Hasit nanda biography of mahatma

Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape "Donate to the archive" User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up Log in.

Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art. Internet Arcade Console Living Room. Mahatma Gandhi; a biography Bookreader Item Preview. It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help!

On the other hand, to Gandhi's ideals of a village-based economy only lip-service has been paid, by the same political dispensation, that undertook a massive industrialisation drive post independence, though, in all fairness, the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, always and quite publicly differed with Gandhi on this issue. In fact, what is often presented to the Indian public as Gandhian thought is only an oversimplified version of it, that creates misunderstandings and prevents people from truly appreciating the intellectual and, more importantly, ethical richness of Gandhian thought.

His only truly political work, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule does give an inkling of his political thought, but it is quite an early work written in and does not reflect the later developments he made to his theories of ahimsa, satyagraha etc. Nanda's biography fills an important lacuna in this regard, providing as it does an account of the interrelation between the development of Gandhi's philosophy and the material conditions that gave rise to them.

Beginning with an anecdote from when Gandhi was fourteen, that demonstrates quite splendidly how, even at that age, how concerned Gandhi was with uniting thought with deed, he traces the course of Gandhi's life, through the South African "laboratory" where Gandhi conducted his first experiments in satyagraha, the euphoria and subsequent dejection in the till then passive Indian public during the course of the Non-Cooperation Movement, the phenomenal response to the Civil Disobedience Movement, and the chaotic Quit India Movement, to the communal conflagrations ofthat orgy of violence that Gandhi tried everything in his power to stop, that ultimately culminated in his assassination on that fateful January day inand the quenching of the flames of violence finally with this great sacrifice of the apostle of nonviolence on the altar of violence.

The problem of writing the biography of such a personality, who inspired world leaders and religious figures alike, whose ideals lived on in movements like the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement and the American Civil Rights Movement, that have shaped both the world and the century we live in, whose omission from the list of Nobel Peace Prize awardees was called the single greatest omission by the organisation, is the risk of it turning into a hagiography instead.

Nanda skirts this pitfall quite adeptly, despite occasional lapses. For instance, during his discussion of the Harijan problem and the Poona Pact, he hardly dwells on the nuances of the Gandhi-Ambedkar debate and Ambedkar's critique of Hinduism.

Hasit nanda biography of mahatma

Again, discussing the events that led to Gandhi's "resignation" from the Congress inNanda deals with the growing divergence between the socialists within the Congress and Gandhi in one line, without elaborating the influence exercised by the right-wing of the Congress upon him. Nor does Nanda mention the problematic approach of Gandhi to the election and Presidentship of Subhas Chandra Bose during the Tripuri session of the Congress in Impressively enough, Nanda manages not to lose sight of Gandhi the man while discussing Gandhi the legend.

Texts Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape "Donate to the archive" User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest.