James's Reviews > Gandhi: An Autobiography

Self-revealing and fascinating to read alongside Erik Erikson's at-a-distance psychoanalysis of the saint, Gandhi's Truth (1960). The autobiography is full of surprises: At one point in his youth, Gandhi became convinced that India was behind the times because of vegetarianism, so he vowed to convert all of his homeland to carnivorious wisdom. Perhaps the only vow he did not keep.


Would that his teachings on non-violent resistance (satyagraha) were more widely applied. Detractors argue, however, that this strategy could really work only in India, where it appeals to such deeply ingrained cultural foundations as Patanjali's ahimsa (non-violence), itself a Hindu appropriation of a Jainist principle.

If, for a just cause, one goes on a hunger strike in India, one is appealing to a long tradition of fasting associated with saintlyness and right action. In some other cultures, where those associations do not exist, nobody would much notice or care.