Harilal Gandhi, the eldest son of Mohandas and Kasturba Gandhi, is a mysterious, fascinating figures. We know very little about his life. Paradoxically, Harilal has also been the subject of much speculation in recent times. Chandulal Bhagubhai Dalal's life of Harilal Gandhi is the only full-length biography available on him. One of the finest outcomes of Gandhian scholarship, it is moved by an acute desire to undo a wrong and to rescue a life from a world of perpetucal rumours and shadows. Chandulal Dalal's biography reconstructs a life from letters, family records and archives of the Sabarmati Ashram, and old files of newspapers. He wrote letters and conversed with the family of Harilal Gandhi. His narrative is documentary in style; the language unambiguous, sparse, unadorned. He is empathetic and compassionate towards all-Harilal, Gandhiji, Kasturba and other members of the Gandhi family-but his commitment is only to truth. Tridip Suhrud's English translation of his Gujarati work seeks to go beyond the act of just translation. Apart from the life of Harilal Gandhi as chronicled by Chandulal Dalal, Tridip suhrud has included twelve appendices constituting hitherto unpublished letters and related material. Chandulal Dalal's biography, Combined with the Translator's Appendices, contains the complete published, unpublished and archival material available on Harilal Gandhi. This English translation will urge us to think beyond the clash between father and son, and see a deeper mystery which united them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Chandulal Bhagubhai Dalal
Chandulal Bhagubhai Dalal (1899-1980) graduated from Sydenham College, Bombay, and went to the London School of Economics for further studies. He was the last chief officer of the Ahmedabad Municipality and the first chief auditor of the Ahmedabad Municipal corporation, from where he retired in 1954. He participated in the Salt Satyagraha and the Quit India movement and was imprisoned for three months in 1930 and for nine months in 1942. He served as the director of the Gandhi Smarak Sanghrahalaya from 1954 to 1962, during which period he created the foundation of the present-day archives at the Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad. He compiled a two-part history of the satyagraha in South Africa, Gandhiji ni Dakshin Africa ni Ladat. He edited twelve volumes of Mahadev Desai’s diaries and was writing a biography of Mahadevbhai which he could not complete.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tridip Suhrud
Tridip Suhrud has translated the works of Ashis Nandy, Ganesh Devy and Paulo Freire into Gujarati and has translated novelist Suresh Joshi into English. He is at present translating into English a four-part biography of Gandhiji, Maru Jivan ej Mari Vani, written by Narayan Desai, to be published by Orient Longman a My Life is My Message. He is the author of Writing Life: Three Gujarati Thinkers (forthcoming, Orient Longman). He teaches at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust, Ahmedabad, and is visiting faculty at Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad.
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