1 “The villagers have a lifeless life”: Nayar, Preparing for Swaraj, p. 301.
2 “a mechanical performance”: Harijan, Aug. 17, 1934.
3 Later he allowed himself: CWMG, vol. 60, p. 58.
4 “We have to work away”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 5, p. 245.
5 “We have to become speechless”: CWMG, 2nd ed., vol. 65, p. 432.
6 Now, by working again: CWMG, vol. 59, p. 179.
7 Once he resolved: Ibid, p. 312.
8 “Wardha became the de facto”: Weber, Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor, p. 104.
9 By the end of the decade: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 5, pp. 17–18.
10 “shame some Japanese”: Ibid., p. 14.
11 “You must not”: Ibid., p. 15. It’s not clear whether a translator, editor, or Gandhi himself was responsible for this odd misuse of the word “clout” for what might have been termed a codpiece, breechcloth, cup, or even “jewel case.” In one of its more obscure definitions, “clout” can refer to a leather or iron patch.
12 “Who knows”: Ibid., p. 347.
13 As might have been expected: Payne, Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 464–65. Also see Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, pp. 406–7.
14 “The people are completely shameless”: Narayan Desai, The Fire and the Rose, pp. 601–2.
15 No road, as yet: Slade, Spirit’s Pilgrimage, pp. 202–3.
16 “If you will cooperate”: CWMG, vol. 62, p. 332.
17 “a very charming”: Slade, Spirit’s Pilgrimage, p. 203.
18 The hut that he was to occupy: Nayar, Preparing for Swaraj, p. 366.
19 Ashram and village: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, pp. 380–81.
20 “Oh God”: CWMG, vol. 59, p. 402.
21 Gandhi’s letters were full: CWMG, 2nd ed., vol. 65, p. 371.
22 A Christian, he was known: Kumarappa had studied economics at Columbia University with Edwin Seligman, who also taught Ambedkar.
23 the last Western economist: See reference in E. F. Schumacher, who quotes Kumarappa briefly. Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (Point Roberts, Wash., reprint, 1999), p. 39.
24 “The Association”: CWMG, vol. 59, p. 452.
25 “Full-timers, whole-hoggers”: Ibid., p. 411.
26 “necessary adjustment”: Ibid., vol. 62, p. 319.
27 “So! You are already tired!”: Narayan Desai, The Fire and the Rose, pp. 602–3.
28 “If this does not work”: CWMG, vol. 62, p. 239.
29 When one of his workers: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 4, p. 96.
30 “The only way is to sit”: CWMG, vol. 62, p. 379.
31 “Our ambition is to make”: Ibid., p. 378.
32 Soon he came down: Slade, Spirit’s Pilgrimage, p. 207.
33 A United Nations survey: Malise Ruthven, “Excremental India,” New York Review of Books, May 13, 2010.
34 What such latter-day: Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who leads the Grameen Bank in neighboring Bangladesh, is aware of similarities between his approach to rural poverty and Gandhi’s, but does not cite the Mahatma as an influence on the development of his thinking in his book Banker to the Poor (New Delhi, 2007). The same is true of Fazle Hasan Abed, the leader of the even larger BRAC Bank, also in Bangladesh, another pioneer in what is called “social entrepreneurship.” See Ian Smillie, Freedom from Want (Sterling, Va., 2009).
35 According to one of the untouchable: Keer, Dr. Ambedkar, p. 268.
36 The observation had provoked: Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 3, Satyapath, p. 172.
37 Within a few months: “Caste Has to Go,” Harijan, Nov. 16, 1935; CWMG, vol. 62, pp. 121–22.
38 Actually, their deepest difference: CWMG, vol. 67, p. 359.
39 As interpreted by D. R. Nagaraj: Nagaraj, Flaming Feet, p. 39.
40 From the standpoint: Ibid., pp. 24–25.
41 The impatience of the Ezhavas: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 4, p. 97.
42 “Would you preach the Gospel”: Ibid., p. 101.
43 In his weekly: CWMG, vol. 65, p. 296.
44 Indignant over the foreigner’s: Harijan, June 12, 1937.
45 “None of our Hindu subjects”: Mahadev Desai, Epic of Travancore, p. 40.
