Download or read book Why Gandhi Still Matters written by Rajmohan Gandhi and published by Rupa Publications. This book was released on 2017 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Close to 150 years after he was born, how relevant is Mahatma Gandhi? In our country, he is revered as the Father of the Nation; his face still adorns currency notes, postage stamps and government offices; streets and welfare schemes continue to be named after him but has he been reduced to a mere symbol? Do his values, message and sacrifice have any meaning for us in the twenty-first century? In Why Gandhi Still Matters, the Mahatma's grandson and award-winning writer and scholar Rajmohan Gandhi, appraises Gandhi and his legacy by examining some of his most famous (and often most controversial) ideas, beliefs, actions, successes and failures. He analyses Gandhi's commitment to democracy, secularism, pluralism, equality and non-violence, his gift to the world of satyagraha, the key strategies in his fight for India's freedom, his opposition to caste discrimination, and his equations with Churchill, Jinnah and Ambedkar, as also his failings as a human being and family man. Taken together, the author's insights present an unsentimental view of aspects of Gandhi's legacy that have endured and those that have been cast aside by power-hungry politicians, hate groups, casteist organizations, venal industrialists, terrorists, and other enemies of India's promise.
Download or read book Gandhi Before India written by Ramachandra Guha and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the first volume of a magisterial biography of Mohandas Gandhi that gives us the most illuminating portrait we have had of the life, the work and the historical context of one of the most abidingly influential—and controversial—men in modern history. Ramachandra Guha—hailed by Time as “Indian democracy’s preeminent chronicler”—takes us from Gandhi’s birth in 1869 through his upbringing in Gujarat, his two years as a student in London and his two decades as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. Guha has uncovered myriad previously untapped documents, including private papers of Gandhi’s contemporaries and co-workers; contemporary newspapers and court documents; the writings of Gandhi’s children; and secret files kept by British Empire functionaries. Using this wealth of material in an exuberant, brilliantly nuanced and detailed narrative, Guha describes the social, political and personal worlds inside of which Gandhi began the journey that would earn him the honorific Mahatma: “Great Soul.” And, more clearly than ever before, he elucidates how Gandhi’s work in South Africa—far from being a mere prelude to his accomplishments in India—was profoundly influential in his evolution as a family man, political thinker, social reformer and, ultimately, beloved leader. In 1893, when Gandhi set sail for South Africa, he was a twenty-three-year-old lawyer who had failed to establish himself in India. In this remarkable biography, the author makes clear the fundamental ways in which Gandhi’s ideas were shaped before his return to India in 1915. It was during his years in England and South Africa, Guha shows us, that Gandhi came to understand the nature of imperialism and racism; and in South Africa that he forged the philosophy and techniques that would undermine and eventually overthrow the British Raj. Gandhi Before India gives us equally vivid portraits of the man and the world he lived in: a world of sharp contrasts among the coastal culture of his birthplace, High Victorian London, and colonial South Africa. It explores in abundant detail Gandhi’s experiments with dissident cults such as the Tolstoyans; his friendships with radical Jews, heterodox Christians and devout Muslims; his enmities and rivalries; and his often overlooked failures as a husband and father. It tells the dramatic, profoundly moving story of how Gandhi inspired the devotion of thousands of followers in South Africa as he mobilized a cross-class and inter-religious coalition, pledged to non-violence in their battle against a brutally racist regime. Researched with unequaled depth and breadth, and written with extraordinary grace and clarity, Gandhi Before India is, on every level, fully commensurate with its subject. It will radically alter our understanding and appreciation of twentieth-century India’s greatest man.
Download or read book Why Growth Matters written by Jagdish Bhagwati and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its history since Independence, India has seen widely different economic experiments: from Jawharlal Nehru's pragmatism to the rigid state socialism of Indira Gandhi to the brisk liberalization of the 1990s. So which strategy best addresses India's, and by extension the world's, greatest moral challenge: lifting a great number of extremely poor people out of poverty? Bhagwati and Panagariya argue forcefully that only one strategy will help the poor to any significant effect: economic growth, led by markets overseen and encouraged by liberal state policies. Their radical message has huge consequences for economists, development NGOs and anti-poverty campaigners worldwide. There are vital lessons here not only for Southeast Asia, but for Africa, Eastern Europe, and anyone who cares that the effort to eradicate poverty is more than just good intentions. If you want it to work, you need growth. With all that implies.
