Summarizing a Biography of Mahatma Gandhi - Book Report/Review Example

Gandhi’s Passion: A Summary There is little doubt that Mahatma Gandhi has had a significant impact upon modern history, particularly as it applies to India, but also as it applies to the rest of the world as his ideas regarding peaceful protest helped inspire great leaders of other nations. Most people tend to think of him as an emaciated old man in traditional robes who seemed incredibly out of touch with the modern era. However, author Stanley Wolpert portrays a different Gandhi than this image depicts. In Gandhi’s Passions: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, Wolpert illustrates how Gandhi grew up knowing the life of privilege, purposely set out on a course of self-sacrifice and hardship and remained committed, through numerous internal and external trials, to his fundamental Hindu beliefs – that love could indeed conquer all – all of which contributed to his ability to change the world. The book begins with a brief introduction that analyzes Gandhi’s life as being one of “conscious courting of suffering” (3), which is what Wolpert means when he uses the term ‘passion’. Here, Wolpert introduces the thesis of his book, which is to prove that, “by recreating himself, through the power of his passion, in the humble, vulnerable image of India’s poorest starving naked millions, Gandhi would … call upon that unarmed ragged army, whose pain he mirrored and magnified in his own naked body, to follow him barefoot up India’s Via Dolorosa to freedom” (4). Wolpert explains how this concept, that links him with the ideals the Western world holds in the figure of Jesus Christ, was actually a founding principle of the Hindu faith thousands of years before Jesus’ birth. Through this passion, Wolpert argues, Gandhi was able to understand the troubles of the downtrodden, understand how they thought and what issues drove them. He was also able to call on their power of numbers when events demanded it, because they were aware of his position as being one of them. By offering this definition so early in the book, Wolpert is able to keep his readers focused on a single concept of what passion means as well as begin to see how it is traced out through the following sequences of Gandhi’s life. Deviating somewhat from the norm, Wolpert opens his first chapter not with the birth and childhood of Gandhi as might be expected, but rather with the evening of India’s independence less than a year before his death. In relating the various reasons why Gandhi was not sharing in the celebration, Wolpert illustrates how this independence came at a great cost in its division of India and its subsequent religious violence. This, of course, was what Gandhi had feared and had worked against his entire life, but at this point, he realized no one was listening to him and, furthermore, no one should listen to him if he could judge things so badly. Within this first chapter of the book, then, Wolpert provides the basic premise of Gandhi’s philosophy and teachings using Gandhi’s own words to sum them up in his advice to the new cabinet of West Bengal: “Strive ceaselessly to cultivate truth and non-violence. Be humble. Be forbearing … beware of power; power corrupts. Do not let yourselves be entrapped by its pomp and pageantry. Remember, you are in office to serve the poor in India’s villages” (12). Through the introduction and this first chapter, the reader is fully immersed in the philosophy of the book as well as the philosophy of Gandhi, even if the details haven’t yet been learned. It is to this issue that Wolpert finally turns in chapter 2. The first portion of the book details Gandhi’s early life, paying particular emphasis on those experiences that helped to modify and develop his growing peaceful ideology. The first of these incidents is reported as being a confession he wrote to his father after having stolen some gold from a brother’s armband to make restitution on debts incurred as a result of eating meat, which was against the family’s beliefs (Ch. 2). His early marriage as well as his early ‘wild’ days in India is recorded before his father’s death and his family’s determination that he would study law in London, which taught him the values of celibacy. His return home following his mother’s death was disappointing and removed his favorable impressions of British manners, but his experiences in South Africa were those that taught him the true nature of racism. “Gandhi had to travel to South Africa to experience one of life’s meanest, most irrational prejudices” (35). Through this basic background, it becomes clear that while Gandhi did not live a completely innocent life, having been at least on the periphery of the bachelor life, his early years taught him much not only about the world around him, but also about himself as he began to realize his harsh treatment of his wife and the ease with which he was able to allow power or influence to go to his head. While presenting a whirlwind account of Gandhi’s early life, it seems Wolpert is also emphasizing how Gandhi’s worldly endeavors were consistently marked by actions of which he was either not proud or could not bring himself to complete. Chapter 5 introduces the beginning of Gandhi’s struggles for equality among men. It is here that Wolpert presents the incident of Gandhi’s ‘first-class’ ticket from Durban to Pretoria in which he discovered racism first-hand to be blatant, wide-spread and irrespective of individual rights or status. This is presented as a turning point in Gandhi’s life as it is here also that he first becomes associated with the Indian community in Pretoria and begins his public work, emphasizing the peaceful resolution of disagreements. “Gandhi was later to call his first year in South Africa ‘a most valuable experience in my life.’ His public work was launched, and his religious spirit became ‘a living force’” (39). These were values he brought with him when he returned to India and attempted to become the family man he was expected to be. He examined the religion of his birth and callously denounced its corruptions, but he emerged as a leader of the Hindus nevertheless because of his steadfast vision and non-aggressive approach. As Wolpert continues to outline the major elements of Gandhi’s life, he illustrates how unique he was in opposing such concepts as untouchability, poverty and the schism between the Muslims and the Hindus. Although he seemed contradictory, Wolpert demonstrates how, even early in his career, Gandhi was committed to the concept of a strong India that had no need to use violence to accomplish its objectives. Toward this end, he reinterpreted the Hindu holy book the Bhagavad-Gita in terms of encouraging nonviolent resolution and concentration on self-awareness rather than the battle cry it had been understood to be. To be proud of themselves, he said, Indians needed to have a clear understanding of where they came from and a pride in their traditions, as well as a fresh identity based upon these new understandings of the dignity of their past. Rather than becoming a carbon-copy of the nations of the West, all of whom were busily vying for technological modern supremacy, Gandhi continued to urge small, self-sufficient villages as the only way to emerge with a single strong identity that was all about India rather than what the colonizers had made of it. Upon his return to South Africa, Gandhi became even more immersed in his public service activities, eventually determining that having a wife and children to be concerned with was preventing him from doing all that he felt he should in helping the poor and his other activities. Following government action that further restricted the movements and abilities of Indians, Gandhi called a mass meeting of his followers in 1906 to encourage them to protest. “Not to oppose such an evil government would be ‘cowardice’, Gandhi argued, but everyone must ‘search his own heart, and if the inner voice assures him that he has the requisite strength to carry him through, then only should he pledge himself’. This was the birth of Gandhi’s revolutionary method of Satyagraha, or ‘Hold Fast to the Truth’, which would be replicated in India many times” (59). Rather than attempting to demonize the existing government structures through these actions, Gandhi’s purpose is illustrated through Wolpert’s presentation as being one of forcing moral development within the British regime. He believed that only by making the British realize the suffering their decisions were inflicting upon the public would there be a possibility of finding grounds for reconciliation and compassion among peoples. His efforts did have tremendous effect as well, such as the historic walk in 1930 to the salt marshes of Dandi when Gandhi was protesting against the harsh salt tax that had been levied there. Although these types of protests were shown to have been highly successful in South Africa, they were not as well received in India, leading to a great deal of Gandhi’s disappointment and disillusionment toward the end of his life. The book provides a seemingly brief, 268-page history of Gandhi’s life, focusing primarily on the activities and motivations that drew him forward from one stage to another. To keep it short, Wolpert was forced to forgo a great deal of discussion into Gandhi’s actual philosophy or religious beliefs, but attempts to provide enough detail in his movements to give an impression of what these beliefs might have been. His focus on Gandhi’s public work highlights the various ways in which Gandhi continuously sought out ways of experiencing first-hand the trials and tribulations of the people he was attempting to help, finding his way to enlightenment through the passion of suffering. Throughout the narrative, therefore, he continues to illustrate those points at which Gandhi seemed to have a long-range view of the effects of various decisions upon the peoples of the nation. Wolpert’s provided justification for having written a book on a subject that has already been well-covered by others as well as by the subject himself is as a result of India’s recent turn away from the teachings of one of its most influential citizens in living memory. In presenting Gandhi’s life in this way, Wolpert expresses the hope that Gandhi’s legacy will once again attain the forefront of civil actions and societal relations. Works Cited Wolpert, Stanley. Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Read More