It’s hard to imagine what anyone can have against Gandhi. He was entirely harmless. He didn’t hold political power and never forced anyone to follow his beliefs. One might question some of his principles, but no one who’s read “My experiments with Truth” can deny his sincerity in following them.
And yet with his birthday in 2010, there are those with whom Gandhi has fallen entirely out of fashion. Mainly with India’s right wing (and before anyone complains, that’s not an insult. I’m using the phrase “right wing” as generally understood and as defined by Wikipedia. So don’t take offence when none is intended.)
I’ve heard him called a rogue, the destroyer of India, a traitor, a betrayer and what not. Of course, the virulent right wing elements are a minority compared to the rest. But if you listen to these people, you get the picture that Gandhi had horns and slithered around on his belly.
There are many who idolize Nathuram Godse – the crazy fellow who was against Gandhi and who assassinated a defenseless man with a gun. To me, actions speak far louder than words. Never mind what Godse stood for. If the end result is the killing of a someone who never preached violence and never harmed him or anyone else, I want no part of what he was smoking. Such people point to the speech he gave in his defense. Even a cursory reading leads me to wonder if was entirely sane. Here’s a small extract:
All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well-being of all India, one fifth of human race.
Say what? You mean as long as Hindus are happy, it doesn’t matter if Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Muslims and Jains are miserable eh? I get the feeling Godse would have gladly sided with Hitler. After all, as long as the non Jews and fully naturalized Germans were happy, then automatically Germany will be happy no?
Here’s another beauty:
This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.
Beware of the man who recommends only one way of thinking to the exclusion all others. He’s either god himself, or a fanatic.
Now I may not agree with everything Gandhi said. I’m not sure ahimsa or non violence would have helped the Jews against Hitler for example and he himself agreed that if ever violence were acceptable it would be against an evil of that magnitude. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand his main argument. That violence breeds more violence. Even violence for a just cause. It’s a double edged sword that merely deflects the injustice to another group of people if at all.
It’s ironic that when the entire world admires Gandhi and the president of the US has a portrait of him in his office, he’s attacked most in his own country. Gandhi was a man who led a movement of the kind the world has never seen. As a member of humanity, I gotta admire the guy irrespective of his nationality.
Interestingly I’ve noticed that the same people who hate Gandhi also hate Mother Teresa! One day I’d like to find out the real cause of this connection. It’s so absurd and out of whack that the explanation must be equally strange. Perhaps someone can enlighten me…
Most of the people anti-gandhi are ‘anti’ because they hold Gandhiji responsible for the partition that resulted in the death of so many people. While it is true that gandhiji did play a major role in partition, I sometimes wonder what would happen if the partition had not taken place, and the muslims did not get their independent country. I am pretty sure there would have been numerous internal riots/wars in order to get their independent country. Maybe gandhiji foresaw all that.
All i know is it takes tremendous will power to live the way gandhiji lived. Taking up a gun and shooting is easy, but following ahimsa and austerity takes up a lot of mind power.
In reply to neha
Absolutely – I may not agree with everything Gandhi believed in. But he sure had willpower! And to channel that sort of willpower into not hitting back is almost superhuman.
After all this time, I don’t think any of us can predict how things would have turned out and why some decisions were taken. In any case, why speak ill of the dead?
In reply to bhagwad
Gandhi was so Obedient and an abiding barrister who had an Indian body but British heart/mind/soul the way Brits wished.
His Non-Violence theory is a disaster! since it did cause millions of deaths.
Brits are well aware that Gandhi is so powerful and he can control the masses with his barrister brain and African experience. So they needed him most to sustain their power and rule over India as much as possible by just luring him with the promise of freedom which they never fulfilled until they had almost lost everything during the WWs.
During the riots, many women were raped and many humans were killed by the extremists and Gandhi preached Non-Violence. His Non-Violence is unethical and inhuman. Against the essence of Gita which he claims to be a firm believer of. Kaam karo phal ki aaasha math karo! Kaam = brain drain with non-violence concept, phal = freedom, or Gandhi never wished phal???? So conflicting! huh! So that is Mr M K Gandhi.
Bhagath sign died because of Gandhi. – I don’t need to explain this.
Nethaji is address-less because of Gandhi.
People who are capable were denied of serving their motherland instead an incapable person was put as PM[Another person who had Indian body and Brit heart/mind/soul] by Mr M K Gandhi thus pushing the country to the dark-age.
If our mothers and sisters were being raped and brothers were being killed by the rioters and as firm believers of Gandhian non-violence we remain calm closing our eyes mouth ears. Pity my fellow Indians who suffered alot bcz of this, This ability to remain dumb is NOT super human my friends, its cowardliness and its pathetic. And this constitutes to be a gr8 Gandhi. The discoverer of Non-violence.
I am ashamed of my Father of the Nation for all his -ves that are larger than his +ves.
You’ve got it right. Violence can’t be a great solution for other violence because one thing is for sure, it will only result to a unending violence. The war in the middle east is the greatest example I can think right now. Imagine how many innocent people were affected by this continuous misunderstanding between two parties. Why do people hate those two peace loving individuals???
In reply to Mike Ramsey
Who’s the second one?
Well, I stumbled upon this blog where no one seems to dislike or ‘hate” Gandhi. Someone wrote about partition and if it hadnt happened then there would be internal riot, well, isnt it happening still? He foresaw internal riots, but he didnt foresaw innocent people getting killed during the partition. You call him a leader?
He backed in creating state for Muslims and told all the Hindus to leave Pakistan but never told Muslims to leave India, because it would make him look bad in Muslim community and would be called rascist?
Gandhi read Koran in temples but didnt have guts to read Gita in mosques. Afraid of Muslims?
We shouldnt forget about Bhagat Singh whom Gandhi could have saved but he didnt thinking what British would think about him.
Show me a country that gained freedom without violence..or ahimsa.
Mind you, Godse was a follower of Gandhi.
I wonder what India would be today had Subhas Bose came back.
To rise up follow Vivekananda, not Gandhi
In reply to Debraj Banerjee
sir,
i agree with u completely….gandhi should have been banned.
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004247.html
http://basmanroselaw.blogspot.com/2010/09/sam-harris-on-pacifism-from-end-of.html
http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2005/09/varieties-of-pacifism-part-i-gandhis.html
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/articles/fascism/gandhimistake.html
Sir, I found few articles related to Gandhi’s Non-Violence Method.
Please peruse them and let us know what you think of them.
Regards,
Kamlesh
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Gandhi a part of Operation Blue Star? Was he not the one who ordered the Indian military along with the Prime Minister of India to Sikh separatists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Also, did his military not kill 492-800 Sikh soldiers and many other Sikh civilians?
In reply to Sikh
Not M K Gandhi, no.
hey there,
i was just surfing the net when i came across your article,sorry to say but i despise gandhi.
i contrary to his beliefs think that if we had leaders like bhagat singh and subash chandhra bose lead us into the freedom struggle we would have done much better than what we did .
when hindus killed muslims he went on a fast,but when muslims killed hindus,no words from the great man ,eh?he was responsible for bhagat singhs death.he hated mr bose,who had captured land till kohima!and there are controversies that he was alive after the plane crash and was in a prison in russia,and russia had agreed to release him but nehru refused,cause mr.bose had the potential to become pm…how can u ignore such things??..i dont knw about others,but i started hating gandhi when i came to know that he was respnosible for the death of bhagat singh, and i am a punjabi.
and can u please justify the statements which say that he used to sleep with multiple women?..no offence to anyone,i read about it somewhere…
these are my beliefs,u may or may not like them,i really dont care,i hate gandhi .
jai hind.
In reply to jayant singla
There’s no evidence that Gandhi caused Bhagat Singh’s death. The Wikipedia article on Bhagat Singh is a good starting point if you want to read an unbiased source.
Also, what Gandhi did with his personal life is of no concern to me as long as he didn’t break the law.
It’s hard to imagine what anyone can have against Gandhi. He was entirely harmless.”
Let’s see…
First off, he supported the Khilafat Movement led by the Ali brothers, Mohammad and Shaukat Ali, to keep the Ottoman Caliph on the throne in Turkey. This had nothing at all to do with India’s freedom struggle, but Gandhi supported it nonetheless, wasting precious Indian money, time, and resources for an Islamic theocratic monarch. In fact he even said he would be willing to put Swaraj on hold for the Khilafat! And why did he do this? To secure Muslim support for the freedom movement. (The very fact that the Muslims of India cared more about the Ottoman Sultan than about their own home should have made him realize that cooperation like this was hopeless.) But did he get it? No. When the Khilafat Movement failed (as it was bound to do, as the subjects of the Ottoman Empire hated their Sultan and wanted him gone, something neither the fanatical Ali brothers nor the myopic Gandhi could see) the Muslims did what they always do in India when they get upset: they started killing Hindus, this time in Kerala in an uprising known as the Moplah Rebellion. The Muslim Moplahs slaughtered the Hindus in the state of Kerala in a fashion that makes the 2002 post Godhra riots look like a tea party. Surely one would expect the apostle of non violence to condemn this heinous act?
He JUSTIFIED it, saying that the Muslims were acting according to their religion! This cowardly refusal to condemn Muslim slaughter was commented upon, not by a “Hindu fanatic” but by Gandhi’s own contemporaries: Chettur Sankaran Nair and Annie Besant, Presidents of the Indian National Congress!
Besant writes:
“What was Gandhi’s reaction to the Mopla outrages? At first he denied that the atrocities took place at all. But he could not keep it up for long in the face of overwhelming evidence including reports from his Muslim friends. He then equivocated and rationalized. He called the Moplas “God fearing” and said they “are fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner they consider as religious.””
“It would be well if Mr. Gandhi could be taken into Malabar to see with his own eyes the ghastly horrors which have been created by the preaching of himself and his “loved brothers”, Mohammed and Shaukat Ali. … Men who consider it “religious” to murder, rape, loot, to kill women and little children, cutting down whole families, have to be put under restraint in any civilized society.”
Nair quoted her in his book, Gandhi and Anarchy. Did Gandhi personally hurt these people? No, he didn’t. But a man who apologizes for the sick and twisted depredations of jihadi animals and thus encourages them is not an apostle of peace, or a “harmless” man by even the most liberal of standards. it is important to note that neither of the Ali brothers respected Gandhi at all for his sacrifices on their behalf. They viewed him as permanently inferior to them on account of his Hindu faith. Mohammad Ali even said “In my eye, Gandhi is worse than a fallen Mussalman.” This is exactly how Islam says things should be: Dhimmi infidels are second class citizens compared to Muslims and should always serve the Muslims. It comes as no surprise that these men wanted the Emir of Afghanistan to invade India! They cared about Islamic kings; not about a free India. Gandhi, of course supported these traitors.
But this was only the first of Gandhi’s Muslim appeasement inanities. You see, Gandhi’s support for the Khilafat Movement gave the Muslims the unity they needed to become an effective political force. The Khilafat Movement paved the way for the establishment of the Muslim League and the partition that they craved so desperately. This makes Gandhi indirectly responsible for the Partition, and its resulting carnage (so much for his ahimsa). But he was also directly responsible for it as well. A Gandhian apologist might say that he publicly condemned the idea of Parition. But what Gandhi said in public and what he truly thought were two different things entirely. He wrote in Harijan:
“Like other groups of people in this country, Muslims also have the right of self determination. We are living here as a joint family and hence any member has the right to get separated.” (Harijan, April 6, 1940). A couple of years later, he also wrote, “If majority of the Muslims of this country maintain that they are a different nation and there is nothing common with the Hindus and other communities, there is no force on the earth that can alter their view. And if on that basis, they demand partition that must be carried out. If Hindus dislike it, they may oppose it.”
…yet Gandhi, the supposed leader of the Hindus, would not! But at least once the Partition was carried out, one would expect that Gandhi would at least allow it to be carried to its logical conclusion: a population transfer that would allow the Hindus of Pakistan to come to India and all the Muslims of India to leave to Pakistan. Yet he was adamantly opposed to this. When Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan took shelter in abandoned mosques. Gandhi had the Congress throw these people out into the rain, because they dared take shelter in ABANDONED mosques. Lord Mountbatten, India’s last viceroy, wanted the population transfer to take place right away. Yet Nehru, Gandhi’s lapdog, refused because Gandhi was pulling his puppet strings. When Hindus and Sikhs fled from Pakistan to India, Gandhi wanted them to go back and die:
“I am grieved to learn that people are running away from the West Punjab and I am told that Lahore is being evacuated by the non-Muslims. I must say that this is what it should not be. If you think Lahore is dead or is dying, do not run away from it, but die with what you think is the dying Lahore. When you suffer from fear you die before death comes to you. That is not glorious. I will not feel sorry if I hear that people in the Punjab have died not as cowards but as brave men.”
As a result, the Muslims of India remained too provide cannon fodder for Congress vote bank politics and terrorist rank and file, while the Hindus remained in Pakistan to be ethnically cleansed. When the Muslims opposed the adoption of Vande Mataram as India’s national anthem, Gandhi too opposed it. When they opposed the flying of India’s tricolor, he too opposed it. It is important to note here that Vande Mataram, being of Bengali origin and instrumental in uniting Bengalis early on in the struggle for independence, was very popular among both Hindus and Muslims of a united Bengal. Promotion of the song could have at least prevented the vivisection of Bengal. But Gandhi wasted this chance, like so many before it, to keep the Muslims happy. To appease the Muslims further, Gandhi desired that Hindustani, a hybrid mix of Urdu and Hindi be India’s national language. It should be noted here that at no time did any Muslim leader ever reciprocate Gandhi’s gestures. Again, as Gandhi was an infidel, the Muslim leadership no doubt considered it natural that he would cravenly submit before them.
Sri Aurobindo commented on Gandhi’s pusillanimity to a disciple:
“Have you read what Gandhi has said in answer to a correspondent? He says if eight crores of Muslims demand a separate State, what else are the twenty-five crores of Hindus to do but surrender? Otherwise there will be civil war.”
The shocked disciple said: “I hope that is not the type of conciliation he is thinking of.” But Sri Aurobindo had no such illusions. He replied: “Not thinking of you say? He has actually said that and almost yielded. If you yield to the opposite party beforehand, naturally they will stick strongly to their claims. It means that the minority will rule and the majority must submit. … This shows a peculiar mind. I think these kind of people are a little cracked.”
And cracked Gandhi was. Gandhi bent over backward to appease the Indian Muslims, even at the expense of the lives of the Hindus. For instance, in the 1920s, a member of the Arya Samaj named Swami Shraddhananda was reconverting Muslims to Hinduism. Given that the reason there were riots between Hindus and Muslims was because the latter viewed the former as pagan, idolatrous scum whose religion needed to be wiped off the face of the earth, this was a very wise move. The only thing that separates the Muslims from the Hindus of India is the poisonous ideology of Islam that causes them to hate the heritage of their ancestors and revere that of the barbarians who killed their great grandfathers and raped their great grandmothers. Naturally, the Muslims were furious at this at had Shraddhananda murdered. One would expect the so called apostle of ahimsa to condemn this. Instead, Gandhi praised his murderer, Abdul Rashid, calling Rashid his brother! He said:
“Now you will perhaps understand why I have called Abdul Rashid a brother, and I repeat it. I do not even regard him as guilty of Swami’s murder. Guilty indeed are those who excited feeling of hatred against one another.” He concluded by saying that Shraddhananda “lived a hero” and “died a hero.” Notice that this was the same man who had assisted Gandhi’s own son, Harilal, to reconvert to Hinduism after converting to Islam. (Muslims had been gleeful over the conversion, saying “Today the son has known the true religion of Islam; tomorrow we shall make Gandhi recite the Kalama.” Gandhi even put appeasing Muslims above his own family! This is yet another rationalization of jihad against Hindus by the Gandhi, something that only encourages further murder. From Gandhi’s perspective, it would appear that the Hindus must meekly allow themselves to be slaughtered by Muslim fanatics and consider it a heroic duty. He even said as much:
“If the peaceful non-cooperation movement does not succeed in getting justice, then, they have the right to follow the path shown in the Holy Books of Islam and I whole-heartedly support this path.”
“Hindus should never be angry against the Muslims even if the latter might make up their minds to undo their (Hindus’) existence. If they put all of us to the sword, we should court death bravely. … We are destined to be born and die, then why need we feel gloomy over it?” (speech delivered on April 6, 1947).
“[Even if Muslims] killed our relatives, our people, why should we be angry with anyone? Those who got killed met with a proper end. We should know that they attained heaven. Let this happen with Gods’ wish with each one of us. God should grant us this kind of death. If you want to ask God for anything, let it be this.”
“Even if Muslims decide to wipe out the Hindu race, there is no point in Hindus getting angry on Muslims. Even if they slit our throats, we should be patient and accept death. Let them rule the world, we will pervade the world and merge with it. At least we should not be afraid of death. The providence is made of life and death. Why feel unhappy about it? We will enter a new life if we face death with a smile. We will create a new Hindustan [India]. ”
Gandhi seems to have forgotten that if the Hindus all got their throats slit, there would be no one left to create a new Hindustan!
“The few gentlemen from Rawalpindi who called upon me, asked me, “What about those who still remain in Pakistan?” I asked, why they all came here (Delhi)? Why they did not die there? I still hold on to the belief that we should stick to the place where we happen to live, even if we are cruelly treated, and even killed. Let us die if the people kill us, but we should die bravely with the name of God on our tongue.” He also said, “Even if our men are killed, why should we feel angry with anybody? You should realize that even if they are killed, they have had a good and proper end” (speech delivered on November 23, 1947)
“If the Hindus wish to cultivate eternal friendship with Mussalmans, they must perish with them in the attempt to vindicate the honour of Islam.”
“Hindus should never be angry against the Muslims even if the latter might make up their minds to undo even their existence”
Islam’s honor was more important to Gandhi than the lives of the Hindus.
Gandhi here was effectively asking the Hindu community to consent to being wiped out of India for the sake of the Muslims! The Sikhs too were not spared Gandhi’s lunacy:
“If all the Punjabis were to die to the last man without killing (a single Muslim), Punjab will be immortal. Offer yourselves as nonviolent willing sacrifices.”
“I would tell the Hindus to face death cheerfully if the Muslims are out to kill them. I would be a real sinner if after being stabbed I wished in my last moment that my son should seek revenge. I must die without rancor. … You may turn round and ask whether all Hindus and all Sikhs should die. Yes, I would say. Such martyrdom will not be in vain.”
Given Gandhi’s obsession with death, one wonders whether he or Narendra Modi should be considered the true merchant of death. He was certainly a very harmful and extremely dangerous individual. In his eyes, righteous individuals like Guru Govind Singh, Rana Pratap, and Shivaji were “misguided patriots” for daring to defend India from jihadi invaders. In fact he saw no difference between the brutal Aurangzeb and the noble Shivaji:
“Since Aurangazeb has lived here for so many years, allegations of enmity and distance leveled at him should cease and he should be considered one of us. For this, if from time to time some sacrifice has to be made to resolve the issue, it should be done. And in this way Aurangazeb and Shivaji should together found a new Hindu Nation.”
How a man who hates Hinduism with jihadi vehemence can be part of a Hindu Nation is a question that Gandhi’s soft brain did not consider. Indeed by Gandhi’s own “logic” the British too had been in India for “so many years.” Why should they not be considered part of the Hindu Nation and to hell with Swaraj?
Gandhi also had the poem Shiv Banvani banned, as it praised Shivaji for preventing the forcible conversion of all of India’s Hindus to Islam.
Gandhi wanted the King of Jammu and Kashmir to step down and hand over power to the Muslims of the state. Yet he did not ask for the same from the Niam of Hyderabad, whose kingdom was predominantly Hindu. In fact, he wanted the Nizam to rule India!
After British leave India, the Nizam of Hyderabad would be the ‘Badshah of Bharat’ [supreme ruler of India]”.
This was the man under whose reign Hindu girls were being abducted and raped, and Hindus were being forcible converted to Islam! Gandhi supported the Ottoman Sultan in Turkey, the Emir of Afghanistan, and the Nizam of Hyderabad; can a man who shamelessly supported tyrannical Islamic monarchs and their desire to kill Hindus and Islamicize India be considered the father of a Hindu majority republic?
Speaking of Kashmir, let us see Gandhi’s views on the how India was to save the state from jihad:
“Do not provide army for their protection. The State should provide ample literature to them on nonviolence. Whether such literature is available or not, those who are attacked should, in their enormous numbers, not counter attack a disciplined army, and not even resist their blows [meaning, bear the attacks repeatedly]. The attacked should sacrifice their lives, without anger and malice. Do not use weapons. Don’t even use fists to counter attack. Such non-violent resistance will become a dazzling example of velour, not witnessed in the history till date. Then the land of Kashmir will become pure. The fragrance of this purity will permeate not only Hindustan but the whole world”.
Books, says Gandhi, will save Kashmir. Apparently, the stench of the rotting corpses of Kashmiris killed by jihadi raiders (the end result of Gandhi’s “policy”) is a sweet fragrance, and their blood would purify Kashmir.
Even more disgusting was Gandhi’s rationalization of rape. The book Freedom at Midnight states:
“Gandhi advised them that if a Muslim expressed his desire to rape a Hindu or a Sikh lady, she should never refuse him but cooperate with him. She should lie down like a dead with her tongue in between her teeth.”
Dhananjay Kheer writes that Gandhi “would kiss the feet of the (Muslim) violator of the modesty of a sister.” It is thus entirely fitting, as Kheer points out, that Khlifa Haji Mehmud remarked that “Gandhi was really a Mohammedan.”
“As a satyagrahi I believe in the absolute efficacy of full surrender. Numerically the Hindus were in a minority, as a satyagrahi and a Hindu I should say that the Hindus would lose nothing in the long run by full surrender. To this argument a retort has thoughtlessly been made, Why then do you not advise India to surrender to the English? Give them the domination that I have not advised surrender to the bayonet. In the code of a satyagrahi there is no such thing as surrender to brute force. Or the surrender then is the surrender of suffering and not to the will of the wielder of the bayonet. A satyagrahi’s surrender has to come out of his strength, not out of weakness. The surrender advised by me is not of honour but of earthly goods. There is no loss of honour in surrendering seats and positions of emolument. There is loss of honour in haggling about them. The law of surrender and suffering is a universal law admitting of no exceptions.”
My implicit faith in nonviolence does mean yielding to minorities when they are really weak. The best way to weaken communalists is to yield to them. Resistance will only rouse their suspicion and strengthen their opposition. A satyagrahi resists when there is threat of force behind obstruction. I know that I do not carry the Congressmen in general with me in this what to me appears as very sensible and practical point of view. But if we are to come to Swaraj through nonviolent means, I know that this point of view will be accepted.”
According to Gandhi, surrendering to bullies is good and honorable. Islam’s honor is maintained through killing Hindus, and Hinduism’s honor is maintained through dying. Such was Gandhi’s notion of justice. It isn’t surprising at all that this man wanted the English to use satyagraha against Hitler’s armies (who had just overrun virtually all of Western Europe).
Yet later Gandhi would remark that “Muslims are bullies and the Hindus are cowards” somehow not realizing that it was his own insane brand of politics that was causing this! It is therefore unsurprising that when the Hindus were being massacred at Noakhali, Gandhi ignored their suffering. If Gandhi were alive today he would no doubt ignore the two terrorist attacks on Mumbai, the attack on the Parliament, the ethnic cleansing of the Hindus in Kashmir, any other killing of Hindus that have taken place as a result of his botched politics. It should surprise no one that Sri Auroindo said “India will be free to the extent it succeeds in shaking off the spell of Gandhism.”
“He didn’t hold political power and never forced anyone to follow his beliefs. One might question some of his principles, but no one who’s read “My experiments with Truth” can deny his sincerity in following them.”
Half correct. He did not hold political power; he held it by proxy, much as Sonia Gandhi does today, and was thus able to force the Congress to bend to his will. A few examples:
In 1930, in Lahore, the Congress finally decided to demand Purna Swaraj, or complete independence as their goal for India, listing the crimes of the British upon the Indian people as their justification. One would expect Gandhi to adhere to this resolution. However, soon after this declaration, Gandhi wrote an article in his newspaper, Young India, in which he listed eleven reforms that the Viceroy should take that woulds ensure Congress’ cooperation:
“This is by no means an exhaustive list of pressing needs, but let the Viceroy satisfy us with regard to these very simple but vital needs of India. He will then hear no talk of Civil Disobedience; and the Congress will heartily participate in any Conference where there is perfect freedom of expression and demand.”
Notice that he did not consult the Congress party regarding this; he simply assumed that the Congress would stop civil disobedience if the Viceroy agreed to HIS demands. The fact that the Congress had decided on Purna Swaraj didn’t matter to him at all. It was his way or the high way. It should, therefore come as no surprise that the historian R.C. Majumdar writes:
“Undeterred by the past experience of hopeless muddles in which Gandhi placed himself and the great national organization on more than one occasion, he was chosen to be the Dictator, a position which he maintained, with rare exceptions, for the next thirteen years.”
(Incidentally, the Congress government tried to suppress Majumdar’s work, as it would destroy the saintly messianic image of Gandhi that they had carefully cultivated.) The civil disobedience movement, however, continued. The British tried to brutally suppress it, but it may well have succeeded in driving out the British. However, with the movement at its height, Gandhi killed it by signing the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, which stopped the movement in exchange for the Second Round Table negotiations, which failed. Notice, again, that this was another dictatorial decision that lacked even the support of Gandhi’s golden boy, Nehru. Even Nehru could see the stupidity of this move. He commented:
“Was it for this that our people had behaved so gallantly for a year? Were all our brave words and deeds to end in this? The independence resolution of the Congress, of the pledge of January 26, so often repeated?”
This was, of course, not the first time Gandhi had single handedly killed protests that could have led to independence. In 1919, he called for a strike against the British extending wartime restrictions on civil rights. The agitation was successful, leading to marches and riots against the British. The British responded with their usual brutality: the started to machine gun the Indians. Had Gandhi had a spine, he would have continued the protests regardless until the British were forced to concede. Instead, he was shocked by the violence and called for the protests to stop. In 1921, there was another wave of agitation, cracked down upon with the usual brutality, and Gandhi again brought everything to a grinding halt. Subhash Chandra Bose summed up Gandhi’s stupidity:
“…to sound the order to retreat just when public enthusiasm was reaching the boiling point was nothing short of a national calamity…”
Gandhi’s actions essentially served as a safety valve that released the pressure on the British. He would not allow the public rage against the empire to build up to the point where it would explode and the British would be forced to leave. Gandhi wanted the British to leave India without shedding a single drop of blood, a lofty but impractical ideal; if Gandhi had truly had his way, India would remain under British rule until doomsday, so unreasonable was this. Incidentally, when jailed Congress leaders protested against this halt of protest in 1921, Gandhi responded saying that they were “civilly dead” and could have no say in policy. Hardly a democratic move, but all in a day’s work for the super-president of the Congress.
After the Second Round Table Conference failed, the Civil Disobedience Movement began again in earnest. Yet again, the British attempted to ferociously crush it, which was done with particular vehemence by the callous Lord Willingdon. However, the protests refused to die down. True to form, Gandhi did the British’s work for them. In 1933 he announced that he would be fasting for self-purification and the Harijan cause. He was released from jail, and promptly called for an end to Civil Disobedience (again, no voting, no consultations with the party) because “The whole purpose of the fast will be frustrated if I allowed my brain to be occupied by any extraneous matter, that is any matter outside the Harijan work.” Apparently Gandhi’s personal mental pre-occupation was more important than the freedom struggle. That Gandhi would suddenly choose the middle of the Civil Disobedience movement to launch an unrelated Harijan campaign at the expense of the former shows his eccentricity and senility.
The British of course, understood this. Thus, when Gandhi asked Willingdon to withdraw his oppressive methods of dealing with the boycott, and release the imprisoned activists, Willingdon refused; he realized that the Congress was unwilling to strike the final blow and forcibly remove the British from India. He knew that they would back down to firmness. The Congress was cursed with a weak willed leader wielding absolute power.
Majumdar writes:
“The sudden suspension of the Mass Civil Disobedience movement campaign on May 8, 1933, without any rhyme or reason undoubtedly came as a stunning blow to many. But Gandhi’s action did not evoke much open criticism at the time, because much of India was preoccupied with the question of his health. Only Vithalbhai Patel [the elder brother of Vallabhai] and Subhas Bose, … issued a manifesto condemning Gandhi’s decision to suspend the Civil Disobedience movement and stating that it virtually undid the work and the sacrifice of the last thirteen years. According to the manifesto, it signified the failure of the Civil Disobedience campaign, as also of Gandhi’s leadership.”
In 1946, there would be increasingly violent uprisings, in which the Hindus and Muslims both participated together. A shrewd leader would have fanned the flames of this uprising and could have yet avoided the Partition. But what did Gandhi say?
“…a combination between the Hindus and the Muslims and others for the purpose of violent actions is unholy …”
Yet again, Gandhi shot down a change for freedom and unity simply because it did not fit with his stubborn idealism. Gandhi was like a petulant child who insists that everything must be done his way, absurd and ignorant thought it may be. It was Gandhi, and Gandhi alone who knew the secret art of satyagraha, and no one else could be allowed to take the helm despite failure after failure. Gandhi himself admitted this:
“The masses have not yet received the message of satyagraha (non-violence), … [it] needs to be confined to one qualified person at a time. In the present circumstances only one, and that myself, should for the time being bear the responsibility for civil disobedience.”
Speaking of Bose, the man definitely had reason to be critical of Gandhi. Bose was elected President of the Congress in 1938. Bose wanted to use the impending World War II to pressure the British into giving India independence. Congress, in contrast, cared more about the ministries that its members had been given power over via the Government of India Act in 1935, and couldn’t be bothered with more struggling for Independence. Gandhi’s unwillingness to fight to the finish had permeated to the other Congress leaders, who were now cared more about the scraps from the British table than about true Swaraj. Naturally an individual who would dare resort to violence (the horror!) had no place in Gandhi’s Congress. Gandhi (despite no longer being a member of the Congress, let alone its President) used his influence to block Bose’s attempts to change the goals of the party. Bose was forced to resign and create his own party, the Forward Bloc. Bose would eventually go on the create the famous Indian National Army with the support of the Germans and the Japanese, which would do more for Indian independence than Gandhi ever did.
In 1942, Gandhi launched his final campaign, the Quit India Movement. This was not because he had seen the light and changed his tactics; it was because the Congress was finally sick of his incompetence. In 1940, the Congress finally attempted to part ways with him, reserving the right to use the sword if necessary. Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement to prevent his vice grip on the Congress from being lost to those advocating violent resistance, like Bose. The movement quickly turned violent, and was crushed by the British in three months. By 1947, the movement was long dead. The reason India gained independence when it did was because a) The British were hemorrhaging money after the war, and could no longer maintain their colonies, and b) Because of Bose’ attack in Northeast India. Though Bose had liberated very little territory, and had ultimately lost to British forces, the psychological impact of his army was huge. The outrage at the Red Fort Trial of Bose’s officers sparked mutinies in the Royal Indian Navy and the Royal Indian Air Force, making the British realize that they could no longer rely upon the Indian military to support them. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who granted India independence admitted as much to former Chief Justice P.V. Chukraborty,who writes:
“When I was acting as Governor of West Bengal in 1956, Lord Clement Attlee, who as the British Prime Minister in post war years was responsible for India’s freedom, visited India and stayed in Raj Bhavan Calcutta for two days`85 I put it straight to him like this: ‘The Quit India Movement of Gandhi practically died out long before 1947 and there was nothing in the Indian situation at that time, which made it necessary for the British to leave India in a hurry. Why then did they do so?’ In reply Attlee cited several reasons, the most important of which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the very foundation of the British Empire in India, and the RIN Mutiny which made the British realise that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the British. When asked about the extent to which the British decision to quit India was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s 1942 movement, Attlee’s lips widened in smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly, ‘Minimal’.”
Gandhi’s non cooperation movements failed again and again and again because he was unwilling to fight to the finish, and held the entire Congress hostage to his delusions; this delayed independence by a decade and caused untold suffering. It should come as no surprise that Bipin Chandra Pal (of the Lal, Bal, Pal triumvirate) considered Gandhi to be a “papal autocrat.”
“I’ve heard him called a rogue, the destroyer of India, a traitor, a betrayer and what not. Of course, the virulent right wing elements are a minority compared to the rest. But if you listen to these people, you get the picture that Gandhi had horns and slithered around on his belly.”
Unashamedly backing jihadi freaks and openly calling for the death of Hindus and Sikhs and the rape of their women, and literally inviting jihad into India about as traitorous as one can get.
“There are many who idolize Nathuram Godse – the crazy fellow who assassinated a defenseless man with a gun. To me, actions speak far louder than words. Never mind what Godse stood for. If the end result is the killing of a someone who never preached violence and never harmed him or anyone else, I want no part of what he was smoking. Such people point to the speech he gave in his defense. Even a cursory reading leads me to wonder if was entirely sane. Here’s a small extract:”
The only one who was not entirely sane here was Gandhi. Even a cursory reading of Gandhi’s writings reveals the catastrophic asininity the man preached. Gandhi was most definitely preaching violence of the bloodiest and most horrific kind. His mind numbingly revolting policies harmed millions of innocent people. In contrast, let us see the parts of Godse’s speech you ignore to make your “argument.”
“Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined RSS wing of anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession.
I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Ravana, Chanakiya, Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England , France , America and Russia . Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.”
Godse spent his youth trying to eradicate untouchability and casteism. Later he would volunteer in helping the victims of rioting and the partition, many of whom had lost limbs or family members. He seems to me to be a very kind and selfless person to do so much social work. He studied the writings and speeches of Gandhi and other independence leaders very closely. This is not characteristic of your average religious fanatic, who kills based on sudden, visceral rage and not after an in-depth analysis.
“In fact, honour, duty and love of one’s own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita.. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.
In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India . It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history’s towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them.”
Here he briefly condenses what I have written and quoted: that Gandhi’s pacifism was suicidal and unbelievably stupid.
“The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way.
Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma’s infallibility. ‘A Satyagrahi can never fail’ was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is. Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible.”
Here he comes to the same conclusion that R.C Majumdar and Bipin Chandra Pal, hardly fanatical men, came to: that Gandhi ruled Congress with an iron fist, and that everyone had to obey his eccentric will and his alone, and carry out his myopic and delusional policies.
“Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster. Gandhi’s pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India . It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India , Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani.. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma’s sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India . His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.
From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi’s infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947.
Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls ‘freedom’ and ‘peaceful transfer of power’. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called ‘freedom won by them with sacrifice’ – whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country – which we consider a deity of worship – my mind was filled with direful anger.”
Here he list, very patiently and methodically, Gandhi’s spineless Muslim appeasement policies that brought the nation not reconciliation, but merely hate, death and terrorism. Let’s not forget that the final straw for Godse was Gandhi’s fasting to give Pakistan 55 crore rupees that would definitely be spent on bullets used to kill Indian soldiers. As usual, Gandhi didn’t care how many Indians died so long as the Pakistanis were content.
“One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan , there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.
Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah’s iron will and proved to be powerless. Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan . People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building.”
Again, he reiterates that Gandhi just sat and watched when Hindus were being massacred but was willing to lick the feet of the Muslims who contemptuously kicked him and the Hindu people again and again.
“After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi.
I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi’s persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims. I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future.”
Godse concludes by saying, quite correctly, that Gandhi’s messianic status made it impossible for anyone to convict him of anything. And even if they could, what crime did he commit? There was nothing illegal about the partition. He did not personally kill anyone but merely allowed it to take place while his spellbound followers hung onto his every word. There is no law against being hypnotically charismatic, as Gandhi surely was, nor is there a law against pretending to be a Hindu saint while perverting the Hindu tradition to serve petty ends.
In short, Godse makes his case very rationally and eloquently, not at all what you’d expect from a “crazy fellow.” Godse’s motivations are very, very important, and it was criminally negligent of you to simply ignore them.
“Say what? You mean as long as Hindus are happy, it doesn’t matter if Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Muslims and Jains are miserable eh? I get the feeling Godse would have gladly sided with Hitler. After all, as long as the non Jews and fully naturalized Germans were happy, then automatically Germany will be happy no?”
You’re distorting what Godse said. He said that the Hindus being happy will automatically make everyone else in India happy:
“To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well-being of all India, one fifth of human race.”
So the idea of his being okay with Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, etc being miserable is of your own invention; your own quote disproves it. If he was truly fanatical, surely he would have said that only the welfare of the Hindus matters? The irony here is that you unfairly compare Godse with Hitler, while failing to do the same with Gandhi despite acknowledging that he advised the Jews to let Hitler butcher them! And you wonder why people hate Gandhi? Furthermore, given that you acknowledge that he was advising the Jews to let themselves be slaughtered, how can you say Gandhi “never preached violence?” This is absurd hypocrisy. Even here Gandhi supported the Muslim Arabs, to appease the Muslims of India:
“No influence, direct or indirect, over the Holy Places of Islam will ever be tolerated by Indian Mussulmans.”
This should be irrelevant. Indian Muslims have no locus standi in a matter involving Arabs and Jews. Yet Gandhi was basing his assessment of the situation ENTIRELY on what they thought!
“It follows, therefore, that even Palestine must be under Mussulman control. So far as I am aware, there never has been any difficulty put in the way of Jews and Christians visiting Palestine and performing all their religious rites.”
This is a lie. In fact, only under the Israelis are the holy places open to all. Under Muslim rule, the Jewish and Christian holy places were under heavy restrictions if not completely closed to the faithful.
“No canon, however, of ethics or war can possibly justify the gift by the Allies of Palestine to Jews. It would be a breach of implied faith with Indian Mussulmans in particular and the whole of India in general.”
