Mahatma Gandhi

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 6, 2019 | Original: July 30, 2010

Mahatma GandhiIndian statesman and activist Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 - 1948), circa 1940. (Photo by Dinodia Photos/Getty Images)

Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or “the great-souled one.” He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s, and in the years following World War I became the leading figure in India’s struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Known for his ascetic lifestyle–he often dressed only in a loincloth and shawl–and devout Hindu faith, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit of non-cooperation, and undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India’s poorest classes, among other injustices. After Partition in 1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. His father was the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar; his deeply religious mother was a devoted practitioner of Vaishnavism (worship of the Hindu god Vishnu), influenced by Jainism, an ascetic religion governed by tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence. At the age of 19, Mohandas left home to study law in London at the Inner Temple, one of the city’s four law colleges. Upon returning to India in mid-1891, he set up a law practice in Bombay, but met with little success. He soon accepted a position with an Indian firm that sent him to its office in South Africa. Along with his wife, Kasturbai, and their children, Gandhi remained in South Africa for nearly 20 years.

Did you know? In the famous Salt March of April-May 1930, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.

Gandhi was appalled by the discrimination he experienced as an Indian immigrant in South Africa. When a European magistrate in Durban asked him to take off his turban, he refused and left the courtroom. On a train voyage to Pretoria, he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment and beaten up by a white stagecoach driver after refusing to give up his seat for a European passenger. That train journey served as a turning point for Gandhi, and he soon began developing and teaching the concept of satyagraha (“truth and firmness”), or passive resistance, as a way of non-cooperation with authorities.

The Birth of Passive Resistance

In 1906, after the Transvaal government passed an ordinance regarding the registration of its Indian population, Gandhi led a campaign of civil disobedience that would last for the next eight years. During its final phase in 1913, hundreds of Indians living in South Africa, including women, went to jail, and thousands of striking Indian miners were imprisoned, flogged and even shot. Finally, under pressure from the British and Indian governments, the government of South Africa accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts, which included important concessions such as the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of the existing poll tax for Indians.

In July 1914, Gandhi left South Africa to return to India. He supported the British war effort in World War I but remained critical of colonial authorities for measures he felt were unjust. In 1919, Gandhi launched an organized campaign of passive resistance in response to Parliament’s passage of the Rowlatt Acts, which gave colonial authorities emergency powers to suppress subversive activities. He backed off after violence broke out–including the massacre by British-led soldiers of some 400 Indians attending a meeting at Amritsar–but only temporarily, and by 1920 he was the most visible figure in the movement for Indian independence.

Leader of a Movement

As part of his nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for home rule, Gandhi stressed the importance of economic independence for India. He particularly advocated the manufacture of khaddar, or homespun cloth, in order to replace imported textiles from Britain. Gandhi’s eloquence and embrace of an ascetic lifestyle based on prayer, fasting and meditation earned him the reverence of his followers, who called him Mahatma (Sanskrit for “the great-souled one”). Invested with all the authority of the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress Party), Gandhi turned the independence movement into a massive organization, leading boycotts of British manufacturers and institutions representing British influence in India, including legislatures and schools.

After sporadic violence broke out, Gandhi announced the end of the resistance movement, to the dismay of his followers. British authorities arrested Gandhi in March 1922 and tried him for sedition; he was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1924 after undergoing an operation for appendicitis. He refrained from active participation in politics for the next several years, but in 1930 launched a new civil disobedience campaign against the colonial government’s tax on salt, which greatly affected Indian’s poorest citizens.

A Divided Movement

In 1931, after British authorities made some concessions, Gandhi again called off the resistance movement and agreed to represent the Congress Party at the Round Table Conference in London. Meanwhile, some of his party colleagues–particularly Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a leading voice for India’s Muslim minority–grew frustrated with Gandhi’s methods, and what they saw as a lack of concrete gains. Arrested upon his return by a newly aggressive colonial government, Gandhi began a series of hunger strikes in protest of the treatment of India’s so-called “untouchables” (the poorer classes), whom he renamed Harijans, or “children of God.” The fasting caused an uproar among his followers and resulted in swift reforms by the Hindu community and the government.

