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Fact & Fiction: What the world thinks of Mohandas Gandhi!

Posted on September 3, 2008 by Moin Ansari

Some in America think the world of Gandhi because of Dr. Martin Luther King and becuase of the Indian sponsored Hollywood image that has been created of him. The world does not share the same reverence for Mohandas Gandhi. This article presents a sampling of articles from around the globe on Mr. Mohandas Gandhi. Many of the articles have been written by the Sikh and Dalit Indians who hate Mr. Gandhi the most. The Untouchables and even the right wing Hinduvata do not like Mr. Gandhi. The Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh do not give a hoot for Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Gandhi’s son did not care for Mr. Gandhi and left him and Gandhi’s religion. Mr. Gandhi’s wife was a victim of abuse all her life. Mr. Gandhi selpt naked with his grand nice. Behold Mr. Gandhi the icon of non-violence who was a Seargent Major in the British Army, who supported all wars that the British were involved in. Behold the humanitarian Gandhi who told the Jews to commit mass suicide and who considered Mr. Adolph Hitler his friend. The references are all over libraries, and the internet.

Here is a list of sites that provides information on Mohandas K. Gandhi:

Gandhi branded racist as Johannesburg honours freedom fighter
Rory Carroll in Johannesburg, The Guardian, Friday October 17 2003

Article history
It was supposed to honour his resistance to racism in South Africa, but a new statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg has triggered a row over his alleged contempt for black people.The 2.5 metre high (8ft) bronze statue depicting Gandhi as a dashing young human rights lawyer has been welcomed by Nelson Mandela, among others, for recognising the Indian who launched the fight against white minority rule at the turn of the last century.

But critics have attacked the gesture for overlooking racist statements attributed to Gandhi, which suggest he viewed black people as lazy savages who were barely human.

Newspapers continue to publish letters from indignant readers: “Gandhi had no love for Africans. To [him], Africans were no better than the ‘Untouchables’ of India,” said a correspondent to The Citizen.

Others are harsher, claiming the civil rights icon “hated” black people and ignored their suffering at the hands of colonial masters while championing the cause of Indians.

Unveiled this month, the statue stands in Gandhi Square in central Johannesburg, not far from the office from which he worked during some of his 21 years in South Africa.

The British-trained barrister was supposed to have been on a brief visit in 1893 to represent an Indian company in a legal action, but he stayed to fight racist laws after a conductor kicked him off a train for sitting in a first-class compartment reserved for whites.

Outraged, he started defending Indians charged with failing to register for passes and other political offences, founded a newspaper, and formed South Africa’s first organised political resistance movement. His tactics of mobilising people for passive resistance and mass protest inspired black people to organise and some historians credit Gandhi as the progenitor of the African National Congress, which formed in 1912, two years before he returned to India to fight British colonial rule.

However, the new statue has prompted bitter recollections about some of Gandhi’s writings.

Forced to share a cell with black people, he wrote: “Many of the native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves.”

He was quoted at a meeting in Bombay in 1896 saying that Europeans sought to degrade Indians to the level of the “raw kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness”.

The Johannesburg daily This Day said GB Singh, the author of a critical book about Gandhi, had sifted through photos of Gandhi in South Africa and found not one black person in his vicinity.

The Indian embassy in Pretoria declined to comment, as it prepared for President Thabo Mbeki’s visit to India.

Khulekani Ntshangase, a spokesman for the ANC Youth League, defended Gandhi, saying the critics missed the bigger picture of his immense contribution to the liberation struggle.

Gandhi’s offending comments were made early in his life when he was influenced by Indians working on the sugar plantations and did not get on with the black people of modern-day KwaZulu-Natal province, said Mr Ntshangase.

“Later he got more enlightened.”

http://www.kush.co.za/workarea/show.asp?ArticleNo=36

The Two Faces of Mahatma Gandhi Nhlanhla Hlongwane, 10-Jul-2005 20:20

Other Related Articles…
[1]. <!–[Published Date : 10-Jul-2005]–>Defending Afrika from Bandit Gandhists!By Nhlanhla Hlongwane
took History at school but what I recently learnt about Mahatma Gandhi, fourteen years after matric makes me feel like asking for all my school fees. I am so angry! At any rate, I am glad that I now know what I know because wisdom remains better than all the silver and all the gold.

For long and many decades Mahatma Gandhi has been wrongly heralded as a champion of human rights, racial harmony and justice. His name is often mentioned in the same breath as Rev Martin Luther King and Dr. Nelson Mandela, as though he shared these mens’ values. Although Gandhi received international praise for his much publicised fasts and passive resistance campaigns, the world seems to have missed the true Gandhi.The South African liberation movements, White Liberals, Hollywood, the US Left along with their respective intellectuals were not only unable to expose the real Gandhi, but are also largely to blame for the posthumous bravado that he now enjoys. He himself a great deceiver, deceiving many Black Civil Rights Movement leaders who continue to honour him. Althought the two never met, Dr King and his wife Coretta went to India on a Gandhi bandwagon and neither they and nor their astute delegation came away nonne the wiser about the real Mahatma. Had they, imagine the shock, the shame of realising that the man and banner you took to the mountain tops had long betrayed you! But Gandhi, even in death continues to disarm and charm them all.

The truth that has has been hidden for so long is that Gandhi never saw the dignity and capacity to suffer of the Indian as being the same as that of the African under the apartheid regime. He failed to see African people as human beings. He said in effect when he was arrested once and placed in the same cell as Africans; humiliated by the error of his jailers he noted in his writings how “many of the Native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves in their cells”. Mr G.B. Singh author of the forthcoming book, ‘Behind the Mask of Divinity’ wrote in a separate article entitled ‘Would the Real Gandhi Stand Up’ that, of the 21 years that Ganghi lived in South Africa, “one cannot help but discern that there is not a single Black person anywhere in any of the photos of Gandhi during that time. With Black people in the great majority, there is no way that Gandhi had missed noticing them”. Certainly Gandhi noticed us, the problem is that we were beneath him. For him, we Blacks were the “untouchables” of this land. Gandhi came to Africa already having organised in his shinny head and the reality he was poised to create, a place and life-station for dark skinned people. Mr GB Singh points to the sad fact that “only a few scholars are aware of this background”. It is certainly sad that those who have known have not told. Someone who could have said something should have said something. Why has this truth been hidden behind a veil of deceptive secrecy? What was the motive in hiding the fact that Mahatma Gandhi really hated the people of this land. He even fought against us, enlisting many Indians to help him in 1906 as Sergeant -Major Ganghi. Howzat for Gandhi; I beg the question; what is to be done now about this history?

Face Off : Mahatma Gandhi supported the separatist and racist policies on the apartheid government. He said in a public meeting in Bombay in 1896 that theirs (Indians) was “one continued struggle against degredation sought to be inflicted upon us (Indians) by Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”

Seduced and blinded by an apparant adopted British-Indian arrogance and a superiority complex fueled by a sinister support and justification of the Indian Hindu caste system.The caste or Varna system as it is also sometimes referd to relegates the darkest skinned Indians to a life of forced humiliating service to their lighter skinned country women and men. The “untouchables” or Dalits as they like to call themselves endure unspeakable discrimination and oppresion. They number some 200 million and “official government statistics show that Dalits suffer more than 100,000 murders, arsons, and rapes annually” wrote Larry Glassco of his trip to India last October in an article called ‘Castism Racism’. Drawing further paralles between the (plight) of the Dalits and struggle of Africans in America, Glassco pointed out that the plight of the Dalits in India was “remarkably close to that of black Americans”.

