Summary of Mohandas K. Gandhi [Mahatma Gandhi], "The Story of My Experiments With the Truth" (1929)
The following summary provides direct quotations from the 2018 Penguin Books edition of the text.
Overview
The Story of My Experiments with the Truth (1929) is a memoir written by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or Mahatma Gandhi. The serialization of this memoir began in 1925 and was completed four years later. The autobiography was published in two volumes, the first in 1927 and the second in 1929. The autobiography was originally written in Gujarati; Mahadev Desai translated it into English.
Description
Introduction
Gandhi claims to have begun the project of writing his autobiography at the behest of his fellow prisoners. He muses that autobiographies are a practice of the West, as opposed to the East, suggesting the genre’s air of self-indulgence. However, Gandhi assures his readers that, in sharing the intimate details of his life–including his failures–he means to humble himself by penning the memoir.
Part I
Gandhi recounts his family background and lineage. He was born to a Vaishnava Hindu family. His father was a member of the Rajasthanik Court. His mother, he writes, “had strong common sense. She was well informed about all matters of State, and ladies of the court thought highly of her intelligence” (57).
Gandhi recalls being a shy boy who sought refuge in books; he was heavily influenced to espouse honesty after reading a play, Harishchandra. Gandhi was married at the age of 13 to Kasturbai and took a yearlong break from school. He mentions having wanted to teach Kasturbai literacy but retrospectively excoriates himself for being too distracted to do so on account of his lust for her. Gandhi recalls being a jealous husband to Kasturbai and vaguely and regretfully gestures to mistreating her due to his suspicions.
Despite being raised in a vegetarian family, Gandhi was influenced by his friends to eat meat. He and his friends justified meat-eating as a means to gain strength in order to fend off British influence in India. Gandhi, troubled by guilt toward his family’s vegetarian practices, eventually forsook meat-eating.
Gandhi tended to his ill father who later died; Gandhi reflects on this time as tragic and expresses shame for being intimate with Kasturbai during the time of his father’s death.
Gandhi learned Sanskrit in school and appreciated his education for enabling him to access Sanskritic texts. He, however, was not as highly religious as his family members, though he greatly admired the Ramayana as a “devotional literature” (95). Gandhi recalls maintaining tolerance for all religions, except for Christianity: “In those days Christian missionaries used to stand in a corner near the high school and hold forth, pouring abuse on Hindus and their gods. I could not endure this. I must have stood there to hear them once only, but that was enough to dissuade me from repeating the experiment” (96).
Gandhi heads for England to study law, leaving his family and expectant wife Kasturbai in Rajkot. By virtue of traveling abroad, Gandhi loses caste. To assuage his family’s anxieties, he vows to his mother that he will remain a vegetarian during his stay in England. Gandhi struggles to uphold his diet, finding vegetarian options few and far between. He also experiences painful shyness when it comes to speaking in English with white Englishmen. At one point, he tries to assimilate to the character of the “English Gentleman” to compensate for the un-Englishness of his vegetarianism, but soon abandons this endeavor, finding it vain and laughable (123). In England, Gandhi becomes acquainted with vegetarian Christians and Theosophists like Annie Besant.
Part II
Gandhi returns to India to visit his family before leaving for South Africa. He recalls that his brother kept the news of their mother’s death from him in order to shield him from grief. Gandhi recounts bringing European culture to his family:
The necessity for food ‘reform’ was obvious. Tea and coffee had already found their place in the house. My brother had thought it fit to keep some sort of English atmosphere ready for me on my return, and to that end, crockery and such other things, which used to be kept in the house only for special occasions, were now in general use. My ‘reforms’ put the finishing touch. I introduced oatmeal porridge, and cocoa was to replace tea and coffee. But in truth it became an addition to tea and coffee. Boots and shoes were already there. I completed the Europeanization by adding the European dress. (182)
Gandhi studied and practiced Indian law in Bombay. He struggled to keep up with the rising costs of supporting his family. During this time, Gandhi and Kasturbai delivered their second child.
Gandhi made his voyage to South Africa by sea, arriving in Natal. He discovers a racial hierarchy where Indians are treated as an inferior class to British South Africans. Gandhi is refused a stay in a hotel and, despite having a ticket for it, is denied seating in a first-class train compartment. Gandhi’s experiences of facing racial discrimination motivated him to assemble his fellow Indians in South Africa and mobilize them to resist their unjust conditions in the Transvaal. In his speeches, he would encourage them to change in different ways. He writes, “I had found our people’s habits to be insanitary, as compared with those of the Englishmen around them, and drew their attention to it. I laid stress on the necessity of forgetting all distinctions such as Hindus, Mussalmans, Parsis, Christians, Gujaratis, Madrasis, Punjabis, Sindhis, Kachchhis, Surtis and so on” (227). He also urged Indians to learn English.
Gandhi’s political work centered on fighting the passage of the Indian Franchise Bill, which prevented Indians in Natal from voting. Gandhi even submitted signed petitions to block the bill from passing. The petition, however, failed to accomplish its goal.
Gandhi’s work motivated him to remain in Natal: “It was now impossible for me to leave Natal. The Indian friends surrounded me on all sides and importuned me to remain there permanently. I expressed my difficulties. I had made up my mind not to stay at public expense. I felt it necessary to set up an independent household” (254). While in Natal, Gandhi continued grappling with the issue of assimilation. Although Gandhi initially resisted the removal of his turban while practicing law in court, he eventually relented, believing that he needed to pick his battles and conserve his energy for higher-stakes situations. He was criticized by his friends in the Law Society for his decision.
Gandhi established his private practice in Natal and fought cases on behalf of Indian indentured servants.
In addition to politics, Gandhi continued to engage with philosophical texts and religious scriptures, including the Qur’an. In spite of his roots in Natal, Gandhi visited his family in India, made political acquaintances with fellow Indians, and delivered speeches to rouse political activism.
Part III
Gandhi travels to South Africa with his wife and children. At this time, he believes a Hindu husband is to be a master of his Hindu wife whose duties are to obey him. Gandhi orders his family to adopt the culture of British civilization in order to maximize his and his politics’ influence on others: “I believed, at the time of which I am writing, that in order to look civilized, our dress and manners had as far as possible to approximate to the European standard. Because, I thought, only thus could we have some influence, and without influence it would not be possible to serve the community” (311). This was a short-lived resolution: “When my infatuation for these signs of civilization wore away, they gave up the knives and forks. After having become long accustomed to the new style, it was perhaps no less irksome for them to return to the original mode. But I can see today that we feel all the freer and lighter for having cast off the tinsel of ‘civilization’” (312).
Gandhi and his other fellow Indian passengers were forced to quarantine in order to, as Gandhi suspects, intimidate Indians from entering Natal. He and his passengers withstand the weekslong quarantine and make their way into Natal. Gandhi is attacked and physically wounded by rioters protesting against Indian immigrants. Gandhi obeys the advice of his consultants to wear a disguise in public en route to the police station where he refuses to press charges, believing that his attackers will feel remorse for their actions. Gandhi notes that his diplomatic approach and the injustice against the Indian community in Natal improved the public reputation of Indians in South Africa.
More bills restricting the rights of immigrants and other people of color are passed into law. Gandhi continues his political work of improving the condition of Indians in South Africa.
Gandhi refuses to put his children through Christian missionary school because he wants them to know the native languages of India and not just gain fluency in English. Gandhi takes the education of his two sons and one nephew into his own hands. The consequences of this decision were undeniable: “My inability to give them enough attention and other unavoidable causes prevented me from providing them with the literary education I had desired, and all my sons have had complaints to make against me in this matter. Whenever they come across an M.A. or a B.A., or even a matriculate, they seem to feel the handicap of a want of school education” (333). Although Gandhi is sympathetic toward his own efforts, his eldest son in particular showed resentment toward his father’s failure in educating his children.
Around this time, Gandhi becomes more occupied with his commitments of Brahmacharya, or sexual abstinence. He writes of this within the political context of the Boer War: “It became my conviction that procreation and the consequent care of children were inconsistent with public service. I had to break up my household at Johannesburg to be able to serve during the ‘Rebellion’” (342). Gandhi takes a pacifist approach to the war, occupying himself in medical administration.
Gandhi moves his family to Phoenix where they can live a simpler life and where he can solidify his commitments to Brahmacharya. Gandhi’s moral commitments heavily influence his diet, which now consists primarily of fresh fruit and nuts. Gandhi tests his self-control by experimenting with fasting.
Gandhi recounts an experience when he was denied service by a white barber due to Gandhi’s being a man of color, or “black” man. In a literal sense, Gandhi took matters into his own hands by (poorly) cutting his own hair.
In 1896, Gandhi returned to India, feeling he ought to provide his services to his native country and worrying that he might become too occupied with earning money in South Africa. Gandhi engaged with politicians of the Indian National Congress, stayed with one of them–Gopal Krishna Gokhale–for a month, and attended a gathering hosted by Devendranath Tagore, father of Rabindranath Tagore. Relying his experiences as a lawyer in South Africa, Gandhi wins a case in Indian law regarding the Indian Evidence Act.
Manilal, Gandhi’s ten-year-old second son, falls ill with typhoid, pneumonia, and delirium. Despite the doctor's insistence, Gandhi refuses to allow his son to recover his strength by consuming eggs and chicken broth or even milk diluted with water. Gandhi takes personal care for his son instead: “I knew Kuhne’s treatment and had tried it too. I knew as well that fasting also could be tried with profit. So I began to give Manilal hip-baths according to Kuhne, never keeping him in the tub for more than three minutes, and kept him on orange juice mixed with water for three days” (398). To Gandhi’s relief, Manilal is restored to health.
Gandhi returns to work in South Africa.
Part IV
Gandhi works to prevent obstacles, such as expensive permits, for Indians re-entering South Africa after the war. Gandhi expresses disappointment that the government's Asiatic Department does not much support the plight of Indians.
Gandhi’s older brother expects Gandhi to prioritize his own family over serving the public. Gandhi writes, “To my brother, who had been as father to me, I wrote explaining that I had given him all that I had saved up to that moment, but that henceforth he should expect nothing from me, for future savings, if any, would be utilized for the benefit of the community” (423). Gandhi’s brother eventually sees Gandhi’s perspective; before he can visit his brother in South Africa, however, he dies.
Gandhi publishes his writings on his health and dietetic experiments in his journal Indian Opinion: “The booklet was written, like all my other writings, with a spiritual end, which has always inspired every one of my actions, and therefore it is a matter for deep distress to me that I am unable today to practise some of the theories propounded in the book” (431).
Gandhi houses his English friends in South Africa during the Boer War, which causes many rifts between him and Kasturbai.
In this portion of his memoir, Gandhi turns his attention to various forms of injustice he observes in South Africa. Writing about the condition of a location in Johannesburg, settled by Indian coolies, Gandhi writes, “The criminal negligence of the Municipality and the ignorance of the Indian settlers thus conspired to render the location thoroughly insanitary. The Municipality, far from doing anything to improve the condition of the location, used the insanitation caused by their own neglect as a pretext for destroying the location, and for that purpose obtained from the local legislature authority to dispossess the settlers” (454). In his capacity as a lawyer, Gandhi advocates for the settlers. Regarding the settlements, he adds, “The Indians were not removed from the location as soon as the Municipality secured its ownership. It was necessary to find the residents suitable new quarters before dislodging them, but as the Municipality could not easily do this, the Indians were suffered to stay in the same ‘dirty’ location, with this difference that their condition became worse than before. Having ceased to be proprietors they became tenants of the Municipality, with the result that their surroundings became more insanitary than ever. When they were proprietors, they had to maintain some sort of cleanliness, if only for fear of the law. The Municipality had no such fear! The number of tenants increased, and with them the squalor and the disorder. While the Indians were fretting over this state of things, there was a sudden outbreak of the black plague, also called pneumonic plague, more terrible and fatal than the bubonic” (457).
