M.K. Gandhi, Attorney at Law: The Man before the Mahatma

by Charles R. DiSalvo

“...a must read for persons from all walks of life...interested in understanding the philosophical evolution of an ordinary man into the extraordinary.” --  Indian Law Journal

In 1888, at the age of eighteen, Mohandas Gandhi sets out from his modest home in India. Shy, timid, and soft-spoken, he embarks on what he believes will be a new life abroad. Twenty-seven years later, at the age of forty-five, he returns—this time fearless, impassioned, and ready to lead his country to freedom.

What transformed him? 

The law.

M. K. Gandhi, Attorney at Law is the first biography of the Mahatma’s early years as a lawyer. It follows Gandhi as he embarks on a personal journey of from his education in Britain, through the failure of his first law practice in India, to his eventual migration to South Africa. Though he found initial success representing wealthy Indian merchants, events on the ground would come to change him. Relentless attacks by the white colonial establishment on Indian civil rights prompted Gandhi to give up his lucrative business in favor of representing the oppressed in court. Gandhi had originally hoped that the South African legal system could be relied upon for justice. But when the courts failed to respond, he had no choice but to shift tactics, developing what would ultimately become his lasting legacy—the philosophy and practice of nonviolent civil disobedience.

As he took on the most powerful governmental, economic, and political forces of his day, Gandhi transformed himself from a modest civil rights lawyer into a tireless freedom fighter. Relying on never-before-seen archival materials, this book provides the reader with a front-row seat to the dramatic events that would alter Gandhi—and history—forever.


 

Genres: Nonfiction

350 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Nency · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really inspired me a lot

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very poorly written but interesting and valuable history

[Tim Stafford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focuses on Gandhi's career as a lawyer in South Africa, where he moved from an optimistic middle-class appreciation of the law to a commitment to self-suffering in disobeying the law and accepting its punishments. Gandhi was from the beginning a defender of his community, but at first he used his legal practice to help individuals, and used petitions to apply legal and ethical logic to the government. From petitions he moved to litigation, a more adversarial approach. In the end he came to see law as an instrument of those who rule, rather than an instrument of justice. His decision to cease legal practice was not simply an opportunistic realization that he had other fish to fry; it was a termination of his optimism about western civilization. (He preserved an equally unfounded optimism in Indian village civilization, however, perhaps because he never lived under its power. That is why Dalits think so little of Gandhi.)