Because the Dalits are not racially different from their upper-caste neighbors, casteism may not be racism by formal definition, but caste-based discrimination bears enough similarities in practice, in outcome, and in struggles to end it that it could well be considered a close cousin”.Informed by religion and not race, the Shudras, of which the Dalits are a part of, bear the closest resemblence to Africans and are also therefore forced to do the type of work that used to be reserved for us darkies. “Dalits, like blacks, are given jobs that others shun. Blacks formerly dominated among garbage haulers, Dalits today clean the nation’s latrines”. Further, “like Blacks, Dalits cannot be served in many restaurants; if they are served, it is in separate glasses and cups. Upper caste men have access to Dalit women, by force if necessary; but Dalit men dare not date or try to marry an upper-caste girl under pain of death and mutilitation by a lynch mob, like the sexual-based lynchings of US history, noted (Glassco). Gandhi tried to recreate and duplicate a sort of caste racism here in South Africa, with Indians naturally at the top with Whites and us Africans grovelling at the bottom as usual.As such, Gandhi lunged himself head first into the souridge that was South African politics. Unwilling to transcend the trappings and shortcomings of the caste system, which are inherently divisive and “racist”. Unwilling also to stand in solidarity with oppressed Africans in the land of their birth, Gandhi, as a widely respected and influencial Indian leader set the stage and tone for Indian/African relations on the continent and African diaspora for decades to come. Indian/African relations over the decades have been parasitical and abusive exploding most dramatically in Idi Amins’ Uganda when he expelled 50,000 Indians and Pakistanis in 1972. Tensions have also on more than one occasion come to a head in our own Durban where Indian families were sent fleeing en mass leaving homes burning behind them. You can cross any country and swim across any sea, you will find the attitude of the Indian towards the Africa as being the same; one of disdain.

Losing Face : Mahatma expressed his views on the caste system at length in a journal called Nava-Jivan in 1921. It was originally written in Gujrati and now recently translated into English. He minsed no words when he said “I believe that if Hindu Society has been able to stand it is because it is founded on the caste system”. He further reiterated that; “these being my views I am opposed to all those who are out to destroy the caste system”.

Gandhi’s legacy is a paradox. While it is true that he helped bring independence to India, it is highly contested especially in India that he brought freedom to his people.The view is that while he brought his country out of British colonial occupation, he himself then roped it into a more subtle and paralising bondage; Hindu Castism. What is happening to the Dalits is illigal by government decree even as it is wide spread forcing many Dalits to emplore armed defence. At the Dalit Liberation Headquarters is Madras, Larry Glassco saw “two large portraits”; one was of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a legend and past leader of the Dalits, the other portrait was of Black Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King. Dalit resistance leader Henry Thiagaraj explained the affinity with the Black American Liberation struggle. “Martin Luther King and his civil rights movement inspired us to press forward ever more aggressively in our own struggle. Our people identify very much with Black Americans; our youth even bill themselves as Dalit Panthers, after your Black Panther Party”. There is no portrait of Mahatma Gandi however at the Dalit Libearation Headquarters. Journalist, novelist, and musician Beverley Nichols recalled how when he met Dr. Ambedkar during a visit to Britsh India, the doctor told him that “Gandhi is the greatest enemy the untouchables have ever had in India.”

Facing Facts : Gandhi was a traditionalist, while seemingly opposed to the harshness of the Caste System, he at the end of the day advocated for a kinder Caste system, in as much as he advocated for a kinder apartheid system;one that was partial to Indians and simulteneous detrimental to the “untouchables” in South Africans as well as in India. Standing on the side of history Mr GB Singh also cautions that “the Gandhi’s racism will incite a whole lot of controversy. Be that as it may, I am of the view that the facts speak for themselves. I have exhausted the last 18 years of my life critically analyzing these hidden documents, and I have no doubt that Gandhi harbored anti-Black views and forced his racial views on his fellow Indian countrymen while living in South Africa”.

The irony of the Gandhi conspiracy is that while it may have been propagated by well meaning Indians from all persusions and intent, surposedly in an effort to safeguard the futures of their children in a foreign continent; the consequence however of that conspiracy is being brought down as judge and yard-stick for the same children that they were trying to protect. Indian youth stand to be most affected by this revelation. Further, the collective innocence of those who believed in the righteousness and integrity of Gandhi; even the divine in him, they too will be (altered). What Indian youth now have to reckon with is the fact that the Indian has no future in Africa that is separate from that of the Africans. The Gandhist tendency of attempting to create a satelite India in Africa with castes and all has no future in Africa. The Indian is having to become an African in Africa. Gandhits and others who believed otherwise are now suffering a cultural shock. Gandhi himself is turning in his grave as you read this. Could his legacy, by the same token, be regarded as the greatest enemy of the Indian living in outside India? Is this the irony of history?
Nhlanhla Hlongwane [(BA) Political Science & Communications, (MA) Media Studies] is a Freelance Filmmaker (Director, Camera person) and Writer. He is www.kush.co.za editor and a founding member of Kush Kollective.

The Durban Post Office
One of Gandhi’s major “achievements” in South Africa was to promote racial segregation by refusing to share a post office door with the black natives.

Sergeant Major Gandhi
Learn how Gandhi became a Sgt. Major in the British Army and eagerly participated in the 1906 British war against the black Zulus.

Gandhi and South African Blacks
Gandhi wrote extensively about his experiences with the blacks of South Africa. He always termed them “Kaffirs” and his writings reveal a deep-seated disdain for these African natives.

Introduction

Gandhi is idolized by people of all political stripes around the world, and his life is popularly considered a model for the American Civil Rights Movement.

U.S. Senator Harry Reid called Gandhi “a giant in morality.” Former U.S president Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a “National Day of Recognition for Mohandas K. Gandhi.” South African leader Nelson Mandela called Gandhi “the archetypal anticolonial revolutionary” whose “nonviolent resistance inspired anticolonial and antiracist movements.” African-American Senator Obama reportedly keeps a picture of Gandhi in his office.

Martin Luther King, Jr. associated Gandhi with the African-American struggle against inequality, segregation, and racism. Reverend King believed Gandhi was “inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward…peace and harmony.” When the Indian government paid to place a statue of Gandhi at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center in Atlanta, Mrs. King spoke about her husband’s admiration for Gandhi, saying, “It is gratifying and appropriate that this statue is installed in this historic site.”

Unfortunately, these people were never acquainted with the real, historical Mohandas Gandhi, who was a virulent racist.

Gandhi was hired to work as an attorney for wealthy Indian traders in South Africa. He moved there in 1893 and soon helped establish the Natal Indian Congress. The goal of this Congress was to “promote concord and harmony among the Indians and Europeans residing in the colony [of South Africa].” Instead of concord and harmony with the blacks, however, Gandhi promoted racial segregation. The major achievement of the Congress was the successful attempt, spear-headed by Gandhi, to fix the Durban post office “problem.” This issue is discussed in-depth here.

In 1904, Gandhi founded The Indian Opinion, a newspaper which he used as a political tool to promote his personal views. It is in this paper, which Gandhi edited until 1914, that we find a record of his extensive anti-black activism and opinions. A list of anti-black quotes from his writings, in which he invariably refers to the South African natives as “Kaffirs,” can be found here. Gandhi’s opinion of the native is best summarized when he calls them people “whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”

Finally, in 1906, Gandhi cheered on the British as they waged a war on the black Zulus. He then volunteered for military service himself, attaining the rank of Sgt. Major in the British Army and assisting the war on blacks in every way he could. You can learn more about this here.

One of the best-known heroes of the American Civil Rights Movement was Rosa Parks, the black lady who refused to sit at the back of the bus. While Gandhi is upheld as a champion of equality, the truth is that he probably would not even have allowed Mrs. Parks on the bus in the first place. He proudly said that among South African Indians, the “co-mingling of the coloured and white races…is practically unknown.” Gandhi also boasted, “If there is one thing, which the Indian cherishes, more than any other, it is the purity of type.”

People remember Rev. King for his most famous speech, in which he said: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” To associate Martin Luther King, Jr. with Mohandas Gandhi, whose dream was to clear the way for Apartheid in South Africa, is an insult to the memory of Rev. King.

www.Politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34536

To understand Gandhi’s role towards the blacks, one requires a knowledge of Hinduism. Within the constraints, a few words on Hinduism will suffice: The caste is the bedrock of Hinduism. The Hindu term for caste is varna; which means arranging the society on a four-level hierarchy based on the skin color: The darker-skinned relegated to the lowest level, the lighter-skinned to the top three levels of the apartheid scale called the Caste System. The race factor underlies the intricate workings of Hinduism, not to mention the countless evil practices embedded within. Have no doubt, Gandhi loved the Caste system.
Gandhi lived in South Africa for roughly twenty one years from 1893 to 1914. In 1906, he joined the military with a rank of Sergeant-Major and actively participated in the war against the blacks. Gandhi’s racist ideas are also evident in his writings of these periods. One should ask a question : Were our American Black leaders including Dr. King aware of Gandhi’s anti-black activities? Painfully, we have researched the literature and the answer is, no. For this lapse, the blame lies on the Afro-American newspapers which portrayed Gandhi in ever glowing terms, setting the stage for African-American leaders Howard Thurman, Sue Baily Thurman, Reverend Edward Carroll, Benjamin E. Mays, Channing H. Tobias, and William Stuart Nelson to visit India at different time periods to meet Gandhi in person. None of these leaders had any deeper understanding of Hinduism, British India, or the complexities of Gandhi’s convoluted multi-layered Hindu mind. Frankly speaking, these leaders were no match to Gandhi’s deceit;

Gandhi hoodwinked them all, and that too, with great ease. Understanding of Hindu India with our black leaders never really improved even considering years later in March 1959, much after Gandhi’s death, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his wife, and Professor Lawrence D. Reddick visited India and to our way of analysis, they fared no better than their predecessors. We are certain, had Dr. King known Gandhi’s anti-black and other criminal activities, he would have distanced his civil-rights movement away from the name of Gandhi.
Gandhi was not a whit less racist than the white racists of South Africa. When Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress on August 22, 1894, the no. 1 objective he declared was: “To promote concord and harmony among the Indians and Europeans in the Colony.” [Collected Works (CW)1 pp. 132-33]

He launched his Indian Opinion on June 4 1904: “The object of Indian Opinion was to bring the European and the Indian subjects of the King Edward closer together.” (CW. IV P. 320)

What was the harm in making an effort to bring understanding among all people, irrespective of colour, creed or religion? Did not Gandhi know that a huge population of blacks and coloured lived there? Perhaps to Gandhi they were less than human beings.

Addressing a public meeting in Bombay on Sept. 26 1896 (CW II p. 74), Gandhi said:

Quote:
Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.

In 1904, he wrote (CW. IV p. 193):

Quote:
It is one thing to register natives who would not work, and whom it is very difficult to find out if they absent themselves, but it is another thingó-and most insultingó-to expect decent, hard-working, and respectable Indians, whose only fault is that they work too much, to have themselves registered and carry with them registration badges.

In its editorial on the Natal Municipal Corporation Bill, the Indian Opinion of March 18 1905 wrote:

Quote:
Clause 200 makes provision for registration of persons belonging to uncivilized races (meaning the local Africans), resident and employed within the Borough. One can understand the necessity of registration of Kaffirs who will not work, but why should registration be required for indentured Indians who have become free, and for their descendants about whom the general complaint is that they work too much? (Italic portion is added)

The Indian Opinion published an editorial on September 9 1905 under the heading, “The relative Value of the Natives and the Indians in Natal”. In it Gandhi referred to a speech made by Rev. Dube, a most accomplished African, who said that an African had the capacity for improvement, if only the Colonials would look upon him as better than dirt, and give him a chance to develop self-respect. Gandhi suggested that “A little judicious extra taxation would do no harm; in the majority of cases it compels the native to work for at least a few days a year.” Then he added:

Quote:
Now let us turn our attention to another and entirely unrepresented communityó-the Indian. He is in striking contrast with the native. While the native has been of little benefit to the State, it owes its prosperity largely to the Indians. While native loafers abound on every side, that species of humanity is almost unknown among Indians here

Nothing could be further from the truth, that Gandhi fought against Apartheid, which many propagandists in later years wanted people to believe. He was all in favour of continuation of white domination and oppression of the blacks in South Africa.
In the Government Gazette of Natal for Feb. 28 1905, a Bill was published regulating the use of fire-arms by the natives and Asiatics. Commenting on the Bill, the Indian Opinion of March 25 1905 stated:

Quote:
In this instance of the fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the natives. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there a slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indian?

Here is the budding Mahatma telling the white racists how they can perpetuate their Nazi domination over the vast majority of Africans.

In the British imperialist scheme, one important strategy was to divide and rule. Gandhi advised Indians not to align with other political groups in either coloured or African communities. In 1906 the coloured people in the colonies of Good Hope, the Transvaal and the Orange River colony, addressed a petition to the King Emperor demanding franchise rights. The petitioners showed clearly that, in one part of South Africa, namely the Cape of Good Hope, they had enjoyed the franchise ever since the introduction of representative institutions.

Commenting on the petition, the Indian Opinion of March 24 1906, declaring that “British Indians have, in order that they may never be misunderstood, made it clear that they do not aspire to any political power,” added:

Quote:
It seems that the petition is being widely circulated, and signatures are being taken of all coloured people in the three colonies named. The petition is non-Indian in character, although British Indians, being coloured people, are very largely affected by it. We consider that it was a wise policy on the part of the British Indians throughout South Africa, to have kept themselves apart and distinct from the other coloured communities in this country.

In a statement made in 1906 to the Constitution Committee, the British Indian Association led by Gandhi (CW. V p.335) said:

Quote:
The British Indian Association has always admitted the principle of white domination and has, therefore, no desire, on behalf of the community it represents, for any political rights just for the sake of them.
Commenting on a court case, the Indian Opinion of June 2 1906, in its Gujrati section, stated:

Quote:
You say that the magistrate’s decision is unsatisfactory because it would enable a person, however unclean, to travel by a tram, and that even the Kaffirs would be able to do so. But the magistrate’s decision is quite different. The Court declared that the Kaffirs have no legal right to travel by tram. And according to tram regulations, those in an unclean dress or in a drunken state are prohibited from boarding a tram. Thanks to the Court’s decision, only clean Indians (meaning upper caste Hindu Indians) or coloured people other than Kaffirs, can now travel in the trams. (Italic portion is added)

Apartheid defended
Gandhi accepted racial segregation, not only because it was politically expedient as his Imperial masters had already drawn such a blueprint, it also conformed with his own attitude to the caste system. In his own mind he fitted Apartheid into the caste system: whites in the position of Brahmins, Indian merchants and professionals as Sudras, and all other non-whites as Untouchables.

Though Gandhi was strongly opposed to the comingling of races, the working-class Indians did not share his distaste. There were many areas where Indians, Chinese, Coloured, Africans and poor whites lived together. On February 15 1905, Gandhi wrote to Dr. Porter, the Medical Officer of Health, Johannesburg (CW. IV p.244, and “Indian Opinion” 9 April 1904):

Quote:
Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension.Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.

Dr. Porter replied that it was the Indians who sub-let to Africans.
Commenting on the White League’s agitation, Gandhi wrote in his Indian Opinion of September 24 1903:

Quote:
We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do, only we believe that they would best serve these interests, which are as dear to us as to them, by advocating the purity of all races, and not one alone. We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race.
Again, on December 24 1903, Indian Opinion stated:

Quote:
The petition dwells upon `the comingling of the coloured and white races’. May we inform the members of the Conference that so far as British Indians are concerned, such a thing is particularly unknown. If there is one thing which the Indian cherishes more than any other, it is the purity of type.
In his farewell speech at a meeting held in the house of Dr. Gool in Capetown, which was reported in the Indian Opinion of July 1 1914, Gandhi said:

Quote:
The Indians knew perfectly well which was the dominant and governing race. They aspired to no social equality with Europeans. They felt that the path of their development was separate. They did not even aspire to the franchise, or, if the aspiration exists, it was with no idea of its having a present effect.

Gandhi joined in the orgy of Zulu slaughter when the Bambata Rebellion broke out. It is essential to discuss the background of the Bambata Rebellion, to place Gandhi’s Nazi war crime in its proper perspective.

The Bambatta Rebellion–Background
The spiritual foundation of Nazism was the superiority of the Aryan race or its modern version, the Anglo-Saxon race. When Disraeli was Prime Minister, Britain enunciated a doctrine, like the Monroe Doctrine, warning other European powers that Africa would be a British preserve, and that from the Cape to the Limpopo, if not to Cairo, only white people would have local political power. Successive British Governments pursued this policy.

