A Brilliantly Woven Narrative, With Facts As The Warp And Imagination As The Weft . . . Kakar'S Is A Marvellous Effort To Peel Away The Layers Surrounding Gandhi'-Hindu It Is 1925 And India'S Struggle For Independence Is In Disarray, Impeded By Factionalism Among Its Leaders And Rising Incidents Of Communal Disharmony Across The Country. Meanwhile, Having Withdrawn Himself From Active Politics, Bapu-Mahatma Gandhi-Is In The Sabarmati Ashram In Gujarat, Immersed In The Creation Of An Ideal Community That Is Dedicated To The Highest Standards Of Self-Discipline, Tolerance And Austerity. Into This World Comes Madeleine Slade, The Daughter Of A British Admiral, Who Has Set Her Heart On Becoming Bapu'S Greatest Disciple. Bapu Embraces Her Into The Fold And, As She Becomes An Indispensable Part Of The Ashram And His Life, Renames Her Mira After Mirabai, The Legendary Devotee Of Krishna. But It Is Not Long Before Mira'S All-Consuming Desire To Serve Bapu Transforms Into A Desperate Need To Be Close To Him At All Times And Clashes Head-On With The Exacting Moral And Spiritual Codes He Has Laid Down For Himself And Those Around Him. And As The Self-Doubting Mahatma, Seeking To Distance Himself From Mira Yet Loath To Let Go Of Her Love, Wrestles With His Inner Phantoms, Mira'S Life Begins To Take Another Dramatic Turn . . .

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.

This is a new release of the original 1960 edition.

It Is 1925 And India'S Struggle For Independence Is In Disarray, Impeded By Factionalism Among Its Leaders And Rising Incidents Of Communal Disharmony Across The Country. Meanwhile, Having Withdrawn Himself From Active Politics, The Mahatma Is In The Sabarmati Ashram In Gujarat, Immersed In What He Considers The Most Important Undertaking Of His Life: The Creation Of An Ideal Community That Is Dedicated To The Highest Standards Of Self-Discipline, Tolerance And Austerity. Into This World Comes Madeline Slade, The Daughter Of A British Admiral, Who Has Set Her Heart On Being Bapu'S Greatest Disciple. Thus Begins An Extraordinary Association Between Two Individuals Driven By Distinct Passions. For Gandhi, True Spirituality Lies In `Self-Rule' A Mastery Of The Self That Liberates The Being From All Forms Of Craving, Physical And Emotional And Total Dedication To Practical Work In Service Of Society; Mira, As Gandhi Renames Madeline, Believes That The Path To Ultimate Truth And Perfection Is Complete Surrender To The Human Embodiment Of The Eternal Spirit, And This She Perceives In Gandhi Himself. It Is Not Long Before Mira'S All-Consuming Desire To Serve Bapu Translates Into A Desperate Need To Be Close To Him At All Times And Clashes Head On With The Exacting Moral And Spiritual Codes He Has Laid Down For Himself And Those Around Him. And As The Self-Doubting Mahatma, Seeking To Distance Himself From Mira Yet Loath To Let Go Of Her Love, Wrestles With His Inner Phantoms, Mira'S Life Begins To Take Another Dramatic Turn... In His Bold, Fictionalized Exploration Of This Complex And Tumultuous Relationship, Sudhir Kakar Displays Once Again His Skill At Handling Delicate Material With Remarkable Sensitivity, Instinctive Empathy And High Imagination.

A highly original, stirring book on Mahatma Gandhi that deepens our sense of his achievements and disappointments—his success in seizing India’s imagination and shaping its independence struggle as a mass movement, his recognition late in life that few of his followers paid more than lip service to his ambitious goals of social justice for the country’s minorities, outcasts, and rural poor. “A revelation. . . . Lelyveld has restored human depth to the Mahatma.”—Hari Kunzru, The New York Times Pulitzer Prize–winner Joseph Lelyveld shows in vivid, unmatched detail how Gandhi’s sense of mission, social values, and philosophy of nonviolent resistance were shaped on another subcontinent—during two decades in South Africa—and then tested by an India that quickly learned to revere him as a Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” while following him only a small part of the way to the social transformation he envisioned. The man himself emerges as one of history’s most remarkable self-creations, a prosperous lawyer who became an ascetic in a loincloth wholly dedicated to political and social action. Lelyveld leads us step-by-step through the heroic—and tragic—last months of this selfless leader’s long campaign when his nonviolent efforts culminated in the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan, and a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing that ended only with his own assassination. India and its politicians were ready to place Gandhi on a pedestal as “Father of the Nation” but were less inclined to embrace his teachings. Muslim support, crucial in his rise to leadership, soon waned, and the oppressed untouchables—for whom Gandhi spoke to Hindus as a whole—produced their own leaders. Here is a vital, brilliant reconsideration of Gandhi’s extraordinary struggles on two continents, of his fierce but, finally, unfulfilled hopes, and of his ever-evolving legacy, which more than six decades after his death still ensures his place as India’s social conscience—and not just India’s.

‘A narrative of startling originality ... As discussions of Britain’s colonial legacy become increasingly polarised, we are in ever more need of nuanced books like this one’ SAM DALRYMPLE, SPECTATOR ‘Fascinating and provocative’ LITERARY REVIEW