So apparently, Palestine should not be given to the Jews because the INDIAN MUSLIMS won’t like it. Who died and made the Indian Muslims lords of the planet, such that nothing should come to pass without their approval?
“The Jews, it is contended, must remain a wandering race unless they have obtained possession of Palestine. I do not propose to examine the soundness or otherwise of the doctrine underlying the proposition. All I contend is that they cannot possess Palestine through a trick or a moral breach.”
Essentially, Gandhi wanted the Jews to remain wandering, without a home where they could be safe, because Indian Muslims would not approve of it. This is truly reprehensible. Furthermore, the Jews were legally buying land from the Arabs; there was no “moral breach.” let alone a “trick.”
“The Jews cannot receive sovereign rights in a place which has been held for centuries by Muslim powers by right of religious conquest. The Muslim soldiers did not shed their blood in the late War for the purpose of surrendering Palestine out of Muslim control.”
Wait…what is the apostle of ahimsa doing talking about the Muslim “right of conquest”? Oh wait, I forgot. Muslims are allowed to kill whoever they please, whenever, and take whatever they want, and it will always receive the seal of approval from Gandhiji. The fact that the Jews had been repeatedly driven out of Palestine after attempting to return again and again didn’t seem to matter to Gandhi. Nor did the fact that the Arab presence in the area only dates back to the 7th century conquest while the Jews had been living there fore more than a millennium prior. Neither logic nor compassion seemed to enter Gandhi’s mind when it came to Islam.
“Zionism in its spiritual sense is a lofty aspiration. By spiritual sense I mean they should want to realise the Jerusalem that is within. Zionism meaning reoccupation of Palestine has no attraction for me. I can understand the longing of a Jew to return to Palestine, and he can do so if he can without the help of bayonets, whether his own or those of Britain. In that event he would go to Palestine peacefully and in perfect friendliness with the Arabs. The real Zionism of which I have given you my meaning is the thing to strive for, long for and die for. Zion lies in one`s heart. It is the abode of God. The real Jerusalem is the spiritual Jerusalem. Thus he can realise this Zionism in any part of the world.”
Notice the hypocrisy here. If Jews can “realise this Zionism in any part of the world” then could not Indians do the same? What need therefore was there for the Indian independence struggle? The idea is of course ludicrous. A spiritual Jerusalem will not save the Jews from persecution.
“My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.
But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?”
…because they were persecuted in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, England, America, and the Islamic world. That’s why.
“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”
It is the Jews, not the Arabs, who are native to Palestine, as the French are to France and the English to England. Apparently buying land is somehow immoral by Gandhi’s reckoning. And Gandhi conveniently ignores the fact that while the Arabs controlled most of the Middle East, the Jews had no place at all where they could feel at home, save for Palestine.
“The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French.”
Tell that to Alfred Dreyfus, Theodor Hertzl, and the other Jews who were treated like second class citizens.
“If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled?”
Given that they were settling Palestine with alacrity, yes, they would.
“Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.”
So the Jews’ desire for a home JUSTIFIED their expulsion from public life by the Nazis. Apparently trying to be safe from persecution is just cause for persecution. How much more reprehensible can Gandhi get?
“But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.”
So, despite the fact that the Holocaust “had no parallel in history” Gandhi didn’t believe in war. Yet ANOTHER genocide rationalized by the “harmless” apostle of ahimsa.
“But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment.”
So Gandhi wants the Jews to allow the Germans to kill them. So much for non violence.
“And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now.”
Apparently surrendering and dying is better than living and being persecuted. Note how similar this is to Gandhi’s defeatist drivel regarding Hindus and Muslims.
“And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.”
In Gandhi’s mind Holocaust = “inner strength and joy” and “voluntary suffering” = “joyful sleep.” Garbage like this can only be found in the mind of Gandhi.
“And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart.”
Never mind the fact that the Arabs have been trying to destroy the Jews for the past 1400 years. Never mind the fact that Islamic scripture is replete with Jew hatred. That Gandhi believed that the Jews could “convert the Arab heart” shows how naive this man was.
“They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.”
So here Gandhi admits that if the Jews try and reason with the Arabs nonviolently, they’ll be killed. ANYWAY, yet he still desires that they “convert the Arab heart.” Brownie points if you can figure out the logic behind this stupidity. And the Jews were buying Arab land; they weren’t aggressively despoiling people. The attacks on the Arabs by the Haganah and the Stern Gang were usually in response to Arab attacks on Jewish settlers.
“I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.”
Arab jihad against Jewish settlers with no place else to go who were legally purchasing their land was “resistance in the face of overwhelming odds” (the Arabs outnumbered the Jews, something Gandhi conveniently forgets to mention). This is hardly “unwarrantable encroachment.” And apparently, asking the Jews to die isn’t “defending Arab excesses.” More duplicitous crap from Gandhiji.
“Hitherto I have refrained practically from saying anything in public regarding the Jew-Arab controversy. I have done so for good reasons. That does not mean any want of interest in the question, but it does mean that I do not consider myself sufficiently equipped with knowledge for the purpose. For the some reason I have tried to evade many world events. Without airing my views on them, I have enough irons in the fire. But four lines of a newspaper column have done the trick and evoked a letter from a friend who has sent me a cutting which I would have missed but for the friend drawing my attention to it. It is true that I did say some such thing in the course of a long conversation with Mr. Louis Fischer on the subject. I do believe that the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world. “Ghetto” is, so far as I am aware, the name given to Jewish locations in many parts of Europe. But for their heartless persecution, probably no question of return to Palestine would ever have arisen. The world should have been their home, if only for the sake of their distinguished contribution to it.
But, in my opinion, they have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism. Their citizenship of the world should have and would have made them honoured guests of any country. Their thrift, their varied talent, their great industry should have made them welcome anywhere. It is a blot on the Christian world that they have been singled out, owing to a wrong reading of the New Testament, for prejudice against them. “If an individual Jew does a wrong, the whole Jewish world is to blame for it.” If an individual Jew like Einstein makes a great discovery or another composes unsurpassable music, the merit goes to the authors and not to the community to which they belong.”
Yes, the “citizenship of the world” should indeed have made them “honored guests of any country.” But as Gandhi himself admits, they were ruthlessly persecuted and could no longer call any place home. So how can he deny them a place in Palestine? It is false that they would not have desire to return but for their persecution. The Jews have been trying to return to Palestine ever since they were first expelled from it, and kept getting kicked out. And again, they were not “imposing” themselves anywhere; they had nowhere else to go, and were buying land to build themselves a state.
“No wonder that my sympathy goes out to the Jews in their unenviably sad plight. But one would have thought adversity would teach them lessons of peace. Why should they depend upon American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?”
Because the Arabs were trying to wipe them out.
“If they were to adopt the matchless weapon of non-violence whose use their best Prophets have taught and which Jesus the Jew who gladly wore the crown of thorns bequeathed to a groaning world, their case would be the world’s and I have no doubt that among the many things that the Jews have given to the world, this would be the best and the brightest. It is twice blessed. It will make them happy and rich in the true sense of the word and it will be a soothing balm to the aching world”
Apparently Jewish genocide = “a soothing balm to the aching world.” Vintage Gandhi.
You say that Gandhi’s views changed over time. This is clearly false. His attitude towards the Jews and the Hindus did not change during his 30 year long career. As his own words show, his, asinine doctrine of ahimsa remained constant. He had no problem with Hindu and Jewish genocide, rape, or destruction of their property, he had no problem supporting Islamic jihad, he had no problem creating a Muslim dictatorship, so long as the Muslims were kept happy.
The reason I quoted extensively from Gandhi’s comments on Palestsine was because it shows that he either was abysmally ignorant of the situation or simply distorting facts to support his pro-jihadi nonsense to appease Indian Muslims. In either case, he had no business commenting on the situation, let alone giving such disgusting “advice” to the Jewish people to further his own pro-jihadi obsequiousness.
“Beware of the man who recommends only one way of thinking to the exclusion all others. He’s either god himself, or a fanatic.”
Everyone who holds a view thinks his view is correct and everyone else’s view is flawed in some way if not totally incorrect. Even you! What Godse did was examine all the viewpoints of the political groups that were around him, and then picked the one he thought was best. What, pray tell, is wrong with that? Doesn’t EVERYONE do that?
“Now I may not agree with everything Gandhi said. I’m not sure ahimsa or non violence would have helped the Jews against Hitler for example and he himself agreed that if ever violence were acceptable it would be against an evil of that magnitude. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand his main argument. That violence breeds more violence. Even violence for a just cause. It’s a double edged sword that merely deflects the injustice to another group of people if at all.”
Righteous violence does not deflect injustice. Righeous violence metes out justice to the cruel and tyrannical. The only thing that bred more violence was Gandhi’s sick rationalization of jihadi savagery and terrorism, and his perverse obsession Hindu and Jewish martyrdom that would allow Islam to reign supreme. Had Gandhi supported the use of violence when it was justified, there would have been a lot less bloodshed during the independence movement.
“It’s ironic that when the entire world admires Gandhi and the president of the US has a portrait of him in his office, he’s attacked most in his own country. Gandhi was a man who led a movement of the kind the world has never seen. As a member of humanity, I gotta admire the guy irrespective of his nationality.”
The reaso
In reply to Sasank
While admire your patience in writing such a long diatribe, my admiration stops there.
This is not an explanation. A huge number of facts has been used towards your own advantage.
The only truth in this diatribe is about “What” happened .. but your reasons of “why” it happened and what were Gandhi’s sinister designs behind those, clearly sheds light on the rationale behind your despisement which seems to be the sufferings of Hindus ( which i can understand ) and your extreme dissent of Gandhi’s seemingly full support towards muslims and purported lack of feeling towards Hindus.
With this single point of contention, history can be misinterpreted like any other holy book being misinterpreted by fanatics and other ignorant people.
Its not difficult to counter-argue the reasons you had attributed to “facts” that you had mentioned,whether it is Khilafat movement Or his purported Lack of feeling towards the Hindus Or his sexual experiments Or of course his comments on the violence of Stern Gang on the Arabs during the early 1940s.But then it will just be an argument. While I understand that it will be of no consequence for me and also at the risk of argument,I am going to say few things, for I do believe in the man’s philosophy.
All his comments regards jews/arabs supported his idea of not using violence in any form and his opposition towards that concept, whether it is from the Oppressed Or the Oppressor and also supported his policy of self-sacrifice based on the tenets of his own faith. He lived it and showed it by example. While he was not a messiah of any kind, he was definitely an intellectual who learnt from mistakes and improved.
His views did change over time, from advocating a dominion status to poorna swaraj – from support to the British troops during the First world war to complete independence later, from wearing western clothes to look one among the Aristocrats during his barrister days to renouncing everything later and adorn himself with a small . Even he was pretty candid about that.
I am sorry for you if you say his philosophy of non-violence was flawed.
History is replete with blood written all over it. It should not come as a surprise. Since time immemorial, there were always invading armies of fanatics, rulers , oppressors, traitors and imperialists. And violence was a natural way of the oppressed people to come out and assert themselves and its always the first thought. There was always revolts of oppressed people against the oppressors, Franch revolution , Russian revolution , Sepoy mutiny stand as testimony to this fact to name a few ( a very miniscule part ). So its not the first time that any oppressed ppl decided to actually fight the oppressor using weapons and unfortunately, it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Some of them succeed and some of them don’t.
But at the end, if the oppressed ppl become successful in their quest by using violence, the Oppressed become the Oppressor themselves. Do you need a testimony for this? Russian revolution base on the tenets of communism leading to Great Purge?, US trying to protect democracy but ironically aiding their future oppressors – the Jihadis, Cuban revolution. Let me know if you need more.
People become the embodiment of the very evil they were trying to defeat. Any dictatorship in the world stands a testimony for this. World is complete with examples. People succeed in overthrowing the hegemony of an external force, but end up as aggressors against their own people.
Gandhi had the courage to demonstrate to the world that the Guns Or Weapons need not be used to achieve any great feat. He had the foresight to tell that our society needs to remove the evil in itself, before it tries to remove the evil around it.
He demonstrated that a frail man in a loin cloth with simplicity and utter discipline can alter the world’s geographical and political history.
I am again sorry if you say that Gandhi’s actions never worked. While you can attribute the independence to any other reason in this world, the fact is that there was no leader like Gandhi, who rallied almost the whole of India to fight for independence cutting across Religious and ethnic diversities.
He gained the support of the local British populace ( not just the “Nobels” or the politicians ) too unlike any other leader, which also rallied in support towards giving self government to India.
I guess the only problem is it was Gandhi who did that and probably the only one who could do that. His philosophy though strong, needs people strong enough to adhere to his kind of discipline, which is pretty difficult for many of us.
In reply to Adith
Adith,
while Sasank has put everything in front of us and let us decide the fact, you have pretty disappointed by pushing us to believe you.
Your comment is just a bunch of words and pack of papers without any supporting facts. In support, you are just penning down your analysis. This is not your problem, this Gandhi guy was so contradictory in his deeds and notions that no supporter will be able to defend him. he was selective in his approach and very skilled to use the situations in his favor. whatever you say, you can’t defend his role in appeasing muslims, appeasing britishers at the cost of patriots and hindus( read it citizen of India). we have all read the same boks and therefore we have been excessively taught about good things about Gandhi and his bunch so that nobody can paint another picture at least for 30-40 years of active life of ours. Non-violance is a word of fiction, even GOD knows this fact during Ramayana and Mahabharata. this is a fact that Gandhi was given excessive hype by British media as he was perfect means to keep India in submissive mode to counter the other side presented by fighters like Bose and Singh.
The reason Gandhi is attacked is because he deserved it. As I’ve shown, none of his movements to expel the British from India worked; he lost his nerve and aborted them prematurely. The British used this weakness to leave the subcontinent on their terms at the time of their choosing by giving the Congress meaningless concessions (like the failed Round Table Conference). He merely derailed and delayed the freedom struggle. More importantly, he handed India on a silver platter to jihad due to his imbecilic concern with nonviolence, ironically causing rivers of Hindu blood to flow. He even apologized for jihad OUTSIDE India and called for nonviolence in the face of the Nazi juggernaut. His prattling on nonviolence were empty, hopelessly idealistic, suicidal rhetoric that India could well do without.
“And to channel that sort of willpower into not hitting back is almost superhuman.
After all this time, I don’t think any of us can predict how things would have turned out and why some decisions were taken. In any case, why speak ill of the dead?”
Clearly, the only thing that was superhuman was Gandhi’s cold, callous lack of feeling towards the suffering of India’s Hindus, people who viewed him as a father figure, a deity, and hung on his every word. The reason we need to speak ill of the dead is because Gandhi’s hare brained ideology of suicidal non violence motivated his successor Nehru and his descendants, and caused India even more misery and pain.
“Also, what Gandhi did with his personal life is of no concern to me as long as he didn’t break the law.”
The Mahatma’s sexual experiments should concern you a great deal. As Radha Rajan points out in her book, Eclipse of the Hindu Nation: Gandhi and His Freedom Struggle, Gandhi most definitely slept naked with young girls, even his own nieces, to “test his celibacy.” This is not an action that any decent man would take, let alone a saint. But it is worse than that. Rajan shows how the poor girls were horrified that they would have to spend the night naked with dear old Bapuji, and how their families attempted to avoid this “special treatment.” The Congress leadership did know about this; Gandhi, with his usual callousness, revealed the names of these girls unmindful of what it would do to their reputation. However, since Gandhi was the absolute monarch of the Congress, and had a reputation to protect, the Congress leaders kept their mouths shut. When Sardar Patel disapproved of this revolting perversity, Gandhi spewed venomous insults at the Iron Man of India, used his influence among the Congress to overrule the decision of the Congress to have Patel as the first Prime Minister of India and install the sycophantic Nehru instead (who, like his mentor, had his own sexual dalliances). Nehru was most definitely Gandhi’s disciple and naturally, the worst Prime Minister in Indian history with the possible exception of Man Moron Singh.
Just as Gandhi stopped civil disobedience when it became too violent for him, thus turning what could have been a victory into a humiliating defeat, Nehru stopped the Indian liberation of Kashmir when his army was on a winning streak to preserve India’s reputation as a nonviolent state. This left part of the state in the tender and loving care of the Pakistani army, where it remains to this day. As such, this gutless coward, trapped in ahimsa la la land, turned what should have been a quick, clean operation that would have boosted the Indian people’s morale, into a long, messy drawn out affair and continues to bleed like an open wound that refuses to heal, and lost more innocent life unnecessarily. Another 24 hours and Kashmir would have been entirely in Indian hands. But Nehru was adamant; India would retain its reputation even at the expense of its national interest. It is important to note that even this fragment of Kashmir that was under Indian control was given special status under Article 370 (thanks to the snake charmer Sheikh Abdullah who hypnotized Nehru) that essentially helps give Kashmir its own separate identity, thus helping fuel anti-India insurgency. Such us the wisdom of Chacha Nehru.
Just as Gandhi ignored the suffering of the Hindu masses during riots, Nehru ditched the Tibetans after the Chinese invasion in 1950. India had inherited extraterritoriality rights in Tibet, and Nehru could have used this to send in troops to protect Tibet. This is exactly what Sardar Patel wanted; Tibet had been a peaceful, nonaggressive neighbor to India, and Patel understood that it needed to remain independent at all costs. Yet Nehru, Fabien socialist, was enamored with the Chinese. He recognized their Communist government immediately. Patel wanted him to wait and see what the Chinese were up to. After all, Chiang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang government that had fled to Taiwan was planning on a return to the mainland. Incidentally, it was the Kuomintang that had been supportive of India’s independence struggle; the Chinese had only supported the Communist Party of India, as if THEY had been at the forefront of the independence struggle. Nehru handed Tibet to China on a silver platter. Now, India has to worry about Chinese soldiers tramping over the border like it doesn’t exist, China backing insurgency in the North East, the new Chinese-backed Maoist government in Nepal, the Chinese claims on Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, and the Chinese damming of the Brahmaputra river, which will have severe affects on Indian agriculture. Even if India did not have the military power to fight China’s battle hardened People’s Liberation Army, surely Nehru could have taken the issue to the UN, like he unnecessarily and against the advice of Patel, took the Kashmir issue (that he created) to the UN, thus weakening India’s claim. Like his naïve mentor, was an idealistic dreamer who believed the UN to be a fair and just body that would decide the issue; he didn’t realize that the UN is just as crummy and self serving as the governments that comprise it. He was willing to weaken India’s claim to its own territory but not weaken China’s claim to an independent nation!
