Reassessing Mahatma: Did Gandhi-giri really work?

We should look at Gandhi’s patent Satyagrah thing from a practical point of view. What Gandhi wants is that if someone attacks us we should not fight back, far from that we should not even try to stop him from hurting us…and go on receiving blow after blow. And in due process a time would come when the beater will feel pity upon us and hence stop beating us ! This will be our victory – the victory of the good over evil ! Simple ! What a wonderful idea…and how nice it sounds

@Shantanu: The hindustantimes link to Anuj Dhar’s website is broken.

It is hard for me to understand that historians can just tweak information while people who have watched the events live amongst their midst. However, I do agree with some of this thoughts.
While I can understand that satyagraha evoked sympathy from indians who might have enlisted with the brits, I am not sure exactly what it did to the colonists to leave the country.
May be they felt the cost-benefit ratio (cost of running the country to the loot) was such that it made it non-profitable and they left. And satyagraha created enough restlessness in the country to mess up their budgets.
May be satyagraha was the most effective way at that time, since we were lagging behind in weapon technology anyway.

We have this disgraceful habit of looking at our great Independence struggle from a bania point of view. Why do we try to sideline the fundamental question : was Gandhi-giri relevant during those troubled times ? Did Gandhi and his experiments with truths (or what he wrongly believed to be truths) really helped the actual heroes of the Movement ? or it simply helped the enemy within get more and more out of nothing ?

It is difficult to separate cause and effect, especially when you have multiple events occurring at the same time. Just as Dr Basu has built a circumstantial case against Gandhi, similarly one can do the same for pretty much everyone else who contributed to the Indian Independence movement.

One can keep arguing about what was more important and critical among these:

1. The Civil Disobedience movement – the first real mass mobilisation of Indian people. Dr Basu makes the mistake of saying that this did not achieve anything tangible, but is not the first-time-mobilisation of millions of common people (and not just rajputs or marathas) across the country itself not an achievement? And, the fact that for the first time the British Empire spoke to an Indian politician as an equal interloculator?

2. The killing of Saunders (I think) in Pune – for the first time, the British awoke to the fact that their top officials could also be targeted directly by Indian revolutionaries (terrorists) and they could be picked off one by one.

3. The Dandi Satyagragha – Again Dr Basu, I think deliberately, misses the point about the Dandi March. This was open flouting by an individual and his unarmed followers of the most powerful empire in the world (past and then). Can you imagine the effect of that on the common people of India?

4. The INA reaching India’s North East – This was as at the height of World War II when the British was increasingly being sandwiched between the Germans and the Japanese. I think India’s history would have looked different (not necessarily better!) if Bose had managed to break through Imphal and march towards Delhi. But the shock to the system was huge, despite the defeat of the INA.

5. The Navy Mutiny in Bombay – this was literally the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The final catalyst that led to Independence, and I don’t think our history books underplay this event.

But, think about it – could #5 have come about if national consciousness had not been raised by events #1 and #3? And, could #4 have come about if #2 had not shown the way? And would #1-3 have had any meaning without events #4-5?

Berating and belittling Gandhi has become the latest fashion, I think.

It is also true that Gandhi was believed to have said many times in the 20’s and 30’s that people of India were not yet ready for full Independence.

And, when I read that, I wondered how can any person not be ready for independence? Don’t we all desire freedom?

And, today, when I see my fellow citizens break every rule and law that they think they can get away with, I wonder if Gandhi was not indeed not right? That we got freedom, but no civic values or sense or responsibility.

Shantanu: “A historian’s locus standi must always be facts – to the extent that we can find them. In that sense, a re-examination of the past is not necessarily something to shy away from (this is my point of view – you may disagree)”

Fully agree with the above. I think we certainly need independent historians to revisit our “history” …. I was actually comparing and contrasting this particular historian with current folk lore, nothing more or less.

Also, a historian may depend on facts, but ultimately he interprets them according to his reasoning. That is why you have many histories!!!!

http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=152

Gandhi under Cross Examination
Leo Rebello
02 Oct 2008

As a student, I was much impressed by the short biographical textbook we had in the tenth grade on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It was so well written that it left an indelible mark on my mind about the courage and honesty of Mahatma Gandhi.

Later, I had the opportunity to work with many stalwarts of the Gandhi era. I know Arun Gandhi (his grandson, now residing in the United States), Rajmohan Gandhi (his grandson in India) and Ela Gandhi (his granddaughter residing in South Africa) who, in 2000, personally took me to the Phoenix settlement (Gandhi’s spiritual retreat in South Africa).

Therefore, some years ago, when an Indian journalist said, “Gandhi was a bastard bania” on Star TV, I reprimanded him as did many others. His “derogatory comments” remained a bone of contention for more than a month. The anchor who interviewed him lost her lucrative job and the journalist had to apologize to avoid legal proceedings.

Then I came across a celebrated book The 100 – a ranking of most influential persons in history by Michael Hart. Gandhi was nowhere on the list of 100, in which Muhammad appeared first, Isaac Newton second, Jesus Christ third, Buddha fourth and Niels Bohr (father of the theory of atomic structure) the last entry. I was shocked; but the reasons given by the author for including Gandhi in a supplementary chapter titled Honourable Mentions and Interesting Misses seemed sound to me. Below are the first three of five paragraphs on page 526 of the said book:
“Mohandas K. Gandhi was the outstanding leader of the movement for an independent India, and for that reason alone several people have suggested that he be included in the main section of this book. It should be remembered, though, that Indian independence from England was bound to come sooner or later; in fact, given the strength of the historical forces tending towards decolonization, we can today see that Indian independence would surely have been achieved within a few years of 1947 even had Gandhi never lived.

“It is true that Gandhi’s technique of non violent civil disobedience was ultimately successful in persuading the British to leave India. It has been suggested, however, that India might have gained independence sooner if the Indians had adopted more forceful methods instead. Since it is hard to decide whether on the whole Gandhi speeded up or delayed Indian independence, we might reasonably conclude that the net effect of his actions was (at least in that respect) rather small. It might also be pointed out that Gandhi was not the founder of the movement for Indian independence (the Indian National Congress had been founded as early as 1885), nor was he the main political leader at the time independence was finally achieved.

“Still, it might be maintained that Gandhi’s principal importance lies in his advocacy of non-violence. (His ideas, of course, were not entirely original: Gandhi specifically said that they were derived in part from his readings of Thoreau, Tolstoy, and the New Testament, as well as from various Hindu writings.) There is little doubt that Gandhi’s policies, if universally adopted, would transform the world. Unfortunately, they have not been generally accepted, even in India.”
I am not much of a student of history, so the more I read about Gandhi’s contribution to the freedom struggle of India, that more the halo of ‘Mahatma’ (great soul) lost its glow. The final blow came when the authors of this book asked me to write a foreword.

Writing a foreword to a formidable treatise whose subject is an icon for millions is not easy. I have gone through this manuscript and can say that it is an excellent analytical work. For two reasons: (a) the authors are quoting directly from ‘authentic sources’ like Gandhi’s ‘An Autobiography: My Experiments with Truth’ and (b) the questions they are asking have never been asked before.

Rev. Joseph Doke (the first biographer of Gandhi) asks Gandhi if he was prepared to be a martyr. Gandhi asks Doke if he would like him to write part of the biography. Then Gandhi promotes this biography with precision, in London, India and throughout the empire, while suppressing its release in South Africa where he lived for 21 years. Why? Through questions like these Col. G.B. Singh and Dr. Timothy Watson put Gandhi in the witness box, which makes this book different.

G.B. Singh has been researching Gandhi for over two decades and also studying Hinduism and Indian politics. He is a career military officer in the American army and claims to have been influenced by the modern skeptical movements. His first book Gandhi Behind the Mask of Divinity (Prometheus Books, 2004) has been succeeded by Gandhi Under Cross-Examination, which probes the subject more deeply. Here Watson joins Singh in an intensive ‘re-search’ conducted without prejudice. Watson is a Canadian educationist.

The authors claim that Gandhi worked for the empire. The evidence is contained in the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi in Gandhi’s own words, they aver. Gandhi made repeated appeals to the high caste Indian population of South Africa to join in the war effort to stem the Zulu uprising in Natal in South Africa. He even led a campaign to form a volunteer ambulance corps made up of Indians, which he led as a commissioned officer with the rank of sergeant major. He also acted as a wartime correspondent through his own newspaper, Indian Opinion. Why would Gandhi have done this? Why would he act as a recruitment officer in the Boer War, the campaign against the Zulus, and the First World War on behalf of the British Empire? Questions such as these need to be addressed to set the record straight.

The authors prove that Gandhi has not presented the truth before the world. Considerable evidence analyzed by them shows that the racial train and coach incidents (travelling from Durban to Pretoria) in South Africa, and other instances, are not true. Gandhi fabricated, embellished, and even lied to further his own political agenda. Obviously, his conscience was pricking him for lying. He knew he was playing with the truth. Hence, he very aptly titled his biography My Experiments with the Truth.

As a professional writer and having worked closely with several Gandhians and been influenced by many Gandhian precepts, I understand that the reputation of an icon of the modern era hangs in the balance. But let it be noted that neither the writer of the foreword nor the authors of this book are out to demolish the reputation of a great man.

The book helps readers understand that M.K. Gandhi was an astute businessman, a cunning politician and a deeply religious man. To that extent this book makes you a scholar rather than a pedantic follower. No doubt it is a provocative book. But it also offers a new perspective on history and helps to de-programme our minds from establishment indoctrination. After reading this book the readers will be in a better position to decide whether Gandhi is relevant today or not.

The author is World Peace Envoy and lives in Mumbai. This article is based on his forward to Gandhi Under Cross-Examination, by Col. G.B. Singh and Dr. Timothy Watson, Sovereign Star Publishing Inc., 2008

Shantanu,

I havenot read full post in details but I am describing my over all feelings.

I agree that only Gandhiji and Nehru didnot bring freedom. There are many who fought, sacrifised and dedicated their life for Freedom. We should not forget many brave hearts, like Vir sawarkar, Bhagat Sing and his friends, Mangal Pandey, Subash Chandra Bose and many many…

Gandhiji never said it is because of me freedom was or is possible. Today we may discuss many things associted with him. But the fact of that period of time is very important. How people felt, why gandhiji got momentum or why he lead the freedom team, why people kept faith in him and believed him. Why he got more attention than any others. May be at that point of time he was the necessity.

