Gandhi

by Ramachandra Guha

7. Letter dated 21 April 1926, CWMG, XXX, p. 337.

  8. Gandhi to Manilal Gandhi, 3 April 1926, CWMG, XXX, p. 229; Mesthrie, Gandhi’s Prisoner?, pp. 175–77.

  9. CWMG, XXXII, pp. 564–67.

  10. Gandhi to G.D. Birla, 4 December 1926, CWMG, XXXIII, p. 387.

  11. ‘The Ten Greatest Living Indians’, Indian National Herald, 21 December 1926.

  12. CWMG, XXXII, pp. 445, 450.

  13. Jordens, Swami Shraddhananda, pp. 166–67.

  14. CWMG, XXXII, pp. 451–54.

  15. ‘Letter to Ashram Women’, 27 December 1926, CWMG, XXXII, p. 464.

  16. ‘Speech at Bettiah’, 23 January 1927, CWMG, XXXIII, p. 3

  17. ‘Tear Down the Purdah’, YI, 3 February 1927, CWMG, XXXIII, pp. 44–45.

  18. Gandhi to Manilal, 8 February 1927; Gandhi to Sushilabehn Mashruwala, 13 February 1927, CWMG, XXXIII, pp. 55–56, 73–75.

  19. ‘Silence Day note to Manilal Gandhi’, 7 March 1927, CWMG, XXXIII, p. 148.

  20. ‘A Revolutionary’s Defence’, YI, 12 February 1925, CWMG, XXVI, pp. 136–41.

  21. See Sehri Saklatvala, The Fifth Commandment: A Biography of Shapurji Saklatvala (Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1996).

  22. See IAR, 1927, Volume I, pp. 63–68; Sehri Saklatvala, The Fifth Commandment, pp. 292–93.

  23. CWMG, XXXIII, pp. 163–66. Interestingly, while criticizing Gandhi in public, in private Saklatvala appealed to him to use his influence with the Tatas to release the pension due to the communist from his days working with the firm. See Shapurji Saklatvala to Anasuya Sarabhai, 16 April 1927, SN 124941, SAAA.

  24. CWMG, XXXIII, pp. 209–10, 489.

  25. See Rajagopalachari’s letter to Mahadev Desai, 17 April 1927, copy in Devadas Gandhi Papers, NMML.

  26. The most informative biography of Ambedkar remains Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission (first published in 1954; third edition, Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1971).

  27. CWMG, XXXIII, pp. 267–68.

  28. These letters are quoted in P.D. Tandon, The Unforgettable Nehru (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 2003), pp. 67–68.

  29. Gandhi to Motilal Nehru, 14 May 1927, CWMG, XXXIII, pp. 320–21.

  30. Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru, 25 May 1927, CWMG, XXXIII, pp. 364–65.

  31. Jawaharlal Nehru to Gandhi, 22 April 1927, SN 12572, SAAA.

  32. Gandhi to Motilal Nehru, 19 June 1927, CWMG, XXXIV, pp. 30–31.

  33. Gandhi to M.A. Ansari, 10 August 1927, CWMG, XXXIV, pp. 304–05.

  34. Katherine Mayo, Mother India (first published in 1927; thirty-third printing, New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1931), p. 11.

  35. Ibid., p. 5f.

  36. Ibid., p. 16.

  37. Ibid., p. 22.

  38. Ibid., pp. 300, 378.

  39. Mrinalini Sinha, ‘Editor’s Introduction’, in Selections from Mother India (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998), p. 37.

  40. Lajpat Rai’s book first appeared as a series of articles in the Bombay Chronicle in October 1927. See File 715 of 1927, Home (Special), MSA.

  41. BC, 24 October 1927.

  42. Letter written to the Manchester Guardian by Rabindranath Tagore, reproduced in ToI, 7 October 1927.

  43. Sinha, ‘Editor’s Introduction’, in Selections from Mother India, p. 2. These rejoinders included a twelve-part series called ‘The Facts about India: A Reply to Miss Mayo’, by Gandhi’s and Tagore’s friend C.F. Andrews, published in Young India between May and August 1928.

  44. ‘Drain Inspector’s Report’, YI, 15 September 1927, CWMG, XXXIV, 529–37 (emphases added).