In 1934, Gandhi announced his retirement from politics in, as well as his resignation from the Congress Party, in order to concentrate his efforts on working within rural communities. Drawn back into the political fray by the outbreak of World War II , Gandhi again took control of the INC, demanding a British withdrawal from India in return for Indian cooperation with the war effort. Instead, British forces imprisoned the entire Congress leadership, bringing Anglo-Indian relations to a new low point.

Partition and Death of Gandhi

After the Labor Party took power in Britain in 1947, negotiations over Indian home rule began between the British, the Congress Party and the Muslim League (now led by Jinnah). Later that year, Britain granted India its independence but split the country into two dominions: India and Pakistan. Gandhi strongly opposed Partition, but he agreed to it in hopes that after independence Hindus and Muslims could achieve peace internally. Amid the massive riots that followed Partition, Gandhi urged Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together, and undertook a hunger strike until riots in Calcutta ceased.

In January 1948, Gandhi carried out yet another fast, this time to bring about peace in the city of Delhi. On January 30, 12 days after that fast ended, Gandhi was on his way to an evening prayer meeting in Delhi when he was shot to death by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic enraged by Mahatma’s efforts to negotiate with Jinnah and other Muslims. The next day, roughly 1 million people followed the procession as Gandhi’s body was carried in state through the streets of the city and cremated on the banks of the holy Jumna River.

salt march, 1930, indians, gandhi, ahmadabad, arabian sea, british salt taxes

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Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was the primary leader of India’s independence movement and also the architect of a form of non-violent civil disobedience that would influence the world. He was assassinated by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse.

Gandhi

(1869-1948)

Who Was Mahatma Gandhi?

Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of India’s non-violent independence movement against British rule and in South Africa who advocated for the civil rights of Indians. Born in Porbandar, India, Gandhi studied law and organized boycotts against British institutions in peaceful forms of civil disobedience. He was killed by a fanatic in 1948.

Gandhi

Early Life and Education

Indian nationalist leader Gandhi (born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Kathiawar, India, which was then part of the British Empire.

Gandhi’s father, Karamchand Gandhi, served as a chief minister in Porbandar and other states in western India. His mother, Putlibai, was a deeply religious woman who fasted regularly.

Young Gandhi was a shy, unremarkable student who was so timid that he slept with the lights on even as a teenager. In the ensuing years, the teenager rebelled by smoking, eating meat and stealing change from household servants.

Although Gandhi was interested in becoming a doctor, his father hoped he would also become a government minister and steered him to enter the legal profession. In 1888, 18-year-old Gandhi sailed for London, England, to study law. The young Indian struggled with the transition to Western culture.

Upon returning to India in 1891, Gandhi learned that his mother had died just weeks earlier. He struggled to gain his footing as a lawyer. In his first courtroom case, a nervous Gandhi blanked when the time came to cross-examine a witness. He immediately fled the courtroom after reimbursing his client for his legal fees.

Gandhi’s Religion and Beliefs

Gandhi grew up worshiping the Hindu god Vishnu and following Jainism, a morally rigorous ancient Indian religion that espoused non-violence, fasting, meditation and vegetarianism.

During Gandhi’s first stay in London, from 1888 to 1891, he became more committed to a meatless diet, joining the executive committee of the London Vegetarian Society, and started to read a variety of sacred texts to learn more about world religions.

Living in South Africa, Gandhi continued to study world religions. “The religious spirit within me became a living force,” he wrote of his time there. He immersed himself in sacred Hindu spiritual texts and adopted a life of simplicity, austerity, fasting and celibacy that was free of material goods.

Gandhi in South Africa

After struggling to find work as a lawyer in India, Gandhi obtained a one-year contract to perform legal services in South Africa. In April 1893, he sailed for Durban in the South African state of Natal.

When Gandhi arrived in South Africa, he was quickly appalled by the discrimination and racial segregation faced by Indian immigrants at the hands of white British and Boer authorities. Upon his first appearance in a Durban courtroom, Gandhi was asked to remove his turban. He refused and left the court instead. The Natal Advertiser mocked him in print as “an unwelcome visitor.”

Nonviolent Civil Disobedience

A seminal moment occurred on June 7, 1893, during a train trip to Pretoria, South Africa, when a white man objected to Gandhi’s presence in the first-class railway compartment, although he had a ticket. Refusing to move to the back of the train, Gandhi was forcibly removed and thrown off the train at a station in Pietermaritzburg.

Gandhi’s act of civil disobedience awoke in him a determination to devote himself to fighting the “deep disease of color prejudice.” He vowed that night to “try, if possible, to root out the disease and suffer hardships in the process.”

From that night forward, the small, unassuming man would grow into a giant force for civil rights. Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 to fight discrimination.

Gandhi prepared to return to India at the end of his year-long contract until he learned, at his farewell party, of a bill before the Natal Legislative Assembly that would deprive Indians of the right to vote. Fellow immigrants convinced Gandhi to stay and lead the fight against the legislation. Although Gandhi could not prevent the law’s passage, he drew international attention to the injustice.

After a brief trip to India in late 1896 and early 1897, Gandhi returned to South Africa with his wife and children. Gandhi ran a thriving legal practice, and at the outbreak of the Boer War, he raised an all-Indian ambulance corps of 1,100 volunteers to support the British cause, arguing that if Indians expected to have full rights of citizenship in the British Empire, they also needed to shoulder their responsibilities.

In 1906, Gandhi organized his first mass civil-disobedience campaign, which he called “Satyagraha” (“truth and firmness”), in reaction to the South African Transvaal government’s new restrictions on the rights of Indians, including the refusal to recognize Hindu marriages.

After years of protests, the government imprisoned hundreds of Indians in 1913, including Gandhi. Under pressure, the South African government accepted a compromise negotiated by Gandhi and General Jan Christian Smuts that included recognition of Hindu marriages and the abolition of a poll tax for Indians.

Return to India

In 1915 Gandhi founded an ashram in Ahmedabad, India, that was open to all castes. Wearing a simple loincloth and shawl, Gandhi lived an austere life devoted to prayer, fasting and meditation. He became known as “Mahatma,” which means “great soul.”

Opposition to British Rule in India

In 1919, with India still under the firm control of the British, Gandhi had a political reawakening when the newly enacted Rowlatt Act authorized British authorities to imprison people suspected of sedition without trial. In response, Gandhi called for a Satyagraha campaign of peaceful protests and strikes.

Violence broke out instead, which culminated on April 13, 1919, in the Massacre of Amritsar. Troops led by British Brigadier General Reginald Dyer fired machine guns into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators and killed nearly 400 people.

No longer able to pledge allegiance to the British government, Gandhi returned the medals he earned for his military service in South Africa and opposed Britain’s mandatory military draft of Indians to serve in World War I.

Gandhi became a leading figure in the Indian home-rule movement. Calling for mass boycotts, he urged government officials to stop working for the Crown, students to stop attending government schools, soldiers to leave their posts and citizens to stop paying taxes and purchasing British goods.

Rather than buy British-manufactured clothes, he began to use a portable spinning wheel to produce his own cloth. The spinning wheel soon became a symbol of Indian independence and self-reliance.

Gandhi assumed the leadership of the Indian National Congress and advocated a policy of non-violence and non-cooperation to achieve home rule.

After British authorities arrested Gandhi in 1922, he pleaded guilty to three counts of sedition. Although sentenced to a six-year imprisonment, Gandhi was released in February 1924 after appendicitis surgery.

He discovered upon his release that relations between India’s Hindus and Muslims devolved during his time in jail. When violence between the two religious groups flared again, Gandhi began a three-week fast in the autumn of 1924 to urge unity. He remained away from active politics during much of the latter 1920s.

Gandhi and the Salt March

Gandhi returned to active politics in 1930 to protest Britain’s Salt Acts, which not only prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt—a dietary staple—but imposed a heavy tax that hit the country’s poorest particularly hard. Gandhi planned a new Satyagraha campaign, The Salt March , that entailed a 390-kilometer/240-mile march to the Arabian Sea, where he would collect salt in symbolic defiance of the government monopoly.

“My ambition is no less than to convert the British people through non-violence and thus make them see the wrong they have done to India,” he wrote days before the march to the British viceroy, Lord Irwin.

Wearing a homespun white shawl and sandals and carrying a walking stick, Gandhi set out from his religious retreat in Sabarmati on March 12, 1930, with a few dozen followers. By the time he arrived 24 days later in the coastal town of Dandi, the ranks of the marchers swelled, and Gandhi broke the law by making salt from evaporated seawater.

The Salt March sparked similar protests, and mass civil disobedience swept across India. Approximately 60,000 Indians were jailed for breaking the Salt Acts, including Gandhi, who was imprisoned in May 1930.

Still, the protests against the Salt Acts elevated Gandhi into a transcendent figure around the world. He was named Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” for 1930.

Gandhi was released from prison in January 1931, and two months later he made an agreement with Lord Irwin to end the Salt Satyagraha in exchange for concessions that included the release of thousands of political prisoners. The agreement, however, largely kept the Salt Acts intact. But it did give those who lived on the coasts the right to harvest salt from the sea.

Hoping that the agreement would be a stepping-stone to home rule, Gandhi attended the London Round Table Conference on Indian constitutional reform in August 1931 as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The conference, however, proved fruitless.

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Protesting "Untouchables" Segregation

Gandhi returned to India to find himself imprisoned once again in January 1932 during a crackdown by India’s new viceroy, Lord Willingdon. He embarked on a six-day fast to protest the British decision to segregate the “untouchables,” those on the lowest rung of India’s caste system, by allotting them separate electorates. The public outcry forced the British to amend the proposal.

After his eventual release, Gandhi left the Indian National Congress in 1934, and leadership passed to his protégé Jawaharlal Nehru . He again stepped away from politics to focus on education, poverty and the problems afflicting India’s rural areas.

India’s Independence from Great Britain

As Great Britain found itself engulfed in World War II in 1942, Gandhi launched the “Quit India” movement that called for the immediate British withdrawal from the country. In August 1942, the British arrested Gandhi, his wife and other leaders of the Indian National Congress and detained them in the Aga Khan Palace in present-day Pune.

“I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside at the liquidation of the British Empire,” Prime Minister Winston Churchill told Parliament in support of the crackdown.

With his health failing, Gandhi was released after a 19-month detainment in 1944.

After the Labour Party defeated Churchill’s Conservatives in the British general election of 1945, it began negotiations for Indian independence with the Indian National Congress and Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League. Gandhi played an active role in the negotiations, but he could not prevail in his hope for a unified India. Instead, the final plan called for the partition of the subcontinent along religious lines into two independent states—predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan.

Violence between Hindus and Muslims flared even before independence took effect on August 15, 1947. Afterwards, the killings multiplied. Gandhi toured riot-torn areas in an appeal for peace and fasted in an attempt to end the bloodshed. Some Hindus, however, increasingly viewed Gandhi as a traitor for expressing sympathy toward Muslims.

Gandhi’s Wife and Kids

At the age of 13, Gandhi wed Kasturba Makanji, a merchant’s daughter, in an arranged marriage. She died in Gandhi’s arms in February 1944 at the age of 74.

In 1885, Gandhi endured the passing of his father and shortly after that the death of his young baby.

In 1888, Gandhi’s wife gave birth to the first of four surviving sons. A second son was born in India 1893. Kasturba gave birth to two more sons while living in South Africa, one in 1897 and one in 1900.

Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

On January 30, 1948, 78-year-old Gandhi was shot and killed by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, who was upset at Gandhi’s tolerance of Muslims.