Lets not make efforts for freedom small by evaluating freedom fighters. To learn from the the history, the past mistakes, and wrong decision and conclusions is fine but please dont weigh the freedom figters or because of who we got the freedom. They all are as as important as they were.

I also agree his type of Gandhigiri couldnot have worked or may not be work in present time. But something in Gandhiji clicked many at that time.

Jai Hind!

I am the author of that article, which due to the strength of the Gandhi Brigade, could not be published anywhere except in Indiacause.com a web magazine. Thus, propaganda is much more powerful than the truth.
Some of errors I have the noticed in the comments written above.
a) Khilafat Movement was not the first non-violent mass movement in India. Most possibly it was the Swadesi Movement of 1905 after the partition of Bengal to satisfy the demands of the Muslims of India by Lord Curzon
.
Gandhi’s mentor Sir.Ghokale was against the Swadesi Movement and because of his opposition it was curtailed at the end much to the satisfaction of Jinnah, who was a leader of The Congress at that time.
Ghokhle then went to London to have some long meetings with William Gladstone, the British Prime Minister and a conspiracy to sabotage the freedom movement of India was designed in London. Ghokhle thereafter went to South Africa and brought Gandhi to London, where Gandhi has stayed for about six months before he came to India. Gokhle has asked The Congress, along with the pro-British media of India at that time, to accept Gandhi as the sole leader of The Congress but without any election. In fact there was no election in the Congress since Gandhi entered The Congress until 1938-39, when Subhas Bose gatecrashed into it and was expelled as a result.
After the entry of Gandhi into The Congress, both Tilak and Chittaranjan Das died mysteriously and prematurely; Lajpat Rai was killed by the British police; Bipin Pal, Anne Besant, Surendranath Banerjee, Ajit Singh and later Iyenger were practically forced to resign from The Congress. Gandhi became the supreme decision maker in The Congress. Gandhi was financed by the very pro-British business leaders of India, mill owners of Gujarat, G.D.Birla and J.L.Bajaj in particular who had financed Gandhi’s Ashram.
Recently it was revealed by The Statesman that Gandhi had several meeting with Teggart, the notorious police commissioner of Calcutta during the 1920s when the revolutionary movement was very strong and Teggart had personally killed a number of revolutionaries or tortured them to death. Gandhi’s vile statements against the revolutionaries, when they were already sentenced to death, are well documented. It is also a fact that the members of the British intelligence service dressed up as poor peasants used to surround Gandhi to protect him ( from whom??).
Gandhi refused to support the revolt of the Indian Navy in 1946, by saying that only the lower class people of India were united to support that revolt through strikes in Karachi, Bombay and Calcutta, not the upper class people of India. However, within a week after the suppression of that revolt against the persecutions of the members of the Azad Hind Fauz, Clement Attlee, the British Prime Minister declared his intention to leave India as Britain had no such big army and resources to suppress India any more(so said Stafford Cripps in the British House of Commons in 1946).

(1) In the Complete Volume of Gandhi, Vol 4 has letters and telegrams of Gandhi to and from Gokhle during 1914. Also it contains several meetings of Gandhi and Gokhle with Gladstone.

(2) For Gandhi’s hostile comments on the revolt of 1946 see, Chandra, Bipan and others (1989). India’s Struggle for Independence 1857-1947, New Delhi:Penguin, ISBN 0-14-010781-9, p.485

@Dipak:

“After the entry of Gandhi into The Congress, both Tilak and Chittaranjan Das died mysteriously and prematurely; Lajpat Rai was killed by the British police”

If you put forward such innuendos, no wonder a publishing house would not touch you.

I do not believe any person can be only white or black – our “history” books may have presented Gandhi as only white, but the response to that should not be innuendos and slander.

I do understand the Bengali angst against Gandhi, as he ensured that Bose was forced to leave the congress – and, he behaved like a petty politician in that regard, but his clear preference was for Nehru and he rooted for him. The key question in this episode is not why Gandhi acted the way he did, but why did the Congress kowtow to him? Who is at greater fault here, if you think about it rationally?

Does Bipin Chandra cite evidentiary sources for the comments attributed to Gandhi on the 1946 Naval revolt? The remarks do not seem to be believable, because Gandhi was too wily a politician to make such crass remarks.

And, finally we can cite small movements here and there to the contrary, but Gandhi was the first leader in the independence movement to really get the masses into the movement. Even Tilak (whom I respect a lot) managed little outside of Pune, and surrounding areas.

And, then Gandhi said – My life is my message. And, lived it as such. To me, therein lies his greatness.

Cheers

Dear Musafir,

I think you have mixed up your chronology – there was no swadeshi movement in Bengal in 1905. The 1905 Bengal movement was against the partition of Bengal into hindu-majority and muslim-majority parts by Curzon, then Viceroy of India, on the grounds of “administrative convenience”! The Bengal province in those days included present-day Assam and much of the north-east – and hence, you may think that the movement was present in the north. But, there was no activity in United Provinces at that point in time. The partition was eventually undone in 1911, before a second, more permanent partition was foisted on Bengal in 1947.

Gandhi’s first movement that fired the imagination of the masses was the Champaran movement in Bihar in 1918, against the cultivation of indigo, which forced the British to accept the demands of the indigo farmers. The second one was the non-cooperation movement in 1921, which showed up the first mention of swadeshi.