  45. CWMG, XXXV, pp. 98–99, 112.

  46. Gandhi to Prabhashankar Pattani, 8 November 1927; Gandhi to C.F. Andrews, 11 November 1927, CWMG, XXXV, pp. 223, 227–28.

  47. Quoted in the Earl of Birkenhead, Halifax: The Life of Lord Halifax (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965), pp. 246–47.

  48. Handy S. Perinpanayagam to Gandhi, 28 July 1927, in Gopalkrishna Gandhi, editor, Gandhi and Sri Lanka, 1905–1947 (Ratmalana, Sri Lanka: Vishva Lekha Publishers, 2002), pp. 25–26.

  49. Mahadev Desai, With Gandhiji in Ceylon (Madras: S. Ganesan, 1928), pp. 3–4, 31–32.

  50. Report in the Ceylon Independent, 28 November 1927, in Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Gandhi and Sri Lanka, p. 242.

  51. Ibid., p. 265.

  52. CWMG, XXXV, pp. 324–27.

  53. Desai, With Gandhiji in Ceylon, pp. 3–4, pp. 155–59.

  54. CWMG, XXXV, pp. 265–66.

  55. Gandhi to Surendra [Medh?], 28 November 1927, CWMG, XXXV, pp. 339–40.

  56. As recalled by Devadas and Lakshmi’s eldest son, Rajmohan Gandhi, in a talk in Bangalore in 2007.

  57. See IAR, 1927, Volume I, pp. 90–93.

  58. Shaukat Ali to Gandhi, letters of 4 March and 11 July 1927, SNs 12566 and 12604, SAAA.

  59. IAR, 1927, Volume II, pp. 39ff.

  60. File G-64, AICC Papers, First Instalment, NMML.

  61. ‘Hindu–Muslim Unity’, YI, 1 December 1927, CWMG, XXXV, pp. 352–54.

  62. CWMG, XXXV, pp. 420–21, 538–39.

  63. See IAR, 1927, Volume 2, pp. 98–99, 384–86.

  64. See Jawaharlal Nehru, Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (Allahabad: Allahabad Law Journal Press, 1928).

  65. Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru, 4 January 1928, CWMG, XXXV, pp. 432–33.

  66. Nehru to Gandhi, 11 January 1928, CWMG, XXXV, pp. 540–44.

  67. Gandhi to Nehru, 17 January 1928, CWMG, XXXV, pp. 467–68.

  Chapter Twelve: The Moralist

  1. See GBI, pp. 55–56, 86–87, 140–42, etc.

  2. CWMG, XXXII, p. 96.

  3. Ibid., pp. 115–16, 123, 146.

  4. Ibid., pp. 224, 366.

  5. Ibid., pp. 132–34.

  6. Ibid., pp. 153–55, 164.

  7. Ibid., p. 141.

  8. Ibid., p. 366.

  9. Mahadev Desai, The Gospel of Selfless Action, or the Gita According to Gandhi (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press, 1946), pp. 18, 4.

  10. ‘Crime of Reading Bible’, YI, 2 September 1926, CWMG, XXXI, pp. 350–51.

  11. CWMG, XXXV, pp. 461–62.

  12. As described by Mahadev Desai, writing in YI, 19 January 1928.

  13. See Ramachandra Guha, Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, His Tribals, and India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 37–38.

  14. CWMG, XXXVI, pp. 136–37.

  15. See CWMG, Volume XXXII, pp. 512–16, 586–88.

  16. See CWMG, XXXI, pp. 486–87, 506–07, 541; XXXII, pp. 15–17.

  17. ‘When Killing May Be Ahimsa’, YI, 4 October 1928, CWMG, XXXVII, pp. 310–12.

  18. ‘The Tangle of Ahimsa’, YI, 11 October 1928; ‘A Conundrum’, YI, 18 October 1928, CWMG, XXXVII, pp. 338–39, 360–61 (emphasis added).

  19. Gandhi to C. Rajagopalachari, 21 October 1928, CWMG, XXXVII, p. 386.

  20. ‘Speech to Students of Satyagraha Ashram, Ahmedabad’, c. July 1920, CWMG, XVII, pp. 535–39.

  21. CWMG, XXIX, pp. 270, 289–91.

  22. See CWMG, XXXIV, pp. 371–74.

  Chapter Thirteen: The Memoirist

  1. I am grateful to Gopalkrishna Gandhi for this point.

  2. On the writing and reception of Hind Swaraj, see GBI, Chapter XVI.

  3. CWMG, XXXI, p. 491.

  4. The fifty or more languages the autobiography has appeared in range from Swedish to Swahili, and from Tibetan to Turkish. Gopalkrishna Gandhi, ‘Gandhi’s Autobiography: The Story of Translators’ Experiments with the Text’, a talk at the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, October 2008.

  5. Satyagraha in South Africa (first published in 1928; reprint Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1972), p. 5.

  6. Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 33.


  7. Ibid., p. 94.

  8. Ibid., p. 123.

  9. Ibid., p. 132.

  10. Ibid., p. 258.

  11. Ibid., p. 168.

  12. Ibid., p. 307.

  13. I am here adapting terms first used by Clifford Geertz in his Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988). Geertz distinguishes between three types of narratives: ‘author-evacuated’, ‘author-saturated’ and ‘author-supersaturated’. I have added a fourth category, ‘author-inflected’, logically placed between the first and the second.

  14. Autobiography, Part I, Chapter II.

  15. Ibid., Part II, Chapter III.

  16. Ibid., Part II, Chapter XXII.

  17. Ibid., Part III, Chapter VIII.

  18. Ibid., Part IV, Chapter X.

  19. Ibid., Part IV, Chapter XXIII.

  20. Ibid., Part V, Chapter I.

  21. Ibid., Part IV, Chapters XXX and XXXI; Part V, Chapter XXIX.

  22. Ibid., Part V, Chapter XXVI.

  23. H.S.L. Polak to Mahadev Desai, 19 March 1928, SN 13590, SAAA; Gandhi to H.S.L. Polak, 12 October 1928, CWMG, XXXVIII, p. 356.

  24. See Sonja Schlesin to Manilal Gandhi, 1 October 1928, SN 15047, SAAA.

  25. Sonja Schlesin to Gandhi, 4 May 1928, SN 15039, SAAA (emphasis in the original).

  26. Sonja Schlesin to Gandhi, 15 June 1928, SN 15041, SAAA.

  27. Gandhi to Manilal Gandhi, 15 July 1928, CWMG, XXXVII, pp. 65–66 (emphasis in the original).

  28. Gandhi to Jane Howard, 12 March 1928, CWMG, XXXVI, p. 101.

  29. C. Rajagopalachari to Mahadev Desai, 6 February 1926, Subject File, No. 46, C. Rajagopalachari Papers, Fourth Instalment, NMML.

  30. ‘The Supreme Egotist’, ToI,10 April 1929.

  31. ‘A Saint on His Case’, The China Press (Shanghai), 16 February 1930.

  32. Gandhi to Niranjan Singh, 12 May 1928, CWMG, XXXVI, p. 310.

  33. Holmes to Gandhi, letters of 14 April and 13 May 1926, SNs 32219 and 32222, SAAA.

  34. Gandhi to F.H. Brown, 25 May 1928, CWMG, XXXVI, p. 337.

  35. Autobiography, last, unnumbered chapter entitled ‘Farewell’.

  36. Sun (Baltimore), 15 May 1928.

  37. See SN 14305, SAAA.

  38. Report in the Manchester Guardian, 14 January 1929.

  39. See C.F. Andrews to Gandhi, 2 August 1928, SN 14369, SAAA.

  Chapter Fourteen: Once More into the Fray

  1. CWMG, XXXV, pp. 499–500.

  2. Gandhi to N.R. Malkani, 8 February 1928, CWMG, XXXVI, p. 12.

  3. Edward Cadogan, The India We Saw (London: John Murray, 1933), pp. 10, 19–20, 25, 64–66, 75, 119, 132–33, 161–65, 192.

  4. This account of the Simon Commission debate in the Legislative Assembly is based on IAR, 1928, Volume 1, pp. 186–201.

  5. See reports in Home (Special) File 584-E, Part I of 1928, MSA.

  6. Reports in BC, 10 March and 2 April 1928.

  7. BC, 30 April 1928.

  8. See reports in Home (Special) File 584-E, Part I of 1928, MSA; Mahadev Desai, The Story of Bardoli: Being a History of the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928 and Its Sequel (first published in 1929; reprint Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1957).

  9. ‘The Only Issue’, YI, 17 May 1928; ‘Bardoli on Trial’, YI, 31 May 1928; ‘The Yajna at Bardoli’, N, 10 June 1928, CWMG, XXXVI, pp. 319–22, 353–54, 384–86. These methods of managing conflict and suppressing dissent are traditionally ascribed to the great political theorist of ancient India, Kautilya.

  10. Mirabehn to Devadas Gandhi, 19 July 1928, Devadas Gandhi Papers, NMML.

  11. N.R. Malkani, Ramblings and Reminiscences of Gandhiji (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1972), p. 129.

  12. Gandhi to L.W. Ritch, 27 February 1928, CWMG, XXXVI, pp. 60–61.

  13. ‘My Best Comrade Gone’, YI, 26 April 1928, CWMG, XXXVI, pp. 261–63.

  14. CWMG, XXXVII, p. 35.

  15. Reports in Home (Special) File 584-E, Part V of 1928, MSA: ToI, 24 July 1938.

  16. Bombay Government note dated 28 July 1928, in Home (Special) File 584-E, Part VIII of 1928, MSA.

  17. Bombay Government note dated 31 July 1928, in ibid.

  18. BC, 7 August 1928; ToI, 7 October 1928.

  19. Police report dated 12 August 1928, in Home (Special) File 584-E, Part V of 1928, MSA.

  20. Desai, The Story of Bardoli, p. 219.

  21. Letter of 19 February 1929, in Mss Eur F 150/1, APAC/BL.

  22. All Parties Conference 1928: Report of the Committee Appointed by the Conference to Determine the Principles of the Constitution of India (Allahabad: All India Congress Committee, 1928), pp. 71–72.

  23. Ibid., p. 18.

  24. Ibid., Chapters II, III, VII and VIII.

  25. Gandhi to Motilal Nehru, 21 August 1928, CWMG, XXXVII, p. 194.

  26. Gandhi to B.G. Horniman, 28 August 1928, CWMG, XXXVII, p. 212.

  27. C.F. Andrews to Gandhi, 3 August 1928, SN 14370, SAAA.

  28. These paragraphs are based on reports and posters in File 143-K-VIII of 1928, Home (Special), MSA.

  29. IAR, 1928, Volume 2, pp. 94–95.

  30. ‘The Assault on Lalaji’, N, 4 November 1928; ‘The Inevitable’, YI, 8 November 1928; CWMG, XXXVIII, pp. 16–17.

  31. CWMG, XXXVIII, p. 65.

  32. Lord Irwin (Viceroy) to Frederick Sykes (Governor of Bombay), 15 December 1928, Mss Eur F 150/1, APAC/BL.

  33. Gandhi to Motilal Nehru, 15 July 1928, CWMG, XXXVII, p. 64.

  34. Ibid., p. 69.

  35. ‘Crown of Thorns’, YI, 26 July 1928, CWMG, XXXVII, pp. 91–92.

  36. Subhas C. Bose to Gandhi, 26 July 1928, SN 13650, SAAA.

  37. Saiyid Haidar Raza to Gandhi, Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, 6 June 1928, SN 14322, SAAA.

  38. See Narayani Gupta, Delhi Between Empires, 1803–1931: Society, Government and Urban Growth (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 149–51.

  39. http://hosted.law.wisc.edu/​wordpress/​sharafi/​files/​2010/​07/​Middle-5.01.pdf (accessed on 7 April 2015).

  40. Shaukat Ali to Gandhi, 16 July 1928, SN 13465, SAAA.

  41. Gandhi to Shaukat Ali, letters of 18 July and 3 August 1928, CWMG, XXXVII, pp. 69–71, 121.

  42. Shaukat Ali to Gandhi, 25 November 1928, SN 13733, SAAA.

  43. Gandhi to Shaukat Ali, 30 November 1928, CWMG, XXXVIII, pp. 129–32.

  44. ‘Curse of Assassination’, YI, 27 December 1928, CWMG, XXXVIII, pp. 274–76.

