Gandhi: Naked Ambition

by Jad Adams

The pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India's independence movement, pioneer of non-violent resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience (satyagraha), honoured in India as 'father of nation', Mohandas K. Gandhi has inspired movements for civil rights and political freedom across the world. Jad Adams offers a concise and elegant account of Gandhi's from his birth and upbringing in a small princely state in Gujarat during the high noon of the British Raj, to his assassination at the hands of a Hindu extremist in 1948 only months after the birth of the independent India which he himself he had done so much to bring about. He delineates the principal events of a career that may truly be said to have changed the his training as a barrister in late Victorian London; his civil rights work in Boer War-era South Africa; his leadership of the Indian National Congress; his focus on obtaining self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, and the campaigns of non-cooperation and non-violence against British rule in India whereby he sought to achieve that aim (including the famous 'Salt March' of March/April 1930); his passionate opposition to partition in 1947 and his fasts-unto-death in a bid to end the bitter and bloody sectarian violence that attended it. Jad Adams's accessible and thoughtful biography not only traces the outline of an extraordinary life with exemplary clarity, but also examines why Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings are still profoundly relevant today.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, India, Politics

323 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2010

About the author

Jad Adams is a historian working as an author and an independent television producer. He has specialized in work on radical characters from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and 'the decadence' of the 1890s.

Reviews

[Archana Amaragandhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unmasking Mahatma to reveal the man behind. The truth made me self-question my learning from Indian history. Were we feed false stories of heroism?

[Umeed Mohd]

The Gandhi was a saint for the world but his treatment towards his wife and his own children was deplorable and his sexual experiment with young girls was sickening.

[Kavita Ayyagari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like biographies ... especially tales that don't just look at people as gods who can't possibly do any wrong... This one exposes Gandhi's trials with various ideas that took his fancy from time to time and how that shaped what he did/ promoted/ stood for ... Interesting read!

[Umesh Kesavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is an apologist for British rule and is not a big fan of Gandhi's ideals. These two observations clearly show in every page of the book . Gandhi's achievements are touched upon briefly whereas his fads and strategic blunders are viewed through a magnifying glass. Nevertheless,an easy read which sees Gandhi as a human being in flesh and blood rather than an infallible Mahatma.

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

A biography of an incredible man who played a significant role in gaining certain rights for Indians in South Africa and in helping to gain India's independence from the British. I was expecting an account of Gandhi that was full of uncritical adoration for the spiritual leader, but was pleasantly surprised to discover a fairly even-handed approach. The book commends Gandhi's great achievements and vision for a united Hindu-Muslim India and equality for untouchables and for Indians generally in places where they were not given equal rights at the same time as criticising Gandhi's lack of negotiation skills in the political arena, his sex experiments and the harsh treatment of his wife and sons. The overall impression this book gave me was of Gandhi's humanness with all its eccentricities/stubbornness as well as his brilliance in using image, popularity and sheer determination to help change politics.

3 areas of interest that the book highlighted for me: 1) That Gandhi's impact on society was motivated by an individual spiritual journey towards self-perfection (one usually finds individual pursuits to be overall self-serving, in this case it wasn't mainly), 2) The idea that there was Muslim-Hindu disunity prior to the British occupation and not because of it (I've heard the argument in reference to other previously colonised countries that the British divided up the workforce in those countries according to race/religion which has resulted in long-lasting tensions between those different groups) 3) That the British would have given independence to India eventually anyway. (Really?)

My particular version of the book contained several errors where a word had been misplaced/jumbled up. Probably an editorial oversight, but annoying.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure I want to review books by authors I know personally, but I did enjoy this. Well researched, but quite refreshing to read a biography which is not so academic and footnote-heavy, and which doesn't shy from making personal character judgments. Like the focus on Gandhi's ability to reinvent his public persona for his various causes, and the newly found material on his experiments with chastity are bizarre and fascinating.

