‘Maru Jivan Ej Mari Vani’ by Narayan Desai is a very important text for a variety of reasons. To start with, it is the only complete biography of Gandhi in Gujarati, the Mahatma’s mother-tongue.
An Ahmedabad-based academic and Gandhi scholar, Tridip Suhrud, has translated this four-volume biography into English, allowing the world to see what Gujarat and, more pertinently, Gujaratis have made of Gandhi. The four-volume set, ‘My Life Is My Message’, is set to be released by Ashis Nandy at the Sabarmati Ashram on October 2.
In an exclusive interview with DNA’s Paras K Jha, Suhrud explained how he came to translate Narayan Desai’s great work. Excerpts:

What led you to Gandhian studies?
My preoccupation as an academician has always been with the making of the modern Gujarati mind. My first book, ‘Writing Life: Three Gujarati Thinkers’, was a meditation on Gujarat before Gandhi. From there, it was logical and natural to move to an examination of exactly what Gandhi meant for the cultural, intellectual and social life of the state.

What is the main difference between pre- and post-Gandhian Gujarati thought?
Gandhi was the first person to place the problems of the dispossessed and the marginalised groups of society at the centre of mainstream political and social discourse. Also, though he had inherited a tradition of autobiography which, in Gujarati, begins with Narmad, Govardhanram Tripathi and others, Gandhi is the first person to holistically tie together various strands — social, political and cultural —into an account of his own life.

Why did you decide to translate the biography?
I look at Narayanbhai’s work as the end of a tradition. In the work of Mahadev Desai (Narayan Desai’s father), or in the writings of Maganlal Gandhi, Kakasaheb Kalelkar and others, there is a tradition of meditation and interpretation, not mere transcription of the life and times of Gandhi.