In the 1870s, the Zulu Kingdom was by far the most powerful African State of the Limpopo. Cetewayo, who succeeded his father in 1872, was an able and popular ruler. He united the kingdom and built up a most efficient army. He followed a policy of alliance with the British Colony of Natal. The Zulu Kingdom and the Boer Republic of the Transvaal had been feuding for a long time. The Zulus were defeated twice by the Boers, in 1838 and 1840. By 1877 Cetewayo was ready to invade the Transvaal. But the British stepped in and annexed the Transvaal in 1877, only to prevent Cetewayo from doing it first and becoming powerful and a challenge to white supremacy.

Some contemporary reports throw light on the relative strength of the Zulus and their Boer enemies. Colonel A.W. Durnford wrote in a memorandum on July 5 (”The Secret History of South Africa” by Abercrombe. The Central News Agency Ltd., Johannesburg South Africa. 1951 p.6):

About this time (April 10th) Cetewayo had massed his forces in three corps on the borders, and would undoubtedly have swept the Transvaal, at least up to the Vaal River if not to Pretoria itself, had the country not been taken over by the English. In my opinion he would have cleared the country to Pretoria.
Shepstone, the British Administrator, himself wrote concerning the reality of the danger on Dec. 25 1877:
The Boers are still flying, and I think by this time there must be a belt of more than a hundred miles long and thirty broad in which, with three insignificant exceptions, there is nothing but absolute desolation. This will give some idea of the mischief which Cetewayo’s conduct has caused.(Ibid p.7).

The above facts explode the myth that the British protected the Zulus from the Boers.

British barbarity on Blacks
After annexing the Transvaal, Shepstone turned his attention to destroying all the independent African states in that region, particularly the Zulu Kingdom. Before annexation of the Transvaal, Shepstone sided with the Zulus in their border disputes with the Transvaal. After annexation he made a volte-face and used those disputes as excuses to invade Zululand. The British public was told that the Zulu War was to liberate the Zulu people from a tyrannical ruler, and South Africa from a menace to “christianity and civilisation”.

In 1879, the British invaded the Zulu Kingdom and defeated Cetawayo. Then they started their complete subjugation. First the army was broken, thus destroying their ability to defend themselves. The country was then split into thirteen separate units under the nominal control of the chiefs, salaried by the Government. The white magistrates supplanted the chiefs as the most powerful men in their districts. Most important of all, the land was partitioned. Before the war, Shepstone had expressed the hope that Cetewayo’s warriors would be “changed to labourers working for wages”. It makes a sad story, how this was accomplished. In 1902-4, the Land Commission delineated a number of locations for the Zulus, and threw open the rest of the country to white settlement. Out of a total acreage of more than 12 million acres, the Africans held some 2 million acres. They numbered, at the lowest reckoning, over three hundred thousand. The Europeans, who were less than 20,000, owned most of the best land. A large proportion of the African population was forced to live upon land to which it had no legal claim. Where the Africans lived upon private or crown lands, they lived there entirely upon sufferance and without legal title. By this time, other independent African states in that region were also destroyed by the British army. Wheresoever, they marched, in Basutoland, Zululand or Bechuanaland, the Queen’s horses and the Queen’s men were like unto a “Salvation Army” ministering to the welfare of the colonists. The sufferers were the Africans.

Gandhi wrote in his Satyagraha in South Africa (p.15):

Quote:
The Boers are simple, frank and religious. They settle in the midst of extensive farms. We can have no idea of the extent of these farms. A farm with us means generally an acre or two, and sometimes even less. In South Africa, a single farmer has hundreds or thousands of acres of land in his possession. He is not anxious to put all this under cultivation at once, and if any one argues with him he will say, `Let it lie fallow; lands which are now fallow will be cultivated by our children’.

Also in his Indian Opinion (March 15 1913), he wrote:

Quote:
General Botha has thousands of acres of land … (there is) a big company in Natal which has hundreds of thousands of acres of land

Thou shalt not steal but rob.
It did not seem to occur to Gandhi how these people came into possession of thousands of acres of land, whereas Africans were cooped in locations like chicken in pens.

Grabbing the land was not enough: it needed manpower to cultivate that land. The cry of the farmers was for labour. Naturally it found a favourite response from Shepstone, whose dream it was to convert Cetewayo’s warriors into labourers for white men. His native policy was to meet the demands of the European farmers. He agreed that Europeans could not expand or grow in wealth unless they could draw more fully upon the reservoirs of labour in the African reserves.

In the process of European colonisation, the swiftly expanding land-hungry Europeans turned the bulk of the African population into a proletariat. Due to the congestion and landlessness in the reserves, created deliberately by the white rulers, their agricultural return was not sufficient for bare existence. Then there were the taxes on huts, cattle and what not. On the other hand, working for white men did not provide them with adequate sustenance. In Natal, the sugar farmers of the coast relied upon the Indian indentured labour, whereas the stock farmers of the interior relied exclusively on Africans, and regarded the failure of Africans to work for them as a criminal offence. In a report to the Chief Commissioner of Police in 1903, the Police Inspector W.F. Fairley wrote: “With regard to crime, the principal complaints made by Dutch farmers to patrols was of the refusal to work on the part of the natives.” (Department Reports 1903 p.67 cited “Reluctant Rebellion” by Marks p.17. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1970). Complaints about the shortage of African labour were voiced in all parts of the country. The farmers were later joined by the mining industries. The most obvious change was the broadening of the economic base from being entirely agricultural to one in which mining played a more and more important part. Diamond, gold, coal became major industries, and with this development, the deeper involvement of the big finance houses, particularly Rothschilds. So the fate of the Africans as the source of cheap labour, and the fat dividends derived from mining by the British ruling class, became interlinked. This still continues in a modified form. Now it is Anglo-American corporations.

Cheap labour
from India: Europeans assumed that Africans lived only to meet their requirements of cheap labour, and as such they had no right to establish themselves as self-sufficient and independent farmers because this conflicted with European interests. Famines in India facilitates the recruitment of indentured Indian labourers for white employers in the Colonies. It was no different in relation to Africans. In a Report of the Native Affairs Commission, (Native Affairs Commission Report 1939-40 cited “Oxford History of South Africa” p.182. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969) it was admitted that “African reserves were regarded by whites as reservoirs of labour, and congestion, landlessness and crop failure were welcomed as stimulants to the labour supply”. Similar situations among whites were viewed as national calamities. The Government lent millions of pounds to white farmers, gave them tax relief in times of famine, paid subsidies, facilitated the export of their produce, and wrote off their debts. But what about Africans? Famine would be rampant, crops ruined, food exhausted, thousands of Africans and their cattle would starve to death, but the government would not raise a finger.

The whites not only stole the land from the Africans, and used them as cheap labour, but also looked to them for revenue. They drew a relatively large and growing income from the Africans. “The Native population of Natal”, Shepstone admitted (”Imperial Factor” by De Kieweit p.193. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1970), “contribute to the revenue annually a sum equal, at least, to that necessary to maintain the whole fixed establishment of the Colony for the government of the whites as well as themselves.” Taxation is a financial measure to gather revenue to meet the expenditure of the state. But in South Africa it was used to reduce Africans to slavery. The sole motive behind the extra taxation imposed on Africans was to force the Africans to work on terms dictated by the whites.

Always there was resentment against any measure which would allow the Africans to settle in locations instead of keeping them as labourers. It was not only the farmers’ conferences, the press owned by the mining magnates joined the outcry of the farmers to enact special laws to compel the Africans to come out of their locations and work for the whites. The press was in the forefront to arouse the sentiments that Africans not in European service were necessarily living in idleness. Gandhi’s Indian Opinion played second fiddle to the white press in this respect. To Gandhi, the imposition of taxes upon the Africans to compel them to work for the white employers was “gentle persuasion”.