Weakened from repeated hunger strikes, Gandhi clung to his two grandnieces as they led him from his living quarters in New Delhi’s Birla House to a late-afternoon prayer meeting. Godse knelt before the Mahatma before pulling out a semiautomatic pistol and shooting him three times at point-blank range. The violent act took the life of a pacifist who spent his life preaching nonviolence.

Godse and a co-conspirator were executed by hanging in November 1949. Additional conspirators were sentenced to life in prison.

Even after Gandhi’s assassination, his commitment to nonviolence and his belief in simple living — making his own clothes, eating a vegetarian diet and using fasts for self-purification as well as a means of protest — have been a beacon of hope for oppressed and marginalized people throughout the world.

Satyagraha remains one of the most potent philosophies in freedom struggles throughout the world today. Gandhi’s actions inspired future human rights movements around the globe, including those of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States and Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

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QUICK FACTS

  • Name: Mahatma Gandhi
  • Birth Year: 1869
  • Birth date: October 2, 1869
  • Birth City: Porbandar, Kathiawar
  • Birth Country: India
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Mahatma Gandhi was the primary leader of India’s independence movement and also the architect of a form of non-violent civil disobedience that would influence the world. Until Gandhi was assassinated in 1948, his life and teachings inspired activists including Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
  • Civil Rights
  • Astrological Sign: Libra
  • University College London
  • Samaldas College at Bhavnagar, Gujarat
  • Nacionalities
  • Interesting Facts
  • As a young man, Mahatma Gandhi was a poor student and was terrified of public speaking.
  • Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 to fight discrimination.
  • Gandhi was assassinated by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, who was upset at Gandhi’s tolerance of Muslims.
  • Gandhi's non-violent civil disobedience inspired future world leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
  • Death Year: 1948
  • Death date: January 30, 1948
  • Death City: New Delhi
  • Death Country: India

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CITATION INFORMATION

  • Article Title: Mahatma Gandhi Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/political-figures/mahatma-gandhi
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: September 4, 2019
  • Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
  • An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
  • Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
  • Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads, so long as we reach the same goal? In reality, there are as many religions as there are individuals.
  • The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
  • To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman.
  • Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.
  • A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
  • There are many things to do. Let each one of us choose our task and stick to it through thick and thin. Let us not think of the vastness. But let us pick up that portion which we can handle best.
  • An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
  • For one man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.
  • If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children.

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An autobiography, or, The story of my experiments with truth

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AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH

By m. k. gandhi, an autobiography or the story of my experiments with truth.

M. K. Gandhi

Published by : Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, India Pages : 507 + 12 (Hard Bound) 464 + 15 (Paperback)

Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography Sathiya Sodhani is one book which guides you as to what is right and wrong. Most importantly, the author should have experienced all these. The original was in Gujarati, and was later translated into English and other Indian languages. The book is in five parts, beginning with his birth, up until the year 1921. In the last chapter he writes, "My life from this point onward has been so public that there is hardly anything about it that people do not know...." The introduction reads, "What I want to achieve - what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years - is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal." The paper back edition of the book costs Rs. 30 being subsidized by the Navajivan Trust, Ahmedabad.

"My Experiment With Truth" PDF version [Click here]

Read Online

Read the complete book online [Click here]

Abridged Version

Read an abridged version of Gandhi's Autobiography [Click here]

About the Book:

