Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

by Stanley Wolpert

Book Overview

More than half a century after his death, Mahatma Gandhi continues to inspire millions throughout the world. Yet modern India, most strikingly in its decision to join the nuclear arms race, seems to have abandoned much of his nonviolent vision. Inspired by recent events in India, Stanley Wolpert offers this subtle and profound biography of India's "Great Soul."

Wolpert compellingly chronicles the life of Mahatma Gandhi from his early days as...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019515634X
• ISBN13: 9780195156348
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Timeless Leader

This book dwells more on the failures of Gandhi's methods than others I have read. It describes how he tried unsuccessfully over several years to reach an accommodation with Jinnah over Hindu-Moslem relations in India. Curiously - more than other books - Wolpert says there was a wide split between Nehru and Gandhi. It also mentions the attraction that several Westerners had for him - Margaret Slade, Charlie Andrews... Wolpert dwells on some of the negative (or questionable) aspects of Gandhi's behavior - his repressed sexuality, the relationship with his children and his sleeping with young woman (strictly on a platonic level says Wolpert as well as several other authors). Gandhi's quest for change in a peaceful and truthful way is what has made him a great leader who will be remembered for centuries. He has left a timeless legacy in India. It is one reason why India is at the forefront of developing countries today. This willingness for open dialog and conflict between leaders (which Gandhi encouraged) is seldom seen in developing countries. The book also has an interesting bibliography of writings on India.

Gandhi's Passion Holds to Love and Nonviolence

Stanley Wolpert looks behind the enigmatic icon of India's "Great Soul" and paints a lucid picture of what motivates Gandhi to invite suffering for political, religious and environmental causes? The historian offers numerous interesting insights that are gleaned from Gandhi's privileged childhood, barrister days, and early campaigns in South Africa. Wolpert dissection of various clues reveals how he became a living god. Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism were early influences that lead him to develop a philosophy of nonviolence. Wolpert exposes inner conflicts that plagued Gandhi while he maintained the difficult road of "ahimsa" (nonviolent love). One such inner conflict was his battle with lust (a naked Gandhi slept besides his assistants). However, Gandhi's faith in "ahimsa" for India and the world proved to be stronger. Fasting, imprisonment, boycotts were some of the peaceful weapons he imposed. Behind every action was a message of love and peace. Gandhi's vision to free India, banish untouchability, and make India viable rested on a crux notion: there is no gain through the horrors of modern war and power. The frail thin man warns, "Retaliation is no remedy. It makes the original disease much worse." Gandhi's legacy list luminaries such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama and countless other leaders. Wolpert's biography is a page-turner that competes with the best of fiction. "Gandhi's Passion" will give the reader a crisp view of the complex man and his times. Bohdan Kot

A great soul and 20th century's greatest man

While everyone does not need to view Gandhiji as a holy man (because their definitions of holy may vary), it is incredulous that some would question the existence of the Indian independence struggle and Gandhiji's non-violent non-cooperation movement or its effectiveness! I refer in particular to the review in this section by one Yasser Hamdani who seems to have used this review as another occasion to spew bile and venom borne of jealousy. That it is based on sheer jealousy becomes amply clear as one looks at Mr.Hamdani's fictional treatise on Jinnah. Such corrupt minds I wish had been exposed to some real education instead of mere one sided theology and / or invalid military guided history.

A Passionate Life

Good biographies, especially the scholarly kind, invite us to reconstruct or at least revise our estimate of the subject of the biography. Stanley Wolpert, an eminent scholar of Indian history, who acquired quite a bit of notoriety in India by publishing what now sounds like an innocuous novel about Gandhi called Nine Hours to Rama (1966), has now revisited the Mahatma by writing a biography which is neither hagiographical like so many memoirs and the Government of India financed movie of Gandhi’s life by Attenborough nor dismissive like the estimate of the man and his message offered by the likes of Arthur Koestler. Wolpert looks at Gandhi as Hindu Indians would wish to see him, as a yogi whose accomplishments as a prophet of nonviolent revolution changed the world’s ways of looking at the discourse of power. The habit of automatically associating Gandhi with saintliness has kept most writers about him bound to the notion of glorifying him or glossing over his weaknesses which were many and substantial. Now fifty-three years after his death, being in possession of greater knowledge about the man, his strength, and many unwise and vain activities, we find it tempting, urged by Wolpert’s narrative to speculate on how things might have turned out for India in particular and the world in general had the Mahatma (the great souled one) possessed greater self-awareness or his nature were less paradoxical, the contradictions in his character preventing him from gaining the kind of influence on India, perhaps making it imperative for his country to adhere to most of his unquestionably valid basic moral principles. Wolpert is no happier than most other biographers of Gandhi when he draws our attention to the less admirable traits of Gandhi’s complex personality which made him cling to the world even as he rejected it because it had not reached the moral purity he was trying to envelope it in. Wolpert’s Gandhi is a man of action, his courses of action always dictated by God through a channel that only Gandhi had access to. Gandhi’s claim to an intense personal relationship with God made disagreement with him impossible for his educated followers. Jawaharlal Nehru, for instance, found Gandhi’s apotheosis of poverty and his somewhat elementary understanding of political economy difficult to grasp. Gandhi was a gifted seer who intuitively knew that the end of imperialism was near and he knew better than anybody else how to bring it to its knees although in his twenties and early thirties he saw himself as a loyal subject of the empire. Yet he refused to see the inevitability of the world’s industrialization and considering industrialization a total evil, he failed to see how it could have been an ally in accomplishing many of the goals he was striving for: better sanitation, better health, physical and moral, and more food for India’s masses. Personal sacrifice was Gandhi’s mantra. Although he was, outwardly at least, a champion of self-rule, he de

Very informative

This one is a non-orientalist perspective with unbiased informataion about Making of Gandhi, the person.It is a good analysis of what made up his character, passions and his complexities.