Mahatma Gandhi: His Life and Ideas

Good one.

Charles Andrews, a close friend of Gandhi and a Christian priest, wrote this book about Gandhi's worldview, in large measure citing Gandhi's own writings and adding substantial commentary to them, which is often based on his personal experiences with Gandhi. The subjects covered include Gandhi's basic philosophical perception of life as well as its application in historical settings, including the non-cooperation movement, the question of Hindu-Muslim unity, working for the poor, and his historical 21-day fast of 1924, among others.The writings of Gandhi presented here, among his best, are most likely to have been written originally in English. They thus convey in their tone the spirit of the man, in many ways better than one finds in his autobiography, which is originally in Gujarati and translated into English by Mahadev Desai. Andrews' commentary is deeply perceptive, always putting Gandhi in the context of the human endeavour for spiritual freedom, mukti, as Gandhi would call it. Andrews, who was equally closely associated with Rabindranath Tagore, and lived in the ashrams of both Gandhi and Tagore, writes with profound insight about the nature of India, its spiritual calling, and how it manifests diversely in these two personalities.Gandhi comes across as a man of tremendous presence and intensity, a certain power speaks through him, a power of conviction in the voice of his conscience, interestingly co-existing with a very simple humility of a man who knows he has earlier gone wrong and could be committing a blunder this very moment. Gandhi, perhaps unlike anyone else before or after him in human history, animated an archetypal image of the reformer, with an inward gaze touching the very roots of his being and the being of all humanity, while he carries on, in his simple, yet devoted way, his outward work to transform the world around him.The book was originally published in 1929, when Gandhi was 60, and hence it does not cover some of the most important events of his life. At the same time, it presents to us a middle-aged, or even youthful Gandhi, rather than the image that we are most used to - the elderly and venerable father of the nation, leaning on one person on either side of him, with whose support he walks.As a study of Gandhi's spirituality and its application in the world of public work, and a study of India, it is a tremendously moving work of penetrating intelligence. It certainly deserves a place among the 3 or 4 best books written on Gandhi.

Bapu's Economic and development programme are instilling a reverence for him... His ideas about self reliance, vij Cloth production from Charkha by an Indian for himself is Good one......and Much more to know about simplicity of his thoughts and ideas u will be mesmerizing