Summary of the book "Gandhi an Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth" - By Mohandas K. Gandhi

Who can benefit the most from this book:

• Anyone interested in Gandhi’s life and personal philosophy.
• Students of history and political science.
• People cultivating leadership skills.

Introduction:

It's incredible to consider how much influence a small group of people has had on the world. To mention a few, the disciplines of art, culture, and politics have all been changed in significant ways by extraordinary individuals whose abilities, labour, or energy set them apart from the crowd.

Few people have had a greater impact on their countries and periods than the late Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, often known as Mahātmā, which means "Great Soul." He aided in the political freedom of his native India and popularized nonviolent resistance as a viable method of political protest around the world.

Chapter 1:

On October 2, 1869, Mohandas Gandhi was born in Porbandar, a seaside city in Gujarat, India. He was the youngest child of the simple yet moral Karamchand and Putlibai. He was born into the Modh Bania merchant class in a country where caste governed much of one's life. Traditional Indian folktales, which were part of the school curriculum, had a big influence on Gandhi when he was a kid. They frequently conveyed messages emphasizing the necessity of filial piety and moral behaviour. Gandhi's ethical code was shaped by these messages, as well as the honesty demonstrated by his parents.

To this, he added something unique for the time: respect for people from other backgrounds than his own. Gandhi's parents, unlike many of their friends, did not only associate with Hindus. He grew up in a household where Parsis, Jains, and Muslims were welcomed. This exposure instilled in me a more comprehensive understanding of the value of inclusiveness in Indian society.

In many ways, however, young Gandhi was a typical lad of his background and era, expected to participate in the social and cultural customs of the time.

He married Kasturbai, a 14-year-old girl, while he was only 13 years old. For Gandhi's time, location, and caste, child marriage was the norm. In fact, he and two other boys in his family were married to their young brides all at the same time. Weddings were, and continue to be, a key event in the lives of Indian families and the greater community. As a result, the young Gandhi was content to marry at the moment. However, as an adult, he spoke out against the practice of child marriage, claiming that people had the right to marry freely and without force. He realized that in order to do so, they needed to be old enough to offer informed permission, something minors can't do.

He did go through a phase of adolescent rebellion, despite having a surprisingly well-developed ethical sense and married at the age of thirteen, as per the usual social norms of the time. The teenage Gandhi would do things like smoke, visit a prostitute, and eat meat under the influence of a restless, disobedient schoolmate, despite his family's strict vegetarianism. So, while the meat-eating period didn't endure and he didn't partake in the brothel's offerings, the young man's route to becoming a "Great Soul" was certainly not easy. Gandhi was critical of himself as an adult for his youthful mistakes.

He also looked back on his behaviour in the early years of his marriage, seeing the underlying flaws in his treatment of Kasturbai, whose illiteracy further added to her oppression. He only saw her as a means of satiating his sexual cravings when he was a youngster. He bemoaned the fact that he never used his time with her to teach her how to read and write.

His adolescent grapplings with the concept of Truth also generated some friction in his marriage, he said. He desired to be true to Kasturbai in the same way that he desired to know Truth - the means by which the Divine manifested itself in the world. He was jealous and protective of Kasturbai, however, and he doubted that she was similarly loyal to him. His envious feelings were unfounded.

When Gandhi was 16, he learned the most painful and sharp lesson about the dangers of allowing passion too much control. With young Gandhi by his side, his father, Karamchand, or "Kaba," was dying. By this time, he'd already sent his father a letter confessing some of his youthful transgressions, which Kaba had graciously accepted. Their bond was quite strong. Nonetheless, lust pushed him away from his dying father's bedside and into his wife's bedroom in this solemn and sensitive moment. His father had died by the time he returned.

Chapter 2:

When Gandhi left India for the first time, his life would be forever changed. In 1887, he graduated from high school and was presented with a decision concerning his professional future. He was inspired to pursue law at University College London by an old family acquaintance. This appeared to assure him and his family of a secure and affluent future.

The decision to travel to England, however, was riddled with difficulties. Gandhi's mother was concerned that the temptations readily available in a Western country would lead to his son's corruption. To deal with this, he was persuaded by another family member who had become a Jain monk to take a vow to refrain from meat, alcohol, and women while in England. Then Gandhi was summoned to a meeting of his caste, the Modh Bania, where members attempted to prevent him from travelling. They accused him of violating the caste's religious principles by travelling outside and threatened him with deportation.

