CLEVELAND: Rajmohan Gandhi, research professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will speak about his new biography of his grandfather Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire, at 4 p.m. on Friday, September 5, 2008, at The City Club of Cleveland. A book signing will immediately follow his presentation.

Rajmohan Gandhi’s biography is the first to give a complete and balanced account of Mahatma Gandhi’s life, the development of his beliefs and his political campaigns, and his complex relations with his family.

It reveals a life of contrasts and contradictions: the westernized Inner Temple lawyer who wore the clothes of India's poorest and who spun cotton by hand, the apostle of nonviolence who urged Indians to enlist in the First World War, the champion of Indian independence who never hated the British.

It tells of Gandhi's campaigns against racial discrimination in South Africa and untouchability in India, tracks the battle for India's freedom, explores the evolution of Gandhi's strategies of non-violent resistance, and examines relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.

A former member of the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian Parliament), Rajmohan Gandhi led the Indian delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission in 1990. His other books include Ghaffar Khan: Nonviolent Badshah of the Pakhtuns, Revenge & Reconciliation: Understanding South Asian History, and Eight Lives: A Study of the Hindu-Muslim Encounter. He is a jury member of the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award and co-chair of the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation, Gurgaon, India.

Tickets for this City Club Special Program are $20. Appetizers are included. Reservations are required at least 24 hours in advance of the event. They can be purchased by calling The City Club at 216.621.0082 or visiting the website at www.cityclub.org.