At the age of eighteen, a shy and timid Mohandas Gandhi leaves his Gujarati home for a life on his own. At forty-five, a confident and fearless Gandhi arrives back in India ready to boldly lead his country to freedom.

What transforms him?

The law.

MK Gandhi, Attorney at Law, the first biography of Gandhi’s life in the law, follows Gandhi as he goes on a journey of self-discovery during his law studies in Britain, fails miserably at his law practice in India, and then becomes enormously successful representing wealthy Indian merchants in South Africa. Relentless attacks on Indian rights by the white colonial authorities there cause Gandhi to give up his lucrative representation of private clients for public work – the representation of the besieged Indian community in South Africa.

As he takes on the most powerful governmental, economic, and political forces of his day, he learns two things. He comes to know that unifying his professional work with his political and moral principles not only provides him with satisfaction, it also creates in him a strong, powerful voice. Using the courtrooms of South Africa as his laboratory for resistance, Gandhi learns something else so important that it will eventually have a lasting, global impact: a determined people can bring repressive governments to heel by the principled use of civil disobedience.

Using materials hidden away in archival vaults and brought to light for the first time, MK Gandhi, Attorney at Law puts the reader inside dramatic experiences that changed Gandhi’s life forever and have never been written about – until now.

Charles R. DiSalvo is the Woodrow A. Potesta Professor of Law at West Virginia University where he teaches one of the few law school courses on civil disobedience in the United States. He has also represented civil disobedients in trial and appellate courts, written widely on civil disobedience, and lectured on the subject in the United States and abroad. He is the co-founder of the West Virginia Fund for Law in the Public Interest.

"DiSalvo's work is the most important addition to Gandhi literature for quite some time. He is authoritative and captivating on the subject, providing original research that will be indispensable to Gandhi scholars, the legal community, and a more general audience interested in this fascinating history." – Thomas Weber, Politics and International Relations Program, La Trobe University, Melbourne

"M.K. Gandhi is a marvelous account of Gandhi's legal practice with a particularly exciting and accurate interpretation of his political philosophy in light of his legal experience. This work fills an important gap in current Gandhi scholarship." –Anthony Parel, Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary