There was an uproar, just around the time that Raxa Collective was forming, over Joseph Lelyveld’s biography of Gandhi.  Many of us were new to India then, and had not understood just how much, how deeply and in how many ways Gandhi meant more than just history to all Indians. The international news coverage seemed as surprised as some of us, but generally did what they were supposed to do in reporting. This newspaper in particular seemed as objective as possible in reporting about the impact of a book that one of its own former editors had authored. Now, another biography, and we look forward to it. Thanks to the New York Times and their India Ink news service:

Ramachandra Guha is one of India’s foremost public intellectuals and historians. “Gandhi Before India,” his first volume of a two-part biography of Mohandas K. Gandhi, was published in India earlier this month. India Ink spoke to Mr. Guha about his decision to work on a biography of Mr. Gandhi, his choice to make Mr. Gandhi’s years in South Africa as the first volume of the biography, and Mr. Gandhi’s journey from a boy in the western state of Gujarat to his return to India as a major political figure.

Q.  How did you choose to focus on Gandhi’s South African years as a book?

A.  I found that most of the academic literature on Gandhi is based on his own writings. It is very important for a biographer to work with multiple sources. I went around researching Gandhi, I found a lot of interesting writings about Gandhi scattered in the archives around the world.