By a stroke of the pen, the major part of the available land was taken away from the Zulus and given to Europeans. Some of the dispossessed Zulus were allotted locations and others remained on the land of European landlords on sufferance. Bambata was one of these unfortunate chiefs. He became Chief in 1890 and he and his people were placed in private locations on very high rents. The land was useless for any agricultural purpose. To make things worse, the Boer farmers suspected Bambata of informing the British about their pro-Boer activities, and naturally they tried to victimise him and his people. But after the war, the British rulers leaned backwards and went out of their way to kiss and hug the Boers. So Bambata was caught in a cleft stick. By 1905 the tension between Bambata and his white landlords reached crisis point. The Assistant Magistrate of Greytown, H. Von Gerard, wrote to the Under Secretary of Native Affairs recommending the allocation of a location for his people. Gerard described how people were being oppressed and squeezed by the landlords, what useless land it was for agricultural purposes, and how summons after summons was being issued against people who were unable to pay high rents. Finally he remarked (”Reluctant Rebellion” by Marks. P.201):

A most desperate state of affairs, the more so as there seems no remedy for it….My sympathies with Bambata’s people…but I see no way out of the difficulty.

The military and civilian leaders of Natal were consciously developing a picture as if an uprising was imminent. Not that they could foresee one, but they wanted to foresee one because that would give them a golden opportunity to inflict severe punishments on Zulus who, according to the colonists, were growing insolent. They drew up a plan to deal with this imaginary uprising swiftly, and all agreed that was the way they could save not only Natal but North Africa from the “barbarities which only the savage mind can conceive.” (Ibid p. Xvii)

Zulu Revolt:

But outside Natal, people were not so sure. Styne, President of the Orange Free State, called it “hysteria”. Smuts, Botha and Merriman expressed concern as to whether the whites of Natal would spur a rebellion. Some churchmen and many radical humanitarians in Natal, as well as England, produced volumes of irrefutable evidence proving that it was a conspiracy to goad the Zulus into rebellion and then massacre them. In this, Hariette Colenso, the famous daughter of a famous father, Bishop Colenso, made the most outstanding contribution. There was a cry of imminent native revolt in the press long before active rebellion broke out.

As far back as 1902, Lieu. G.A. Mills in his report (GH18/02. Cited “Reluctant Rebellion” p.158) to the Chief of Staff, Natal, on July 1 informed him:

Every Boer expresses the most bitter hatred of the Zulus. They all express a wish that the Zulus would rise now while the British troops are in the country so that they may be practically wiped out. The Boers all say that in the event of the rising, every one of them would join the British troops in order to have a chance of paying off old scores against the Zulus. When I first came here, I visited farms and asked the Boers what they thought of the advisability of keeping troops here. They all said it was most necessary, as they were afraid of the Kaffirs and it would not be safe to stay on their farms if the troops withdrew…. Taking everything into consideration, I cannot help being forced to the opinion that many Boers intend to provoke a Zulu rising if they can do so.

It was Colonel Mackenzie, the military supremo before the rebellion, who was prophesying a native uprising and cleaning the barrels of his guns to use the “golden opportunity” to inflict “the most drastic punishment” on leading natives he found guilty of treason, and to “instill a proper respect for the white man”. (C.O. 179/233/12460. Dispatch 9.3.06 cited “Reluctant Rebellion” p. 188).

On June 14, Charles Saunders, Chief Magistrate and Civil Commissioner in Zululand (1899-1909) wrote to C.J. Hignet, the magistrate of Nqutu (”Reluctant Rebellion” p.241):

I quite agree with your conclusions as to our men trying to goad the whole population into rebellion, and you have no idea of the difficulties we had in Nkandha in trying to protect people one knew perfectly well were faithful to us.

In his communication of July 10 1906 to the Prime Minister, (PM 61/15/66 Governor to PM 10.7.06) the Governor described the “sweeping actions and the mopping-up operations as continued slaughter. Fred Graham, a permanent civil servant in the Colonial Office, in his Minute of July 10, described it as “massacre”.

Nazism & racism:
The most revealing was the long letter of July 24 1906 (CO 179/236/24787 minute 10-7-06) sent by the Anglican Archdeacon, Charles Johnson, from St. Augustine’s in Nqutu division, to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospels in London. He was a man of the British establishment and not known to have excessive zeal for standing up for the rights of the Africans. He wrote (cited “Reluctant Rebellion” p. 241):

Many thinking people have been asking themselves, what are we going to do with his teeming population? Some strong-handed men have thought the time was ripe for solving the great question. They knew that there was a general widespread spirit of disaffection among the natives of Natal, the Free State and the Transvaal, but specially in Natal, and they commenced the suppression of the rebellion in the fierce hope that the rebellion might so spread throughout the land and engender a war of practical extermination. I fully believe that they were imbued with the conviction that this was the only safe way of dealing with the native question, and they are greatly disappointed that the spirit of rebellion was not strong enough to bring more than a moiety of the native peoples under the influence of the rifle. Over and over again it was said, `They are only sitting on the fence, it shall be our endeavour to bring them over’; and again, speaking of the big chiefs, `We must endeavour to bring them in if possible! Yes, they have been honest and outspoken enoughó-the wish being father to the thoughtó-they prophesied the rebellion would spread throughout South Africa; had they been true prophets, no doubt the necessity of solving the native question would have been solved for this generation at least.

John Merriman was a veteran Cape politician. He was one of those so-called liberals who accepted Nazism as a doctrine, or in other words Anglo-Saxon superiority, but regretted its consequent atrocities and thus fumigated their consciences. He wrote to Goldwin Smith (Merriman papers NHo. 202, 16.9.06 cited “Reluctant Rebellion” p.246) in September 1906:

We have had a horrible business in Natal with the natives. I suppose the whole truth will never be known, but enough comes out to make us see how thin the crust is that keeps our christian civilisation from the old-fashioned savageryómachine-guns and modern rifles against knobsticks and assagais are heavy odds and do not add much to the glory of the superior race.

In the letter of the Archdeacon the expression “practical extermination”, and in a letter of Lieutenant Mills “practically wiped out”, have been used. This was what the German Nazis wanted to do to the Jews: to exterminate them. Does it make any difference whether the victims of racial slaughter are Jews or blacks?

Conspiracy to massacre Blacks

Gandhi was well aware of the conspiracy to massacre the Africans. When there was war hysteria in the colonial press, this prophet of non-violence did not apply his mind as to how to stop such a conflict. On the contrary, he did not want Indians to be left behind, but wanted them to take a full part in this genocide.

In his editorial in the Indian Opinion of Nov. 18 1905, long before the actual rebellion broke out, Gandhi complained that the Government simply did not wish to give Indians an opportunity of showing that they were as capable as any other community of taking their share in the defence of the colony. He suggested that a volunteer corps should be formed from colonial-born Indians, which would be useful in actual service.

Indentured Indians lived in conditions worse than slavery. Gandhi during his 20 years’ stay in South Africa, did not raise a finger to ease their sufferings. But he was quick to suggest using them as cannon fodder for racists against Africans.

In his Indian Opinion in Dec. 2 1905 he referred to Law 25 of 1875 which was specially passed to increase “the maximum strength of the volunteer force in the colony adding thereto a force of Indian immigrant volunteer infantry”. To assure the Europeans that such Indians would only kill Africans, he pointed out that “section 83 of the Militia Act states that no ordinary member of the coloured contingent shall be armed with weapons of precision, unless such contingent is called to operate against other than Europeans”.

Gandhi defends massacre: Many years later, he wrote (p.233) in his autobiography:

Quote:
The Boer War had not brought home to me the horrors of war with anything like the vividness that the `rebellion’ did. This was no war but a man-hunt, not only in my opinion but also in that of many Englishmen with whom I had occasion to talk. To hear every morning reports of the soldiers’ rifles exploding like crackers in innocent hamlets, and to live in the midst of them, was a trial.

Then to justify his participation in this massacre, he went on (Autobiography p. 231):

Quote:
I bore no grudge against the Zulus, they had harmed no Indian. I had doubts about the `rebellion’ itself, but I then believed that the British Empire existed for the welfare of the world. A genuine sense of loyalty prevented me from even wishing ill to the Empire. The righteness or otherwise of the `rebellion’ was therefore not likely to affect my decision.

