Gandhi

One Google of “Gandhi” shows how enamored the world is with him. “Gandhi, five stars,” “Gandhi, non-violence,” “Gandhi, Time's Top 100.” He is hailed as a virtual saint. Over 500 biographies and movies have been made about him. He is presented as being anti-racist, anti-colonialist, non-violent, tolerant, devoted to family and overall someone that we should learn from. The Great Soul, he is called. One site touts that if we will read Gandhi we will, “at every turn, open our eyes in admiration and reverence.”

The truth is far different from this rosy picture the Indian government and others would sell to us. His writing is comprised of numerous volumes and his thoughts are not consistent.

Although Gandhi writes, “I believe implicitly that all men are born equal. All — whether born in India or in England or America,” Gandhi was not really anti-racist. Not only was he a Hindu, with all the caste system implications that came with it, but he was really only concerned with racism as directed at the upper classes of Hindu caste, of which he was a member. He was also very racist towards the blacks of South Africa. On September 26, 1896, Gandhi wrote, “Ours is one continued struggle sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”

Then in September of 1903, Gandhi said, “We believe as much in the purity of races as we think they (the Whites) do …. by advocating the purity of all races.” In fact he felt so strongly that the Indians should be classed with the whites not the Kaffirs, he organized a brigade of Indians to help put down a Zulu uprising. In 1931, he fasted as protest to a British proposal to grant rights to Untouchables, the lowest of the castes, also known as Dalits. No, Gandhi was no friend to the lower classes. He once told a Dalit who had graduated to not “take up” a white collar job.

Gandhi was also not anti-colonialist, nor was he devoted to non-violence. An imperialist; his loyalty was to the British Crown, for the majority of his life. Sergeant Major Gandhi even won the War Medal for the Zulu campaign. In fact, he supported the Crown in no less than three major wars. When war broke out in 1914, he immediately contacted the War Office, swore his unshakable loyalty to the crown and organized the Indian Volunteer Corps. 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.” He justified this by citing the Bhagavad Gita and saying Indians have always been warlike. Gandhi's inconsistency seems a bit self-motivated as later when the idea of home rule has set in; he is much more anti-British and seemingly non-violent. If you can picture this, in December 1941, as Hitler rules from the Channel to the Volga, Gandhi urges the Jews to commit collective suicide. His advice to the British was as bad, “Let them take possession of your beautiful island with all your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls nor your minds.”

His treatment of his family was horrible. His son, Harilal had wanted to go on to college. He was interested in being a lawyer, as his father was. Gandhi would not allow it as he believed a western style education would not help in the struggle for Indian independence. “Dear Bapu, "Harilal wrote, "In your laboratory of experiments, unfortunately, I am the one truth that has gone wrong….”
Harilal also wrote of his father, “He is the greatest father you have…but he is the one father I wish I did not have.” Gandhi said his son, Harilal, was one of the greatest regrets of his life. Gandhi had banished his second son just for giving money to Harilal. The boy was so uncared for no one came to his bedside as he lay dying. He once wrote of his wife, “I simply cannot bear to look at Ba's face. The expression is often like that on the face of a meek cow and gives one the feeling, as a cow occasionally does, that in her own dumb manner she is saying something.” When she got pneumonia, Gandhi refused her penicillin and simply allowed her to die. He once wrote of them, “What I expect from the Gandhi family is that all members should devote themselves exclusively to service work, observe the utmost self-control and have no desire for wealth. They should not marry and those who are married should observe brahmacharya. They should live on whatever they get from service work.”

His personal habits were not much to admire either. He was extraordinarily obsessed with excrement and deeply concerned with everyone's toilet habits: much of his writing reflects this.

Gandhi began taking naked young women, including his grand-niece, to bed with him at night to “test his vow of celibacy,” which he had taken after marriage and a number of children. Actually, it was called Brahmacharya: “Complete control over all the senses, and freedom from lust in thought, word and deed. Mere control of animal passion is not enough.” He thought celibacy was best even between married couples. He said it was OK to do it three or four times in a lifetime just to have children. He was totally against homosexuality, as well.

On the surface it may seem Gandhi had great respect for women but this is not so. He says things like, “If you women would only realize your dignity and privilege, and make full use of it for mankind, you will make it much better than it is. But man has delighted in enslaving you and you have proved willing slaves till the slaves and the slave-holders have become one in the crime of degrading humanity. My special function from childhood, you might say, has been to make women realize her dignity.” The problem is, he continues to “make women realize their dignity” by denying them basic necessities such as birth control and pain relief in childbirth. He also never understands that women are sexual creatures, too. He was a big opponent of sex for pleasure. Some of Gandhi's detractors are women who fought for equal rights for Indians and women. Annie Besant, for instance had a falling out with Gandhi, as did Margaret Sanger. For a short period Gandhi accepted the use of birth control, but this quickly changed. Once, Gandhi was asked whether he would advocate birth control in cases where the health of the mother might is at risk. “No,” he replied, “one exception will lead to another till it finally becomes general.”

Did he at least help in the struggle for independence? Well, no. In fact, Gandhi is thought by some Indians to have delayed Indian independence by twenty five years due to his erratic beliefs. So, for all this effort to turn Gandhi into a saint has it been worth it? Well, no. There is little to show that the India today has followed Gandhi's teachings. He is revered as a holy man, but the principles he supposedly stood for are not applied. Colonialism by others has been supported or sanctioned by the Indian government since Gandhi. The violence against Dalits continues. Rapes, murders, beatings, all aimed at India's lowest class and carried out by other Indians.

Bibliography

Dalal, Chandulal Bhagubhai. Harilal Gandhi: A Life. Translated By Tridip Suhrud. India: Orient Longman, 2007.

Jamanadas, K. "Untouchables in the Twenty-First Century: The Plight of the Dalits in India." Everything You Know Is Wrong. Ed. Russ Kick New York: MJF Books, 2002.

Lal, Vinay. "Nakedness, Nonviolence, and Brahmacharya: Gandhi's Experiments in Celibate Sexuality." Journal of the History of Sexuality 9 (2000): 105-136.

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Gandhi: great soul or asshole?

by Jenni

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