A desirable copy of both volumes of Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography: the first English edition from Gandhi’s own Navajivan Press.
Indian religious and social reformer Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), known as Mahatma Gandhi, is surely one of the most recognisable figures of the twentieth century. His teachings bridged politics, religion, and philosophy, growing from a Hindu foundation into a universal doctrine of non-violence, independence from colonial rule, the pursuit of truth, and simplicity of lifestyle including vegetarianism. Following an education in England, it was during Gandhi’s legal career in South Africa that he became the public spokesperson for the Indians in Natal and the Transvaal and began to engage with direct action, and the fight against discrimination. Upon his return to India, he turned his attention to the conditions of the Indian people under the continued occupation of the British Raj, and the rigid caste system. In particular he sought to abolish the idea of untouchability, and achieve progressive reform for women in Indian society. As such, he is considered to be a key figure in the Indian Independence Movement.
Though fluent in English, Gandhi chose to write his autobiography in Gujarati, which he considered to be the primary language of his people. He began writing what would become this work whilst imprisoned in 1922, sentenced at the court of Lahore to six years for inciting sedition, an aggressive governmental backlash to his non-violent direct action. The text was published initially as a series of weekly columns in his periodical Navajivan, and if there was a Gujarati edition in book format which preceded this English edition, it has eluded Gandhi’s bibliographer Jagdish Sharma.
Alongside satya (truth) and ahimsa (non-violence), one of Gandhi’s other guiding principles was that of swadeshi (self-sufficiency). He saw the establishment of native industry and production as key to the divestment from foreign products, and the associated corrupting forces of colonial occupation. During his time in South Africa, he abandoned Western dress and began solely to wear khadi, a hand spun cloth that would come to symbolise the movement. Gandhi himself devoted hours to spinning thread every day, and was often photographed with his wheel, or charkha. It is significant therefore that the publisher’s note thanks “Sjt. Jerajani of the Khadi Bhandar, and Sjt. Shantikumar Narottam Morarji, Bombay, who took great pains in supplying and getting the Khadi dyed for use as binding cloth for this volume”.
This choice of khadi as book cloth is a deliberate application of swadeshi to the publication process, which, since it was undertaken by his own press, Gandhi was intimately involved in. Gandhi’s publishing ventures were under the imprints Phoenix and Navajivan Presses. He was fastidious in the quality and affordability of what he produced, considering bad printing to be an act of himsa (violence).
Sets of both volumes, first editions, are rare in the trade. The volumes are often offered separately, or sets are made up of mixed editions. It seems remarkable that this book was overlooked by Printing and the Mind of Man.
Sharma, J. S. Mahatma Gandhi: A Descriptive Bibliography. Delhi, S. Chand & Co. 1968: 155; Sharma, J. S. Indian National Congress: A Descriptive Bibliography of India’s Struggle for Freedom. Delhi, S. Chand & Co. 1959: 1646. (Accessed 13 March 2024).
