Gandhi Before India

摘要

Lord Gladstone, Governor-General of the newly formed Union of South Africa, reporting to the Colonial office on a meeting between Gandhi and Smuts 16 January 1913, reflected "it is no easy task for a European to conduct negotiations with Mr Gandhi. The workings of his conscience are inscrutable to the occidental mind". His is "a curious compound of mysticism and astuteness". In what promises to be a defining biography Ramachandra Guha sets out to explain Gandhi's outlook. He makes a radical decision to do so entirely through contemporary sources. This is in no way a historiographical text. Rather than rely on overly Gandhi-focussed texts such as the Collected Works, and with a distrust of retrospective memoirs, Gandhi's own Autobiography no exception, through exceptional diligence as a researcher he uses often new materials which reflect the views of Gandhi's friends and opponents.