46 So the old man now recalled: Interview with the maharajah of Travancore, Jan. 15, 2009.
47 “truly captivating”: CWMG, vol. 64, p. 255.
48 At nearly every stop: Mahadev Desai, Epic of Travancore, pp. 218–19.
49 “I must tell you”: CWMG, vol. 64, p. 248.
50 Ever since his provocative: Ibid., p. 62.
51 “What a wide gap”: Ibid., p. 132.
52 “No worker who has not”: Ibid., p. 61.
53 “Gandhi’s asceticism”: Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform, pp. 205–6.
54 “I can suppress the enemy”: Ibid., p. 207.
55 In Bombay, recuperating: CWMG, vol. 62, pp. 428–30.
56 In less graphic terms: Ibid., p. 212.
57 “the revolting things”: Saint Augustine, Confessions, translated by Garry Wills (New York, 2006), p. 27.
58 “He remains the same wreck”: Dalal, Harilal Gandhi, p. 105.
59 “That degrading, dirty”: CWMG, vol. 67, p. 61.
60 “For the first time”: Ibid., p. 37.
61 “I am after all”: Cited by Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashramas, p. 228.
62 “Not only have I not”: CWMG, vol. 64, p. 175.
63 “I am told that you are indifferent”: Ibid., vol. 65, p. 301.
64 By speaking of failure: Ibid., p. 240.
65 “There is a hiatus”: Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashramas, p. 219.
66 an ideal he brought home: Gandhi started advocating spinning before he’d ever touched a spinning wheel. The idea, he later said, came to him during his 1909 trip to London “as in a flash.” He didn’t even know the difference between a spinning wheel and a handloom. In Hind Swaraj, written on his 1909 voyage back to South Africa, he writes of “ancient and sacred handlooms” when, so it seems, he’s thinking of the charkha. See an extended footnote on this point by Anthony J. Parel in his edition of Hind Swaraj, p. 230. Narayan Desai makes the same point in the first volume of My Life Is My Message, p. 459.
67 “I am utterly helpless”: CWMG, vol. 65, p. 231.
68 “Unfortunately the higher castes”: CWMG, 2nd ed., vol. 70, p. 461.
69 “a strange medley”: Slade, Spirit’s Pilgrimage, p. 191.
70 “Quite a few are only temporary”: CWMG, vol. 67, p. 327.
71 “show the results”: Mark Lindley, J. C. Kumarappa: Mahatma Gandhi’s Economist (Mumbai, 2007), p. 144.
72 “Whatever I do”: CWMG, vol. 73, cited in Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashramas, p. 209.
73 As late as 1945: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 48.
74 It’s not difficult to feel: Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashramas, p. 227.
75 “We cannot command”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 5, p. 79.
76 “Let no one say”: Ibid., p. 245.
77 “How I should love”: CWMG, vol. 96, pp. 277, 284.
78 “There is something frightening”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, pp. 104–5.
79 The moment of reunion: Harijan, May 29, 1937.
80 Kallenbach wore a dhoti: Sarid and Bartolf, Hermann Kallenbach, p. 73.
81 “There are few people”: Shimoni, Gandhi, Satyagraha, and the Jews, pp. 28–29.
82 firm position on the subject: See CWMG, vol. 19, p. 472, where Gandhi, on March 23, 1921, disputes the British right to make a commitment on Palestine to the Jews.
83 “The sender’s name”: Shimoni, Gandhi, Satyagraha, and the Jews, p. 35.
84 “I quite clearly see”: CWMG, vol. 96, pp. 290, 292.
85 “In my opinion the Jews”: Sarid and Bartolf, Hermann Kallenbach, pp. 75–76.
86 Buber writes: Shimoni, Gandhi, Satyagraha, and the Jews, pp. 40–47.
87 “Will you listen”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 5, p. 160.
88 The letter to Hitler began: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 400.
89 “I can’t imagine anyone”: Mansergh and Lumby, Transfer of Power, vol. 5, p. 41.
90 “If there ever could be”: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 400.
91 However, when Britain finally: Ibid., p. 425.
92 “I am in perpetual quarrel”: CWMG, vol. 70, p. 162.