Download or read book Great Soul written by Joseph Lelyveld and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-04-03 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly original, stirring book on Mahatma Gandhi that deepens our sense of his achievements and disappointments—his success in seizing India’s imagination and shaping its independence struggle as a mass movement, his recognition late in life that few of his followers paid more than lip service to his ambitious goals of social justice for the country’s minorities, outcasts, and rural poor. “A revelation. . . . Lelyveld has restored human depth to the Mahatma.”—Hari Kunzru, The New York Times Pulitzer Prize–winner Joseph Lelyveld shows in vivid, unmatched detail how Gandhi’s sense of mission, social values, and philosophy of nonviolent resistance were shaped on another subcontinent—during two decades in South Africa—and then tested by an India that quickly learned to revere him as a Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” while following him only a small part of the way to the social transformation he envisioned. The man himself emerges as one of history’s most remarkable self-creations, a prosperous lawyer who became an ascetic in a loincloth wholly dedicated to political and social action. Lelyveld leads us step-by-step through the heroic—and tragic—last months of this selfless leader’s long campaign when his nonviolent efforts culminated in the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan, and a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing that ended only with his own assassination. India and its politicians were ready to place Gandhi on a pedestal as “Father of the Nation” but were less inclined to embrace his teachings. Muslim support, crucial in his rise to leadership, soon waned, and the oppressed untouchables—for whom Gandhi spoke to Hindus as a whole—produced their own leaders. Here is a vital, brilliant reconsideration of Gandhi’s extraordinary struggles on two continents, of his fierce but, finally, unfulfilled hopes, and of his ever-evolving legacy, which more than six decades after his death still ensures his place as India’s social conscience—and not just India’s.
Download or read book Rescuing Socrates written by Roosevelt Montas and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-21 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Dominican-born academic tells the story of how the Great Books transformed his life—and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities. Montás emigrated from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York, when he was twelve and encountered the Western classics as an undergraduate in Columbia University’s renowned Core Curriculum, one of America’s last remaining Great Books programs. The experience changed his life and determined his career—he went on to earn a PhD in English and comparative literature, serve as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, and start a Great Books program for low-income high school students who aspire to be the first in their families to attend college. Weaving together memoir and literary reflection, Rescuing Socrates describes how four authors—Plato, Augustine, Freud, and Gandhi—had a profound impact on Montás’s life. In doing so, the book drives home what it’s like to experience a liberal education—and why it can still remake lives.
Download or read book How Much Should a Person Consume written by Ramachandra Guha and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description
Download or read book JFK and the Unspeakable written by James W. Douglass and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-10-19 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE ACCLAIMED BOOK, NOW IN PAPERBACK, with a reading group guide and a new afterword by the author. At the height of the Cold War, JFK risked committing the greatest crime in human history: starting a nuclear war. Horrified by the specter of nuclear annihilation, Kennedy gradually turned away from his long-held Cold Warrior beliefs and toward a policy of lasting peace. But to the military and intelligence agencies in the United States, who were committed to winning the Cold War at any cost, Kennedy’s change of heart was a direct threat to their power and influence. Once these dark "Unspeakable" forces recognized that Kennedy’s interests were in direct opposition to their own, they tagged him as a dangerous traitor, plotted his assassination, and orchestrated the subsequent cover-up. Douglass takes readers into the Oval Office during the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, along on the strange journey of Lee Harvey Oswald and his shadowy handlers, and to the winding road in Dallas where an ambush awaited the President’s motorcade. As Douglass convincingly documents, at every step along the way these forces of the Unspeakable were present, moving people like pawns on a chessboard to promote a dangerous and deadly agenda.
