Friday, November 18, 2022
10:00am - 11:30am EST / 8:30pm - 10:00pm IST
Commentators:
Uday Mehta, CUNY
Faisal Devji, University of Oxford
Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former bureaucrat who has served an illustrious career as a diplomat and held several administrative positions. He has previously served as India's High Commissioner to South Africa and Sri Lanka. He has also served as the 23rd Governor of West Bengal serving from 2004 to 2009.
Dr. Tridip Suhrud is a renowned scholar in the field of political science and cultural history. He has extensively worked on the life and thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi and the social and cultural history of modern Gujarat. Prior to joining CEPT University, Dr. Suhrud was serving as the Director & Chief Editor of Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust, where he was also responsible for setting up of the Gandhi Archives. His past academic affiliations include the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, the DAIICT, Gandhi Nagar, and the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. Dr. Suhrud is the Chairman of the Governing council of MICA.
About the book:
This book publishes - for the most part, for the first time - Gandhi's letters to his youngest son, Devadas from 1914, when father and son were both in South Africa to 1948, when they were both in Delhi, the capital of free India where within hours of the last letter Gandhi was assassinated. Gandhi wrote these letters by day, he wrote them by night, he wrote them from aboard trains, steamers, both right and left hands being pressed into service to rest one when tired out.
The letters span three decades during which the writer grew from being a fighter for the rights of Indians in South Africa to being hailed as Father of the Nation by millions in India and - opposed by many as well including the man who felled him by three bullets fired at point blank range on 30 January, 1948. The letters hold his aspirations for his son and for his nation. They bear great love and they also scorch. And we see Devadas, the recipient of the letters, move in them from compliant childhood and youth, to adulthood, questioning and remonstrating with his father and being just the independent son his father wants him to be.