents which he experienced during his life time he put forth in this book in a very interesting way. These experiences enrich the reader with the values and principals followed by Gandhiji during his life time. Gandhiji used to practice anything before he actually preach to any body. This principle that Gandhiji followed throughout his life brought millions of admirers to him to unite and fight against British. 5. Readers can experience the values of spiritualism, truthfulness, non-violence, self realization etc. from the illustrations he made in this book. From Tolstoy form experience in South Africa, Gandhiji realized that the young can be trained only through spiritual training. Spiritual training helps to mold the character of an individual. Without character building there is no value for education in young. Similarly in Gandhiji's opinion Truth is God. Through truth only self realization occur in a person. The experiments on truth that Gandhiji carried through out his life for the purpose of this self realization only. During independence struggle Gandhiji preached non-violence to people which became a weapon in achieving independence to India. My opinion about this book 'An autobiography or The story of my experiments with truth' written by M.K. Gandhi is highly inspiring book and in my opinion it ought to be read by every Indian. After reading this book, definitely every reader will appraise Gandhi's honesty and sincerity in presenting every minute details of his personal life without hiding anything to the reader, even though such incidents presented by him may derogate his value. I really appreciated this nature of Gandhi in my mind after reading this book. Gandhi put to practice the things before he actually preach them to others. I really appreciate this attitude of Gandhi and sincerely believe that this is the reason why millions of people through out the World whether supporters or opponents admired him and like to have a glimpse of him at least once in their life time. One more thing I realized about Gandhiji after reading this book and I really appreciate is the modest way he lead his life. The autobiography that Gandhi wrote is simply superb, especially he narrated all the events which occurred in his life very interestingly as well as the language used for this narration is very simple even to the understanding level of a common man. Conclusion Without doubt this is one of the most popular and famous book of this century. Gandhi gave utmost importance to principals, values and humanity rather than his life itself. Gandhiji lived his whole life as an example to others rather than simply preaching values to others. The great scientist, Albert Einsteen rightly remarked, the generation to come may not believe such a person like Gandhi with blood and flesh has walked on this earth. People have realized the importance of the principals and values of Gandhiji at present than before. Big people like Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and American President Oboma became ardent admirers of Gandhi. Without any doubt the centuries to come Gandhiji will be remembered by people of any generation for the non-violent way he got independence to India.

Amazing work. Thank you for the ton of information which also helped me in a project.

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Review: My Experiments With Truth by M.K. Gandhi

Farrukh Kidwai

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This book is amazing….but too long to read and prepare for projects!!!!!!!!!!

Try the abridged version: http://www.indiabookstore.net/search?q=9780143415947

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Book Review: “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India”

We are delighted to welcome Sangamithra Iyer as our guest reviewer today. Sangamithra offers an insightful review of Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India by Joseph Lelyveld.

by Sangamithra Iyer

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

In 1893, a young Indian lawyer arrived on the shores of South Africa. He didn’t know then that he would stay for over twenty years, during which he would be confronted with injustices that would force him to continually challenge not only the law, but also himself. Nor did he know that what he learned in South Africa he would later adapt to a struggle for independence and equity in his home country. The opening pages of Joseph Lelyveld’s book, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India , provide a portrait of this activist as a young man:

“He wants his life to matter, but he’s not sure where or how; in that sense, like most twenty-three-year-olds, he’s vulnerable and unfinished. He’s looking for something—a career, a sanctified way of life, preferably both—on which to fasten.”

Despite what the title may suggest, Great Soul is not hagiography, documenting the life of a saint, but rather a well-examined account of the making of an activist. In a recent talk at the Asia Society in New York, Lelyveld was asked what gave him the nerve to choose Gandhi as his subject, when the Mahatma is such a big figure and the literature on him is already so vast. “There’s a Sanskrit word for it,” Lelyveld joked. “ Chutzpah. ”

Indeed there is a certain amount of chutzpah required to re-examine a well examined life, but Great Soul succeeds in tracking Gandhi’s work in South Africa and analyzing how it shaped the man who would become a national and moral leader in India. It is well researched and artfully guided by Lelyveld, who spent decades studying Gandhi’s life and letters, tracing his footsteps on both continents. What I appreciated about the book is its intimate portrayal of a very human, flawed and conflicted Gandhi — a man trying to find his way to change the world.