[The Conch · Rating 4 out of 5]

​This book presents black and white sides of Gandhi. Being spiritual and thinking driven by God are not a guarantee of a successful politician who can steer the country to the top. Gandhi was definitely fantastic leader, but worst politician.

Though this it's not a place for criticizing personality of Gandhi, however after reading one can evaluates him in an unbiased way.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to return it to the library after reading just a bit but I got enough of the idea not to want to continue.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you can see past the obvious anti Gandhi biases then it's a good easy to read book.

[Vishnu Kamath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Soul or Unsavory Character?
1
Children begin by loving their parents, after a time they judge them; rarely if ever, do they forgive them. Oscar Wilde
2
--- posterity, in time, will give us all our true measure and assign to each of us our due and humble place; and in the end it is the judgment of posterity that really matters. --- And it is well to remember that there is in general no correlation between the judgment of posterity and the judgment of contemporaries. Nobel Laureate S. Chandrasekhar

And so, six decades after his demise, the Father of the Nation- Gandhi, is standing up to be judged by his children, the citizens of India. The record is mixed and the Jury is ambivalent. The glare of hindsight has dimmed the halo. Gandhi is not anymore what he appeared to his contemporaries. The author prosecutes with objectivity and dispassion that is rarely seen among the writers on Gandhi.

