The Story of My Experiments with Truth; or Gandhi: An Autobiography by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi | 1925–1929 | Beacon Press | Paperback $ 20
Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century.
While compiling my list for Classics Club, I was determined to include plenty of classic nonfiction as well as plenty of titles with non-white and non-European authors and subjects. My spouse has had a copy of this book since before we got together, and I’ve always been curious about it, so this title seemed like a really good candidate for the ol’ to-read list.
I’ll just go ahead and admit that before reading this book I knew very, very, very little about Gandhi. I only knew that he was a major civil rights leader in India, and that his main “thing” was nonviolent resistance to abusive political powers. I’m glad I took the time to read his story and learn about the details of his life and works.
I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this book was to read, given how long it is and how intensely philosophical some of the subject matter can be. Chapters are short and fairly focused on a single incident or theme in the life of the author, mostly in chronological order. That made it a good option for reading in limited chunks of time over the course of a couple of months, like during my lunch breaks or for a half hour or so before bedtime. This reflects its original publication format as serialized stories in journals and newspapers; it really is meant to be read in short, separated sections.
I was a little intimidated not just by the size of the book, but by its focus on the life of a person from a very different culture and who spoke a very different language from my own. Not that other cultures and languages are scary in and of themselves, of course; I just expected to have to spend a lot of time looking up new-to-me ideas and phrases online to help me understand the book. However, this edition of the book does include some footnotes for that kind of thing. Also, Gandhi’s globe-trotting experiences helped him develop some skills in explaining, either directly or through context, various concepts that are typically foreign to Westerners. I did do a little casual research on some things, like the caste system in India, but I didn’t feel compelled to have my smartphone in my hand the entire time.
Though this is the story of a man’s life, it is also an exploration of his moral principles. Gandhi’s “big picture” ideals — nonviolence + religious exploration and tolerance — are pretty obvious even to folks like me who’d only ever heard of the man through too-short lessons in history class or passing references on television. This book also includes some of his lesser-known and sometimes more trivial moral opinions and practices, like abstinence from coffee and tea, or an insistence on doing one’s own household tasks like laundry instead of hiring help.
There is also quite a lot of emphasis on his concept of the moral imperative of vegetarianism, which is certainly not trivial compared to the laundry thing, but is also certainly inextricably tied into his own cultural and religious upbringing; this is therefore probably not as well-known as the nonviolence thing, and often not seen as morally connected to that idea by to non-Hindus. In fact, quite a lot of page space is devoted to Gandhi’s increasingly restrictive diet experiments or food-related philosophies.
Of course, this autobiography was published about two decades before its author died, so it doesn’t really include his entire life story. After The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Gandhi went on to advocate for the independence of India, and was a political leader in the country during the fall of the British Raj. He was assassinated in the late 1940’s, shortly after the Partition of India, during an interfaith prayer meeting + hunger strike.
I would recommend this book to readers who are interested in getting a personal perspective of life in late-19th to early-20th century life in India and South Africa, and (obviously!) to folks looking for insight into the intellectual and spiritual life of Gandhi, as an individual.
Links:
Publication information: Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. The story of my experiments with truth; or Gandhi: An autobiography. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1993. Print.
Source: Personal library.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
This sounds really interesting. I’m like you, I know Gandhi was a political and religious figure who campaigned for India’s independence and the right of its citizens. I also knew that he went on hunger strikes and was assassinated. I didn’t know a lot of the other stuff you included. It’s really interesting to me that he advocated for no coffee and tea because I grew up as Mormon and we/they don’t drink coffee, tea, or alcohol.
I was a born into a family made up of mostly boomers (4 oldest siblings) and gen x’ers (2 siblings). I, myself, and technically on the cusp of gen x but I identify more as a xennial. The reason I’m bringing this up is because my family always had a saying whenever one of us got too bossy. It was, “Who died and made you Gandhi?” Despite the problematic sentiment of this saying, I never understood what Gandhi had to do with it. I guess I can see because of how he advocated for change, but it still doesn’t make sense to me.
LOL at “Who died and made you Gandhi?” I’ve always heard the “Who died and made you king?” or “Who died and made you president?” version of this; for some reason specifying the singular person Gandhi (instead of a more general leadership role) makes it sound extra silly. Maybe there’s a story behind that 😆