My interest in Gandhi is multifold. My grandfather was an engineer working for the British in Burma when he responded to Gandhi’s call for activists in the struggle for independence. He rid himself of worldly possessions and started a Gandhian ashram in a rural village in south India, where my father was born. I was always fascinated by Gandhi’s connection of the personal to the political and inspired by his example to “be the change you wish to see in the world.” In Great Soul , I found an account of Gandhi’s life that wasn’t simplified or glorified, but instead addressed the complexity of the activist and his work.

While Gandhi’s thoughts on vegetarianism and animal related issues are barely and only peripherally touched upon in Great Soul — (see Gandhi’s Autobiography and Tristram Stuart’s Bloodless Revolution for more on these topics) — Lelyveld’s documentation of Gandhi’s social justice work provides valuable insight and perspective to animal activists.

Indeed, in the Bloodless Revolution , Stuart notes that “vegetarianism was Gandhi’s first political cause; many of his earliest writings were articles in the journals of the Vegetarian Society [of London] and correspondences about his new vegetarian ‘mission.’” He never abandoned this seminal cause (and in fact was continually refining it), but he connected it to other efforts that eventually led to his role in Indian independence.

The Power of the Pen

When Gandhi moved to South Africa, his first activist deed was a letter to the editor. It was after he had been ordered by a judge to remove his turban in a courtroom in Durban, and the local newspaper published an article about the situation titled “An Unwelcome Visitor.” Lelyveld writes that “Gandhi immediately shot off a letter to the newspaper, the first of dozens he’d write to deflect or deflate white sentiments.” After his next racial assault, when he was ejected from a train’s first-class compartment because a white passenger did not want to be in the same area as a “coolie,” Gandhi sent telegrams to the general manager of the railway station raising enough of a ruckus to reboard the train in first class. (Later in his life in India, he would voluntarily only travel third class in solidarity with the masses).

In South Africa, Gandhi needed a platform, so he launched his own weekly newspaper, Indian Opinion . In need of a name for his nonviolent movement, because he felt “passive resistance” indicated a certain weakness, he held a contest in Indian Opinion . Through that process, the name satyagraha — truth force — was coined.

As is the case with all independent media, funding became a concern. Inspired by reading John Ruskin and Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi “found an answer to his immediate practical problem: he could save his paper by moving it to a self-sustaining rural settlement,” Lelyveld writes. “Workers on the farm were expected to double as pressmen and simultaneously feed themselves. Hand labor, thereafter, would be the reflexive Gandhian answer to various problems from colonial exploitation to rural underemployment and poverty.”

As a result, for Gandhi, the publication was not only a pulpit but became a way to show how he was practicing what he preached. A compilation of his columns from Indian Opinion would later become his Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Upon his return to India, Gandhi started another publication, Young India , and later while in prison, distributed The Harijan , a weekly newsletter aimed at getting rid of the caste system.

Coalition Building

Gandhi was not a single-issue advocate. His views and philosophies were ever evolving but he understood the connections between all his causes, even when few others did. Lelyveld analyzes Gandhi’s work on his “four pillars” for swaraj (self-rule): Hindu Muslim unity, eradication of untouchability, revitalization of self-sustaining rural villages, and ahimsa , nonviolence. When I think about my grandfather’s work in the Freedom Movement, what it entailed was spinning cotton, providing water and sanitation to rural villages and fighting for caste equality. These tasks epitomized Gandhi’s pillars in function and in form.

Pyarelal, one of Gandhi’s biographers, documented one of his epiphanies in South Africa that ultimately led to the four pillars:

“The truth burst upon his heart with the force of the revelation that so long as India allowed a section of her people to be treated as pariahs, so long must her sons be prepared to be treated as pariahs abroad.”

In India, Gandhi expanded his thinking further: “Only at that time can non-cooperation with an enemy nation become a possibility, when full cooperation between ourselves has been achieved.”