Many of the texts Gandhi engaged with went on to influence his lifestyle choices. One such book was Ruskin’s Unto This Last, which Gandhi translated into Gujarati. The book motivated Gandhi to live a simple life wherein he performed manual labor and further committed himself to the cause of the public good. He subsequently moved his family to a farm in Phoenix, which became the Phoenix Settlement in 1904. The operations of Indian Opinion also moved to this location as did Gandhi’s close associates.
The Zulu Rebellion, in response to the oppressive poll tax brought by the British, led Gandhi to join the Medical Corps in the conflict. Gandhi and one of his relatives and political comrades, Maganlal Gandhi, help coin the term Satyagraha to describe their principle of passive resistance.
When Kasturbai falls ill due to a hemorrhage, she refuses to consume beef tea as part of her medical protocol, preferring to risk her life instead of violating her moral obligations. Gandhi recalls his first experience in jail in 1908 when he involuntarily consumed a restricted diet, and concludes by lauding the virtues of self-restraint.
Tolstoy Farm is another communal settlement inhabited by Gandhi and his fellow Satyagrahi members, among whom are individuals of a variety of backgrounds, including Hindus, Muslims, and Parsis, and Christians. Manual labor practices, such as carpentry, were practiced there. Education was provided to the young children at the farm:
Literary training, however, was a more difficult matter. I had neither the resources nor the literary equipment necessary; and I had not the time I would have wished to devote to the subject. The physical work that I was doing used to leave me thoroughly exhausted at the end of the day, and I used to have the classes just when I was most in need of some rest. Instead, therefore, of my being fresh for the class, I could with the greatest diffculty keep myself awake. The mornings had to be devoted to work on the farm and domestic duties, so the school hours had to be kept after the midday meal. There was no other time suitable for the school. We gave three periods at the most to literary training. Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and Urdu were all taught, and tuition was given through the vernaculars of the boys. English was taught as well. It was also necessary to acquaint the Gujarati Hindu children with a little Samskrit, and to teach all the children elementary history, geography and arithmetic. (524)
At the request of Gokhale, Gandhi returns to India in 1914. He later returns to England upon the start of the First World War. Gandhi felt that Indians ought to fight for the British in the conflict:
English students had volunteered to serve in the army, and Indians might do no less. A number of objections were taken to this line of argument. There was, it was contended, a world of difference between the Indians and the English. We were slaves and they were masters. How could a slave co-operate with the master in the hour of the latter’s need? Was it not the duty of the slave, seeking to be free, to make the master’s need his opportunity? This argument failed to appeal to me then. I knew the difference of status between an Indian and an Englishman, but I did not believe that we had been quite reduced to slavery. I felt then that it was more the fault of individual British officials than of the British system, and that we could convert them by love. If we would improve our status through the help and co-operation of the British, it was our duty to win their help by standing by them in their hour of need. Though the system was faulty, it did not seem to me to be intolerable, as it does today. But if, having lost my faith in the system, I refuse to co-operate with the British Government today, how could those friends then do so, having lost their faith not only in the system but in the officials as well? (539-540)
Gandhi reflects on ahimsa in light of war:
I make no distinction, from the point of view of ahimsa, between combatants and non-combatants. He who volunteers to serve a band of dacoits, by working as their carrier, or their watchman while they are about their business, or their nurse when they are wounded, is as much guilty of dacoity as the dacoits themselves. In the same way those who confine themselves to attending to the wounded in battle cannot be absolved from the guilt of war. (545)
Part V
Back in India, Gandhi reunites with his political associates in Poona and meets his family in Rajkot. Gandhi delivers speeches on and propels the movement of Satyagraha. Despite having Gokhale’s support, Gandhi is denied formal membership of the Servants of India Society due to the belief that admitting Gandhi would jeopardize the efforts of the Society.
The Satyagraha Ashram is founded in 1915. The location was chosen to be Ahmedabad:
I had a predilection for Ahmedabad. Being a Gujarati I thought I should be able to render the greatest service to the country through the Gujarati language. And then, as Ahmedabad was an ancient centre of handloom weaving, it was likely to be the most favourable field for the revival of the cottage industry of hand-spinning. There was also the hope that, the city being the capital of Gujarat, monetary help from its wealthy citizens would be more available here than elsewhere. (608)
Gandhi also resists the caste system through the ashram:
The question of untouchability was naturally among the subjects discussed with the Ahmedabad friends. I made it clear to them that I should take the first opportunity of admitting an untouchable candidate to the Ashram if he was otherwise worthy. (608)
In the meantime, progress was being made in South Africa. The Smuts-Gandhi Settlement of 1914 abolished a £3 tax on indentured immigrants in Natal.
Gandhi mobilizes volunteers to conduct sanitation work and offer medical aid in Indian villages. He also helps organize strikes for laborers against mill-owners. However, when the strikes grow violent, Gandhi goes on a hunger strike to curb the violence and facilitate nonviolent negotiations.
Gandhi recalls his experience speaking in Hindustani at a conference regarding the Khilafat movement:
The congratulations and the discovery that I was the first to speak in Hindustani at a Viceregal meeting hurt my national pride. I felt like shrinking into myself. What a tragedy that the language of the country should be taboo in meetings held in the country, for work relating to the country, and that a speech there in Hindustani by a stray individual like myself should be a matter for congratulation? Incidents like these are reminders of the low state to which we have been reduced. (685)
Due to Gandhi’s sympathetic views toward the British at this time, he helps recruit Indians to fight with the British in the First World War. However, after the end of the war, his support for the British dwindles in light of the Rowlatt Act’s passage, which maintains wartime restrictions over Indians, including the suppression of free speech. In protest, Gandhi encourages Satyagraha, “Let all the people of India, therefore, suspend their business on that day and observe the day as one of fasting and prayer” (707).
Gandhian civil disobedience in some cases went awry. A horde of non-violent protesters became victims of British gunfire in what became known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Gandhi grows increasingly opposed to the British and becomes more involved in the Indian Congress. Gandhi adopts and promotes Indian handlooming at the ashram in an effort toward self-reliance. Thus began the khadi movement, a part of the larger Swadeshi movement for Indian home rule. It also provided work for Indian women.
Gandhi helps pass and revise a constitution for the Congress, stressing on the organization of non-cooperation movements across India. The constitution had, in Gandhi’s view, significant implications for Hindu-Muslim cooperation:
Resolutions about Hindu–Muslim unity, the removal of untouchability and khadi too were passed in this Congress, and since then the Hindu members of the Congress have taken upon themselves the responsibility of ridding Hinduism of the curse of untouchability, and the Congress has established a living bond of relationship with the ‘skeletons’ of India through khadi. The adoption of non-co-operation for the sake of the Khilafat was itself a great practical attempt made by the Congress to bring about Hindu–Muslim unity. (765)
Gandhi concludes his memoir by praising the importance of ahimsa and reflecting on his experiments:
The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility. (770)
Notable Themes
Gandhi reflects his values through diet.
Ahimsa, or nonviolence, is one of Gandhi’s foremost lifestyle and political practices. In his personal life, this value takes the form of abstaining from animal products, such as meat and eggs, and animal byproducts like milk. He writes, “Religious considerations had been predominant in the giving up of milk. I had before me a picture of the wicked processes the govals in Calcutta adopted to extract the last drop of milk from their cows and buffaloes. I also had the feeling that, just as meat was not man’s food, even so animal’s milk could not be man’s food. So I got up in the morning with the determination to adhere to my resolve to abstain from milk.” Gandhi encouraged his family and friends to espouse his views and partake in his vegan diet. He imposed this diet on his sons, even against medical advice. Gandhi writes often about his dietetic experiments in order to challenge himself, test his moral commitments, or practice self-denial as another one of his values; he describes his stints with a fruitarian diet.
Gandhi’s relationship with masculinity varies across time and contexts.
