Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Overview

Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography presents his life as a succession of moral and practical trials oriented toward “truth” (satya) and nonviolence (ahimsa). Written originally in Gujarati and later translated into English in 1927, it follows his journey from a timid child in western India to an ethical experimenter leading mass movements. Rather than offering a heroic chronicle, the narrative examines how character is refined through discipline, failure, service, and the constant testing of means against ends.

Early Life and Formation

Born in 1869 at Porbandar in a devout Vaishnava household, Gandhi recalls his mother’s fasting and piety, the atmosphere of duty and restraint, and his own shyness. He writes candidly about youthful missteps, secret meat-eating, theft for ornaments, jealousy in marriage, paired with acts of confession and restitution. The early marriage to Kasturba at thirteen becomes a lens for his later vow of brahmacharya, suggesting how personal relationships became fields of ethical experiment rather than private indulgence.

London and the Search for Principle

As a law student in London, Gandhi grapples with dress, diet, and belonging. A promise to his mother keeps him from meat and alcohol, and he immerses himself in the Vegetarian Society, comparative religion, and self-help routines. The Bhagavad Gita becomes his “spiritual dictionary, ” while the Sermon on the Mount deepens his sense of love as law. He learns that reform begins with simplifying one’s own life, discovering inner resolve through outward discipline.

South Africa and the Birth of Satyagraha

Arriving in South Africa in 1893, Gandhi’s ejection from a train crystallizes the reality of racial humiliation. Organizing the Indian community, he founds the Natal Indian Congress and pioneers satyagraha against unjust laws, most notably the Transvaal registration measures. He establishes the Phoenix Settlement and Tolstoy Farm as laboratories for communal living, manual labor, and shared sacrifice. A vow of brahmacharya in 1906, alongside experiments in diet and hygiene, anchors his conviction that political power flows from self-mastery.

Return to India and Mass Politics

Returning in 1915 under Gokhale’s guidance, Gandhi studies India’s conditions before embracing national leadership. He tests nonviolence in local struggles: the indigo peasants of Champaran, famine-struck farmers of Kheda, and mill workers in Ahmedabad. The Rowlatt agitations and the shock of Jallianwala Bagh shape his move toward Non-Cooperation, woven with constructive programs like khadi, village sanitation, and Hindu, Muslim amity. When violence erupts at Chauri Chaura in 1922, he suspends the campaign, asserting that tainted means corrupt noble ends.

Experiments of the Self

Threaded through public action are rigorous personal trials: fasting as self-purification and persuasion, vows of poverty, experiments with raw foods and later goat’s milk, and nature-cure practices. He confesses failures, desire, pride, errors with money, and insists that transparency is part of truth. Prayer, spinning, and the Gita steady his will. Influence from Tolstoy and Ruskin’s “Unto This Last” shapes his doctrine of sarvodaya, the welfare of all, realized through humble labor and voluntary restraint.

Style, Purpose, and Ideas

The prose is spare, self-critical, and didactic, framing episodes as tests rather than triumphs. He critiques modern civilization’s materialism and argues for swadeshi, the ethics of local production and self-reliance. Ashram life becomes a microcosm of the society he seeks: rule by conscience, not compulsion; service over status; and the education of the whole person through work and character.

Scope and Legacy

Closing in the early 1920s, the autobiography stops short of independence, emphasizing an unfinished quest. Its enduring claim is that moral law governs political outcomes, and that truth is approached through disciplined experiments in everyday life. By uniting the private and public, it invites readers to see courage not as force but as fidelity to principle, tested, corrected, and renewed in action.