Gandhi

The pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India's independence movement, pioneer of non-violent resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience (satyagraha), honoured in India as 'father of nation', Mohandas K. Gandhi has inspired movements for civil rights and political freedom across the world.

Jad Adams offers a concise and elegant account of Gandhi's life: from his birth and upbringing in a small princely state in Gujarat during the high noon of the British Raj, to his assassination at the hands of a Hindu extremist in 1948 only months after the birth of the independent India which he himself he had done so much to bring about. He delineates the principal events of a career that may truly be said to have changed the world: his training as a barrister in late Victorian London; his civil rights work in Boer War-era South Africa; his leadership of the Indian National Congress; his focus on obtaining self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, and the campaigns of non-cooperation and non-violence against British rule in India whereby he sought to achieve that aim (including the famous 'Salt March' of March/April 1930); his passionate opposition to partition in 1947 and his fasts-unto-death in a bid to end the bitter and bloody sectarian violence that attended it.

Jad Adams's accessible and thoughtful biography not only traces the outline of an extraordinary life with exemplary clarity, but also examines why Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings are still profoundly relevant today.

“'Readable and provocative' Financial Times.”

'A vividly human, even funny book' Daily Mail. Daily Mail
Financial Times
'Fascinating' Times Literary Supplement. Times Literary Supplement

Jad Adams is an independent historian working as an author and television producer. His books include Kipling (2006) and The Dynasty: The Nehru-Gandhi Story (1997). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow of the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

The pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India's independence movement, pioneer of non-violent resistance through mass civil disobedience, and the man honoured in India as 'father of the nation', Mohandas K. Gandhi has inspired civil rights and liberation movements the world over. Yet, he was also a man of many contradictions: a lifelong pacifist, whose treatment of his wife and sons bordered on cruelty; a self-denying ascetic, who preached the virtues of chastity in marriage, yet experienced a high degree of intimate physical female contact; a political radical, whose resistance to racism and appreciation of the value of all religions strike a thoroughly modern note, but whose vision of India was of an almost medieval village nation. In Gandhi: Naked Ambition, Jad Adams delineates Gandhi's incredible drive, including his relentless recreation of his own image, from London dandy to naked wise man; his ruthless sacrifice of his family for his principles; and his role in the tragedy of partition. Using material only recently made available, including the most explicit account yet of Gandhi's sexual experiments with the wives of his followers and his teenage grand-nieces, Jad Adams' accessible and challenging biography reveals the man behind the Mahatma.

The pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India's independence movement, pioneer of non-violent resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience (satyagraha), honoured in India as 'father of nation', Mohandas K. Gandhi has inspired movements for civil rights and political freedom across the world. Jad Adams offers a concise and elegant account of Gandhi's life: from his birth and upbringing in a small princely state in Gujarat during the high noon of the British Raj, to his assassination at the hands of a Hindu extremist in 1948 only months after the birth of the independent India which he himself he had done so much to bring about. He delineates the principal events of a career that may truly be said to have changed the world: his training as a barrister in late Victorian London; his civil rights work in Boer War-era South Africa; his leadership of the Indian National Congress; his focus on obtaining self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, and the campaigns of non-cooperation and non-violence against British rule in India whereby he sought to achieve that aim (including the famous 'Salt March' of March/April 1930); his passionate opposition to partition in 1947 and his fasts-unto-death in a bid to end the bitter and bloody sectarian violence that attended it. Jad Adams's accessible and thoughtful biography not only traces the outline of an extraordinary life with exemplary clarity, but also examines why Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings are still profoundly relevant today.

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