title: The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire (South Asia in Motion)
author: Ashwin Desai
description: "This is a wonderful demonstration of meticulously researched, evocative, clear-eyed and fearless history writing. It uncovers a story, some might even call it a scandal, that has remained hidden in plain sight for far too long. The South African Gandhi is a big book. It is a serious challenge to the way we have been taught to think about Gandhi." (Arundhati Roy)<br /><br />"<i>The South African Gandhi</i> finally offers a real and convincing account of Indian life and politics in South Africa, and Gandhi's changing place within it. Its critique of the sanctimonious and nationalistic historiography around Gandhi allows the authors to recover a Gandhi beyond moralism." (Faisal Devji <i>University of Oxford</i>)<br /><br />"<i>The South African Gandhi</i>'s detailed treatment of how Gandhi operated in the South African political context is a significant contribution to the growing revisionist literature. Most arresting perhaps to readers familiar only with the hagiography will be Gandhi's persistent attempts to improve the position of South African Indians by emphasising their superiority to Africans and reliability as subjects of Empire." (Kathryn Tidrick)<br /><br />"In this impressively researched study, two South African scholars of Indian background bravely challenge political myth-making on both sides of the Indian Ocean that has sought to canonize Gandhi as a founding father of the struggle for equality there. They show that the Mahatma-to-be carefully refrained from calling on his followers to throw in their lot with the black majority. The mass struggle he finally led remained an Indian struggle." (Joseph Lelyveld <i>author of <i>Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India</i></i>)
zlib_text: ![](Images/image00496.jpeg)
  
  RAMACHANDRA GUHA
  
  > > GANDHI  
  BEFORE INDIA
  
  ![](Images/image00502.jpeg)
  
  Contents
  
  > > Dedication
  
  > >  _List of Illustrations_
  
  > >  _Maps_
  
  > > Prologue: Gandhi from All Angles
  
  > > 1 Middle Caste, Middle Rank
  
  > > 2 Among the Vegetarians
  
  > > 3 From Coast to Coast
  
  > > 4 A Barrister in Durban
  
  > > 5 Travelling Activist
  
  > > 6 Lawyer-Loyalist
  
  > > 7 White Against Brown
  
  > > 8 Pluralist and Puritan
  
  > > 9 Trouble in the Transvaal
  
  > > 10 A Lobbyist in London
  
  > > 11 From Conciliation to Confrontation
  
  > > 12 To Jail
  
  > > 13 A Tolstoyan in Johannesburg
  
  > > 14 Prisoner of Conscience
  
  > > 15 Big Little Chief
  
  > > 16 The Contest of Civilizations
  
  > > 17 Seeking a Settlement
  
  > > 18 A Son Departs, a Mentor Arrives
  
  > > 19 A Physician at Phoenix
  
  > > 20 Breaking Boundaries
  
  > > 21 Farewell to Africa
  
  > > 22 How the Mahatma Was Made
  
  > > Illustrations
  
  > >  _Acknowledgements_
  
  > >  _A Note on Sources_
  
  > >  _Notes_
  
  > > Follow Penguin
  
  > > Copyright Page
  
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