What about the Nazi war criminals? Did they not have a genuine sense of loyalty to Hitler and Nazism?
In Great Britain another storm of protest was raised against the atrocities perpetrated in Natal. The only time Gandhi mentioned the Zulu suppression was on August 4 1906, when he wrote in his Indian Opinion:

Quote:
A controversy is going on in England about what the Natal Army did during the Kaffir rebellion. The people here believe that the whites of Natal perpetrated great atrocities on the Kaffirs. In reply to such critics, the Star has pointed to the doings of the Imperial Army in Egypt. Those among the Egyptian rebels who had been captured were ordered to be flogged. The flogging was continued to the limits of the victim’s endurance; it took place in public and was watched by thousands of people. Those sentenced to death were also hanged at the same time. While those sentenced to death were hanging, the flogging of others was taken up. While the sentences were being executed, the relatives of the victims cried and wept until many of them swooned. If this is true, there is no reason why there should be such an outcry in England against Natal outrages.

One may notice that the article was very cleverly written. First Gandhi stated that people in England believed that the whites of Natal perpetrated great atrocities on Africans, as if he himself did not know what happened, and also gave the impression that it was the local Natal Army and not the Imperial Army which was involved in the atrocities, which is not true. Even at this stage, he was not willing to tell the simple truth, that atrocities were committed. Then he borrowed the description of hanging and flogging in Egypt from the Star as if he did not know about that either. Did or did not Gandhi know that those Egyptians were not common criminals to be flogged and hangedóthat they were the patriots, the flowers of the Egyptian nation?

If Gandhi unequivocally accepted or found out that the Imperial Army committed those atrocities, then he could not claim that he believed the British Empire existed for the welfare of mankind. The last and the vilest of all was the subtle suggestion that if the Imperial Army did what they were accused of doing, then there was no reason why there should be such an outcry in England against the Natal outrage. Why could this Imperialist-manufactured Mahatma not say clearly that both were crimes against humanity?

www.DalitVoice.org/Templates/oct_a2005/articles.htm Please scroll down to the 7th article

Gandhi as racist: S. African writer exposes hidden face of “mahatma” by NHLANHLA HONGWANE

[Nhlanhla Hlongwane (BA) Political Science & Communications, (MA) Media Studies] is a freelance filmmaker (Director, camera person) and writer. He is www.kush.co.za editor and a founding member of Kush Kollective.]

I took History at school but what I recently learnt about M.K. Gandhi, 14 years after matric, makes me feel like asking for all my school fees. I am so angry. At any rate, I am glad that I now know what I know because wisdom remains better than all the silver and all the gold.
For long and many decades “Mahatma” Gandhi has been wrongly heralded as a champion of human rights, racial harmony and justice. His name is often mentioned in the same breath as Rev. Martin Luther King and Dr. Nelson Mandela, as though he shared these mens’ values. Although Gandhi received international praise for his much-publicised fasts and passive resistance campaigns, the world seems to have missed the true Gandhi.

CONTEMPT FOR BLACKS
The South African liberation movements, White Liberals, Hollywood, the US Left along with their respective intellectuals were not only unable to expose the real Gandhi, but are also largely to blame for the posthumous bravado that he now enjoys. He himself a great deceiver, deceiving many Black revival rights movement leaders who continue to honour him. Although the two never met, Dr. King and his wife Coretta went to India on a Gandhi bandwagon and neither they and nor their astute delegation came away none the wiser about the real Mahatma. Had they, imagine the shock, the shame of realising that the man and banner you took to the mountain tops had long betrayed you. But Gandhi, even in death continues to disarm and charm them all.

The truth that has been hidden for so long is that Gandhi never saw the dignity and capacity to suffer of the Indian as being the same as that of the African under the apartheid regime. He failed to see African people as human beings. He said in effect when he was arrested once and placed in the same cell as Africans; humiliated by the error of his jailers he noted in his writings how “many of the Native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves in their cells”.

G.B. Singh, author of the book, Behind the Mask of Divinity, (DV April 16, 2005 p.28) wrote in a separate article titled, ‘Would the Real Gandhi Stand Up’, of the 21 years that Gandhi lived in South Africa, “one cannot help but discern that there is not a single Black person anywhere in any of the photos of Gandhi during that time.

With Black people in the great majority, there is no way that Gandhi had missed noticing them”. Certainly Gandhi noticed us, the problem is that we were beneath him. For him, we Blacks were the “untouchables” of this land. Gandhi came to Africa already having organised in his shiny head and the reality he was poised to create, a place and life-station for dark skinned people.

G.B. Singh points to the sad fact that “only a few scholars are aware of this background”. It is certainly sad that those who have known have not told. Someone who could have said something should have said something. Why has this truth been hidden behind a veil of deceptive secrecy? What was the motive in hiding the fact that “Mahatma” Gandhi really hated the people of this land. He even fought against us, enlisting many Indians to help him in 1906 as Sergeant -Major Gandhi.

PROMOTED RACISM

Gandhi supported the separatist and racist policies on the apartheid govt. He said in a public meeting in Bombay in 1896 that theirs (Indians) was “one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us (Indians) by Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”

Seduced and blinded by an apparent adopted British-Indian arrogance and a superiority complex fueled by a sinister support and justification of the Indian Hindu caste system. The caste or varna system as it is also sometimes referred to relegates the darkest skinned Indians to a life of forced humiliating service to their lighter skinned country women and men. The Untouchables or Dalits as they like to call themselves endure unspeakable discrimination and oppression. They number some 200 million and “official government statistics show that Dalits suffer more than 100,000 murders, arsons, and rapes annually”, wrote Larry Glassco of his trip to India last October in an article called ‘Casteism Racism’. Drawing further parallels between the (plight) of the Dalits and struggle of Africans in America, Glassco pointed out that the plight of the Dalits in India was “remarkably close to that of Black Americans”.

DALITS & BLACKS

Because the Dalits are not racially different from the upper castes, casteism may not be racism by formal definition, but caste-based discrimination bears enough similarities in practice, in outcome, and in struggles to end it that it could well be considered a close cousin. Informed by religion and not race, the shudras, of which the Dalits are a part of, bear the closest resemblance to Africans and are also therefore forced to do the type of work that used to be reserved for us darkiest. “Dalits, like Blacks, are given jobs that others shun. Blacks formerly dominated among garbage haulers, Dalits today clean the nation’s latrines”.

Further, “like Blacks, Dalits cannot be served in many restaurants; if they are served, it is in separate glasses and cups. Upper caste men have access to Dalit women, by force if necessary; but Dalit men dare not date or try to marry an upper-caste girl under pain of death and mutilitation by a lynch mob, like the sexual-based lynchings of US history, noted (Glassco).

Gandhi tried to recreate and duplicate a sort of caste racism here in South Africa, with Indians naturally at the top with Whites and us Africans grovelling at the bottom as usual. As such, Gandhi lunged himself head first into the souridge that was South African politics. Unwilling to transcend the trappings and shortcomings of the caste system, which are inherently divisive and racist.

DURBAN ATTACK ON INDIANS

Unwilling also to stand in solidarity with oppressed Africans in the land of their birth, Gandhi, as a widely respected and influential Indian leader set the stage and tone for Indian/African relations on the continent and African diaspora for decades to come. Indian/African relations over the decades have been parasitical and abusive exploding most dramatically in Idi Amins’ Uganda when he expelled 50,000 Indians and Pakistanis in 1972. Tensions have also on more than one occasion come to a head in our own Durban where Indian families were sent fleeing en mass leaving homes burning behind them.

You can cross any country and swim across any sea, you will find the attitude of the Indian towards the Africa as being the same; one of disdain.

IN DEFENCE OF CASTE SYSTEM

The Mahatma expressed his views on the caste system at length in a journal called Nava Jivan in 1921. It was originally written in Gujarati and now recently translated into English. He minsed no words when he said:

“I believe that if Hindu society has been able to stand it is because it is founded on the caste system”. He further reiterated that; “these being my views I am opposed to all those who are out to destroy the caste system”.

Gandhi’s legacy is a paradox. While it is true that he helped bring “independence” to India, it is highly contested especially in India that he brought freedom to his people. The view is that while he brought his country out of British colonial occupation, he himself then roped it into a more subtle and paralising bondage; Hindu casteism. What is happening to the Dalits is illegal by government decree even as it is widespread forcing many Dalits to offer armed defence.

