Book review: Ramachandra Guha's meticulous reconstruction of Gandhi's life

The detail in Ramachandra Guha's magisterial biography occasionally comes at the cost of interpretation and meaning

This review must begin with a disclosure. Ramachandra Guha is a close friend, and we have shared our intellectual interests and argued about them for over four decades. This review will unavoidably carry signs of the friendship, but our intellectual camaraderie also emboldens me to articulate some criticism and reservations about what is a magisterial biography of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
 
A biography, by convention, crafts a chronological narrative since the life of an individual unfolds in a linear fashion over time. Before Guha embarks on his chronological and very detailed reconstruction of Gandhi’s life in India (after he returned