GANDHI

This book introduces to the reader the life and work of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi often through rare and never before seen photography. The photographs derive from two main collections, one from the photo-archives of Gandhi’s foremost biographer Vithalbhai Jhaveri, and of Kanu Gandhi, Gandhi’s great nephew. Jhaveri made it his life’s work to collect photographs of MK Gandhi from sources around the world. After Jhaveri’s death, Peter Rühe turned the extensive photo collection of over 9,000 prints into a photo-archive of the highest standard through scientific cataloguing and computerisation. Kanu Gandhi lived with MK Gandhi for the last 12 years of his life and was the only person Gandhi gave permission to photograph him, but with three conditions; that the freedom movement would not fund it, that he was not to use flash and that Gandhi would not pose for him. This collection is therefore a precious and intimate view of the more private side of Gandhi’s life. The book has a strong visual narrative and allows us a rare and privileged view of Gandhi through a variety of camera lenses from the witty and ardent press, the sensitive and intelligent agency to the ingenuous eye of a great nephew.