ENEMY NO.1 OF DALITS

Novelist and musician Beverley Nichols when he met Dr. Ambedkar during a visit to British India, the doctor told him that “Gandhi is the greatest enemy the untouchables have ever had in India.

Standing on the side of history, G.B. Singh also cautions:

“Gandhi’s racism will incite a whole lot of controversy. Be that as it may, I am of the view that the facts speak for themselves. I have exhausted the last 18 years of my life critically analyzing these hidden documents, and I have no doubt that Gandhi harbored anti-Black views and forced his racial views on his fellow Indian countrymen while living in South Africa”.

The irony of the Gandhi conspiracy is that while it may have been propagated by well meaning Indians from all persuasions and intent, supposedly in an effort to safeguard the futures of their children in a foreign continent; the consequence however of that conspiracy is being brought down as judge and yardstick for the same children that they were trying to protect. Indian youth stand to be most affected by this revelation. Further, the collective innocence of those who believed in the righteousness and integrity of Gandhi; even the divine in him, they too will be (altered). What Indian youth now have to reckon with is the fact that the Indian has no future in Africa that is separate from that of the Africans. The Gandhist tendency of attempting to create a satellite India in Africa with castes and all has no future in Africa. The Indian has to become an African in Africa. Gandhists and others who believed otherwise are now suffering a cultural shock.

Gandhi himself is turning in his grave as you read this. Could his legacy, by the same token, be regarded as the greatest enemy of the Indian living in outside India? Is this the irony of history? (nhlanhla@kush.co.za)

D.V. REFERENCE TO GANDHI

DV Sept.16, 2005 p.25: “Gandhi branded racist in S. Africa”.

DV Nov.16, 2004 p.10: “Gandhi & Gandhism – a cruel hoax on oppressed Indians”.

DV Aug.1, 2004 p.19: “Gandhi unmasked: New Film”

V.T. Rajshekar, Why Godse Killed Gandhi?, DSA-1997

Dr. Velu Annamalai, Sergeant-Major M.K. Gandhi, DSA-1995

Fazlul Huq, Gandhi: Saint or Sinner?, DSA-1991

V.T. Rajshekar, Hinduism, Fascism & Gandhism, DSA-1985.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, What Congress & Gandhi Have Done to Untouchables, thacker & Co. Ltd., Bombay, 1945.

DV May 1, 2003 p. 19: “Gandhi sleeping with young girls showed him as sex pervert: Document”.

DV April 1, 2003 p.17: “Gandhi sold Brahminism as sweet pill to fool Untouchables”.

DV Edit Dec.16, 2002: “Dr. Ambedkar was ready but Gandhi sabotaged Dalit mass conversion to Sikhism”.

p. 9: “Godse book makes history”.

p. 22: “How Gandhi helped British by misleading Muslims”.

DV Feb.1, 2000 p. 6: “Truth about Rajghat”

DV Jan.16, 1998 p. 5: “Editor visits Godse residence at Pune”.

DV March 16, 1990, p. 14: “M.N. Roy said Gandhism was nothing but fascism”.

DV March 1, 1990 p.14: “Devastating portrait of Gandhi: Congress supported British?” (Book review: India & the Raj by Suniti Kumar Ghosh, Sabranalekha-1989).

DV Jan.16, 1990 p. 21: “Did Gandhi oppose British imperialism & Apartheid? – A South African Survey”.

DV June 1, 1989 p.16: “The verdict of history on Gandhi & Dr. Ambedkar”.

DV Editorial May 1989: “Did Gandhi fight the British and Big Business?”

SikhSpectrum.com Monthly. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and … – [ Diese Seite übersetzen ]

SikhSpectrum.com Monthly Issue No.13, August 2003

www.sikhspectrum.com/082003/king_and_gandhi.htm

howcomyoucom.com – The Myth of Mahatma Ghandi – [ D

The Myth of Mahatma Ghandi November 28, 2000, Written By: Velu Annamalai, Ph.D.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. might have heard the word of non-violence from Gandhi, but it is certain that Dr. King did not know the true colors of Mr. Gandhi. From the beginning to the end, M.K. Gandhi was loyal to imperialism. The Western news media and their Indian allies by a massive propaganda exercise created the illusion of sainthood around Gandhi and made people believe that he fought Apartheid in South Africa, and in the process of doing so developed a new method of non-violent struggle called satyagraha. Nothing is farther from the truth. Gandhi, for the major part of his life, worshipped British imperialism and too often proudly proclaimed himself a lover of the Empire. He was Kipling's Gunga Din in flesh and blood.
To understand Gandhi's politics in South Africa, it is essential to note the three fundamental trends which all along persisted underneath all his activities. They were:

(1) his loyalty to the British Empire,
(2) his apathy with regard to the Indian "lower castes", India's indigenous population, and
(3) his virulent anti-African racism.

On June 2, 1906 he commented in the Indian Opinion that "Thanks to the Court's decision, only clean Indians (meaning upper caste Hindu Indians) or colored people other than Kaffirs, can now travel in the trains."

During the `Kaffir Wars' in South Africa he was a regular Gunga Din, who volunteered to organize a brigade of Indians to put down the Zulu uprising and was decorated himself for valor under fire.
Gandhi said on September 26, 1896 about the African people: "Ours is one continued struggle sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness."

Again in an editorial on the Natal Municipal Corporation Bill, in the Indian Opinion of March 18, 1905, Gandhi wrote: "Clause 200 makes provision for registration of persons belonging to uncivilized races (meaning the local Africans), resident and employed within the Borough.

One can understand the necessity of registration of Kaffirs who will not work, but why should registration be required for indentured Indians...?" Again on September 9, 1905, Gandhi wrote about the local Africans as: "in the majority of cases it compels the native to work for at least a few days a year" (meaning that the locals are lazy).
Nothing could be farther from the truth that Gandhi fought against Apartheid, which many propagandists in later years wanted people to believe.

He was all in favor of continuation of White domination and the oppression of Blacks in South Africa.

In the Indian Opinion of March 25, 1905, Gandhi wrote on a Bill regulating fire-arms: "In the instance of fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the natives. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there the slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indians?"
Gandhi always advised Indians not to align with other political groups in either colored or African communities. He was strongly opposed to the commingling of races.

In the Indian Opinion of September 4, 1904, Gandhi wrote: "Under my suggestion, the Town Council (of Johannesburg) must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. It think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen."

In the Indian Opinion of September 24, 1903, Gandhi said: "We believe as much in the purity of races as we think they (the Whites) do... by advocating the purity of all races."

Again on December 24, 1903, in the Indian Opinion Gandhi stated that: "so far as British Indians are concerned, such a thing is particularly unknown. If there is one thing which the Indian cherishes more than any other, it is purity of type."

When he was fighting on behalf of Indians, he was not fighting for all the Indians, but only for his rich merchant class upper caste Hindus!

In the Anglo-Boer War of 1899, Gandhi, in spite of his own belief that truth was on the side of the Boers, formed an ambulance unit in support of the British forces. He was very earnest about taking up arms and laying down his life for his beloved Queen. He led his men on to the battlefield and received a War Medal.

Gandhi joined in the orgy of Zulu slaughter when the Bambata Rebellion broke out. One needs to read the entire history of Bambata Rebellion to place Gandhi's nazi war crimes in its proper perspective.

