While the flickering lamp' history has obscured the role of Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, Mahatma Gandhi referred to his tenacity of character, his sense duty and his passion for Hindu-Muslim unity. For over two decades, his political career had been an extraordinary trek, attended by reverses and recoveries. This book seeks a better understanding Dr Ansari in relation to his political environment. In studying his ideas and engagements, M A Ansari: Gandhi's Infallible Guide charts the course plotted by him in his ambition to become the leader of the Congress Muslims, a role which had eluded some of his leading contemporaries. In this revised and enlarged version, Mushirul Hasan examines the politics of the 1920s and 1930s with skill and ingenuity. He avoids hagiography and demonology while bringing out all of Ansari's strengths, as well as his weaknesses. Like many of his recent writings, he demonstrates his grasp of the detail of Ansari's life with a magisterial ability to sweep the grand horizon. He contrasts his career with that of Mohammed Ali, the hero of the Khilafat days, with special emphasis on the impact of each upon the other. Mushirul Hasan offers a corrective to the distorted image of the 'Nationalist Muslim'. He refreshingly sheds much light on the pre- and post-Khilafat scenario, and illuminates, above all, Gandhi's role which shaped the politics of the early 1920s. He describes the rise of the communal temperature vividly and exceptionally well.