Download or read book Intertwined Lives written by Jairam Ramesh and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first definitive biography of arguably India’s most influential and powerful civil servant: P.N. Haksar, Indira Gandhi’s alter ego during her period of glory. Educated in the sciences and trained in law, Haksar was a diplomat by profession and a communist-turned-democratic socialist by conviction. He had known Indira Gandhi from their student days in London in the late-1930s, even though family links predated this friendship. They kept in touch, and in May 1967, she plucked him out of his diplomatic career and appointed him secretary in the prime minister’s Secretariat. This is when he emerged as her ideological beacon and moral compass, playing a pivotal role in her much-heralded achievements including the nationalization of banks, abolition of privy purses and princely privileges, the Indo-Soviet Treaty, the creation of Bangladesh, rapprochement with Sheikh Abdullah, the Simla and New Delhi Agreements with Pakistan, the emergence of the country as an agricultural, space and nuclear power and, later, the integration of Sikkim with India. This power and influence notwithstanding, Haksar chose to walk away from Indira Gandhi in January 1973. She, however, persuaded him to soon return, first as her special envoy and later as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission where he left his distinctive imprint. Exiting government once and for all in May 1977, he then continued to be associated with a number of academic institutions and became the patron for various national causes like protecting India’s secular traditions, propagating of a scientific temper, strengthening the public sector and deepening technological self-reliance. Successive prime ministers sought his counsel and in May 1987, he initiated the reconstruction of India’s relations with China. He remained an unrepentant Marxist and one of India’s most respected elder statesman and leading public figures till his death in November 1998. Drawing on Haksar’s extensive archives of official papers, memos, notes and letters, Jairam Ramesh presents a compelling chronicle of the life and times of a truly remarkable personality who decisively shaped the nation’s political and economic history in the 1960s and 1970s that continues to have relevance for today’s India as well. Written in Ramesh’s inimitable style, this work of formidable scholarship brings to life a man who is fast becoming a victim of collective amnesia.
Download or read book Gandhi and His Critics written by B.R. Nanda and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-04-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explores the evolution of Gandhi's ideas, his attitudes toward religion, the racial problem, the caste system, his conflict with the British, his approach to Muslim separatism and the division of India, his attitude toward social and economic change, his doctrine of nonviolence, and other key issues.
Download or read book The Good Boatman written by Rajmohan Gandhi and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 1997 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new and illuminating portrait of one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has been the subject of over a dozen well-regarded biographies, yet key aspects of the man still prove elusive. In this book, Rajmohan Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and an acclaimed biographer and scholar, attempts to understand the phenomenon that was Gandhi. This he does by examining in detail dominant and varied themes of Gandhi's life"his unsuccessful bid to keep India united, his attitude towards caste and untouchability; his relationship with those whose empire he challenged; his controversial experiments with chastity; his views on God, truth and non-violence; and his selection of heirs to lead a new-born nation. For a generation growing up on images of a simplified Father of the Nation and apostle of non-violence frozen in statues or reduced to a few predictable strokes of an artist's pen, this biography offers a rewarding insight into the man, his victories and his defeats.
Download or read book Gandhi Churchill written by Arthur Herman and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2008-04-29 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating and meticulously researched book, bestselling historian Arthur Herman sheds new light on two of the most universally recognizable icons of the twentieth century, and reveals how their forty-year rivalry sealed the fate of India and the British Empire. They were born worlds apart: Winston Churchill to Britain’s most glamorous aristocratic family, Mohandas Gandhi to a pious middle-class household in a provincial town in India. Yet Arthur Herman reveals how their lives and careers became intertwined as the twentieth century unfolded. Both men would go on to lead their nations through harrowing trials and two world wars—and become locked in a fierce contest of wills that would decide the fate of countries, continents, and ultimately an empire. Gandhi & Churchill reveals how both men were more alike than different, and yet became bitter enemies over the future of India, a land of 250 million people with 147 languages and dialects and 15 distinct religions—the jewel in the crown of Britain’s overseas empire for 200 years. Over the course of a long career, Churchill would do whatever was necessary to ensure that India remain British—including a fateful redrawing of the entire map of the Middle East and even risking his alliance with the United States during World War Two. Mohandas Gandhi, by contrast, would dedicate his life to India’s liberation, defy death and imprisonment, and create an entirely new kind of political movement: satyagraha, or civil disobedience. His campaigns of nonviolence in defiance of Churchill and the British, including his famous Salt March, would become the blueprint not only for the independence of India but for the civil rights movement in the U.S. and struggles for freedom across the world. Now master storyteller Arthur Herman cuts through the legends and myths about these two powerful, charismatic figures and reveals their flaws as well as their strengths. The result is a sweeping epic of empire and insurrection, war and political intrigue, with a fascinating supporting cast, including General Kitchener, Rabindranath Tagore, Franklin Roosevelt, Lord Mountbatten, and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. It is also a brilliant narrative parable of two men whose great successes were always haunted by personal failure, and whose final moments of triumph were overshadowed by the loss of what they held most dear.