While the Khilafat movement was launched in 1920 in India by Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, Gandhi extended support to it – he was, by no means, a leader in that movement. And, as an aside, to this day, people criticise Gandhi for this support.

And, finally, do keep in mind that Gandhi’s reputation preceded him to India – his struggle for the civil rights of Indian in South Africa took place between 1893 and 1913. The “weapons” of non-cooperation and satyagraha were honed much before Champaran.

Cheers

Swadesi movement was organized by Surendranath Banerjee ( Congress president in 1905), Bipin Pal, Arabindo Ghosh, Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Rabindranath Tagore, but was opposed by Gokhale, Firoj Shah Kotla etc

@ Musafir:

And, people change as they grow and are faced with conflicting ideas – you are right about Gandhi at the first round table conference, when Gandhi had not yet embraced the idea of a free nation.

Yet, it was Gandhi’s call to disobey the Rowlatt Act, spurn foreign textiles and give up government jobs that led to India’s first mass movement after 1857.

And yet, it was Gandhi who marched to Dandi and broke English laws – if you read some of his earlier writing, you will find that he always wanted to stay within the bounds of the law, first – then, he came up with this breakthrough in his *own* thinking – that if the laws were unjust, then it was the duty of the citizen to oppose such unjust laws.

Gandhi was not born with all the accumulated wisdom of the ages – he also evolved, his thinking evolved – just like all of us. To hold some of his earlier transgresses against Indian nationhood against him, in perpetuity and in exclusion, is merely churlish, in my opinion.

Cheers

(1)
For the Swadesi movement look at Wikipedia or search in Google, you can only see 1905 Partition of Bengal. That was the Swadesi movement. Gandhi at that time was serving in South Africa as a military officer for the British against the Dutch.
(2) Similarly search for Khilafat Movement, Gandhi was the main leader. Do not call it civil disobedient movement, it was Khilafat Movement to reestablish the Sultan of Turkey.
(3)
Gandhi has nothing to do with the movement against Rawlatt Act, against which there were countrywide mass movement and Jaliwanwala Bag Murder took place in that context. Gandhi has nothing to do with it, because it was Gandhi who was recruiting soldiers for the British at that time.
(4)
Salt March was ened in a total failure, it could not achieve anything.
(5) 1930 Civil Disobedient movement lasted 5 days only, Gandhi withdrew it.
(6) Gandhi never took part in First Round Table Conference, but took part in the Second.
(7) Gandhi came back to India at the age of 55, he was not a child then. Khudiram Bose gave his life at the age of 18.
Even at a very old age in 1947 Gandhi told Lord Mountbatten ” Have I ever disobeyed you” and went on to partition India.

From the British POV, India was a profit center for more than a century. However during the World War, given the strain of resources needed to manage the country against the actual profits coming out an assessment was made which showed India was not as profitable as estimated.
The labour party of Atlee in a shrewd political move decided to work towards giving India freedom at a price (Partition).
A decision made with the tipping point reached during the INA trials.
Was Satyagraha powerful? I would say yes given that it gave people without weapons or money an capability to demonstrate their thoughts. But in the larger context of India’s freedom, history seems to suggest otherwise.

@Patriot

DD is right. Nothing more authorative than the Oxford History of Modern India states that it had become such an economic burdon that the Britain had every reason to get out except Gandhi’s so called freedom movements. We are going to reach a stage as regards Gandhi that he was in fact an insignificant man except to the Hindus of India who have been brainwashed to believe otherwise. Are there any takers fot making a film of Gandhi that exposes Gandhi for the man that he reaaly was?

@Patriot,
Again let me reiterate, I’m not discounting Gandhi’s contributions to the freedom struggle. But just the overall thought process that Satyagraha was crucial to the achievement of India’s freedom.
Let us not forget that Gandhi’s political machinations lead to the ouster of some key leaders like Netaji and sidelining of others like Sardar Patel when their impetus would’ve gained better results. The proof being their leadership and tangible results demonstrated when given the power.

From the Times of India:

According to an agency report from Lucknow, Mayawati, while addressing a meeting of MPs and legislators of the BSP on Saturday, called the Father of the Nation a “natakbaaz” (fake).
…
The BSP leader had reportedly said that the Mahatma’s contributions towards dalit uplift had been overhyped. She rejected his initiatives in this regard as nothing but “melodrama”.

@Patriot,
In any analysis of this sort, we are discussing the degree of influence. My contention being it was not significant in the final outcome based on historical analysis. (Some of the evidence already presented in this article by Shantanu and others).
There are several instances where in Gandhi’s political machinations could be questioned. These go in direct opposition to the principles he preached. Like,
– Support for the violent Khilafat movement and other similar movements just to keep certain sections of society involved.
– Disdain towards the actions of fighters like Bhagat Singh and inaction to secure their release even on a humanitarian basis.
– Rejection of Netaji as the righteous leader of Congress when he was elected and forcing him out of the mainstream struggle.
– Sidelining the excellent Sardar Patel whose acumen, political will and actions is the single most important reason why India is in its current coherent geographical structure during and after Partition.