Gandhi’s initiation foray into meat-eating, in order to gather enough physical might to defeat Britain’s hold over India, suggests a kind of masculinist take on diet. (It may even evoke contemporary masculinist diets, like the “carnivore diet.”) The use of muscle to fight colonial force certainly throws into relief his later nonviolent approaches to civil disobedience, wherein his shy disposition–an antipode to conventional manifestations of masculinity–can be said to play to his strength. Gandhi’s shyness prevents him from making speeches early in his stay in England and often causes him to face embarrassment. However, he reframes his relationship with his timidity: “Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.” Shyness becomes his “shield.” Though a symbol of defense, “shield” evokes militancy, another connection to masculinity. If shyness previously emasculated Gandhi, Gandhi reimagines himself as a “man of a few words,” who is nevertheless a man.
Gandhi forsakes much in the name of public service.
In one example, Gandhi describes trying to prioritize his sons’ literary education by trying to teach them himself. However, his political commitments and busyness precluded to spare them enough time to provide them with a robust education. Gandhi’s eldest son expresses (often public) resentment toward his father for this reason. However, Gandhi expresses little remorse. In his view, he taught his children the value of public service, if not an extensive survey of great literary texts. Another instance of when Gandhi prioritizes his values, which are not unrelated to his project of public service, is when he goes against a physician’s advice by refusing to let his ill son break his vegan diet and consume animal products in order to be restored to health. Gandhi would rather that his son die practicing a moral deed rather than live having sacrificed his scruples.
Gandhi’s views on British colonialism evolve.
Part I of the memoir introduces us to Gandhi’s unsympathetic view of British rule of India (he ate meat in hopes of hardening himself against British forces). Early in his career, Gandhi gives the British the benefit of the doubt: “In those days I believed that British rule was on the whole beneficial to the ruled” (291). He believed that racism in South Africa was “quite contrary to British traditions” (291). Gandhi even felt that “Indians residing in England ought to do their bit in the [Great] War” by fighting alongside the British (538). He felt Indian cooperation with the British would improve the status of Indians in the eyes of their colonial rulers and earn India home rule. However, Gandhi recognizes a cognitive dissonance between supporting the British war effort and practicing ahimsa. And yet, “because underlying ahimsa is the unity of all life, the error of one cannot but affect all, and hence man cannot be wholly free from himsa [violence]” (545). Despite justifications or arguments and counterarguments he makes, Gandhi concludes that his sympathetic inclination toward the British has since changed and he is open to correcting his erroneous past views.
Experiencing anti-Indian racism influences Gandhi’s public service.
Gandhi had first-hand experience with racial intolerance against Indians in South Africa–he was, for instance, unfairly demanded to move from his rightful seat in a first-class compartment in a train due to his being a “coloured man” (209). Among other injustices, Gandhi observed that Indians in South Africa were indiscriminately termed “coolies” and subjected to an inferior social class to white people. He writes, “I thus made an intimate study of the hard condition of the Indian settlers, not only by reading and hearing about it, but by personal experience. I saw that South Africa was no country for a self-respecting Indian, and my mind became more and more occupied with the question as to how this state of things might be improved.” Gandhi worked in his capacity as a lawyer to advocate for Indians in South Africa.
Gandhi grapples with multiple identities as a diasporic subject.
Gandhi’s experiments with “playing the English gentleman” in order to compensate for his vegetarianism speak to his dilemma of holding onto his Indian background–his family’s religious dietetic practices and his promise to his mother–while also trying to assimilate to English society, whether by taking up dance classes or dressing in fine suits. In South African courts, Gandhi insists on wearing a turban, a marker of his cultural identity; however, courts forbid men to don headwear (the exception being made for Muslim men in deference to their religious practices). This particular trial, so to speak, is almost a foil to the earlier episode of his adopting the persona of an English gentleman; earlier, he was assimilating to the dominant culture while holding onto his own values, whereas here Gandhi steadfastly holds onto his cultural identity in spite of the dominant culture. We see an occurrence of his embracing his culture can be seen at times when he chooses to deliver public addresses in Gujarati rather than English.