The Web of Freedom

Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa is unlikely to be a familiar name these days, but those who are acquainted with the history of freedom struggle in India may recall that Kumarappa was a close associate of Gandhiji. Some academics may know at least one of the many books authored by Kumarappa, The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-Violence, which outlined an economic order based on Gandhian principles. The book under review is a biography of Kumarappa in which, as the authors indicate ‘Gandhi is an in- alienable and overarching presence … by the very nature of his decisive role in Kumarappa’s life as well as the India of his times’. They go on to say that the biography naturally divides itself into three distinct phases: before Gan- dhi (1892–1929), with Gandhi (1929–48), and after Gandhi (1948–60). However, the work is much more than a biography: it is an interpretative account of the freedom movement as also of the crucial choices made by the leaders of the country after the country became free, away from the vision that Gandhi had provided