An immortal book and a legacy for ages to come. This book is an autobiography of Gandhi. It is a detailed account of Gandhi’s consisting of Gandhi’s self penned essays (105 essays in all) on his experiments and covers all aspects of the Mahatma’s spiritual life. This Autobiography is divided in five parts starting from his childhood days, his experience in South Africa where he experimented with the powerful weapon of Satyagraha and his transformation from Mohan to Mahatma, his various experiments on fundamental principles of Truth and God, till the year 1921, after which his life was so public that he felt there was hardly anything to write about. Gandhi’s Non-violent struggle in South Africa and India had already brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation and controversy that when asked to write an autobiography mid way through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself. Accepting his status as a great innovator in the struggle against racism, violence and colonialism, Gandhi felt that his ideas needed deeper understanding. Gandhi explains that he was after truth rooted in devotion to God and attributed the turning point, success and challenges in his life to the will of God. Gandhi says that his attempt to get closer to this divine power led him seek purity through simple living, dietary practices (he called himself a fruitarian), celibacy and ahimsa- a life without violence. It is in this sense that he calls his book “The Story of My Experiments with Truth”, offering it also as a reference for those who would follow his footsteps. Gandhi’s Autobiography is one of the best sellers and is translated in nearly all languages of the world. Perhaps never before on so grand scale has any man succeeded in shaping the course of history while using the weapon of Peace – Ahimsa (Non-violence). To many it will have the value of a new Bible or a new Gita; for here are words that have come out from the depth of truth, here is tireless striving that stretches its arms towards perfection. “Autobiography” in a way is a “confession of Gandhi’s faith, a very basic document for the study of his thought”

Remembering Gandhi Assassination of Gandhi Tributes to Gandhi Gandhi's Human Touch Gandhi Poster Exhibition Send Gandhi Greetings Gandhi Books Read Gandhi Books Online Download PDF Books Download EPUB/MOBI Books Gandhi Literature Collected Works of M. Gandhi Selected Works of M.Gandhi Selected Letters Famous Speeches Gandhi Resources Gandhi Centres/Institutions Museums/Ashrams/Libraries Gandhi Tourist Places Resource Persons Related Websites Glossary / Sources Associates of Mahatma Gandhi -->

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An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth Mahatma Gandhi

Descripción editorial.

This unusual autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, is a window to the workings of Mahatma Gandhi' s mind, a window to the emotions of his heart, a window to understanding what drove this seemingly ordinary man to the heights of being the father of a nation— India.Starting with his days as a boy, Gandhi takes one through his trials and turmoils and situations that moulded his philosophy of life: going through child marriage, his studies in England, practicing Law in South Africa— and his Satyagraha there— to the early beginnings of the Independence movement in India.He did not aim to write an autobiography but rather share the experience of his various experiments with truth to arrive at what he perceived as Absolute Truth— the ideal of his struggle against racism, violence and colonialism. This is a translation by Mahadev Desai.This book is a must-read for all! It offers: • The great life story of the father of the nation— India• Insights into the revolutionary ideologies of Mahatma Gandhi• Highlights into the history and social systems of India• A real story that will keep you hooked for hours • An excellent collectable for libraries and gifting

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Mahatma Gandhi Autobiography: The Story Of My Experiments With Truth (The Story of My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography)

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Mohandas K. Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi Autobiography: The Story Of My Experiments With Truth (The Story of My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography) Kindle Edition

  • Print length 649 pages
  • Language English
  • Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
  • Publisher Sanage Publishing House
  • Publication date August 18, 2020
  • File size 2379 KB
  • Page Flip Enabled
  • Word Wise Enabled
  • Enhanced typesetting Enabled
  • See all details

mahatma gandhi's autobiography

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Editorial Reviews

"Bill Wallace...reads with emotion as befits the writing. He pronounces Indian words and locations clearly and with facility."

"For the inner world of a man held as a criminal by the British, a hero by Muslims, and a holy man by Hindus, look no further than these experiments."

About the Author

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or the Mahatama, was the leader of the Indian National Movement. He fought the colonial regime with his philosophy of Satyagraha and Ahimsa. His birthday, October 2nd, is celebrated as the International Day of Non-violence.

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Product details.

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09CVCZD44
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sanage Publishing House; 1st edition (August 18, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 18, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2379 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 649 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ B08KH3RF3M
  • #9 in Revolutionary History
  • #668 in Military History (Books)
  • #792 in World History (Books)

About the author

Mohandas k. gandhi.

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mahatma gandhi's autobiography

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Gandhi-logo

Some men changed their times... One man changed the World for all times!

Comprehensive website on the life and works of, mahatma gandhi.