Even India’s lack of military preparedness is Nehru’s fault. The British had trained the Indian Army well; they had performed excellently in WWII. But Nehru deliberately decreased the size of the army and did not upgrade its equipment. In response to a request for a defence policy directive from Rob Lockhart, the first Commander In Chief of India’s army, Nehru snapped “‘Rubbish! Total rubbish! We don’t need a defence policy. Our policy is ahimsa. We foresee no military threats. As far as I am concerned you can scrap the army – the police are good enough to meet our security needs’! When the chief of staff protested that the Chinese were a threat, Nehru snarled “It is not the business of the C in C to tell the Prime Minister who will attack and where. China will protect our North East border. You worry about Kashmir and Pakistan.” Nehru triumphantly signed the Panchsheel agreement with China, believing that it would guarantee peace between India and China. After it expired in 1962, Nehru did not bother to renew it. After all, he had recognized their government, handed over Tibet, backed their stance on the Korean War (thus indirectly helping to install the most brutal and tyrannical governments in the world, North Korea) pushed for their replacing the Republic of China as a permanent member of the UN Security Council (now that India wants a UNSC seat, China refuses to lends its support. So much for gratitude. JFK, who wanted to prevent having a second Communist nation on the UNSC, even offered to back India if Nehru wanted to take China’s seat. Nehru responded saying that India wanted a permanent seat, but only if China got one first. Was Nehru India’s Prime Minister or China’s?) A paranoid China, thinking that Nehru intended to weaken their hold on Tibet, attacked a horrified Nehru, shamelessly violating every one of the five principles, and took Aksai Chin for themselves (where unbeknownst to Nehru, they had been building a road to better control Tibet. Nehru was a clueless idiot.) Even in the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Nehru could have salvaged a victory. India’s airforce was superior to that of China, and could have cut their supply lines. Yet Nehru refused to use it. Instead, he ran crying to JFK, and begged for help like a child. JFK chastised Nehru’s representative, saying “The British were able to stand up to the Germans for three years before we came to their help, and you couldn’t hold out for three days?”
So, in summary, the fact that Kashmir is broken in three and locked in perpetual insurgency is entirely Nehru’s goddamn fault. The fact that India was stuck in a hopelessly bureaucratic License Raj that strangled the private sector and caused the economy to stagnate was also a result of Nehru’s hopeless pipe dream of a socialist paradise. Given that he put the economy in the hands of the government, Nehru is also responsible for the stinking corruption that pervades Indian politics. Like a good Communist, Nehru refused to tolerate dissent to his rule over the country. When EMS Namboodiripad’s Communists were elected in Kerala, becoming the first non Congress state government ever, Nehru had them dismissed on trumped up charges of working for the Soviets. He supported the Kamraj plan that virtually guaranteed that his daughter would succeed him, thus helping create the nepotism that is literally at the heart of Indian politics today. Nehru’s socialism and Anglophilia made him make Gandhi’s Hindu bashing and Muslim appeasing drivel into India’s national policy, making anything Islamic “secular” and anything even remotely Hindu rank “communalism” that had no place in India. Thanks to Nehru, India is a “soft state” where terrorists can do as they please knowing that the “secular” Indian government will go easy on them for the Muslim vote, and the “secular” media will make a huge stink about the poor persecuted Muslims of India being the victims of heartless Hindu fanatics and their “Islamophobia.” I honestly cannot think of a single thing that Nehru did that he could not have easily done better had he not had his head filled with half baked, failed foreign ideologies like Gandhism, socialism, and Anglophilia. For more information, check out Sitaram Goel’s “Genesis and Growth of Nehruism” and N.R. Waradpande’s “The Nemesis of Nehru Worship.”
THIS is entirely the consequence of Duratma Gandhi’s sexual experiments, which essentially changed the course of modern Indian history.
The reason Mother Teresa deserves condemnation is because she was, as Christopher Hitchens puts it, “a fraud, a fanatic, and a fundamentalist.” In his book “The Missionary Position” he exposes how Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa was “corrupt, nasty, cynical, and cruel.” You might also want to watch the documentary “Hell’s Angel” on Youtube. Mother Teresa set up a “Home for the Dying” in Calcutta. No doctors, no medicine; just a place for victims to suffer and die, because the Catholic Church says that suffering is a good thing. The conditions in this place are awful, even by Indian standards of hospice care. Painkillers are forbidden, because they decrease suffering. Inmates’ families aren’t even allowed to see them as that would alleviate their suffering. It is not as though Mother Teresa didn’t have the money. She received millions of dollars in donations, some coming from poor people who didn’t have that much to begin with but were selfless people who wanted to do something for the poor. All that money sat in Mother Teresa’s organization’s bank account, deliberately, to promote suffering. Even in her “hospitals” mentally challenged children are given inadequate treatment because Mother Teresa’s artificially impose poverty. She even refused to encourage birth control in India (never mind the population crisis) because it went against the church’s teaching. Mother Teresa was a sadist; she wanted to see people suffer, because of the Church’s belief in redemptive suffering. Susan Shields, an ex member of Mother Teresa’s organization revealed that even the nuns were meant to suffer:
“Some years after I became a Catholic, I joined Mother Teresa’s congregation, the Missionaries of Charity. I was one of her sisters for nine and a half years, living in the Bronx, Rome, and San Franciso, until I became disillusioned and left in May 1989. As I reentered the world, I slowly began to unravel the tangle of lies in which I had lived. I wondered how I could have believed them for so long.
Three of Mother Teresa’s teachings that are fundamental to her religious congregation are all the more dangerous because they are believed so sincerely by her sisters. Most basic is the belief that as long as a sister obeys she is doing God’s will. Another is the belief that the sisters have leverage over God by choosing to suffer. Their suffering makes God very happy. He then dispenses more graces to humanity. The third is the belief that any attachment to human beings, even the poor being served, supposedly interferes with love of God and must be vigilantly avoided or immediately uprooted. The efforts to prevent any attachments cause continual chaos and confusion, movement and change in the congregation. Mother Teresa did not invent these beliefs – they were prevalent in religious congregations before Vatican II – but she did everything in her power (which was great) to enforce them.
Once a sister has accepted these fallacies she will do almost anything. She can allow her health to be destroyed, neglect those she vowed to serve, and switch off her feelings and independent thought. She can turn a blind eye to suffering, inform on her fellow sisters, tell lies with ease, and ignore public laws and regulations.”
Mother Teresa encouraged unnecessary suffering lies, and callousness. If she is a saint, what is there left for the devil to do?
The Missionaries of Charity had plenty of money…
“It is in the hope that others may see the fallacy of this purported way to holiness that I tell a little of what I know. Although there are relatively few tempted to join Mother Teresa’s congregation of sisters, there are many who generously have supported her work because they do not realize how her twisted premises strangle efforts to alleviate misery. Unaware that most of the donations sit unused in her bank accounts, they too are deceived into thinking they are helping the poor.
As a Missionary of Charity, I was assigned to record donations and write the thank-you letters. The money arrived at a frantic rate. The mail carrier often delivered the letters in sacks. We wrote receipts for checks of $50,000 and more on a regular basis. Sometimes a donor would call up and ask if we had received his check, expecting us to remember it readily because it was so large. How could we say that we could not recall it because we had received so many that were even larger?
When Mother spoke publicly, she never asked for money, but she did encourage people to make sacrifices for the poor, to “give until it hurts.” Many people did – and they gave it to her. We received touching letters from people, sometimes apparently poor themselves, who were making sacrifices to send us a little money for the starving people in Africa, the flood victims in Bangladesh, or the poor children in India. Most of the money sat in our bank accounts.
The flood of donations was considered to be a sign of God’s approval of Mother Teresa’s congregation. We were told by our superiors that we received more gifts than other religious congregations because God was pleased with Mother, and because the Missionaries of Charity were the sisters who were faithful to the true spirit of religious life.”
…yet they were encouraged to beg for good, and endanger their own health and that of the people they were “helping”
“Most of the sisters had no idea how much money the congregation was amassing. After all, we were taught not to collect anything. One summer the sisters living on the outskirts of Rome were given more crates of tomatoes than they could distribute. None of their neighbors wanted them because the crop had been so prolific that year. The sisters decided to can the tomatoes rather than let them spoil, but when Mother found out what they had done she was very displeased. Storing things showed lack of trust in Divine Providence.
The donations rolled in and were deposited in the bank, but they had no effect on our ascetic lives and very little effect on the lives of the poor we were trying to help. We lived a simple life, bare of all superfluities. We had three sets of clothes, which we mended until the material was too rotten to patch anymore. We washed our own clothes by hand. The never-ending piles of sheets and towels from our night shelter for the homeless we washed by hand, too. Our bathing was accomplished with only one bucket of water. Dental and medical checkups were seen as an unnecessary luxury.
Mother was very concerned that we preserve our spirit of poverty. Spending money would destroy that poverty. She seemed obsessed with using only the simplest of means for our work. Was this in the best interests of the people we were trying to help, or were we in fact using them as a tool to advance our own “sanctity?” In Haiti, to keep the spirit of poverty, the sisters reused needles until they became blunt. Seeing the pain caused by the blunt needles, some of the volunteers offered to procure more needles, but the sisters refused.We begged for food and supplies from local merchants as though we had no resources. On one of the rare occasions when we ran out of donated bread, we went begging at the local store. When our request was turned down, our superior decreed that the soup kitchen could do without bread for the day.
It was not only merchants who were offered a chance to be generous. Airlines were requested to fly sisters and air cargo free of charge. Hospitals and doctors were expected to absorb the costs of medical treatment for the sisters or to draw on funds designated for the religious. Workmen were encouraged to labor without payment or at reduced rates. We relied heavily on volunteers who worked long hours in our soup kitchens, shelters, and day camps.
A hard-working farmer devoted many of his waking hours to collecting and delivering food for our soup kitchens and shelters. “If I didn’t come, what would you eat?” he asked.
Our Constitution forbade us to beg for more than we needed, but, when it came to begging, the millions of dollars accumulating in the bank were treated as if they did not exist.
