First published over 50 years ago, The Making of the Mahatma was an important contribution to the literature on the life and thought of M. K. Gandhi. It was the first scholarly work to identify the forces that moulded the young boy from nineteenth-century Kathiawar into a force that sealed the fate of colonialism in the next century. This seminal volume details the first 40 years of Gandhi’s life as a late Victorian youngster in a native princely state, as a tentative student in London, and as an inexperienced but determined lawyer in South Africa. Through its insights into Gandhi’s early reading, influences and social life, it provides a critical study of the formative years that led to the writing of his statement of beliefs—the Hind Swaraj.
The author argues that Gandhi was influenced not just by Indian history and culture, but also by the intellectual and spiritual environment of more than one great civilisation. We have to move beyond the beliefs and legends that have grown around the Mahatma to more objectively understand him as a great man produced by the historical forces of his time.
This engaging narrative is now reissued with a Foreword by Rajmohan Gandhi. As a well-known, influential work, this book will interest students of history, Gandhian thought and peace studies.
Chandran D. S. Devanesen (1917–82) was the first Indian principal of Madras Christian College (MCC), Tambaram. He also served as Professor and Head, Department of History, MCC, and was the founder Vice-Chancellor of North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong.
List of illustrations
Foreword by Rajmohan Gandhi
Preface
1. The Power of Tradition: Gandhi’s Kathiawadi Heritage
• Gandhi as a Kathiawadi
• The Holy Land of Western India
• An Outline of Kathiawad History
• The Ancient and Medieval Period
• The Maratha Period
• Gandhi’s Bania Heritage
• The Influence of Jainism
• Gandhi and the Vallabhacharya Sampradaya
2. Whirlwinds of Change: Kathiawad in the Nineteenth Century
• Christian Influences in Kathiawad
• India After the Mutiny
• Keatinge’s Reforms, 1863–1867
• The Rajasthanik Court
• Kathiawad and The American Civil War
3. The Gandhis of Porbandar
• The Wave of Reform
• The Sin of Machinery
• The Birth of a Conservative Radical
• Recessional
• Playing the English Gentleman
• The Perfect Way in Diet
• Cleansing the Heart of Passions
• The Religion of the British Middle-Class
• The Key to Theosophy
• “… dear London”
5. The Birth of A Fighter
• Pretoria
• Barrister Gandhi
• The Anti-Indian Demonstration Crisis of 1897
• Gandhi and Colour Prejudice
• The Imperial Angle
• Johannesburg
6. The Manifesto of the Gandhian Revolution: The Writing of Hind Swaraj
• The Contents of Hind Swaraj
• The Significance of Hind Swaraj
• The Style of Hind Swaraj
• The Cultural Conflict in Hind Swaraj
Bibliography
Index