Beyond all of this, the World War had almost bankrupted Britain and it was forced to work with the US on currency stabilization and rebuilding its economy.
In that economic conditions, managing colonies which were more of a burden than producing appropriate wealth plus the political conditions in the colonizing countries after the War when they could not justify colonialism when they were fighting Nazism oppression shifted the balance significantly.
In a sense you are making the analogy that a environmental group against the Hummers forced GM to sell the Hummer division while overlooking the whole economic turmoil.

hey shantanu ….. chk this link in the same site ….

http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/Did-Gandhis-Nonviolence-give-Freedom-India/blog-103.htm

this is an article by gopal alankar …..

Khandu Patel,

It seems that you may have misinterpreted my last comment regarding Patel, which was directed at Patriot, and was saying the same thing that you did in your exposition, i.e. Patel’s actions spoke louder than any words of any other leader. 🙂

Courtesy Radha-ji, this fascinating excerpt:

Ranjan Borra, “Subhas Chandra Bose, the Indian National Army, and the War of India’s Liberation,” Journal of Historical Review, no. 3, 4 (Winter 1982):

Apart from revisionist historians, it was none other than Lord Clement Atlee himself, the British Prime Minister responsible for conceding independence to India, who gave a shattering blow to the myth sought to be perpetuated by court historians, that Gandhi and his movement had led the country to freedom. Chief Justice P.B. Chakrabarty of Calcutta High Court, who had also served as the acting Governor of West Bengal in India, disclosed the following in a letter addressed to the publisher of Dr. R.C. Majumdar’s book A History of Bengal. The Chief Justice wrote:

You have fulfilled a noble task by persuading Dr. Majumdar to write this history of Bengal and publishing it … In the preface of the book Dr. Majumdar has written that he could not accept the thesis that Indian independence was brought about solely, or predominantly, by the non-violent civil disobedience movement of Gandhi. When I was the acting Governor, Lord Atlee, who had given us independence by withdrawing the British rule from India, spent two days in the Governor’s palace at Calcutta during his tour of India. At that time I had a prolonged discussion with him regarding the real factors that had led the British to quit India. My direct question to him was that since Gandhi’s “Quit India” movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such new compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty British departure, why did they have to leave? In his reply Atlee cited several reasons, the principal among them being the erosion of loyalty to the British Crown among the Indian army and navy personnel as a result of the military activities of Netaji [Bose]. Toward the end of our discussion I asked Atlee what was the extent of Gandhi’s influence upon the British decision to quit India. Hearing this question, Atlee’s lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, “m-i-n-i-m-a-l!”

Someone wanted me to add a D in between “GANERU” but I skipped D and I coined the term “GANERU” so it is not offensive for anyone. :-))

@Rohit,
Could you corroborate this statement from Greiner’s article?

In early 1918, as the war in Europe entered its
final crisis, he (Gandhi) wrote to the Viceroy of India, “I have an idea that if I become your recruiting agent-in-chief, I might rain men upon you,” and he proclaimed in
a speech in Kheda that the British “love justice; they have shielded men against oppression.” Again, he wrote to the Viceroy, “I would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to the empire at this critical moment”

@ Kaffir –

Sardar Patel was a realist, a man of action – so, no I am not belittling him compared with say, Nehru. But, did he really have a vision for India? Where has he expressed this? How can we evaluate the man, besides his actions with the princely states?

I was reading two books on Kashmir, recently – in one book, the author talks about a recorded conversation between Patel and Mountbatten, and then later Nehru – in that, Patel tells Mountbatten (paraphrased) “that he will not accept an India where there are multiple dominions – all the princely states have to be incorporated into the Republic of India, and it is the responsibility of the British that they ensure this as they leave – they should leave no princely state in any doubt that they could establish separate diplomatic relations with UK.

Then, Mountbatten asks him that the basket must contain how many princely states – Patel says all within the geographical boundaries of India, including Hyderabad.

Then, Patel tells Nehru that using both carrot and stick, he can deliver all the princely states to India, including Hyderabad. Nehru asks him what about Kashmir? Patel says Hyderabad is more important and he will concentrate on that and he can not deliver both Kashmir and Hyderabad, together. Nehru overrules him and says, no, Kashmir is more important.”

History is interesting….

@Patriot#2

I do not doubt Gandhi’s place in the popular imagination. As to your point about the conscientiousness that Gandhi created, I am not persuaded it did not amount to as much as is claimed for it. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 or the First War of Indian Independence shows that it did not need a Gandhi to mount a successful challenge to the British rule in India. Gandhi was successful in a way others were not in connecting with the masses through his various campaigns but Gandhi would not quite cross the Rubicon and deal with the British rule of India. He commanded the ordinary men and women but the ones that mattered in government and armed forces were commanded by the British rulers. In any other country, they would have crossed over to a truely nationalist leaders. The truth is that Gandhi was crypto British, and a British agent. The only right thing to do is for his erasure from his position of prominence in Indian history. The reason why a perfectly good man should have ended down this road is because of the failings of Hindu society which is unable to use people of talent and great gifts because of immutable positions and philosophy of Hinduism. That transformation requires a man greater than Gandhi and all others that have preceded him.

@Patriot

You will find the answers in the link

http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt

Gandhi as he has been portrayed and the real Gandhi are not one and the same. You can find out for yourself that no greater authority than Tagore held that Gandhi’s dabling in politics was dangerous and led to the bloodshed of Indian independence.

