Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: I am an ordinary man India’s struggle for freedom (1914–1948)
- New Delhi: Aleph Book Company, 2023.
- xi,443p.: ill.; pbk.: 22cm
historical Poona Pact is signed, in which Gandhi’s proposal for reserved seats within a common electorate is accepted by Ambedkar. Gandhi starts the English journal Harijan, with Gujarati and Hindi versions. It is during these years that he undertakes an extensive all-India Harijan tour, both to abolish untouchability and to collect funds for the upliftment of the most disadvantaged. The Indian National Congress, meanwhile, is in turmoil over the presidency of the party as the world lurches towards war. In Book 4 (1940–48), we see civil disobedience revived. The debate with Jinnah on his demand for Pakistan intensifies. The Direct Action Day called by Jinnah on 16 August 1946 leads to riots and Hindus and Muslims dead in their hundreds. Kasturba, Gandhi’s lifelong companion, dies, leaving him bereft. Despite all the privations, setbacks, and tragedies he has had to endure, the last year of his life sees Gandhi at his greatest—courting danger, death, and determined to quell violence and strife as he fights for freedom from British rule. I Am an Ordinary Man (this is how Gandhi described himself at a Congress meeting in Madras on 30 January 1946) is the extraordinary account of Gandhi’s life in his own words—his political philosophies, convictions, doubts, and determinations, as well as personal struggles—against the huge canvas of India’s struggle for independence.