New Delhi, Dec. 28 -- In 1935, Halide Edib, who had fought alongside Mustafa Kemal Ataturk for the emancipation of Turkey from the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s, visited India to deliver a series of lectures. Her host, M.A. Ansari, was a prominent nationalist, follower and physician to M.K. Gandhi, and a progressive Muslim leader.

Edib spent several weeks in Delhi at Ansari's residence, met the Who's Who of polite society, as well as students at Jamia, before travelling to over half a dozen other Indian cities. She wrote a memoir of her time in the country, especially her impression of the days she spent with Gandhi, which was included in a volume paying tribute to the latter, after he was assassinated in 1948.

Based on this material, Ine...