BTW, Khandu, have you even the read the article you are quoting in defence of your view? More than half of the article is a criticism of the *movie* Gandhi and the alleged pacifism of Richard Attenborough and a denunciation of the movie as propaganda by the Indian government! Ooooops!

And, then did you actually read the quotation of Naipaul in the article you are referencing:
“Naipaul writes, “has given men no idea of a contract with other men,
no idea of the state. It has enslaved one quarter of the population [the
Untouchables] and always has left the whole fragmented and vulnerable. Its
philosophy of withdrawal has diminished men intellectually and not equipped them
to respond to challenge; it has stifled growth. So that again and again in India
history has repeated itself: vulnerability, defeat, withdrawal.” Indians,
Naipaul says, have no historical notion of the past. “Through centuries of
conquest the civilization declined into an apparatus for survival, turning away
from the mind … and creativity … stripping itself down, like all decaying
civilizations, to its magical practices and imprisoning social forms.” He adds
later, “No government can survive on Gandhian fantasy; and the spirituality, the
solace of a conquered people, which Gandhi turned into a form of national
assertion, has soured more obviously into the nihilism that it always was.”
Naipaul condemns India again and again for its “intellectual parasitism,” its
“intellectual vacuum,” its “emptiness,” the “blankness of its decayed
civilization.” “Indian poverty is more dehumanizing than any machine; and, more
than in any machine civilization, men in India are units, locked up in the
straitest obedience by their idea of their dharma…”

Double oooooooooops!

And, finally, these parts show his distaste for “hindus” and Gandhi:

“IN THIS ecumenical age, it is extremely hard to shake Westerners loose from the
notion that the devout of all religions, after all, worship “the one God.” But
Gandhi did not worship the one God. He did not worship the God of mercy. He did
not worship the God of forgiveness. And this for the simple reason that the
concepts of mercy and forgiveness are absent from Hinduism. In Hinduism, men do
not pray to God for forgiveness, and a man’s sins are never forgiven–indeed,
there is no one out there to do the forgiving. In your next life you may be born
someone higher up the caste scale, but in this life there is no hope. For
Gandhi, a true Hindu, did not believe in man’s immortal soul. He believed with
every ounce of his being in karma, a series, perhaps a long series, of
reincarnations, and at the end, with great good fortune: mukti, liberation from
suffering and the necessity of rebirth, nothingness. Gandhi once wrote to
Tolstoy (of all people) that reincarnation explained “reasonably the many
mysteries of life.” So if Hindus today still treat an Untouchable as barely
human, this is thought to be perfectly right and fitting because of his actions
in earlier lives. As can be seen, Hinduism, by its very theology, with its
sacred triad of karma, reincarnation, and caste (with caste an absolutely
indispensable part of the system) offers the most complacent justification of
inhumanity of any of the world’s great religious faiths.

Gandhi, needless to say, was a Hindu reformer, one of many. Until well into his
fifties, however, he accepted the caste system in toto as the “natural order of
society,” promoting control and discipline and sanctioned by his religion.
Later, in bursts of zeal, he favored moderating it in a number of ways. But he
stuck by the basic varna system (the four main caste groupings plus the
Untouchables) until the end of his days, insisting that a man’s position and
occupation should be determined essentially by birth. Gandhi favored milder
treatment of Untouchables, renaming them Harijans, “children of God,” but a
Harijan was still a Harijan. Perhaps because his frenzies of compassion were so
extreme (no, no, *he* would clean the *Harijan’s* latrine), Hindu reverence for
him as a holy man became immense, but his prescriptions were rarely followed.
Industrialization and modernization have introduced new occupations and sizable
social and political changes in India, but the caste system has dexterously
adapted and remains largely intact today. The Sudras still labor. The sweepers
still sweep. Max Weber, in his ‘The Religion of India,’ after quoting the last
line of the ‘Communist Manifesto,’ suggests somewhat sardonically that low-
caste Hindus, too, have “nothing to lose but their chains,” that they, too, have
“a world to win”–the only problem being that they have to die first and get
born again, higher, it is to be hoped, in the immutable system of caste.
Hinduism in general, wrote Weber, “is characterized by a dread of the magical
evil of innovation.” Its very essence is to guarantee stasis.”

AND

“IT SHOULD be plain by now that here is much in the Hindu culture that is
distasteful to the Western mind, and consequently is largely–unknown in the
West–not because Hindus do not go on and on about these subjects, but because a
Western squeamishness usually prevents these preoccupations from reaching print
(not to mention film). When Gandhi attended his first Indian National Congress
he was most distressed at seeing the Hindus–not laborers but high-caste Hindus,
civic leaders–defecating all over the place, as if to pay attention to where
the feces fell was somehow unclean. (For, as V.S. Naipaul puts it, in a twisted
Hindu way it is *unclean to clean*. It is unclean even to notice. “It was the
business of the sweepers to remove excrement, and until the sweepers came,
people were content to live in the midst of their own excrement.”) Gandhi
exhorted Indians endlessly on the subject, saying that sanitation was the first
need of India, but he retained an obvious obsession with excreta, gleefully
designing latrines and latrine drills for all hands at the ashram, and, all in
all what with giving and taking enemas, and his public bowel movements, and his
deep concern with everyone else’s bowel movements (much correspondence), and
endless dietary experiments *as a function* of bowel movements, he devoted a
rather large share of his life to the matter. Despite his constant campaigning
for sanitation, it is hard to believe that Gandhi was not permanently marked by
what Arthur Koestler terms the Hindu “morbid infatuation with filth,” and what
V.S. Naipaul goes as far as to call Indian “deification of filth.” (Decades
later, Krishna Menon, a Gandhian and one-time Indian Defence Minister, was still
fortifying sanctity by drinking a daily 1 of urine.)”

