Abstract
How are great leaders fashioned at the hands of destiny? What are the distinguishing marks separating them from ordinary people? Are there any visible outer signs? Or is it an intangible presence that defnes their infuence? When Mahatma Gandhi was in London in 1931 to argue for India’s independence, a small girl started to ask him for his autograph. Then she drew back shyly before this strange little dhoti-clad man with a roughly mended coarse shawl over his shoulders and cheap wire-framed spectacles. She looked up at her mother and asked: “Mummy, is he really great?”1
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Notes
Cited in Yogesh Chadha, Gandhi: A Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), 1.
Cited in Vishwanath S. Naravane, Sarojini Naidu: An Introduction to Her Life, Work and Poetry (Hyderabad, India: Orient Longman, 1996), 39.
Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1969), 16.
Louis Fischer, ed., The Essential Gandhi (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 1.
Mohandas K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (New York: Dover Publications, 1983), viii. [Emphasis added].
W. Somerset Maugham, named his 1944 novel, The Razor’s Edge, based on Kathopanisad.
Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (Tiruvannamalai, India: Sri Ramanasramum, 2000), 537.
The phrase is attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, the British prime minister from 1874 to 1881. Cited in Jenny Sharpe, Allegories of Empire: The Figure of Woman in the Colonial Text (Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 149.
Louis Fischer, The Life ofMahatma Gandhi (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 12.
Jad Adams, Gandhi: The True Man Behind Modern India (New York: Pegasus, 2012), 33.
S. Gambhirananda, tr., Bhagavad Gita with the Commentary ofSankardcdrya (Calcutta, India: Advaita Ashrama, 1984), 302.
Krishna Kripalani, Gandhi: A Life (New Delhi: National Book Trust, India, 2013, reprint edition), 9.
Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 2.
Krishna Kripalani, Gandhi: A Life (New Delhi: National Book Trust, India, 2013, reprint edition), 18.
See: Arvind Sharma, Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography (New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press, 2013), 54–56. Sharma devotes a whole chapter on the theme of Gandhi’s conversion experience. For its details in Gandhi’s own words, see Gandhi, Autobiography, 92–98.
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, 3rd ed. (New York: A Touchstone Book, 1984), 116.
M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa (Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Navajivan Publishing House, 2008, reprint), 308.
Cited in Sankar Ghose, Mahatma Gandhi (Columbia, MO: South Asia Books, 1991), 83.
Ved Mehta, Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles (New York: Viking, 1977), 130.
Mark Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashrams (Mumbai, India: Popolar Prakashan Pvt. Ltd., 1993), 22.
Timothy Conway, Mahatma Gandhi, Life and Teachings. Retrieved: August 5, 2014, http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Mahatma_ Gandhi.html.
See: Bella Jaisinghani, “Centenary celebrations to retrace Bapu’s arrival in India from SA,” Times of India, January 9, 2015, retrieved February 6, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Centenary-celebrations-to-retrace-Bapus-arrival-in-India-from-SA/articleshow/ 45816953.cms
Geoffrey C. Ward, “How Gandhi Became Gandhi,” review of Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, by Joseph Lelyveld, New York Times, March 24, 2011.
B. R. Nanda, Mahatma Gandhi—A Biography (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), 124.
Satish Sharma, Gandhi’s Teachers: Leo Tolstoy (Ahmedabad: Gujarat Vidyapith University, 2009).
Hazel Whitman, “Toward an Understanding of Gandhi,” review of The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, by Louis Fischer, Commentary Magazine, accessed October 20, 2014, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/ article/the-life-of-mahatma-gandhi-by-louis-fischer/.
Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and Empire (Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press, 2008), xi.
See: G. D. Khosla, Stern Reckoning: A Survey of the Events Leading Up To and Following the Partition of India (Delhi/Bombay/Calcutta/ Madras: Oxford University Press, 1989), 114–244.
E. Stanley Jones, Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 11.
Cited in Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Great Philosophers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1926/1962), 14.
Raymond B. Blakney, trans., The Way of Life Lao Tzu: A New Translation (New York: Mentor Books, 1960), 81.
Cited in Young India, November 26, 1931, as quoted in R. K. Prabhu and U. R. Rao, eds., The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1996),
Michael Nagler, “Do We Live in a Meaningless Universe?” Metta Center Blog, retrieved August 3, 2014, http://mettacenter.org/blog/do-we-live-in-a-meaningless-universe/ [emphasis added].
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© 2015 Satinder Dhiman
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Dhiman, S. (2015). A Hero’s Life Journey: Defining Moments of Life and Leadership. In: Gandhi and Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137492357_2
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