Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Humble, Confident
Ordinarily, we think of being humble and being confident going together about as well as baking soda and vinegar or oil and water. If someone is humble, we think they're at best a saint and at worst a doormat. If someone is confident, we imagine they might be either a) an awesome leader or b) an arrogant jerk.
But Gandhi manages to pull off a combination of both humility and confidence that's completely convincing and endearing. We feel his humility when he admits to his own wrongdoing, as in the passage about allowing his wife to use the bathroom to which she wasn't entitled (5.5.10)—oh, Gandhi, you scamp—yet we feel his confidence when he boldly makes declarations about what's right and what's wrong, like when he says that without "properly kept [financial] accounts it is impossible to maintain truth in its pristine purity" (2.19.12).
There is definitely a unique attitude palpable in the text, and that comes from having been written by a totally earth-changingly unique person.