For example, the super-pacifist had no qualms in recruiting soldiers for the British during World War I, hoping to get some political mileage and inconsequential scraps from the British in return. The very secular mahatma also, ignoring better and saner advice, lent his whole-hearted support to the regressive and Islamo-fundamentalist Khilafat movement, and I personally would lay directly at his doorstep the Hindu vs Muslim riots that followed in the wake.
To add to the confusion, the mahatma suddenly lost his drafting zeal and turned into a conscientious objector during World War II. So much so that he even sent a few inane letters to Western leaders asking them to respond to Hitler's aggression with non-violence. I don't have the text of the letter handy to quote from, but it reads like something straight out of Alice in Wonderland.
His plan for India was something similarly obtuse, because he was apparently of the notion that we should surrender our lands to the advancing Japanese.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I am of the mind that such a man could only have flourished in India, with our dimwitted, airy-fairy, undiscerning, uncritical notions of pseudo-tolerance. Any other country would have committed him a long time ago.
Also, being the prudent and calculating Gujju-bhai that the mahatma really was at heart, he saw the futility of trying any of his regular childish blackmail tactics on Jinnah. Had he tried for example, to go on a fast to make Jinnah back down from the Partition, Jinnah would simply have let him starve to death.
He also had no hopes of fasting into submission the rampaging Pakistani mobs who were butchering Hindus and Sikhs who found themselves on the wrong side of Partition. So he instead chose to blackmail the purblind cretins in India into giving the Pakis 55 crore rupees even as the Paki army regulars and tribesmen invaded Kashmir. Father of the nation indeed. A deadbeat, abusive stepfather, more like.
Even his contribution to our freedom must be seen in perspective. I quote from Koenraad Elst:
Are the Indians I meet who uncritically sing praises of the mahatma, and his uber-flunky butt-boy J. Nehru simply ill-read or just plain stupid? I certainly hope that it is the former, because that at least can be rectified.
Why look to the past and criticize dead men, you ask? Well, simple. The past can be a learning opportunity. Unlike the present or the future, the past has a distinct advantage: it has been recorded. The mistakes have been made and the effects of those mistakes duly noted.
Also, being the prudent and calculating Gujju-bhai that the mahatma really was at heart, he saw the futility of trying any of his regular childish blackmail tactics on Jinnah. Had he tried for example, to go on a fast to make Jinnah back down from the Partition, Jinnah would simply have let him starve to death.
He also had no hopes of fasting into submission the rampaging Pakistani mobs who were butchering Hindus and Sikhs who found themselves on the wrong side of Partition. So he instead chose to blackmail the purblind cretins in India into giving the Pakis 55 crore rupees even as the Paki army regulars and tribesmen invaded Kashmir. Father of the nation indeed. A deadbeat, abusive stepfather, more like.
Even his contribution to our freedom must be seen in perspective. I quote from Koenraad Elst:
It cannot be denied that Gandhian non-violence has a few successes to its credit. But these were achieved under particularly favourable circumstances: the stakes weren’t very high and the opponents weren’t too foreign to Gandhi’s ethical standards. In South Africa, he had to deal with liberal British authorities who weren’t affected too seriously in their power and authority by conceding Gandhi’s demands. Upgrading the status of the small Indian minority from equality with the Blacks to an in-between status approaching that of the Whites made no real difference to the ruling class, so Gandhi’s agitation was rewarded with some concessions. Even in India, the stakes were never really high. Gandhi’s Salt March made the British rescind the Salt Tax, a limited financial price to pay for restoring native acquiescence in British paramountcy, but he never made them concede Independence or even Home Rule with a non-violent agitation. The one time he had started such an agitation, viz. in 1930-31, he himself stopped it in exchange for a few small concessions.
It is simply not true that India’s Independence was the fruit of Gandhian non-violent agitation. He was close to the British in terms of culture and shared ethical values, which is why sometimes he could successfully bargain with them, but even they stood firm against his pressure when their vital interests were at stake. It is only Britain’s bankruptcy due to World War 2 and the emergence of the anti-colonial United States and Soviet Union as the dominant world powers that forced Clement Attlee’s government into decolonising India. Even then, the trigger events in 1945-47 that demonstrated how the Indian people would not tolerate British rule for much longer, had to do with armed struggle rather than with non-violence: the naval mutiny of Indian troops and the ostentatious nationwide support for the officers of Subhas Bose’s Axis-collaborationist Indian National Army when they stood trial for treason in the Red Fort.
Are the Indians I meet who uncritically sing praises of the mahatma, and his uber-flunky butt-boy J. Nehru simply ill-read or just plain stupid? I certainly hope that it is the former, because that at least can be rectified.
Why look to the past and criticize dead men, you ask? Well, simple. The past can be a learning opportunity. Unlike the present or the future, the past has a distinct advantage: it has been recorded. The mistakes have been made and the effects of those mistakes duly noted.
It requires skill to deal with the present and tremendous foresight to anticipate the future. But how much of a fundamental moron do you have to be to ignore the past, which has been meticulously recorded for you?
Postscript: It may seem a little unfair of me to mention a Hitler in the same breath as a Gandhi. But I think that they were similar in at least one important respect--they both advocated total ideologies devoid of moderation. Hitler trained his guns on others, Gandhi turned the gun on himself and on those around him. Hitler was a sadist, Gandhi was a masochist. Both caused grief to people around them.