Working towards these goals had its challenges, and Gandhi was subject to a fair amount of criticism. He needed to fight untouchability in Hinduism yet still maintain a Hindu base for the independence movement and build that base without alienating Muslims in the process. Lelyveld poses the questions Gandhi faced:

“Could he simultaneously lead a struggle for independence and a struggle for social justice if that meant taking on orthodox high-caste Hindus, which would inevitably strain and possibly splinter his movement?… Granted that Gandhi did much to make the practice of untouchability disreputable among modernizing Indians, what exactly was he prepared to do for the untouchables themselves besides preach to their oppressors?”

As he struggled with these issues and his approach to addressing them, one thing Gandhi was sure of was nonviolence:

“I personally can never be a party to a movement half-violent and half non-violent,” he said, “even though it may result in the attainment of so-called swaraj, for it will not be real swaraj as I have conceived it.”

Gandhi’s ruminations on building bridges within and between movements and defining tactics and strategies must surely echo and resonate among animal activists today. They remind us that every movement for change has had strong dissension within its ranks and that without constant care and thoughtful leadership, could easily be torn apart.

On Despair:

Despite the many challenges facing him and India, Gandhi once said he was “not a quick despairer.” But there were moments when Gandhi realized, that despite his efforts, the four pillars to which he devoted his life were crumbling. Lelyveld writes about a very lonely and disappointed Gandhi when violence erupted around him:

“For India’s prophet of unity, nonviolence, and peace, these events—the overture for a year and a half of mass mayhem, murder, forced migration, property loss on a vast scale, extensive ethnic cleansing—provided ample reason for despair, enough to bring his whole life into question. Or so he seemed to feel at his lowest ebb. But if he was shaken, he clung ever more fervently to his core value of ahimsa, on which much of India seemed to have given up.”

Lelyveld captures the personal struggle Gandhi faced, committing himself to a life of activism. In 1921, Gandhi thought independence could be achieved in one year. And when independence came in 1947, it was heartbreaking. Gandhi witnessed the partition of his homeland, what he referred to as “vivisection.”

“The tragic element is that he was ultimately forced like Lear, to see the limits of his ambition to remake his world,” Lelyveld explains. And yet, Gandhi non-violently soldiered on. He veered at the end of his life, Lelyveld observes “between dark despair and irrepressible hope.”

Satyagraha Now

Lelyveld points out that in South Africa today, “the vegetarian restaurant, steps away [from Gandhi’s law office] is long gone; hard by the place it stood, perhaps exactly on the spot, a McDonald’s now does a fairly brisk nonvegetarian trade.” And in India, Lelyveld writes, “The combination of piety and disregard [for Gandhi]—hardly unique to India—lasted as a cultural reflex surviving the explosion of India’s first nuclear bomb.”

When President Obama traveled to India last fall, he paid his respects to Gandhi’s memorial, but arrived with an economic agenda offering American meat, dairy and arms to the emerging superpower . Globalization, urbanization and modernization have shaped an India that is far removed from Gandhi’s vision of self-sustaining villages. Religious conflict and social inequality still plague India today.

What we may see now almost anywhere is not too dissimilar to what Gandhi discovered when he returned to India in 1915 and what ultimately drove his work. “I see around me on the surface nothing but hypocrisy, humbug and degradation, and yet underneath it, I trace a divinity.” We may be witnessing the erosion of Gandhian principles, but also their reincarnation. Perhaps it is in the nonviolent resistance movements in the Middle East, undercover investigations exposing the truth about how animals are treated, DIY efforts of self-sufficiency, or any time individuals realize that change begins with them, we find a trace of the Mahatma.

*** Sangamithra Iyer is an Associate for Brighter Green and the former Assistant Editor of Satya Magazine.

Sangamithra Iyer

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My Experiments With Truth Book Review [Best Review]

In this post “The Story Of My Experiments With Truth Book Review”, we review this whole book in-depth, So you will know whether you should read this book or not.

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The Story Of My Experiments With Truth Book Review

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About The Book

“The Story of My Experiments with Truth” is the autobiography book of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, which runs from his childhood to the year 1921.

In the year 1998, by a committee of religious authorities, this book was nominated as one of the “ Best 100 Spiritual Books of the 20th Century “.

In this book, Gandhi Ji describes his all life events like birth and parentage, childhood, experiences at school, child marriage, relationship with his wife and parents, his study tour to London, and many more.