So, we are being urged to form our opinion of Gandhi on the basis of this article by this man, who has tried his best to denigrate Hindus, Gandhi, Indians, India (in that order) and who urges “westerners to open their mind to what hindooos are all about” (paraphrased).

Jolly good that, Khandu.

*** COMMENT EDITED ***

To Patriot and Dirt Digger;

Why I pointed out the article was to bring to light that Gandhi was farce…I think Richard Greiner’s article proves that beyond doubt. Can anyone justify Gandhi’s suggestion to Jews facing annihilation at hands of Hitler/ Nazis? The stupidity of his suggestion to Jews (Justification of Murders by Hitler and that there should be no Israel for Jews) results in an acidic attack from the writer which doesn’t remain limited to Gandhi but encompasses entire Hinduism because Congress + Media portrays Gandhi as if he was better than Shri Ram.

No one in India bothers about MK Gandhi. It is a farce that is heaped from time to time by media + Congress.

*** NOTE by MODERATOR ***

Pl. be careful in your choice of words. A strong argument does not need to be abusive.

To Dirt Digger:

I read article referenced by you. From the same place:

“The most troubling issue raised by “Gandhi”, of course, is the effectiveness of nonviolence in confronting a Hitler, to which the film devotes a single line. Asked how nonviolence could stop the armies of Nazi Germany, the film
Gandhi responds simply that evil must be opposed wherever it is found, and disappears from the screen.

The historical Gandhi remained unable to come to grips with the Hitler question, and at various times advised the British to surrender and the Jews to commit collective suicide. (In 1941, Gandhi insisted to the British that “Hitler is not a bad man”.)

The film concludes with the moral of the story spelled out, in case anyone should miss it. “Tyrants and murderers can seem invincible at the time, but in the end they always fall. Think of it. Always.”

Gandhi understood that the British (and by extension all Western constitutional democracies ) are vulnerable to being held up to their own standards. Countries less “good” than Britain (those that lack a free press, constitutional values, respect for human rights) are more readily
equipped to handle the “challenge” of men like Gandhi; they might be content with simply putting a Gandhi to death.

Gandhi knew that the “goodness” of the British (their willingness to be held to their own professed values ) was their weak spot.

MY TAKE

Gandhi’s method whatever they were, suited him all the times but not others and nation as a whole. One must view that his methods are not the ONLY METHODS and that his adamancy to impliment his methods resulted in violence and bloodshed. Gandhi in other words was a dictator. A dictator like Mao or Saddam but with only difference in policy and end results. The end results that he brought were as terrible as Mao, Saddam brought. However, there was zero positive end impact of his policies as his policies helped creation of Pakistan + Mass Murder of Hindus. If only he was practical and man of common sense to have used appropriate methods at appropriate times and not forced his policies, things could have been different.

BE PRACTICAL, OPEN TO CHANGE, BE DEMOCRATIC

Some more: http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/Biography/gandhi/part5.chapter27.html

Lastly, I would like you to ask His Majesty”s Ministers to give definite assurance about Mohammedan States. I am sure you know that every Mohammedan is deeply interested in them. As a Hindu, I cannot be indifferent to their cause. Their sorrows must be our sorrows. In the most scrupulous regard for the rights of those States and for the Muslim sentiment as to their places of worship, and your just and timely treatment of India”s claim to Home Rule lies the safety of the Empire. I write this, because I love the English nation, and I wish to evoke in every Indian the loyalty of Englishmen.”

Khandu, Patriot, DD and Rohit: Thanks for the links and the comments. I have not gone through all of them yet but will do so later today/tomorrow.

@ Rohit (#68): I had a quick look at the document cited above. It does not mention anything about Gandhi wanting to take part in the Boer War – or did I miss something?

***

To All: The pdf file is 5MB download so may take some time.

@Rohit,
The fact that Gandhi got a medal is right. However he got it for organizing and leading a group of volunteers as stretcher bearer corps in the Zulu war. Again this was before he started his freedom struggle. Was it a conflicting concept of what he tried to achieve? Absolutely yes. But then so again is non-violence. I firmly believe that had Gandhi not been there India would’ve gotten Independence long ago. His philosophies of non-violence were like trying to break a stone by rubbing it with a rope, it will break but not as fast as a hammer striking it.
My gripe is towards the article by Griener who using his neo-con ideologies trashes everything India and Hinduism stand for.

To Dirt Digger:

Non voilence, as forced, preached by media, gandhians, congressis is a farce. For example what will Jainis do if faced with violence and no one to support them? Jews are the most practical example. They left their land and migrated to Christian countries, mostly living in peace, excelling in trade, business, science, any other field they touched. What happened to them?

Gandhi wanted to enlist as regular in British Army to fight. Britishers were kind and just to the physique carried by the great MK Gandhi. His stubbornness to participate made them get him enrolled in medics.

correction: “..applies to them too..”

