BOOK REVIEW

The Story of My Experiments With

Truth

Submitted by :-
Sidharth Gupta
Part I. From Childhood to Passing
the Bar
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a
small town in northwest India. His father, Karamchand Gandhi, was a local
statesman who had not studied much history or geography but had
accumulated valuable experience in local government. His mother, Putlibai, his
father's fourth wife, was illiterate. Nonetheless, she took great interest in
religious and spiritual matters and observed rules and customs mandated by
religion with intense devotion. She showed particular willpower in her
decisions to observe religious fasts. Though lacking sophistication, the family
was well-to-do by local standards and could afford a good education for
Gandhi.

As child, Gandhi appeared shy and academically mediocre. He did not
participate in athletics. He harbored no religious convictions as a young man,
despite his mother's notable dedication as a practicing Hindu, and the fact
that his father's friends included Muslims, Parsis, and Jains, who frequently
engaged in philosophical debates in the house. Gandhi witnessed these
discussions from an early age and found them boring. He also found Hindu
temples too ostentatious, pompous and even distasteful. He did not exhibit an
interest in politics either.
Gandhi writes about his relationship with Kasturbai with a lot of self-criticism
and even regret. He believes that if her had devoted enough time to teaching
her to read, she would have become educated quickly and led a much more
meaningful life. Such actions would have required him to consider her his
mate and companion, and not his possessions, as many male Indians
considered their wives. But Gandhi was only 13 when he married her and the
most natural course of action seemed to treat his wife the way older men in
his family treated their own wives. Only much later did he become cognizant
of his errors and wished he had spent more time teaching her, rather than
engaging in carnal pleasures.

When Gandhi's father passed away in 1885, his relatives decided that, as the
most likely successor of his father's position as a local politician, and as head
of the family, Gandhi should go to England to obtain a law degree. Gandhi's
mother Putlibai did not approve of this choice as she worried that an
immersion in English society would corrupt the young man's morals. Gandhi,
however, decided to pursue the opportunity to study in England, and, for the
comfort of his mother, took an oath to avoid wine and meat (both proscribed
by the Hindu faith) as well as relationships with women while in England. He
then went to Bombay to sail for Southampton in England.
But other individuals in Gandhis extended family also shared Putlibai's
preoccupation. Gandhi belonged to a merchant caste, which did not rank
as high as the priest caste of Brahmins or the lowest class of
untouchables. Three of the elders of his caste, who lived in Bombay,
objected to the idea of Gandhis education abroad. Their protest
emphasized the danger of moral corruption that they thought Gandhi
could not escape. Their main concern involved the fact that Hinduism was
not practiced in Europe, and they declared that Gandhi would be expelled
from his cast if he chose to proceed with the plan.

Determined to go to England, Gandhi accepted his faith as an outcast for
the rest of his life and sailed for England in September of 1888, at the age
of 19. At that time, his first son, Harilal, was only three-months old.
While in London, Gandhi adhered strictly to the oath he made in front of
his mother, despite the fact that Victorian England did not provide many
options for a vegetarian diet, and many other Hindus had abandoned their
promise not to eat meat. Gandhi ate oatmeal porridge until he found a
suitable vegetarian restaurant, where he also stumbled upon the book "A
Plea for Vegetarianism" which helped him convert him from being a
vegetarian by birth and by oath to a vegetarian by conviction, a position he
maintained for his entire life.

During his studies in England, Gandhi first seriously read the Bhagavad-
Gita, a sacred book of the Hindu tradition, written between the fifth and
second centuries B.C. as a dialogue between Arjuna, a legendary Indian
general, and the hero Krishna, whom Hindus worship as a god.
Gandhi discovered the work through some friends who shared an interest
in theosophy, and quickly embraced its message while also becoming
fascinated with the book's poetic style. He also found in the book several
ideas that guided his career and personal path: the ideas of suppressing
appetite, attachment, and desire itself in the name of a greater good.

While studying the Bhagavad-Gita made a profound impact on Gandhi's
personal belief, he also became friends with many Christians, and read the
Bible for the first time. He readily embraced the Christian idea of humility
and "the poor in spirit, as expressed by Jesus Christ's Sermon on the
Mount in the New Testament.

However, Gandhi never accepted the idea of sin and redemption. As his
philosophical, legal and religious education progressed rapidly, he began
to consider a universalist view of religion. He also took some lessons in
violin, French and dancing for a short while. Although Gandhi is known for
dressing in a simple cloth, during his stay in England, he dressed as a
Western man and tried to integrate himself in British culture to the extent
possible, but without breaking his promise to his mother or going against
his personal convictions.
Part II. From Arrival in South
Africa to Return to India
While Gandhi enjoyed living close to his family and improving his relationship
with his wife, the fact that he found work less than inspiring motivated him to
accept an offer from a Muslim Indian firm in order to provide advice on a lawsuit.
Gandhi viewed the trip to South Africa as a temporary assignment and an
opportunity to escape professional mediocrity.