  45. CWMG, XXXVIII, p. 271.

  46. See A.R. Venkatachalapathy, ‘Street Smart in Chennai: The City in Popular Imagination’, in C.S. Lakshmi, The Unhurried City: Writings on Chennai (Delhi: Penguin India, 2004).

  Chapter Fifteen: Father, Son, Holy Spirit

  1. Entry for 8 April 1929, Diary of Lady Haig (wife of Harry Haig, then Home Secretary, Government of India), in the Haig Papers, Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge.

  2. http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org/​biography/​c8.htm (accessed on 8 April 1929).

  3. CWMG, XL, pp. 223, 259–61.

  4. See IAR, 1929, Volume 1, pp. 78–80.

  5. CWMG, XL, pp. 262–63, 317–18, 359–60, 380–81, 411, 432–33, etc.

  6. Gandhi to Mirabehn, 6 May 1929, CWMG, XL, pp. 346–47.

  7. ‘In Andhra Desa (VII)’, YI, 30 May 1929, CWMG, XL, pp. 346–47.

  8. See Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, The Scope of Happiness: A Personal Memoir (1979; reprint Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1981), pp. 57–58.

  9. Jawaharlal Nehru to Gandhi, 13 July 1929, SN 15428, SAAA.

  10. Cf. Michael Brecher, Nehru: A Political Biography (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), Chapter V and passim.

  11. See Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography: Volume One, 1889–1947 (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 126–27.
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  12. Qamar Ahmad to Gandhi, 3 February 1929, SN 15323, SAAA.

  13. See IAR, 1929, Volume 1, pp. 362–66; Volume 2, pp. 350–52.

  14. See Subject File 1, M.A. Ansari Papers, NMML.

  15. Motilal Nehru to Gandhi, 14 September 1929, Personal Correspondence Files, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  16. Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru, 7 August 1929, CWMG, XLI, p. 256.

  17. ‘Interview with Mr. Jinnah’, YI, 15 August 1929, CWMG, XLI, p. 289.

  18. CWMG, XLI, pp. 351–53.

  19. CWMG, XLII, pp. 220–21.

  20. See http://cinnamonteal.in/​authors/​salima-tyabji/ (accessed on 9 April 2015).

  21. ‘Position of Women’, 17 October 1929, CWMG, XLII, pp. 4–6.

  22. ‘Letter to Ashram Women’, 21 October 1929, CWMG, XLII, p. 27.

  23. IAR, 1929, Volume 2, pp. 47–49.

  24. Sarojini Naidu to Gandhi, 9 November 1929, SN 15567, SAAA.

  25. Polak to Gandhi, 5 December 1929, Personal Correspondence Files, Gandhi Papers, 1st and 2nd Instalments, NMML.

  26. Polak to Gandhi, 12 December 1929, SN 16211, SAAA.

  27. News report in TT, 3 December 1929.

  28. Front page report in TT, 25 December 1929.

  29. ‘Minutes of conversation between His Excellency the Viceroy and Mr. Gandhi, Pandit Motilal Nehru, Sir T.B. Sapru, Mr. Jinnah and Mr. Patel on 23rd December 1929’, in Subject File No. 57, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  30. Report in TT, 26 December 1929.

  31. Report in TT, 27 December 1929.

  32. TT, issues of 14 and 27 December 1929.

  33. IAR, 1929, Volume 2, pp. 288–97.

  34. CWMG, XLII, p. 320.

  35. IAR, 1929, Volume 2, pp. 298ff.

  Chapter Sixteen: The March to the Sea

  1. CWMG, XLII, p. 313. (The translation, from the original Hindi, has been slightly modified to make it more accurate.)

  2. ‘The Cult of the Bomb’, YI, 2 January 1930, CWMG, XLII, pp. 361–64.

  3. The Hindustan Socialist Republican Association Manifesto’, pamphlet printed c. January 1930, signed by Kartar Singh, President of HSRA, Subject File No. 57, M.K. Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  4. For a fine historical analysis of these Indian revolutionaries and their attitude to Gandhi, see Kama Maclean, A Revolutionary History of Interwar India: Violence, Image, Voice and Text (London: C. Hurst and Co., 2015).