Mahatma Gandhi\'s Life in Colour

Mahatma Gandhi as never seen before - unless you knew him personally !

The book introduces to the reader the life and work of the historic figure of Mahatma Gandhi through rare images and archival material. In a monumental effort GandhiServe India collected Gandhi’s photographs from sources allover and did extensive research on the captions, too.

In an interdisciplinary project, Gandhi scholars, historians, photo experts and graphic designers joined hands in order to turn black and white photographs into colour images, thus making them true documents of history. After scanning, all photographs have been cleaned digitally and colourized by skilled Indian hands according to the historic settings. When the photographs were taken the actual colourful scenes were reduced to black and white photographs due to technical limitations of those days. Now, in a complex process Indian experts have added the missing colours. 

With this the intention was not to manipulate or adulterate pictures but to bring them closer to the colourful image the photographs documents. Except those who were lucky enough to meet Gandhi personally, the world has never seen him as natural and sharp as in this book. The colours add another dimension to the photographs and reduce the distance between viewer and photograph. The book is of A3 size and weighs 6.5 kg. It contains the oldest known photograph of Gandhi as well as many rare and yet unpublished photographs. On 692 pages the book covers his whole life in detail by 1281 photographs, cartoons, newspaper clippings, select letters and maps. This coffee table book provides an insight in Gandhi’s thoughts by select quotations about 37 subjects that were dear to the Apostle of Nonviolence. His life is documented also by way of a well-written biography and a detailed chronology in the appendix. The foreword has been written by eminent sociologist and social reformer, Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, the founder of Sulabh Sanitation Movement, who also contributed an article about his life and mission in the appendix of the book.

The rare photographs include a unique snapshot of a protest march Gandhi undertook in South Africa in 1913 and his attendance at the appendicitis operation of his granddaughter Manu in the operation theatre.