Ashwin Desai is Professor of Sociology at the University of
Johannesburg.
Goolam Vahed is Associate Professor of History at the University of
KwaZulu Natal.
"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, author of Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle
with India
"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, author of The God of Small
Things
"The South African Gandhi'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, author of
Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life
"The South African Gandhi 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, University of
Oxford
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