To begin with the author dispenses with the sobriquet that preceded his name, and simply calls him Gandhi. To validate this deviation from normal, the author quotes Gandhi himself, who admitted that the word ‘Mahatma’ leaves a stink in his nostril. Stripped of this prefix, the residual Gandhi is human enough to stand up to close scrutiny.
Autobiographies. Gandhi wrote two autobiographies, of which the first relating to his Satyagraha in South Africa, was found to be caddish, and detracting from the “good opinion one might have of the author, because it is not honourable” (Sonja Schlesin, for more on this see my review of the book Going Native by Thomas Weber). His second and widely cited autobiography is curiously titled the “Story of My Experiments with Truth”. The author justifiably argues that the only experiment that one could do with truth, is to propagate falsehood, or speak untruth, or at the very least suppress truth. Was Gandhi entirely truthful in his autobiography? Close inspection shows numerous instances when he was not.
(1) He denied having become a Member of the Theosophical Society, but evidence suggests that he had become an Associate Member on 26th March 1891. Why would he misrepresent this seemingly trivial piece of information? Is it likely because of the poor reputation some of the members of this organization?
(2) In South Africa, Gandhi met a German Jew, Kallenbach, a confirmed bachelor with who he struck a life-long friendship and correspondence that ended only with the latter’s death. Kallenbach wrote him “charming love notes”, “ratified by love and yet more love” between them, “such love, as I hope, the world has not yet seen” (Gandhi’s words). Gandhi destroyed these letters as he felt sure that Kallenbach would not want them read by anyone else (page 100). Gandhi did not show any such discretion when he revealed the correspondence that he had with numerous others, who were seriously inconvenienced, embarrassed even, at the breach of confidence.
(3) Gandhi developed in 1920, an infatuation for Saraladevi Chaudhurani. She was a Congress veteran of robust intellect, charm, and sexuality. Gandhi called her his “spiritual wife”, and spoke of an “intellectual wedding”. He even discussed the possibility of bigamy, and writes, “It is so personal that I did not put it in my autobiography” (page 168, Gandhi’s words). Unfortunately for him, his adherents printed over 100 volumes of his writings, including a three volume index. Desai wrote a 9 volume biography, and Pyarelal and Sushila wrote a 10 volume biography. With such prolific biographers, Gandhi was not able to hide anything!
Gandhi and Lenin. Lenin was of the view that the working class can at most make a trade union. They cannot possibly bring about a revolution. It was therefore necessary to have a cadre of trained, professional revolutionaries to lead and inspire the working class. Gandhi shared similar views and went about setting Ashrams, which trained Satyagrahis at a centralized base. Like Lenin, he was uncomfortable with a democratic system, in which voters’ opinions could swing the society away from his own ideas of the ascendency of individual conscience.
To put matters in simple words, Gandhi was not a democrat.
(1) He was incapable of dialogue, intolerant of criticism, and his response to dissent was to simply restate his argument with increased force. He frequently went on threatening fasts to force his adversary’s hand. Ambedkar on more than one occasion had to give in, in fear that Gandhi’s possible death in a fast may end in a massacre of the Untouchables, a constituency he represented. Ambedkar was prescient about the Congress party’s capacity to wreak communal violence, which were later witnessed in the 1948 massacre of Chitpavan Brahmins, and the 1984 massacre of Sikhs.
(2) Gandhi envisioned dictatorship and martial law, albeit of the nonviolent variety, where he would dictate and the satyagrahis submit themselves to the violence unleashed by the colonial Government. They would all fall one by one on his commend, until at the very end, he would step in and also fall (page 138).
(3) At the Second Round Table Conference, the Congress was allotted 16 places. Gandhi convinced the Congress to permit him to participate as the sole representative of the Congress on the specious plea that there was no unity within Congress, thereby conceding fifteen places. At the Conference he did everything to enhance his own image among the public in Britain and on the continent. “He had no mastery over details: constitutional problems did not interest him. He was no orator; his speeches were made seated and delivered slowly in low, level tones which did not vary whatever the theme might be. His interventions in discussion were mainly propagandist and often made little connection with the matter in hand. He made no real constructive contribution to the work of the Conference.” (page 200)
(4) He favoured Nehru over Bose. When Bose was elevated to the Presidency of the Congress by a free and fair election, Gandhi worked vigorously behind the scenes to undermine Bose until the latter resigned in disgust. Again in 1945-46, he ensured that Nehru would be elected President of the Congress without an election, by working over Patel and Kriplani to withdraw their candidatures.
(5) Gandhi’s was a mind that resisted receiving information inconvenient to his prejudices. On being informed of the Armenian massacre by the Ottoman Turks, he refused to believe it possible. He supported the imperialism of the Ottoman Empire by launching the Khilafat Movement simply because he felt obliged to the Ali brothers. To say the least, it was a hare-brained idea, doomed to failure. And fail it did, but not before triggering Hindu-Muslim riots and a dispute with the Ali brothers about the expense of the movement that had been underwritten by the Ali brothers. In the final irony, the word ‘Khilafat’ itself was a uniquely Indian mispronunciation of the word ‘Caliphate’, and simply meant ‘Opposition’. Most rural Indians speaking Hindi, blissfully ignorant of the whole issue, took the movement to mean ‘Opposition to the British Empire’!

Distaste for Modern Education. Although Gandhi advanced his career, and grew his financial resources considerably by modern education (acquired at great expense borne by his family), he denied the same not only to his own children, but the other children in the Ashram.

