Wordpress get user biography of mahatma gandhi

A good portion of Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles is a pretty straightforward biography. As such it’s quite well done. It hits the major events of Gandhi’s life, is well-written, is intelligent and insightful in its commentary on Gandhi, and is neither unsatisfyingly hagiographic nor revisionist.

One interesting thing I noticed about the biographical material is how much it overlaps with the epic Richard Attenborough movie Gandhi, which came out five years or so after this book. I don’t just mean that in the sense that a biographical movie is bound to hit a lot of the same events as a written biography since they’re about the same life and there is typically some consensus amongst biographers as to the most important events of that life. I’ve read many biographies of Gandhi in my life—most of which were better known, longer and more thorough, more likely to be identified as the “standard” or “definitive” biography of Gandhi, etc.—yet in reading none of those did I have even half as many “Oh hey, that’s just like in the movie!” moments as I had reading this one. It’s as if the screenwriters used this book as their primary source on Gandhi’s life—if so I’d be surprised, as I have no idea why they’d choose this one—or maybe it’s a coincidence.

But anyway, in spite of how much of this book functions as a biography, I really don’t see Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles as primarily a biography. Maybe that’s because I have indeed read so many biographies of Gandhi, and so my attention was naturally drawn more to the parts of this book that don’t go over the same ground I’ve been over numerous times.

There are two ways in which what Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles offers goes beyond the typical biography, both of which make use of the perspective provided by the fact that about 25 years passed between Gandhi’s death and when author Ved Mehta put this book together.

One, Mehta describes the India of the 1970s in terms of whether and how Gandhi’s influence surv

I’m a big ol’ Gandhi fan, so I was intrigued to learn about this new biography that’s so controversial it’s been banned in some parts of India. It’s a big, hefty biography that devotes as much time to Gandhi’s early career in South Africa as to his better-known years in India leading the non-violent movement for independence there. It’s also very much what they call a “warts and all” biography rather than hagiography: Gandhi is presented as a real man with struggles, flaws and failures.

The controversy has come almost entirely from a tiny portion of the book in which Lelyveld argues that Gandhi’s relationship with his friend Hermann Kallenbach had a romantic and perhaps even sexual element (though the sexuality was doubtless repressed, since Gandhi was obsessive on the subject of celibacy). Frankly, given that everybody already knew that in later life Gandhi used to “test” his celibacy by sleeping next to his scantily-clad young niece, I can’t imagine how the fact that he wrote coy, romantic letters to a close male friend is such a shocker. The guy obviously had his quirks and kinks, which were probably made quirkier and kinkier by his insistence on denying any legitimate sexual outlet. The fact that “Oooh, Gandhi might have been a bit gay” is enough to get this book banned, really says more about homophobia than it does about either Mohandas Gandhi or Joseph Lelyveld.

What really should be troubling here, for those who admire Gandhi, is not his close relationship with Kallenbach but the analysis of the many ways in which he failed to live up to even his own principles. He’s definitely showed as a flawed leader, one who wasn’t always consistent in treating others (including black South Africans and Indian untouchables) as generously as you might expect. In Lelyveld’s analysis, while Gandhi did much to further the cause of Indian independence

Author : Justice C.S. Dharmadhikari

Special Feature-2 on Gandhi Jayanti

Mahatama Gandhi summed up his philosophy of life with the words, “My Life is my Message”. His multifarious and dynamic personality was based on truth and nothing but the truth. Non – violence was another intrinsic element of this philosophy.

At the All India Congress Committee meeting in Bombay on 8 August, 1942, that is, on the eve of Quit India Movement, Mahatma Gandhi declared, “I want to live full span of my life and according to me, the full span of life is 125 years. By that time, India will not only be free but the whole world will be free.

Today, I do not believe that Englishmen are free, I do not believe that Americans are free. They are free to do what? To hold other part of humanity in bondage? Are they fighting for their liberty? I am not arrogant. I am not a proud man. I know the distinction between pride, arrogance, insolence and so on. But what I am saying is, I believe, in the voice of God. It is the fundamental truth that I am telling you.”

Gandhi was the most normal of men. He was universal, such a man cannot be measured, weighed, or estimated. He is the measure of all things. Gandhi was not a philosopher, nor a politician. He was a humble seeker of truth. Truth unites, because it can be only one. You can cut a man’s head, but not his thoughts. Non – violence is the only other aspect of the sterling coin of truth. Non – violence is love, the very content of life.

In this principle of non–violence, Gandhi introduced technique of resistance to evil and untruth. His Satyagraha is inspired by boundless love and compassion. It is opposed to sin, not sinner, the evil, not evil doer. For him truth was God and in that sense he was man of God. Truth is not yours or mine. It is neither Western nor Eastern.

Gandhi’s prayer stands for invoking the inner strength of men for the good of one another, his spinning wheel for dignity of productive labour, and broomstick for

Graffiti of Mahatma Gnadhi, San Francisco, USA

I feel deep respect for Mahatma Gandhi, the only person in the history of this planet who defeated a great empire by adhering to the principles of strict non-violence. Gandhi managed to liberate India from British colonialism without firing a single bullet. In his book Non-Violent Resistance – Satyagraha, published in 1950, Mahatma Gandhi explained in great detail his philosphy and his fight for freedom. Gandhi defined Styagraha as “literally holding on o Truth and it means, therefore, Truth-force. Truth is soul or spirit. It is therefore, known as soul-force. It excludes the use of violence because man is not capable of knowing the absolute truth and, therefore, not competent to punish.” Here is an excerpt from his book: 

“I accept the interpretation of ahimsa [Sanskrit – nonviolence], namely, that it is not merely a negative state of harmlessness but it is a positive state of love, of doing good even to the evil-doer. But it does not mean helping evil-doer to continue the wrong or tolerating it with passive acquiescence [submitting or complying silently or without protest]. On the contrary, love, the active state of ahimsa, requires you to resist the wrong-doer by dissociating [disconnecting] yourself yourself from him even though it may offend him or injure him physically. Thus if my son lives a life of shame, I may not help him to do so by continuing to support him; on the contrary, my love for him requires me to withdraw all support from him although it may mean even his death. And the same love imposes on me obligation of welcoming him to my bosom when he repents. But I may not by physical force compel my son to become good. That in my opinion is the moral of the story of the Prodigal Son.”

Mahatma Gandhi became international symbol for nonviolence, in the same way how Che Guevara became international symbol of revolution. His real name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, w