Download or read book Gandhi The Years That Changed the World 1914 1948 written by Ramachandra Guha and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic and revelatory biography of one of the most abidingly influential and controversial men in modern history. Opening with Gandhi's triumphant return to India in 1915 after decades abroad, and ending with his tragic assassination in 1949, Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World is a remarkable, moving portrait that provides a crucial re-evaluation of India's iconic leader for a new generation. Drawing on a wealth of newly uncovered materials unavailable to previous biographers, acclaimed historian and author Ramachandra Guha brings the past to life with extraordinary grace and clarity. Deploying his gifts as a storyteller and scholar, Guha presents Gandhi as both a fascinating human being--a man of fierce hope, eccentric personal beliefs, and sometimes dark and alarming contradictions--as well as a dynamic political force and global icon. Sharp, insightful, balanced, and impeccably researched, this free-standing sequel to Guha's magisterial biography Gandhi Before India is an indispensable resource for a contemporary understanding of Gandhi's ever-evolving legacy.
Download or read book Start Something That Matters written by Blake Mycoskie and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incredible story of the man behind TOMS Shoes and One for One, the revolutionary business model that marries fun, profit, and social good. “A creative and open-hearted business model for our times.”—The Wall Street Journal Why this book is for you: • You’re ready to make a difference in the world—through your own start-up business, a nonprofit organization, or a new project that you create within your current job. • You want to love your work, work for what you love, and have a positive impact on the world—all at the same time. • You’re inspired by charity: water, method, and FEED Projects and want to learn how these organizations got their start. • You’re curious about how someone who never made a pair of shoes, attended fashion school, or worked in retail created one of the fastest-growing footwear companies in the world by giving shoes away. • You’re looking for a new model of success to share with your children, students, co-workers, and members of your community. You’re ready to start something that matters.
Download or read book The Removal of Untouchability written by Mahatma Gandhi and published by . This book was released on 1959 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Gandhi Nobody Knows written by Richard Grenier and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hope in the Dark written by Rebecca Solnit and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2016-05-14 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] landmark book . . . Solnit illustrates how the uprisings that begin on the streets can upend the status quo and topple authoritarian regimes” (Vice). A book as powerful and influential as Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, her Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of activists at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of our times in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book. “One of the best books of the 21st century.” —The Guardian “No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that’s marked this new millennium.” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author of Falter “An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten, and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout ways.” —The New Yorker
Download or read book Gandhi and the Unspeakable written by James W. Douglass and published by Orbis Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1948, at the dawn of his country's independence, Mohandas Gandhi, father of the Indian independence movement and a beloved prophet of nonviolence, was assassinated by Hindu nationalists. In riveting detail, author James W. Douglass shows as he previously did with the story of JFK how police and security forces were complicit in the assassination and how in killing one man, they hoped to destroy his vision of peace, nonviolence, and reconciliation. Gandhi had long anticipated and prepared for this fate. In reviewing the little-known story of his early "experiments in truth" in South Africa the laboratory for Gandhi's philosophy of satyagraha, or truth force Douglass shows how early he confronted and overcame the fear of death. And, as with his account of JFK's death, he shows why this story matters: what we can learn from Gandhi's truth in the struggle for peace and reconciliation today.
