The Darkside of Gandhi I wonder if this will get anyone mad at me? Oh well. Gandhi did a lot of great things but I was just recently surprised to learn about his darkside. If you watch the Richard Attenborough film you get the impression that Mohandas Gandhi was a living saint. But there are hints in the film that Gandhi did have a darker side. In South Africa Gandhi seems mainly concerned that the Indians are being treated like the blacks. This is very true. For 10 years in South Africa he published a journal in which he constantly criticizes the white government for not recognizing the mutual superiority of the Indians and whites over the blacks. It was full of racist quotes such as, “A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.” (Reference: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of India (CWMG), Vol I, p. 150) In fact he constantly referred to blacks as “Kaffirs” which was a British racial slur. “Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian Location should be chosen for dumping down all the Kaffirs of the town passes my comprehension…the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, pp. 244-245) In 1906 when the Zulu uprising began Gandhi petitioned the government to form an Indian regiment. They eventually did and he became Sergeant Major Gandhi. He was disappointed that they were not allowed to carry guns but only to be stretcher bearers. And one famous letter he wrote to the government that Indians, both Hindus and Muslims, would make excellent soldiers because of their history as fierce fighters and their religious beliefs. He wrote at the time of their work carrying wounded English troops but in his autobiography claims they were only ministering to the wounded Zulu. In his later years, after his wife died, he took to the strange practice of sleeping naked with young female relatives to test his purity. Hes beginning to sound a bit to me like the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 18:18:06 +0000