For years I had to write thousands of letters to donors, telling them that their entire gift would be used to bring God’s loving compassion to the poorest of the poor. I was able to keep my complaining conscience in check because we had been taught that the Holy Spirit was guiding Mother. To doubt her was a sign that we were lacking in trust and, even worse, guilty of the sin of pride. I shelved my objections and hoped that one day I would understand why Mother wanted to gather so much money, when she herself had taught us that even storing tomato sauce showed lack of trust in Divine Providence.”
As Hitchens points out, Mother Teresa didn’t seem to mind that she was reciving money from the wives of corrupt, tyrannical dictators like Haiti’s Papa Doc or her native Albania’s Enver Hoxha. ; As Dr. Aroup Chatterjee points out in his book entitled Mother Teresa, the Final Verdict, she used her most of the money to fund evangelical work in India, or let it disappear into the vaults of the Vatican to buy herself a sainthood. She spent most of her time away from her “hospice care” hobnobbing with celebrities and traveling first class in Air India where she had a permanent reservation.
Bearing an eerie similarity to Gandhi’s and his callous disregard for India’s Hindus (which, as Radha Rajan points out, was derived from his Gandhian ideology which was a toxic concoction with more than a little Christian theology mixed in) Mother Teresa was cruel, heartless bitch with zero empathy who used her resources to uproot Hinduism and replace it with Christianity in an attempt to turn India into another South American or African country where Christian imperialism triumphed. Does that answer your question, or was my explanation too “absurd and out of whack”?
@Adith
>>While admire your patience in writing such a long diatribe, my admiration stops there.
First off, I’d like to thank you for responding to my post with civility; generally when I criticize Gandhi, I’m blindly accused of being an agent of the Sangh Parivar who is trying to overthrow Gandhian ahimsa and secularism and replace it with a militant Hindu theocratic state.
>>This is not an explanation. A huge number of facts has been used towards your own advantage.
The only truth in this diatribe is about “What” happened .. but your reasons of “why” it happened and what were Gandhi’s sinister designs behind those, clearly sheds light on the rationale behind your despisement which seems to be the sufferings of Hindus ( which i can understand ) and your extreme dissent of Gandhi’s seemingly full support towards muslims and purported lack of feeling towards Hindus.
With this single point of contention, history can be misinterpreted like any other holy book being misinterpreted by fanatics and other ignorant people.
Its not difficult to counter-argue the reasons you had attributed to “facts” that you had mentioned,whether it is Khilafat movement Or his purported Lack of feeling towards the Hindus Or his sexual experiments Or of course his comments on the violence of Stern Gang on the Arabs during the early 1940s.But then it will just be an argument. While I understand that it will be of no consequence for me and also at the risk of argument,I am going to say few things, for I do believe in the man’s philosophy.
Perhaps you could demonstrate what facts I have misrepresented? Everything I have written is derived either from Gandhi’s on writings or those of his contemporaries, like C. Sankaran Nair, Annie Besant, etc. These aren’t my opinions on what happened; these are the opinions of Gandhi’s own contemporaries and colleagues.
I never alleged that there was any sinister designs behind what Gandhi did. He was certainly naive, yes, and painfully myopic, but I never said that he was sinister at all.
>>All his comments regards jews/arabs supported his idea of not using violence in any form and his opposition towards that concept, whether it is from the Oppressed Or the Oppressor and also supported his policy of self-sacrifice based on the tenets of his own faith. He lived it and showed it by example. While he was not a messiah of any kind, he was definitely an intellectual who learnt from mistakes and improved.
Gandhi was hardly opposed to violence in any form. As I have shown, though he was quick to condemn Hindu violence against Muslims, he was suddenly quiet when it came to condemning Muslim violence against Hindus. He condemned the Zionists for creating their state using “British bayonets” yet did not say a word on Arab attacks on Jews. His ahimsa was hypocritical and selective. Despite the fact that his overtures to the Muslims failed again and again, he continued to flog that dead horse. And despite the fact that his pulling the plug on non cooperation just as anger against the British was reaching the boiling point failed multiple times, he repeated it again and again. He did not learn from these mistakes.
>>His views did change over time, from advocating a dominion status to poorna swaraj – from support to the British troops during the First world war to complete independence later, from wearing western clothes to look one among the Aristocrats during his barrister days to renouncing everything later and adorn himself with a small . Even he was pretty candid about that.
He certainly did advocate poorna swaraj, but then, as I have shown, he backtracked and sent a letter to the Viceroy saying that the demand for complete independence would be withdrawn in exchange for concessions. As far as WWII is concerned, he actually favored offering “moral support” to the British without any preconditions at all. He did change his appearance, but that is relatively superficial compared to the larger opportunities that he squandered.
>>I am sorry for you if you say his philosophy of non-violence was flawed.
Please do not misunderstand me. I am, believe it or not, a genuinely peaceful person at heart and detest war and killing. But I recognize that when your back is against the wall, when all other options have failed, fighting is the the necessary and right thing to do, and should be done vigorously and passionately to ensure the triumph of righteousness over evil. The reason I am annoyed by Gandhi is because he didn’t understand this. He insisted that the Independence movement should be conducted without shedding any blood at all, impractical and impossible though it was. As such, Gandhi stopped the non cooperation movements, which would indeed have succeeded, because the reality did not fit his idealistic vision. India thus remained under British tyranny for longer than it should have been because Gandhi could not see that the blood shed by British retaliation against non violent protests were dwarfed by the suffering India as a whole experienced under British imperialism.
>>History is replete with blood written all over it. It should not come as a surprise. Since time immemorial, there were always invading armies of fanatics, rulers , oppressors, traitors and imperialists. And violence was a natural way of the oppressed people to come out and assert themselves and its always the first thought. There was always revolts of oppressed people against the oppressors, Franch revolution , Russian revolution , Sepoy mutiny stand as testimony to this fact to name a few ( a very miniscule part ). So its not the first time that any oppressed ppl decided to actually fight the oppressor using weapons and unfortunately, it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Some of them succeed and some of them don’t.
But at the end, if the oppressed ppl become successful in their quest by using violence, the Oppressed become the Oppressor themselves. Do you need a testimony for this? Russian revolution base on the tenets of communism leading to Great Purge?, US trying to protect democracy but ironically aiding their future oppressors – the Jihadis, Cuban revolution. Let me know if you need more.
People become the embodiment of the very evil they were trying to defeat. Any dictatorship in the world stands a testimony for this. World is complete with examples. People succeed in overthrowing the hegemony of an external force, but end up as aggressors against their own people.
It is sadly ironic that the same could easily be said with India itself’; the Nehru Gandhi dynasty and their corrupt coterie of courtiers has simply replaced the British as India’s new colonial masters. Note, again, that this was a precedent set by Gandhi himself by remote controlling the Congress (despite not being President) to block SC Bose, and override the popular support for Sardar Patel in favor of Nehru, among other things. Gandhi, it seems, was hardly immune to the allure of power.
>>Gandhi had the courage to demonstrate to the world that the Guns Or Weapons need not be used to achieve any great feat. He had the foresight to tell that our society needs to remove the evil in itself, before it tries to remove the evil around it.
Gandhi could certainly talk big, Adith! He waxed eloquently on the need for complete and utter nonviolence, but when the time came to condemn all of it outright, he shied away to keep the Muslims happy. As far as evil is concerned, his words condemned it, but in practice, he actively courted it, whether it was the virus that is Islamic jihad in the form of the Khilafat Movement, or the poison of socialism that has kept India backward since independence.
>>He demonstrated that a frail man in a loin cloth with simplicity and utter discipline can alter the world’s geographical and political history.
It is unfortunate that you have digested the romantic propaganda of the Congress Party. As I have shown, the British didn’t consider Gandhi to have been a significant threat. As Prime Minister Attlee himself noted, it was SC Bose whose actions convinced the British that they should leave India. Gandhi’s famous satyagrahas, iconic though they were, yielded little in the form of concessions.
>>I am again sorry if you say that Gandhi’s actions never worked. While you can attribute the independence to any other reason in this world, the fact is that there was no leader like Gandhi, who rallied almost the whole of India to fight for independence cutting across Religious and ethnic diversities.
He gained the support of the local British populace ( not just the “Nobels” or the politicians ) too unlike any other leader, which also rallied in support towards giving self government to India.
I guess the only problem is it was Gandhi who did that and probably the only one who could do that. His philosophy though strong, needs people strong enough to adhere to his kind of discipline, which is pretty difficult for many of us.
Gandhi is not unique in unifying diverse lands. Bismarck in Germany, Mazzini in Italy, Washington in America, are only a few great leaders who helped unite people who spoke different languages and followed different religions. Plus, the Independence movement predates Gandhi by decades. Why should Gandhi get all the credit? What about BG Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, and Bipin Chandra Pal? What about Bhagat Singh? Sri Aurobindo? Surendranath Bannerjee? Sister Nivedita? Annie Besant? Shamji Krishna Varma? Rabindranath Tagore? Gandhi did not unite India with one hand while spinning khadi with the other! (Nor, incidentally, has anyone else)
I am not saying that Gandhi was a complete failure. For instance, his emphasis on simple living, vegetarianism, abstention from alcohol, are all good principles, principles that his modern day political heirs do not even pretend to follow. These of course, require discipline. But other aspects of his life, such as his virulent racism towards blacks, and his disturbing sexual experiments, reveal that he was hardly the God that Indians make him out to be.
I am not understanding why peoples say that gandhi is good man.
In reply to shraddha
Many of us dont know this..Why after dividing our country he is know as father of nation i dont know why..?