Gandhi remained unfazed. He was exiled from his caste, but he travelled to England anyhow, where he encountered the temptations that his mother was so concerned about. The temptation to consume meat was one of the most powerful. He was relieved to discover a vegetarian restaurant close to his boarding house in Bayswater that allowed him to keep that aspect of his promise. He gained expertise running an organization as a result of this when he created a local chapter of the Vegetarian Society. Another valuable skill he had to learn while in London was how to live on a restricted budget.

But it was his primary motivation for coming to England in the first place that was most essential to him: to study law. Gandhi, who had never been a particularly bright student as a child, excelled at university. After only 32 months in England, he breezed through the law curriculum, aced his final exams, and was called to the bar on June 10, 1891. Gandhi departed for home on June 12, 1891, only two days after completing his education and registering as a barrister.

His arrival in India, however, was marred by sadness: his mother had died earlier in the year, and his older brother had concealed the news from him out of fear of the grief interfering with his studies. During this difficult time, Gandhi learnt that there had been a split among his caste and that one faction was eager to accept him back into the Modh Bania.

His life, on the other hand, was far from over. Even though he was a barrister, he had no expertise applying the law to problems and was only conversant with British law. As a result, he moved to Bombay to continue his studies and get the experience he needed to become a practising lawyer.

He soon got to the point where he was ready to take on court cases, but he immediately discovered that this road was more difficult than he'd expected. Gandhi's effectiveness as a young lawyer was severely hampered by his shyness, even though time and experience finally made him a seasoned public speaker.

Because life in Bombay was prohibitively expensive, Gandhi went to his hometown of Rajkot, Gujarat, with the hopes of resuming his legal career. However, he considered the Rajkot courts to be corrupt. After mistakenly offending a minor British diplomat, Gandhi was concerned that the man may jeopardize his ability to get work because he was tied to the Rajkot court where Gandhi was to hear the majority of the cases. This predicament caused him to become depressed and stressed at the possibility of trying to make a career in the city.

Chapter 3:

Fortunately, Gandhi's circumstances soon demanded yet another big move in his life, leading to an opportunity to practice law in South Africa. Dada Abdullah and Co., a firm that needed assistance with a large court case in the area, initially offered him one-year employment. But, as in India, he saw just as much injustice and divisiveness here.

At the period, South Africa was home to a growing number of indentured Indian labourers, who, like the indigenous Black population, were obliged to suffer and function within colonialism's horrific machinations. Gandhi's encounters with racism during his time in India – including being booted off a train for refusing to give up his first-class seat to a white passenger – inspired him to provide legal assistance to many in his community.

But first, he settled the case for which his client, Dada Abdullah, had sent him to South Africa in the first place. Abdullah's case was settled in his favour, out of court, through arbitration, thanks to Gandhi. By all accounts, this is a win. But what made this victory even more significant was Gandhi's arrangement for the losing party to pay his client in instalments so he wouldn't go bankrupt. [pause] This exemplified the ethos of compassion and fairness Gandhi had worked to instil in himself throughout his life. His development as an activist was aided by a combination of these characteristics and his experiences with racism and segregation in South Africa.

Gandhi began speaking to groups of Indians in Pretoria on ethical business practices and the need to improve a lot of Indians in South Africa. Many of the people he spoke to were Memon Muslims, but he urged all Indians in the area to put their differences aside and create a group to promote their common interests.

Friends helped him learn more about Islam and Christianity throughout his time in South Africa, and he was able to broaden and enhance his knowledge of religion as well as his personal ethics and values. He saw the benefits and drawbacks of all religions, as well as the basic flaws in Hinduism's caste system. Last but not least, Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You sparked his interest in peaceful resistance. All of this contributed to his developing public reputation as a proponent of nonviolent resistance as a tool for political change.

While Gandhi had planned to stay in South Africa for only a year, it took him three years to return to India and his wife and children in 1896. He'd stayed in South Africa because he wanted to combat the South African government's punitive and racist policies against Indians in the province of Natal. For example, the government had taken away Indian residents' right to vote in the country's legislative assembly. It also attempted to levy a £25 annual fee on indentured Indians, which Gandhi helped to resist through the Natal Indian Congress, which he created.

