Gandhi Before India

688 Pages·2012·4.08 MB·English

by  Ramachandra Guha

RAMACHANDRA GUHA

GANDHI

BEFORE INDIA
Contents
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Maps
Prologue: Gandhi from All Angles
1 Middle Caste, Middle Rank
2 Among the Vegetarians
3 From Coast to Coast
4 A Barrister in Durban
5 Travelling Activist
6 Lawyer-Loyalist
7 White Against Brown
8 Pluralist and Puritan
9 Trouble in the Transvaal
10 A Lobbyist in London
11 From Conciliation to Confrontation
12 To Jail
13 A Tolstoyan in Johannesburg
14 Prisoner of Conscience
15 Big Little Chief
16 The Contest of Civilizations
17 Seeking a Settlement
18 A Son Departs, a Mentor Arrives
19 A Physician at Phoenix
20 Breaking Boundaries
21 Farewell to Africa
22 How the Mahatma Was Made
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
A Note on Sources
Notes
Follow Penguin
Copyright Page
for E. S. Reddy
Indian patriot, South African democrat, friend and
mentor to Gandhi scholars of all nationalities
List of Illustrations
1. The home in Porbandar where Mohandas Gandhi was born.
2. The home in Porbandar where Mohandas Gandhi was born.
3. The school in Rajkot.
4. Mohandas's father, Karamchand (Kaba) Gandhi.
5. Mohandas's mother Putlibai.
6. Mohandas, in traditional Kathiawari dress.
7. The Jain scholar Raychandbhai.
8. Gandhi as a successful lawyer in Durban, c. 1898.
9. Kasturba Gandhi and children, c. 1899.
10. A front page of Indian Opinion.
11. Gandhi's closest adviser: the Jewish radical Henry Polak.
12. Gandhi's closest adviser: the Gujarati patriot Pranjivan Mehta.
13. Gandhi's most devoted assistant: his secretary Sonja Schlesin.
14. Gandhi's most devoted assistant: Hermann Kallenbach.
15. The great European who loomed large in Gandhi's life in South Africa: his principal adversary,
the Boer general Jan Christian Smuts.
16. Another great European who loomed large in Gandhi's life in South Africa: Leo Tolstoy.
17. Gandhi in 1909.
18. Gandhi's staunchest supporter: the Johannesburg merchant A. M. Cachalia.
19. Gandhi's staunchest supporter: the English vegetarian Albert West.
20. Gandhi's staunchest supporter: the Tamil radical Thambi Naidoo.
21. Gandhi’s staunchest supporter: Durban merchant Parsee Rustomjee.
22. Millie Graham Polak.
23. Gandhi’s son Harilal.
24. Maganlal Gandhi.
25. Chhaganlal Gandhi.
26. Contemporary cartoon of the satyagraha in the Transvaal.
27. Joseph Doke.
28. Leung Quinn.
29. Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Ratan Tata.
30. Thambi Naidoo in 1913.
31. Gandhi, early 1914.
All images are reproduced by kind permission of the Sabarmati Ashram Archives, Ahmedabad,
apart from the following: Images 1 and 2 by kind permission of the Nehru Memorial Museum
and Library Image 3 by kind permission of Iravati Guha Image 17 by kind permission of E. S.
Reddy Image 29 by kind permission of the Tata Central Archives Image 15 reproduced by
permission of Getty Images Image 16 reproduced by permission of Corbis Images

I understand more clearly today what I read long ago about the inadequacy of autobiography as
history. I know that I do not set down in this story all that I remember. Who can say how much I must
give and how much omit in the interests of truth? … If some busybody were to cross-examine me on
the chapters already written, he could probably shed much more light on them, and if it were a
hostile critic’s cross-examination, he might even flatter himself for having shown up the ‘hollowness
of many of my pretensions’.
M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography,
or the Story of My Experiments with Truth