(1) He took upon himself the task of teaching the children not only Gujarati, but also Urdu and Tamil. In the latter two languages, he was himself not adequately literate. And this teaching was carried out as he walked to work. Much later Gokhale found Gandhi’s writing crude and devoid of grammar! (page 134)
(2) On numerous occasions, Gandhi himself said that he had no interest in History. Indeed he had no interest in Geography either. He introduced the spinning wheel in regions of the country which had no history or tradition of making cloth, spreading nation-wide, in Tagore’s words, a “spider mentality doomed to a perpetual conformity in its production of web”, calling it an “outrage upon human nature to force it through a mill and reduce it to some standardized commodity of uniform size and shape and purpose” (Tagore’s words, page 167).
(3) On a visit to Benares Hindu University, he exhorted the students to leave their classes and work in the kitchen (page 165). Before imparting this piece of revolutionary advise, he had had the cooks dismissed!
(4) On the voyage to England from South Africa, Gandhi unceremoniously threw away Kallenbach’s sophisticated and expensive binoculars into the sea, on the specious plea of reducing one’s possessions (page 130). Given an opportunity, there is no doubt he would have thrown away telescopes, microscopes and spectroscopes, disclaiming the need of any knowledge that these gadgets may provide to humankind.
Ashram Life, Health and Dieting. The Ashram was set up to train professional Satyagrahis. Who were the inmates? These were mostly drawn from single parent families and orphans. Hardly the material for the arduous life of the Ashram. Impossible vows were forced on this disempowered bunch in the garb of training; vows which were frequently broken. The Ashram had become a hotbed of gossip (page 182). When for instance, an unmarried couple had an affair, they were betrayed and denounced by their own comrades. 22 members of the Ashram including Gandhi went on a penitential fast and took to eating only uncooked food. All of them came down with ‘intestinal problems’, and Gandhi came down with dysentery (page 207). It is not known if the offending couple were also forced into this bizarre penitence.
Gandhi had this delusion of being a healer, and often took to doctoring the sick in the Ashram. Inmates wanting his attention deliberately reported themselves sick. On one occasion he prescribed the same remedy- a mud pack and fasting, to all the patients irrespective of their symptoms and ailment. He took great pride in this claiming that all sickness had a common origin. Fortunately for the Ashramites, at some point of time he appointed Pyarelal’s sister Sushila Nayar, a trained doctor, to the Ashram.
One of the most unsavoury incidents centred around the way Gandhi treated Chaganlal, one of his close and long standing associates and relative. Chaganlal was accused of thieving petty amounts from the Ashram’s supplies. There were many reasonable ways of dealing with this case.
(1) He could have been pardoned after a warning- action that is in keeping with the spirit of forgiveness and nonviolence.
(2) He could have been asked to leave the Ashram, and his deposit of Rs. 10,000, kept with the Ashram returned to him with or without deducting the loss caused by his petty theft.
(3) A complaint could have been filed with the local police- a legally valid though unimaginative way of dealing with a long term associate.
Gandhi would have none of these ways. He summarily threw Chaganlal and his family out of the Ashram and refused to return his deposit- a princely sum. He did not yield to appeals that the return of his money was crucial to his restarting his life outside the Ashram (page 184). Gandhi was such- he was complainant, prosecutor and judge rolled into one. He was insensitive to the immorality of his actions.
The most compelling criticism of the Ashram came from Gandhi’s eldest son, Harilal. “Petty regulations” on diet, such as the use of salt or milk “or any of the other things he [Gandhi] would rule on- these had no bearing on character. There were more desirable aspects of character to be encouraged: unselfishness, charity, courage. Instead of promoting these, Gandhi, fostered acolytes who paid lip-service to the high principles of the ashram while in fact pleasing him merely by keeping to the minutiae of the dietary rule book and obeying his every word without question.” (page 183)
How did his more compliant son, Ramdas behave? Ramdas married Nirmala, an orphan in the Ashram. He immediately waded into a most opulent life style spending all his monthly salary of Rs. 40 from the Ashram. He took a large house and filled it with expensive English things, and frequently gifted his wife with new clothes. He once roundly admonished her when he caught her reading one of Gandhi’s articles on celibacy within marriage!
Does anything more need to be said on the effect of the Ashram discipline on the inmates?
Gandhi and Celibacy. Celibacy, in simple terms, denying oneself sexual pleasure, is a well-established tradition in most religions. Those accepting vows of celibacy eschew contacts with individuals of the opposite gender. This avoidance may take different forms and different degrees. In an Institutional context such as a school or a hospital, individuals of different gender could work together but eschew personal relationships. In more extreme forms, such as in religious institutions, vows of celibacy could exclude members of the opposite gender entirely from one’s social circles.