+91-23872061 +91-9022483828 [email protected]

  • Gandhi Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth

An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Gandhi Autobiography

Mahatma Gandhi's Autobiography is one book which guides you as to what is right and wrong. Most importantly, the author should have experienced all these. The original was in Gujarati, and was later translated into English and other Indian languages. The book is in five parts, beginning with his birth, up until the year 1921. In the last chapter he writes, "My life from this point onward has been so public that there is hardly anything about it that people do not know..."

The introduction reads, "What I want to achieve - what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years - is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal."

The paperback edition of the book costs Rs. 80/- being subsidized by the Navajivan Trust, Ahmedabad.

COMMENTS

  1. The Story of My Experiments with Truth

    The Story of My Experiments with Truth (, lit. ' Experiments of Truth or Autobiography ') is the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi, covering his life from early childhood through to 1921.It was written in weekly installments and published in his journal Navjivan from 1925 to 1929. Its English translation also appeared in installments in his other journal Young India.

  2. PDF The Story of My Life

    Gandhiji's Autobiography* and his Satyagraha in South Africa+, as published in English, run into almost 1000 pages. An abridgement++ of these two into a single volume of 283 pages was published in 1952 by the Navajivan Trust. A request was recently received for a still smaller version for use in our schools. This book has been specially prepared to

  3. Mahatma Gandhi

    Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (ISO: Mōhanadāsa Karamacaṁda Gāṁdhī; 2 October 1869 - 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule.He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

  4. Introduction to Gandhi Autobiography

    Gandhi's autobiography, which he had titled 'My experiments with Truth' can be rated as one of the most popular and the most influential books in the recent history. It was written at the instance of Swami Anand. It appeared in the Weekly 'Navjivan' during 1925-28. It covers Gandhi's life up to 1920.

  5. The Story of My Experiments with Truth

    Compete book online Mahatma Gandhi's Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments With Truth in English. Some men changed their times... One man changed the World for all times! Comprehensive Website on the life and works of Mahatma Gandhi +91-23872061 +91-9022483828. [email protected]. Menu. Home; About Us; Gandhi eBooks; Buy Books ...

  6. PDF An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth

    Like many others, Suhrud rediscovered Gandhi after the Emergency and the suspension of civil rights in India in the 1970s. That discovery is part of a larger movement that sees Gandhi as a serious thinker, whose heritage can no longer be left at the mercy of two kinds of admirers who have played an important role in retailing Gandhi earlier.

  7. My experiments with truth : an autobiography : Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869

    My experiments with truth : an autobiography by Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948, author. ... Swami Anand and other close coworkers of Gandhi, in his mothertongue Gujarati entitled Satyana Prayogo athva Atmakatha.Mahatma Gandhi (1869--1948) was a charismatic leader who brought the case for India's independence to world attention. His philosophy of ...

  8. An autobiography : the story of my experiments with truth : Gandhi

    Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948; Desai, Mahadev H. (Mahadev Haribhai), 1892-1942. Publication date 1993 Topics Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948, Statesmen Publisher ... Internet Archive Language English. Cover title: Gandhi, an autobiography Includes index Originally published: 1957 Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2014-06-13 16:26:25.667474 ...

  9. An Autobiography : The Story of My Experiments with Truth

    Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) was a lawyer and the prominent figure behind India's push for independence from British rule.He followed the philosophies of pacifism, believing in the importance of the nonviolent approach to protesting. He documented his influential life in An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Born and raised in Western India to a Hindu family, Gandhi ...

  10. Mahatma Gandhi

    Mahatma Gandhi (born October 2, 1869, Porbandar, India—died January 30, 1948, Delhi) was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the father of his country.

  11. Mohandas Gandhi

    The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself. Indira Gandhi was the daughter of of Jawaharlal Nehru, and like her father, became Prime Minister of India. She ...