After a long history of antagonism, the British and the Dutch shared power in
South africa, with Britain ruling the regions of Natal and Cape Colony, while the
Dutch settlers known as the Boers taking charge in the Orange Free State and the
Transvaal, two independent republics. The white settler and the independent
Boer states continued to engage in volatile interactions with the British so a
threat of violent eruptions always loomed large. In order to placate both the Boer
and other white settlers, the British adopted a number of racist policies, and
while the Indians, most of them working on sugar and coffee plantations, did not
suffer as much as the black population, they clearly experienced a treatment as
second-class citizens. From his very arrival in South Africa, Gandhi experience
discrimination himself as he was forced to wait overnight in a Transvaal train
station when he refused to give up his first- class seat to a white passenger.
Very soon after his arrival, Gandhi's initial bafflement and indignation at racist
policies turned into a growing sense of outrage and propelled him into
assuming a position as a public figure at the assembly of Transvaal Indians,
where delivered his first speech urging Indians not to accept inequality but
instead to unite, work hard, learn English and observe clean living habits.
Although Gandhi's legal work soon start to keep him busy, he found time to
read some of Tolstoy's work, which greatly influenced his understanding of
peace and justice and eventually inspired him to write to Tolstoy, setting the
beginning of a prolific correspondence. Both Tolstoy and Gandhi shared a
philosophy of non-violence and Tolstoy's harsh critique of human society
resonated with Gandhi's outrage at racism in South Africa.

Both Tolstoy and Gandhi considered themselves followers of the Sermon on
the Mount from the New Testament, in which Jesus Christ expressed the idea
of complete self-denial for the sake of his fellow men. Gandhi also continued
to seek moral guidance in the Bhagavad-Gita, which inspired him to view his
work not as self-denial at all, but as a higher form of self-fulfillment. Adopting
a philosophy of selflessness even as a public man, Gandhi refused to accept
any payment for his work on behalf of the Indian population, preferring to
support himself with his law practice alone.
Part III. In South Africa with the Family,
the Boer War, Bombay and South Africa
Again
In 1896, Gandhi made a brief return to India and returned with his wife and
children. In India, he published another pamphlet, known as the Green
Pamphlet, on the plight of Indians in South Africa. For the first time, Gandhi
realized that Indians had come to admire his work greatly and experienced a
taste of his own popularity among the people, when he visited Madras, an
Indian province, where most manual laborers had originated. Although his
fellow-Indians greeted him in large crowds with applause and adulation, he
sailed back to South Africa with his family in December 1896.

Gandhi had become very well known in South Africa as well, to the point where
a crowd of rioters awaited him at Port Natal, determined that he should not be
allowed to enter. Many of them also mistakenly believed that all the dark-
skinned passenger on the ship that took Gandhi to Natal were poor Indian
immigrants he had decided to bring along with him, when, in reality, these
passengers were mostly returning Indian residents of Natal. Fortunately, Gandhi
was able to establish a friendly relationship with the British in South Africa so
the Natal port's police superintendent and his wife escorted him to safety. After
this incident, local white residents began to actually regard him with greater
respect.
As Gandhi resumed his work at the Natal Indian Congress, his loyalty to
the British guided him to assist them in the Boer War, which started three
years later. Because Gandhi remained a passionate pacifist, he wanted to
participate in the Boer War without actually engaging in violence so he
organized and led an Indian Medical Corps which served the British in a
number of battles, including the important battle of Spion Kop in January
of 1900.

The armed conflict between the British and Dutch raged on for over three
years of often brutal fighting with the British conquering the Transvaal and
Orange Free state territories. Gandhi expected that the British victory
would establish justice in South Africa and present him with an
opportunity to return to India. He wanted to attend the 1901 meeting of
the Indian National Congress, whose mission was to provide a social and
political forum for the Indian upper class. Founded in 1885 by the British,
the Congress had no real political power and expressed pro-British
positions. Gandhi wanted to attend its meeting nevertheless, as he was
hoping to pass a resolution in support of the Indian population in South
Africa. Before he left for Bombay, Gandhi promised the Natal Indian
Congress that he would return to support their efforts, should they need
his help.
Gandhi did not waiver when a South African General by the name of Jan
Christiaan Smuts promised to eliminate the registration law, but broke his
word. Gandhi went all the way to London in 1909 and gathered enough
support among the British to convince Smuts to eliminate the law in 1913.
Yet, the Transvaal Prime Minster continued to regard Indians as second-class
citizens while the Cape Colony government passed another discriminatory
law making all non-Christian marriages illegal, which meant that all Indian
children would be considered born out of wedlock. In addition, the
government in Natal continued to impose crippling poll tax for entering
Natal only upon Indians.