Not a good sign:

Jolted by relentless sniping by the BJP-RSS combine at Jawaharlal Nehru, Congress on Wednesday threatened a countrywide movement against attempts to debunk the first PM and “put history in the correct perspective”.

Worried over the fallout of the ‘demolish Nehru’ campaign beginning with ousted BJP leader Jaswant Singh’s book, the party said it was planning protests around the country to defend Nehru.

To Patriot:

Gandhi can be best described as a man who was for good governance. It is better to conclude on own by picking up his good an bad points and weigh them using common sense. Don’t rely on Arun Shourie or anyone else but your own unbiased study.

BTW I was blogging and was reminded about Shaheed Udham Singh, a great man, who went to England to avenge Jallianwala Bagh massacre waited for more than two decades to slay General Dyer. He went to gallows with pride, peace and happiness for his motto of life was to convey to Britishers that spirit of Bhartiyas could never be crushed by General Dyer and the likes.

Maybe Shantanu, you should open a section in this blog which talks about Heros of Bharat and place these great personalities like Raja Bhojadeva, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Chhatrapati Shivaji, Lance Nayak Abdul Hameed etc under that section along with subsections/ links to great heros of Bharat mentioned elsewhere in this blog. Don’t have place for politicians like Gandhi or Nehru.

On similar lines, one can predict what views Gandhi would be having for leaders like Swami Vivekananda, the man who preached the most relevant thing for human resource development of India… Something to this effect… Make Your Body Strong… Only with a strong body, a person can assimilate true meaning of Vedas, Upnishads, and other great source of knowledge and wisdom in India and contribute towards development of nation. Or his views on Subhash Chandra Bose or his views on Shaheed Bhagat Singh or on Chhatrapati Shivaji. No wonder the man could shamelessly boast to Britishers “Make me recruit in chief and I will extort millions and millions of Sanatan Dharmis to lay down their lives for you”. No wonder the skeleton could never understand Bhagwad Gita and regarded it as work of fiction and also used his weaponry like spinning, fasting, walking to get Sanatan Dharmis killed by hands of Mohhamedeans. 1947 was a feast of three skeletons Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah “GANERUZZIN” and Britishers and the food was flesh and blood of Sanatan Dharmis.

This searing piece on “Mahatma Gandhi” is easily today’s *must-read*. Don’t miss it…Here is one particularly thought-provoking excerpt from Mahatma Gandhi’s True Legacy by Sandeep:
“Gandhi castrated India – I use that word with caution.
Historically, the one thing that enabled India to withstand and successfully repulse the Islamic and other alien onslaughts for nearly a thousand years was the Kshatra or the warrior spirit.
The native kingdoms were badly beaten and subdued but they were never fully conquered. They rebounded with double the vigour and reclaimed their ancestral homeland.
In fact, as long as the Marathas and Ranjit Singh were around, the British found it really tough to take control of the entire country. And to their credit, praise is due to the British strategy: they spotted that this spirit of Kshatra was one of the biggest obstacles they had to overcome.
Which they did. Indeed, from the 1857 revolt till the founding of the INA, there was not a single instance of a nationwide armed uprising against the British.
Of these 85 years, Gandhi hogged the freedom struggle for a precious, ruinous 27 years (I’m counting from 1920 when he took over the Congress party’s leadership) and injected liberal doses of toxic non-violence into an already-oppressed nation. Christopher Hitchens, in a damning but highly accurate assessment, observes that Gandhi’s was not a “struggle for India, but with it.” (Italics in the original)
And because he is painted as the man who got us freedom, the logical question arises: did he really get us freedom? Put another way, did India really fight to obtain freedom? If we had really fought for freedom—if we had shed the blood of our own people and that of the British, there’s no way—and this has to be said again—we would have allowed a clueless person like Nehru to become Prime Minister.
…
Gandhi’s heady potions of ahimsa and satyagraha robbed Indians of the incentive to put up a fierce resistance, the kind that actually made the British tremble in their knees, the kind that Subash Bose inspired.
…
An even uglier facet of Gandhi’s legacy is hypocrisy. For a Mahatma who waxed eloquent about leading a moral and virtuous life, it boggles the mind how and why he was unable to instil these values into the heart and head of his blue-eyed boy. Nehru was as anti-Gandhi as it could get in these matters. While the Mahatma preached the evils of alcohol to the whole country, the blue-eyed boy showed no compunction in enjoying his favourite scotch or whatever other drink. While the Mahatma used the poor Manuben among other women as experiments to test the strength (or weakness depending on how you look at it) of his…err…passions, Nehru’s amorous exploits were as legendary as they were public knowledge.
…
The result of this stifling of the intellect and castration has been disastrous. Even today, even the puniest of nations would’ve given a bloody reply to something like 26/11. What are we still doing? Let’s hear it from the mouth of S.M. Krishna, just 16 hours ago:
“In a difficult relationship like the one we have had with Pakistan, one should have lots of patience. India is known for its patience and perseverance. Patiently we will move in the direction in which we want,” Krishna said.”

Adding this tweet here by Atanu Dey:
Oct 2nd is Mohandas Gandhi’s birthday. Indians revere Gandhi. The man was an insane sociopath, an autocrat, a sexual pervert. He was a mass murderer like Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot. He gets a pass because his millions of victims were Hindus.