Gandhi viewed celibacy in his own very unique and perverse way. He interpreted celibacy to mean the ability to resist sexual temptation. In his world view, there were no gender neutral relationships. All contacts between members of different genders were presumed to have an element of sexual temptation. How this temptation was overcome became the core of his concept of celibacy. The root to this interpretation was his own over-sexed personality. In promoting his concept of celibacy, he asked the rhetorical question: Of what use is celibacy in an impotent person? He therefore artificially created situations of sexual temptation among members of the Ashram, and demanded that the Ashramites, bound by the vows of celibacy resist the temptations by self-restraint.
As a proto-Mahatma in South Africa, he encouraged young adults of both genders to bathe together, and indeed, had them sleep next to each other to test their ability to resist temptation. On one occasion, when there was a little incident involving a boy and a girl (sexual intercourse as suggested by Ved Mehta in ‘Gandhi and His Apostles’; mere sexual banter as suggested in the present book), Gandhi wanted to punish the girl by cutting off her hair. When the spirited girl refused to accept such a punishment, “Gandhi worked on the elderly women on the farm and got their support and finally the girls came round and he cut off their hair himself” (page 111-112, emphasis added).
Prior to this incident, he had begun to practice celibacy in his marriage for a very practical reason: he had already had four children, and he could ill afford to have anymore. His wife had become an invalid, thanks to the punishing discipline and life of the Farm. He had no access to birth control measures. It never occurred to him that others on his farm, and least of all the young adults living there, had no such predilections and his vows had no value for them.
After he was anointed ‘Mahatma’, he took these experiments to new highs. He slept in the nude with young girls testing his restraint, and this in his late seventies. On at least one occasion, Sushila and he ‘were alone and shouting excitedly at each other at about 3:20 am, some forty minutes before normal waking time” (page 255). The author remarks in passing that these experiments may have involved something more than just lying beside each other. At this stage, so late in his life (1945-46), he seems to have further refined his concept of celibacy to mean avoidance of penetrative sex. There are hints to suggest that all matters of sexual stimulation were acceptable if one could only hold back ejaculation (page 245). This led to numerous unsavoury practices with ever younger women. In one particular case of an eighteen year old married girl, he advised the young husband to practice celibacy in marriage and then went about sleeping next to her. This particular young woman did not take off all her clothes despite being commanded to do so, and kept her “petticoat and choli (bodice) on” (page 263). By conflating his particular brand of celibacy with spiritual strength and nonviolence, he was able to continue his experiments even in the midst of the most horrific Hindu-Muslim riots in Naokhali and elsewhere. Pyarelal, his secretary, who was asked to print the results of these experiments, “reports Gandhi’s activities with Manu, but not with his own sister Sushila” (page 258). Poor Pyarelal was obsessed with Manu and wanted to marry her, but Gandhi played his usual psychological games with Manu, and worked on her to reject Pyarelal’s suit.
Fortunately for his own sake and those of his coworkers he was assassinated. The author remarks: “It is hard to imagine what sexual experiment he might have thought of next.”
To conclude this section, Gandhi, while advocating celibacy for all, explored the fullest range of sexual experiences that his advanced age could permit, and this, right up to the end of his life.
Gandhi and nonviolence. Gandhi plied the myth that India is a land of peace and nonviolence. A myth that was eagerly received and widely broadcast by his Western admirers such as Romain Rolland. Parallely, Gandhi believed that Indians were effete and cowardly. He again asked the rhetorical question: Of what use is nonviolence in a cowardly man incapable of committing violence? To solve this conundrum, he first wanted Indians to bear arms and prove themselves capable of violence (page 152-153). Subsequently, the Indian after receiving military training would eschew violence by exercise of self-restraint! At the same time, as the British were already a militant people he would convert them directly to nonviolence. This kind of perversity was unique to his thinking. Given the staggering illogic of such arguments, he failed to convince anyone outside his closed circles about the supposed superiority of nonviolence.
Gandhi’s views on his countrymen were shaped by those who cohabited his closed inner circles. When in 1918, he went about enlisting volunteers to help the Empire in the Great War, he could gather a paltry 100, of which, Patel and he, were the top two (Turner, Catching Up with Gandhi). This Reviewer can think of three reasons for his disappointing show.
(1) By then, with the War in its fourth year, every Indian who had even the remotest inclination to fight had already enlisted. The number was a staggering 1.5 million. That Gandhi was unaware of this simple statistic, exhibited his disdain not only to History, but also to current events.
(2) Gandhi’s appeal to enlist, coming as it did soon after his campaign in favour of nonviolent resistance to British rule, revolted the public, and in a few places they demonstrated against him.
(3) He was also carrying out this campaign in Gujarat, which was