Gandhiji wrote this book in his mother tongue Gujarati, later it was translated by Mahadev Desai, best remembered as a personal secretary of Gandhi Ji.

The book ends after a discussion of the Nagpur session of the Congress party in 1915.

Now, Let’s discuss The Story Of My Experiments With Truth Summary.

The Story Of My Experiments With Truth Summar y

The Story of My Experiments With Truth Summary, In the below section we give a brief summary of this book.

Introduction

This book of Gandhi Ji starts with an Introduction, the introduction is written by Gandhi Ji himself, mentioning how he has written his autobiography.

The goal of his story is simply to narrate his experiments with truth in life.

Gandhi Ji also says through this book he wishes to narrate his moral experiment and spiritual experience rather than political ones .

The first part describes the incidents of Gandhi Ji’s childhood, his experiments with smoking, eating meat, drinking, stealing, and after satisfaction.

The second part of the book tells about Gandhi’s experiences in the Cape Colony during a period of stress between the different ethnic groups in the region.

When Gandhi Ji succeeded in growing his own practice to about twenty Indian merchants who contracted him to manage their affairs, It was then that he ended up working in South Africa after almost twenty years.

After success in work, he allowed him to earn a living while also finding time to devote to his mission as a public figure. 

During Gandhi Ji’s struggle against inequality and racial discrimination in South Africa, He became known among Indians all around the world as “Mahatma,” or “Great Soul.”

In 1896, Gandhi Ji returned to India to be with his wife and children, Gandhiji continued his work on the Natal Indian Congress, and his loyalty to the British Empire guided him to help them during the Second Boer War.

In the year 1914 in July, He sailed for Britain, now admired as “Mahatma,” and popularly known throughout the world for the success of satyagraha.

When World War I started, Gandhi Ji was in England, he immediately began organizing a medical team similar to the unit he had led in the Boer War, but he also faced some health problems that caused him to return to India.

The British colonial authorities put Gandhi on trial for  sedition  and punished him with six years in prison, this was the first time that he faced prosecution in India. 

The government allowed him to use a spinning wheel and reading materials while in prison, so he felt content and, he also wrote most of his autobiography in prison.

Conclusion of My Experiments With Truth Book Review

Gandhi Ji wrote a suitable conclusion to the readers, in his “Farewell” for an autobiography that he never intended to be an autobiography, but a tale of experiments with truth, and life.

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Why to read My Experiment With Truth

• The author of this book was Mahatma Gandhi, later it was translated by Mahadev Desai.
• This book was nominated as one of the “ Best 100 Spiritual Books of the 20th Century “.
• This book is based on the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, He is also known among Indians all around the world as  “Mahatma”  or  “Great Soul.”
• This is an inspirational book and autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi, which inspires you a lot to do something big.
• The book’s content is about moral teachings, His morality is deeply rooted in Indian culture and Hindu religion.

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An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Translated by (from Gujarati): Mahadev Desai

General editor: shriman narayan, isbn 81-7229-149-3, navajivan mudranalaya, ahemadabad 380014, india..

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Mahatma Gandhi Autobiography : The Story Of My Experiments With Truth Kindle Edition

• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher True Sign Publishing House
• Publication date June 2, 2021
• File size 800 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com review.

Although Gandhi presents his episodes chronologically, he happily leaves wide gaps, such as the entire satyagraha struggle in South Africa, for which he refers the reader to another of his books. And writing for his contemporaries, he takes it for granted that the reader is familiar with the major events of his life and of the political milieu of early 20th-century India. For the objective story, try Yogesh Chadha's Gandhi: A Life . For the inner world of a man held as a criminal by the British, a hero by Muslims, and a holy man by Hindus, look no further than these experiments. --Brian Bruya

"For the inner world of a man held as a criminal by the British, a hero by Muslims, and a holy man by Hindus, look no further than these experiments."

"Bill Wallace...reads with emotion as befits the writing. He pronounces Indian words and locations clearly and with facility."

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About the author, from the publisher, product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B096FX6BGM
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ True Sign Publishing House (June 2, 2021)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 2, 2021
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 800 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• #160 in Gandhi
• #2,933 in Biographies of Religious Leaders
• #10,459 in Religious Leader Biographies

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Mohandas k. gandhi.

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