  12. The life and work of Mahatma Gandhi

    Mahatma Gandhi, byname of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, (born Oct. 2, 1869, Porbandar, India—died Jan. 30, 1948, Delhi), Preeminent leader of Indian nationalism and prophet of nonviolence in the 20th century. Gandhi grew up in a home steeped in religion, and he took for granted religious tolerance and the doctrine of ahimsa (noninjury to all ...

  13. Gandhi: An Autobiography by Mahatma Gandhi

    70,690ratings2,437reviews. Kindle $7.59. Rate this book. Mohandas K. 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 ...

  14. PDF An Autobiography Or

    An Autobiography or My Experiments with Truth www.mkgandhi.org Page 6 PUBLISHER'S NOTE A deluxe edition of Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi was released in 1969. It went out of print in about six months. To meet the popular demand for it and to make it available to individual readers at a reasonable price a new soft-cover edition was soon ...

  15. Gandhi: An Autobiography

    Gandhi's expression of personal truth by a pure diet and fasting for political activism look alot like rationalized anorexia. That experiment in truth through pure diet nearly killed him. In truth, his dietary behavior could be explained away as a textbook example of Margaret Archer's meta-reflexive personality (Archer, 2003), as masochism from ...

  16. Mahatma Gandhi

    Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of India's non-violent independence movement against British rule and in South Africa who advocated for the civil rights of Indians. Born in Porbandar, India ...

  17. An autobiography, or, The story of my experiments with truth : Gandhi

    Mahatma Gandhi's aim in writing this autobiography was to give an account of his spiritual progress towards truth. Absolute Truth is his sovereign principle and non-violence the method of pursuing it Translation of: Satyanā prayogo athavā ātmakathā Originally published in English, 1927-1929, as: The story of my experiments with truth

  18. Mahatma Gandhi's Autobiography: My Experiment with Truth

    This book is an autobiography of Gandhi. It is a detailed account of Gandhi's consisting of Gandhi's self penned essays (105 essays in all) on his experiments and covers all aspects of the Mahatma's spiritual life. This Autobiography is divided in five parts starting from his childhood days, his experience in South Africa where he ...

  19. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with

    Gandhi's `An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth' covers his life from early childhood to 1921, and portions of it were written when he was imprisoned by the British government for his pro-freedom activities. It was originally written in Gujarati, and was intended by Gandhi to lay out the case for `Satyagraha' (Abidance in ...

  20. PDF Gandhi's Autobiography: Moral Lessons

    MAHATMA Gandhi's autobiography, My Experiments with Truth, has attracted worldwide attention as a classic of modern times for the remarkable insights it offers into the progression of human soul in its resolute march to relate itself to the ever-changing ethos in the course of life's journey. Over the years, this record of Gandhi's perception ...

  21. The Story of My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography: Deluxe

    Gandhi's `An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth' covers his life from early childhood to 1921, and portions of it were written when he was imprisoned by the British government for his pro-freedom activities. It was originally written in Gujarati, and was intended by Gandhi to lay out the case for `Satyagraha' (Abidance in ...

  22. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth Mahatma Gandhi

    Descarga y lee el ebook "An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth Mahatma Gandhi" de Mahatma Gandhi en Apple Books. This unusual autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, is a window ‎Biografías y memorias · 2022 ...

  23. Mahatma Gandhi Autobiography: The Story Of My Experiments With Truth

    This unusual autobiography "The Story of My Experiments with Truth", is a window to the workings of Mahatma Gandhi's mind - a window to the emotions of his heart - a window to understanding what drove this seemingly ordinary man to the heights of being the father of a nation - India.

  24. An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth

    Mahatma Gandhi's Autobiography is one book which guides you as to what is right and wrong. Most importantly, the author should have experienced all these. The original was in Gujarati, and was later translated into English and other Indian languages. The book is in five parts, beginning with his birth, up until the year 1921.

  25. Mahatma Gandhi Wrote This In His Biography

    rozcasts on April 22, 2024: "Mahatma Gandhi Wrote This In His Biography • Follow @rozcasts For Daily Content • Credit - @riyaupretii • #podcast #podcasting #...".