[Lakshand Mohanthas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jad shows us a different side to every indian household's spiritual father in his book. We know Gandhi as the man who fought for independence against the British. If you want to get to know Gandhi the lothario, Gandhi the celibate (yet somehow getting more action than most of his followers), this book is for you. If Gandhi can be celibate and still get girls into his bed and his bath, you can too. Though marketed as a biography, This really is a self help book for someone who is struggling to get laid.

5/5 stars
edit: 3/5 stars only because the methods in the book didn't work.

[Sandeep · Rating 4 out of 5]

In India, embodying Gandhian principles has become a status symbol. Gandhi is regarded as a prominent figure, characterized by his deep religiosity and moral integrity.Being poor is a status symbol for Gandhi; that's why Sarojini Naidu once said, 'It costs a lot of money to keep Gandhiji in poverty. Gandhi had many utopian ideas, and he believed in all his utopian ideas until his death.
This book vividly explores Gandhi and his life, especially his deplorable attitude towards his wife and children.

[mantareads · Rating 4 out of 5]

the picture peering from the book's cover is off-centre; is far from the iconic Gandhi one has come to accept from mainstream media. and likewise this book - a powerful, sensitive biography that is unflinching in its examination of this historical giant.

I don't know much about modern Indian history; in fact this was precisely why I picked up this book. some reviews on Goodreads have accused Adams of slandering the good name of Gandhi; of taking every opportunity to slam him. That's really far from the truth of what this book does - it gives us a peek at the life and times of a great man, but it paints him in colours we can perceive. We see Gandhi for the man he is, as taken from many accounts from those close to him. It was a refreshing read that tried to do justice to the memory of the man.

I found Adam's writing intelligent, but at times the sheer attention to historical fact and detail left me dazed and a little bored. I suppose this is a book aimed for those more acquainted and familiar with the events mentioned. The British seem to figure only incidentally, and the driving focus is constantly and meticulously on Gandhi...which wears a little thin at times, for those looking for a little more breadth and background to the story around the events.

That said Adams' concluding chapter, in which he assesses Gandhi's contributions in sum I found to be fair, balanced and sensitive. in all, a challenging but interesting read.

[Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very biased book whose conclusions often don't even match up with what the author himself cites. Apparently he's written a conspiracy book arguing that AIDS is not caused by HIV too - which should tell you all you need to know about him. I'm not really sure what he has against the man, but some of it almost comes across as racial hatred, though I really doubt it is such. One example of this in the book is a section where he talks about Gandhi's sex life (so to speak) - and some of the quotes he cites seemingly have zero connection to his conclusions, and he seemingly ignores chronology to draw his conclusions, too - and considers material published ABOUT him decades after his death to be more reliable then primary sources published during his life. Really odd. Not really a history book, more like a hit piece.

[Srinivas]

Well, the naked truth seems to be out, at least partially:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...


I came across a user review of another Jad Adams book on Amazon. I think it was 'The Dynasty' or some such title that deals with the subject of the ruling family of India. The user deplored that the throne is not handed over to the members of the dynastic family, and that they had to fight to grab control of power. The person considered that this fight for power is a great sacrifice that the family made for the nation.
I was shocked to the very core after reading that review. Goes to show the amount of brainwashing that Indians go through.