After Gandhi returned home, the cause of South Africa's Indian community remained at the forefront of his activities. He travelled to meet with members of the press and others to raise awareness and support for their causes, and he published the Green Pamphlet to help spread the word even further.

He was a well-known leader in the local Indian community when he returned to South Africa in 1897, this time with his family. His profile, however, drew attention since he had previously clashed with the authorities. A furious white crowd attempted to lynch him as soon as he arrived. He escaped, fortunately, and refused to press charges. Why? Because he believed the Natal government had purposefully misled his would-be assailants about his activities in order to incite resentment.

When the British Empire and the Afrikaner States waged war on one other in 1899, Gandhi put his sympathy for the downtrodden Afrikaner farmers aside in order to show his allegiance to the Empire. He established the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps, which enlisted the help of some 1,000 Indian South Africans, including Gandhi, to assist British forces in the war effort. His and the community's efforts in this area drew national recognition.

Gandhi was well-established and rich at this stage in his legal profession, with a respectable reputation in South Africa. He became frightened that he would succumb to the temptations and greed that come with wealth, and he and his family chose to return to India.

He volunteered with the Indian National Congress party there, doing menial duties that taught him humility while also letting him observe how the Congress functioned. He also had the chance to address the Congress with a resolution on the rights of South African Indians. Even though the experience was nerve-wracking for a man who was still essentially timid, his presentation won over the members, and the resolution was unanimously passed.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the party's senior leader, mentored Gandhi and exposed him to a number of well-off, powerful Indians throughout his time with the party. However, his growing concern for the country's poor was already visible, and it was heightened when he journeyed across the country as a third-class rail passenger after his stint in Congress ended. On the tour, he witnessed how the impoverished were treated and the challenges they faced on a daily basis, such as dangerously low sanitation levels.

Gandhi's vision of himself as a catalyst for change in his country was becoming evident, as was his strategy for bringing about that transformation. Ahimsa, or nonviolence, was at the heart of this strategy.

The ahimsa principle brought Gandhi back to the concentration on Truth – the essence of God – that had driven him since his boyhood. All persons are a representation of Truth, according to the Hindu religion, making them deserving of empathy and compassion. Later, as part of his strategy for removing the inequalities that plagued his society, he added noncooperation to the nonviolent approach.

As this thought formed in his head, he also want to be free of the sexual drive that had tortured and distracted him during his marriage. In 1906, he and his wife Kasturbai, who had previously given birth to four sons, accepted the brahmacharya vow, which required them to remain celibate. Kasturbai didn't say anything, which was telling or not. Gandhi's eating habits also changed, and he now eats primarily fruit and nuts. In a systematic and conscientious manner

Chapter 4:

Gandhi and his family had relocated to Bombay in the early 1900s. He was a well-known public personality at this stage, and friends and admirers in South Africa wrote to implore him to return to aid with the Indian community's ongoing battle. In 1903, he agreed and returned to Natal. When he arrived, he established the Indian Opinion, a weekly journal aimed at drawing India's attention to the condition of their countrymen in South Africa and assisting in the improvement of Indian civil rights in the country. He also founded the Phoenix Settlement, a communal living community just north of Durban, Natal. The settlement was inspired by John Ruskin's 1860 article Unto This Last, a critique of capitalism that pushes for a social economy and things like a livable wage.

Gandhi would command an ambulance corps of Indian volunteers to serve the British when they went to battle with the Zulu in the following years, and he would also aid care for Indians affected by a plague epidemic at a mine in Johannesburg.

Gandhi initially used nonviolent opposition to a public call for change in 1907, which he dubbed Satyagraha – from Sat, which means truth, and agrapha, which means firmness. The Asiatic Registration Act had been approved by the Transvaal government, requiring Indians in the South African province to carry registration papers at all times or face deportation. Gandhi's years of study of Tolstoy, Thoreau, and Ruskin, all of whom advocated for nonviolent non-cooperation as a means of confronting inequality, prompted him to utilize Satyagraha against this unjust law.

