The Woman Beside Gandhi is a biography of Kasturba, wife of the Mahatma. Though there are countless references to her in the voluminous works by and about Gandhi, Kasturba remains virtually unknown. And yet it was she who stood up to him, was his teacher in non-violent resistance and the compassionate mainstay of his austerely demanding ashrams. And yet again it was Kasturba, appointed by Gandhi to be the leader of women's resistance, who by her own example, her speeches and her tireless rounds of towns and villages, motivated women by the thousands to make rapid, radical changes in their restricted personal lives and participate in mass civil disobedience for freedom. Seeing Kasturba go fearlessly to prison in South Africa and several times in India, so inspired and empowered women, that they too went to prison, fighting for their cause. The touching stories of these unknown, unheralded women are here in this book, filling an important vacuum in the world of letters especially as it pertains to women's emancipation. Three trips to India, meetings with over 200 people who knew Kasturba in person, and a great deal of research through books and places unvisited by other scholars, has gone into the writing of this ground-breaking biography. Sita Kapadia takes the reader with Kasturba, the child bride, and her boy husband from small towns to three continents, through ashrams and prisons. Combining diligent research with engaging interviews in a free-flowing and vibrant narrative, Kapadia shows how bravely and selflessly Kasturba lived her life, unlike anyone else's in the annals of human history. Gandhian scholar Dennis Dalton calls it a unique and superlative biography.

Manu Gandhi, M.K. Gandhi’s grand-niece, joined him in 1943 at the age of fifteen. An aide to Gandhi’s ailing wife Kasturba in the Aga Khan Palace prison in Pune, Manu remained with him until his assassination. She was a partner in his final yajna, an experiment in Brahmacharya, and his invocation of Rama at the moment of his death. Spanning two volumes, The Diary of Manu Gandhi is a record of her life and times with M.K. Gandhi between 1943 and 1948. Authenticated by Gandhi himself, the meticulous and intimate entries in the diary throw light on Gandhi’s life as a prisoner and his endeavour to establish the possibility of collective non-violence. They also offer a glimpse into his ideological conflicts, his efforts to find his voice, and his lonely pilgrimage to Noakhali during the riots of 1946. The first volume (1943–44) chronicles the spiritual and educational pursuits of an adolescent woman who takes up writing as a mode of self-examination. The author shares a moving portrait of Kasturba Gandhi’s illness and death and also unravels the deep emotional bond she develops with Gandhi, whom she calls her ‘mother’.

Rajmohan Gandhi's book on Mahatma Gandhi has created a controversy mainly because one of the chapters is devoted to Gandhiji's relations with Saraladevi Choudharani whom he called his spiritual wife. Girja Kumar gives a more vivid characterisation of this relationship in his book which was released last year. This book, in fact, gives an authentic account of the Mahatma's relations with various other women associates and the repercussions these romantic liaisons produced on those close to him, including 'Ba' (Kasturba Gandhi).The book is ready to go into reprint and the paperback edition will shortly hit the stands. A Hindi edition is also coming up.

Ved Mehta's brilliant Mahatma Gandhi and his Apostles provides an unparalleled portrait of the man who lead India out of its colonial past and into its modern form. Travelling all over India and the rest of the world, Mehta gives a nuanced and complex, yet vividly alive, portrait of Gandhi and of those men and women who were inspired by his actions.