[Iva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gandhi is certainly a complex figure and Adams takes on the man's life with vigor and serious research to back up his theories and explanations of his behavior. Gandhi's personal life is analyzed-perhaps over-analyzed by Adams, particularly his obsessions with chastity and fasting as a protest. There are many biographies and memoirs about Gandhi (the book has an extensive bibliography). Family members, as-told-to books, even his own autobiography are available. This is just one view of the man, but wellworth reading. (The American edition has a different subtitle than the British one.)

[gramakri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This biography is mainly based on Gandhi's own writings and that of his secretaries Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal. It is a fairly well narrated account of Gandhi's life. I came to know several little known facts about Gandhi.
While the author has based this biography on authentic sources he has his own interpretation of the facts.
Read more about this book at http://bookwormsrecos.blogspot.in/201...

[Ese Okereka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the man within the legend. His quirks and intensity. Both the forgivable and unforgiving ones.
Adams tells a story that helps throw light on how and why India seems to be as it is today. Kashmir has always been a place of hope for me, it still is. Sad as its existence and reality seem to be.
Love, revere, hate or nonchalance. No matter the emotion, it definitely evokes something.

[Deepti Lamba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, well written, detailed and throws new light on Gandhi's personal satyagraha and those who followed his way of living.

[Mary Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

well written and worth reading.

[Sidharth Mishra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book on Gandhi Ji.

Not just his political initiatives, this book delves deep into his individual character - what motivated his actions, how did he handle his close relationships and the like. This book chronicles his life right from the time of his birth to death, his growing up years, his relationship with his Parents, his wife and children, his experiments with physicality, his obsession with diet, his endeavours in uniting people of different religious faiths, his strategies in dealing with oppression, his pragmatism in dealing with the Imperial power, his concepts of non violence, his inability to understand violence and repression at scale and a lot of other such things.

A must read for anyone to understand the man behind the Mahatma.

[Raunak Mainali · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author writes a compelling piece about the life of Gandhi. His exploits in London and South Africa are very enjoyable and so is majority of the book. The last few chapters is where I have a problem as the role of the imperial British in the violence following independence is massively underplayed whilst Gandhi's is exaggerated. Although I would recommend this book as it take a more critical approach to Gandhi, it would be worthwhile looking at another piece to get a fuller picture.

[Sanket Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. Easy to read. At some places one does wonder whether the author is merely repeating fiction. For those interested in Gandhi this could be a good book to start. However, beware. This book often moves towards sensationalising Gandhi, his habit of sleeping with his teenage nieces, his desire for power etc. When these actions are divorced from their cultural context they look very sinister.

[Kifah Maseeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

though unmasking any great historical is never an easy task, this is a job well done. It shows that despite Gandhi's demigod stature among many he too is human and has made huge blunders both in the political realm and in his personal life, though Gandhi may admit to it.

[John Dennehy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amazing story told almost cynically. At times it seems the author would be happier for India to have remained under British rule. That casts a dark shadow over the telling of Gandhi’s life.

[Deepak · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read about a complex character.

[Mahesh Chandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

i had good image of Gandhi, but once I came across the letters of the two ladies who share bad with Gandi, Today I totally changes my mind about Gandhi, he was a...

[Riet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Op zich een goed geschreven biografie met veel informatie over de onafhankelijkheidsstrijd in India. Maar ik vond Gandhi al niet zo sympathiek en dat gevoel wordt door dit boek alleen maar versterkt. Alleen al de manier waarop hij met zijn vrouw en kinderen omgaat...
Ik denk niet, dat iemand als Gandhi in een ander land als India zo ver zou komen.

[Magdalene Choong · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Man may not be perfect but still, the author is biased and taints the readers' views.

[Akash Chaudhary]

lll