Gandhi's devotion to Truth, as well as his ideas of pacifism, opposition to injustice, and nonviolent civil disobedience, culminated in this philosophy. The idea would expand over time, and it would occur repeatedly in his published works.

He returned to India, where he was recognized as a hero when World War I broke out and he was in poor condition in his middle years. After arriving in Ahmedabad, he immediately set about creating the Satyagraha Ashram, which he modelled after the Phoenix Settlement in South Africa, where people might live a modest, communal existence.

Gandhi was approached two years into the ashram's existence to take on a case involving the tinkathia system. Farmers in Champaran, Bihar, were forced to plant indigo on their rented property on behalf of their landlords, effectively turning them into serfs of the landowners. When the price of indigo dropped, landlords promised to let their tenants off the hook if they agreed to pay higher rates. This was unmistakable extortion.

Gandhi launched an investigation into the plight of farmers in Champaran. He was arrested as a result of his challenge to the authority system. However, with the support of the local community and his own impassioned plea to the court about why he was in Champaran – and would not go quietly as the government desired - the case against him was dismissed. Not only that, but his investigation continued, attracting big crowds and resulting in the collection of over 8,000 statements. Tinkathia was repealed in 1918 after a report was given to the local administration.

Gandhi's Satyagraha will be put to the ultimate test a few years later, in 1919. The approaching enactment of the Rowlatt Act was a crisis this time. It would grant the British the power to arrest and hold Indians for up to two years without trial, among other things.

Gandhi answered instantly, despite being weak from a life-threatening case of dysentery. He and other leaders called for a hartal - a general strike accompanied by fasting and prayer – as a form of protest. This act of peaceful noncooperation began in Delhi on March 30, 1919, and spread across India on April 6, 1919, after he delivered a lecture in Mumbai. It was incredible. The hartal was afterwards described by Gandhi as "a beautiful show."

Unfortunately, it was ineffective in preventing the passage of this heinous colonial law. More seriously, violent demonstrations obscured Gandhi's Satyagraha efforts: one of the anti-Acts protests on that day – April 6, 1919 – saw deadly fights between demonstrators and police. Gandhi ended the demonstration and began a three-day penitential fast, disturbed and stunned by what had occurred. Many of the people who had responded to his appeal to participate in Satyagraha had not learned the ideals of ahimsa and nonviolence, and he felt partly responsible for the violence. As a result, they were unable to participate in an informed and peaceful manner. To address this gap, he began writing a weekly column for a local newspaper in which he described these ideas and their importance.

Gandhi had gained a key leadership role in the Indian National Congress when he returned to India from another stint in South Africa early in World War I. He was even better positioned to advocate the Indian Independence Movement from this prominent platform. To collect money for the Movement, he coordinated the production and sale of forbidden literature, such as the Gujarati translation of Ruskin's book Unto This Last.

The Congress's annual meeting in Nagpur in 1920 passed a resolution calling for an end to cooperation with the British Empire's colonial government. The Independence Movement had sharper teeth than it had ever had before.

The magnitude of this resolution was enormous. It was a direct plea to India’s population of over 250 million to boycott all things British. And much of India's structure, including its legal and educational institutions, was British at the time. Indians who worked for the colonial government were even encouraged to resign.

Textiles from the United Kingdom were also included in the boycott. The occupiers were importing raw materials from India and delivering finished clothing back to England for resale at inflated prices. Instead, Gandhi advocated for Indians to produce their own homespun clothing out of khadi, a simple woven cloth. As a gigantic act of resistance, men and women across India were encouraged to learn how to spin and weave. Gandhi considered this as a constructive way to help the millions of his countrymen who were impoverished to fend for themselves. In India, Khadi has become a symbol of independence and admiration for Gandhi.

Gandhi's autobiography ends long before India's independence in August 1947 and his own assassination in January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist who despised his fair treatment of Muslims. However, his influence on the world extended well beyond his lifetime, influencing civil-rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez. In retrospect, we can observe Gandhi's blind spots as well—his religious tolerance and nonviolence did not, for example, extend to his sentiments toward Black people and women. However, the strength of his essential beliefs—that people have the right to freedom and dignity and that they may achieve it without resorting to violence—remains.