Siby Kollappallil Joseph
The month of November/December of 2025 marks the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s classic work, Satya na Prayogo Athva Atmakatha, in Gujarati, and its English translation, An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth, by his secretary, Mahadev Desai.
The idea of writing an autobiography was mooted in Mahatma Gandhi’s mind around four or five years before its actual commencement in 1925, at the insistence of some co-workers. However, when he started writing, it was stopped almost immediately due to the outbreak of riots in Bombay. Subsequently, he was imprisoned at Yerwada Jail in March 1922. It was during his imprisonment that a further insistence came from a fellow prisoner Jeramdas, who asked him to put everything else on one side and finish the autobiography.
Gandhi was released from jail early in 1924 due to ill health. The credit for materializing this idea into action goes to Swami Anand, a close associate who managed Navajivan and Young India. Swami Anand’s contribution as the driving force behind the publication and its serialization is sometimes underrepresented in popular narratives of the book’s creation.
Swami Anand was born as Himmatlal Ramchandra Dave in Shiyani village near Wadhwan in Gujarat. He took a vow of renunciation at a tender age, took a new name, Anand, and became a monk. It was in 1915 that the meeting between Gandhi and Swami Anand took place at Bombay, soon after the former’s return to India from South Africa.
Earlier, he worked in Kesari, the Marathi newspaper founded by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. It is significant to note that Mahatma Gandhi, in his introduction to the autobiography on November 25, 1925, highlighted the role played by Swami Anand.
“What was the immediate reason for the commencement of the Autobiography?” Tridip Suhrud, in his introduction to the critical edition of An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, throws light on the immediate context.
“On 23 November 1925, after two days of agony, M.K. Gandhi decided to go on a fast for seven days. There was a ‘moral lapse’ among the young boys and some girls at the Satyagraha Ashram at Sabarmati. This fast was to commence on 24 November and last up to the 30th.”
He further wrote, “This moral lapse and the attendant fast came to Gandhi at a time when he had begun to write his autobiography… The coming together of the autobiographical act and fasting might suggest serendipity to some, but to Gandhi, it would have appeared as a sign—not from above, not from without and beyond, but from within, from a voice which he described as ‘a small, still voice’—that he was ready to lay bare what was hitherto known only to him and his God, Satyanarayan, God as Truth.”
A God-fearing friend cautioned Gandhi on this adventure of writing an autobiography. Gandhi reproduced his question in his introduction: “Writing an autobiography is a practice peculiar to the West. I know of nobody in the East having written one, except amongst those who have come under Western influence. And what will you write? Supposing you reject tomorrow the things you hold as principles today, or supposing you revise in the future your plans of today, is it not likely that the men who shape their conduct on the authority of your word, spoken or written, may be misled? Don’t you think it would be better not to write anything like an autobiography, at any rate just yet?”
Gandhi admits that this argument had some effect on him. In his explanation, Gandhi differentiated between an autobiography and the story he began to write.
“But it is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography. But I shall not mind, if every page of it speaks only of my experiments.”
According to Tridip Suhrud, in the original Gujarati, Gandhi introduced the difference through two forms, jivan vrutant (autobiography or the chronicle of life) and atmakatha (the story of a soul). He wrote, “What Gandhi wanted to write was an atmakatha and not a jivan vrutant. This distinction gets blurred in the English rendering, ‘autobiography’. The atmakatha, Gandhi knew, would only be written in Gujarati, the language in which he communicated with the self and also the language in which he heard the ‘small, still voice’ speaking from within.”
Gandhi believed that a connected account of all his experiments would be of benefit to his readers. He was aware that his experiments in the political field were well-known, both in India and to a certain extent to the ‘civilized’ world. However, Gandhi felt that these political endeavors, and the title of “Mahatma” (Great Soul) they earned him, were secondary. For him, what was important was the spiritual quest that guided his life.
He wrote, “Often the title (Mahatma) has deeply pained me; and there is not a moment I can recall when it may be said to have tickled me. But I should certainly like to narrate my experiments in the spiritual field which are known only to myself, and from which I have derived such power as I possess for working in the political field.”
Gandhi declares that his lifelong aspiration during the last thirty years was “self-realization,” seeing “God face to face,” and attaining Moksha (liberation/salvation). He asserts that all his activities—speaking, writing, and political work—were intrinsically linked and directed toward this single spiritual goal.
He believed that what is possible for one is possible for all. Gandhi chose to conduct his “experiments” openly rather than privately. He feels this openness enhances, rather than diminishes, their spiritual value.
He cautioned the readers that “If anything that I write in these pages should strike the reader as being touched with pride, then he must take it that there is something wrong in my quest, and that my glimpses are not more than a mirage.”
In short, Gandhi’s Autobiography was not merely a chronological narrative of his life but a profound rendering of spiritual experiments which were not known to Indians or the civilized world. It was mainly driven by an unwavering pursuit of Moksha (self-realization) and materialized into action by the insistence of colleagues like Swami Anand.
In the immediate context of a moral crisis at the ashram in November 1925, Gandhi began serializing his atmakatha (story of the soul) in Navajivan. In this process, he differentiated between a conventional Western autobiography (jivan vrutant) and his own account of “experiments with truth.”
Gandhi’s writing serves as a repository for moral and ethical living. He believed that all his actions in his life, including political ones, were merely expressions of his spiritual quest. The autobiography stands as a testament of humility and serves as a guide for those striving for self-realization. It demands ultimate sacrifices from the seeker.
“The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him.”
However, this book remains a source of inspiration for all who would like to take such a path.
About the Author:
Dr. Siby Kollappallil Joseph is Director, Sri Jamnalal Bajaj Memorial Library and Research Centre for Gandhian Studies, Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan, Sevagram, Wardha- 442102, Maharashtra (INDIA)
Email: directorjbmlrc@gmail.com
