The life of Mahatma Gandhi

By Louis Fischer

M.K. Gandhi, the most influential and well known Indian of the last 500 years or more, needs no introduction. His life story remains inspirational and compelling. Anyone wanting to know more about Gandhi could hardly go wrong than starting here!

                                                          

  

Louis Fischer was an American journalist who covered mainly politics and political movements. After working extensively in Europe and India he later became a member of the faculty of Princeton University. He met Gandhi on several occasions and his biography of Gandhi, published first in 1951, was among the earliest works in the area.

The book deals with the life and times of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or to call him by his popular epithet, Mahatma Gandhi. It starts with the Mahatma’s assassination and the world’s reaction to it. One can feel that the classic movie ‘Gandhi’, by Sir Richard Attenborough, owes quite a bit of its screenplay to this book. The first section of the book deals with Gandhi’s childhood and the special influence of his mother on him, his education in England and the firming up of his philosophy and the principles of Satyagraha in South Africa. The middle section describes the bulk of the Independence movement from Gandhi’s return to India in 1915 to the tumultuous years leading almost up to Independence. The final section is dedicated to the tragic and cataclysmic events immediately pre and post Independence, including the attempts at finding a solution to Partition and the aftermath of it.

The book is written in a clear and crisp manner, without any embellishments or florid touches. The author’s background as a journalist is clear; however, the book is extremely readable from the start and does not feel like an overblown magazine article. Gandhi’s thoughts and motivations come out clearly for the most part, which is quite a feat for any biographer.

Highlights:

1.       The vision of the continuous evolution of the Mahatma’s philosophy, which was never set in stone.

2.       The clear communication of the Mahatma’s character throughout the book – his self- discipline, his humility, his arrogance, his disciplinarian character and above all his ability to stay true to himself, his aims and his soul despite gargantuan odds and pressures.

3.       The author’s sketch of Jinnah, who comes out as a self-obsessed and unsympathetic person, burning with envy towards Gandhi and Nehru, whom he felt had displaced him from the leadership of the Congress Party.

Rating:

Overall – 8^1/2 /10

Political history – 8/10

Biography – 9/10