In response to these strikingly unjust rules, Gandhi organized a large-scale
satyagraha, which involved women crossing the Natal-Transvaal border
illegally. When they were arrested, five thousand Indian coal miners also
went on strike and Gandhi himself led them across the Natalese border,
where they expected arrest.

Further, the import of indentured laborers from India was to be phased out
by 1920. In July of 1914, Gandhi sailed for Britain, now admired as
"Mahatma," and known throughout the world for the success of satyagraha.
Part IV. Mahatma in the Midst of
World Turmoil
Gandhi was in England when World War I started and he immediately began
organizing a medical corps similar to the force he had led in the Boer War, but
he also faced health problems that caused him to return to India, where he
applauding crowds met him with enthusiasm once again. Indians continued to
refer to him as "Mahatma" or "Great Soul," an appellation reserved only for the
holiest men of Hinduism.

Although Gandhi had withdrawn from public life, he briefly met with the British
Governor of Bombay (and future Viceroy of India), Lord Willington, whom
Gandhi promised to consult before he launched any political campaigns. He
stayed away from the political trend of Indian nationalism, which many of the
members of the Indian National Congress embraced. Instead, he stayed busy
resettling his family and the inhabitants of the Phoenix Settlement in South
Africa, as well as the Tolstoy Settlement he had founded near Johannesburg. For
this purpose, on May 25, 1915, he created a new settlement, which came to be
known as the Satyagraha ashram (from the Indian word for "communal") near
the town of Ahmedabad and close to his place of birth in the western Indian
province of Gujarati. All the inhabitants of the ashram,which included one
family of untouchables, swore to poverty and chastity.
In September 1920, Gandhi also passed an official constitution for the
Congress, which created a system of two national committees and
numerous local units, all working to mobilize a spirit of non-cooperation
across India. Gandhi and other volunteers travelled around India further
establishing this new grass roots organization , which achieved great
success. The new British Viceory in India, Lord Reading, did not dare to
interfere because of Gandhi's immense popularity.

By 1922, Gandhi decided that the initiative of non-cooperation had to
transform into open civil disobedience, but in March 1922, Lord Reading
finally ordered Gandhi's arrest after a crowd in the city of Chauri Chauri
attached and killed the local representatives of British authority. Gandhi,
who had never encouraged or sanctioned this type of conduct,
condemned the actions of the violent crowds and retreated into a period
of fasting and prayer as a response to this violent outburst. However, the
British saw the event as a trigger point and a reason for his arrest.
Part V. Jail Time and the Fight
for Independence
The British authorities placed Gandhi on trial for sedition and sentenced him to
six years in prison, marking the first time that the faced prosecution in India.
Because of Gandhi's fame, the judge, C.N. Broomfield, hesitated to impose a
harsher punishment. He considered Gandhi clearly guilty as charged, despite the
fact that Gandhi admitted his guilt and even went as far as requesting the
heaviest possible sentence. Such willingness to accept imprisonment conformed
to his philosophy of satyagraha, so Gandhi felt that his time in prison only
furthered his commitment and goals. The authorities allowed him to use a
spinning wheel and receive reading materials wile in prison, so he felt content.
He also wrote most of his autobiography while serving his sentence.

However, in Gandhi's absence, Indians returned to their British jobs and their
every day routines. Even worse, the unity between Muslims and Hindu, which
Gandhi advocated so passionately, had already begun to fall apart to the point
where the threat of violence loomed large over many communities with mixed
population.The fight for Indian independence could not continue while Indians
themselves suffered disunity and conflict, all the more difficult to overcome in a
huge country like India, which had always suffered religious divisions, as well as
divisions by language, and even caste.


Gandhi realized that Independence and that the British had lost the will
and power to sustain their empire, but he always acknowledged that
Indians could not rely simply on the weakening of Britain in order to
achieve independence. He believed that Indians had to become morally
ready for Independence. He planned to contribute to such readiness
through his speeches and writing, advocating humility, restraint, good
sanitation, as well as an end to child marriages. He acknowledged that he
had changed his position on many issues, like child marriages, and that he
had not always managed to discern the most moral course of action in his
life.

After his imprisonment ended, he resumed his personal quest for
purification and truth. He ends his autobiography by admitting that he
continues to experience and fight with "the dormant passion" that lie
within his own soul. He felt ready to continue the long and difficult path of
taming those passions and putting himself last among his fellow human
beings, the only way to achieve salvation, according to him.