A Selected List Of Works About Mohandas K. Gandhi
Ambedkar, B.R. What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables. Bombay: Thacker, 1945.
Annamalai, Velu. Sergeant-Major M.K. Gandhi. Bangalore: Dalit Sahitya Akadiy, 1995.
Assisi, Francis. "Gandhi's Links with South Africa Examined." India West, 28 Sep 1990: 45.
Assisi, Francis. "Mahatma Gandhi's Links with SA Blacks Questioned." News India, 28 Sep 1990: 1.
Assisi, Francis. "Two New Books on Gandhiji." India West, 28 Sep 1990: 45.
Das, Nani Gopal. Was Gandhiji a Mahatma? Calcutta: Dipali Book House, 1988.
Edwards, Michael. The Myth of the Mahatma. London: Constable, 1986.
Gandhi, Mohandas K. Untouchability. Edited by Bharatan Kumarappa. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1954.
Grenier, Richard. The Gandhi Nobody Knows. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983.
Grenier, Richard. "The Gandhi Nobody Knows." Commentary (Mar 1983): 59-72.
Huq, Fazlul. Gandhi: Saint or Sinner? Foreword by V.T. Rajshekar. Bangalore: Dalit Sahitya Akadiy, 1991.
Kapur, Sudarshan. Raising Up a Prophet: The African-American Encounter with Gandhi. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
Rajshekar, V.T. Hinduism, Fascism and Gandhism: A Guide to Every Intelligent Indian. Bangalore: Dalit Sahitya Akadiy, 1984.
Rajshekar, V.T. Why Godse Killed Gandhi? Bangalore: Dalit Sahitya Akadiy, 1986.
Rajshekar, V.T. Clash of Two Values: Mahatma Gandhi and Babasaheb Ambedkar (The Verdict of History). Bangalore: Dalit Sahitya Akadiy, 1989.
Velu Annamalai, Ph.D., a native of Tamil Nadu, India, is the President of the International Dalit Support Group and the author of Sergeant-Major M.K. Gandhi published by the Dalit Sahitya Akademy in Bangalore, India in 1995. He currently resides in New Orleans, Louisiana.
This article was published courtesy of Velu Annamalai, Ph.D

The Irish Savant: Mahatma Gandhi: Saint, racist, or both?

http://www.irishsavant.blogspot.com/2008/04/mahatma-gandhi-saint-racist-or-both.html

Sunday, 27 April 2008, Mahatma Gandhi: Saint, racist, or both?

Some time ago I posted about Albert Schweitzer, who spent his life ministering to natives in Africa, and ended up regarding them as a collection of ungrateful primitives. This attracted a lot of comment, not least because such a saintly man could hold such (in today's terms) repulsive views. Mahatma Gandhi is another 20th century saint, who spent most of his early working life in South Africa.

He also of course peacable lead India to independence from Britain, and was assassinated for his trouble. He has since become an international icon of peace, pacifism, tolerance, brotherly love, and by extension, multi-culturalism. Statues are erected to him, his example is taught to Western school children, and Hollywood has even made a film about him starring Ben Kingsley. In all of these instances, Gandhi is portrayed as the ultimate peacemaker, the role model of multi-culturalism.

Westerners take great masochistic joy in endlessly quoting his response to the question "what do you think of Western Civilization", to which he replied along the lines of "if I ever see it I'll let you know".

Ho, ho!

.
But there's another side
Such masochists are far less likely to propagate other quotations of his though. And this isn't surprising when they show that this saint was a rabid racist. Now it must be remembered, before we're too hard on the man, that this was well before the time that racism became the cause du jour, which was sex in thise Victorian times (when even pianos had to have their legs chastely covered lest they frighten the horses).

So it is with great joy I bring you a selection of St. Gandhi's ruminations on matters racial. These are taken either from his Collected Works, or from the archives of the Indian Opinion which he founded and edited during his time in South Africa.
Enjoy!

"Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness."

"Clause 200 makes provision for registration of persons belonging to uncivilized races resident and employed within the Borough. One can understand the necessity of registration of Kaffirs who will not work......?"

"Now let us turn our attention to another and entirely unrepresented community-the Indian. He is in striking contrast with the native. While the native has been of little benefit to the State, it owes its prosperity largely to the Indians. While native loafers abound on every side, that species of humanity is almost unknown among Indians here."

"We believe as much in the purity of race. We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race. "[Note: This view is entirely consistent with Hindu philosophy, which places Brahmins at the top of the food chain, Sudhras next, and so on down to the Untouchables. Interestingly enough, in India this classification broadly approximates to skin pigmentation, with Brahmins often being indistinguishable from Europeans]
“The Natives in our hands proved to be most unreliable and obstinate, and they seemed to bestow no care on their suffering countryman.” [They still don't, Mahatma]
I could provide a lot more, but that’s more than enough to make my point. My point is this. Before race and multiculturalism became rigidly-enforced orthodoxy, people spoke openly and freely about race, and the characteristics of differing racial groups. This could often be hurtful and demeaning, and it’s no harm that PC brought in some form of sensitivity.

But PC has completely gone over the top, to the extent that all sensible discussion on race has been foreclosed. This has lead, and leads to, muddled thinking and lousy political and social decisions – decisions that are having, and will continue to have, disastrous impact on millions of lives.
Gandhi called it as he saw it at the time – and as it was at the time. Clearly, had he been alive in 1993 he’d have recoiled at the prospect of giving blacks control of his South Africa. And he’d have been right, as we can now see.
پاکستان لڈجر| PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | September 1st, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی |

http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhihitler.html

Mahatma Gandhi’s letters to Hitler Dr. Koenraad ELST

Mahatma Gandhi’s admirers are not in the habit of confronting embarrassing facts about their favourite saint. His critics, by contrast, gleefully keep on reminding us of a few facts concerning the Mahatma which seem to undermine his aura of wisdom and ethical superiority. One of the decisive proofs of Gandhi’s silly lack of realism, cited by both his Leftist and his Hindutva detractors, is his attempted correspondence with Adolf Hitler, undertaken with a view to persuading Germany’s dictator of the value of non-violence. I will now take upon myself the ungrateful task of arguing that in this attempt, Gandhi was (1) entirely Gandhian, and (2) essentially right.

Gandhi’s first letter to Hitler

Both of Gandhi’s letters to Hitler are addressed to “my frie�nd”. In the case of anyone else than the Mahatma, this friendliness would be somewhat strange given the advice which Hitler had tendered to the British government concerning the suppression of India�s freedom movement. During a meeting with Lord Halifax in 1938, Hitler had pledged his support to the preservation of the British empire and offered his formula for dealing with the Indian National Congress: kill Gandhi, if that isn’t enough then kill the other leaders too, if that isn’t enough then two hundred more activists, and so on until the Indian people will give up the hope of independence. Gandhi may of course have been unaware of Hitler’s advice, but it would also be charac�teristically Gandhian to remain friendly towards his own would-be killer.

Some people will be shocked that Gandhi called the ultimate monster a “friend”. But the correct view of sinners, view which I imbibed as the “Christian” view but which I believe has universal validity, is that they are all but instances of the general human trait of sinfulness. Hitler’s fanaticism, cruelty, coldness of heart and other reprehensible traits may have differed in intensity but not in essence with those very same traits in other human beings. As human beings gifted with reason and conscience, sinners are also not beyond redemption: your fiercest persecutor today may repent and seek your friendship tomorrow. If Gandhi could approach heartless fanatics like Mohammed Ali Jinnah in a spirit of friendship, there is no reason why he should have withheld his offer of friendship from Hitler.

In his first letter dd. 23 July 1939 (Complete Works, vol.70, p.20-21), and which the Government did not permit to go, Gandhi does mention his hesitation in addres�sing Hitler. But the reason is modesty rather than abhorrence: “Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of humanity. But I have resisted their request, because of the feeling that any letter from me would be an imper�tinence.” But the sense of impending war, after the German oc�cupation of Czech-inhabited Bohemia-Moravia (in violation of the 1938 Munich agreement and of the principle of the �self-determination of nations� which had justified the annexation of German-inhabited Austria and Sudetenland) and rising hostility with Poland, prompted him to set aside his scruples: “Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must make my appeal for whatever it may be worth.” Even so, the end of his letter is again beset with scruples and modesty: “Anyway I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you. I remain, Your sincere friend, Sd. M. MK Gandhi”.

The remainder and substance of this short letter reads: “It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success?”

This approach is held in utter contempt by post-War generations. Thus, the Flemish Leftist novelist and literature professor Kristien Hemmerechts has commented (”Milosevic, Saddam, Gandhi en Hitler”, De Morgen, 16-4-1999): “In other words, Gandhi was a na�ve fool who tried in vain to sell his non-violence as a panacea to the F�hrer.”

This presupposes that Gandhi was giving carte blanche to Hitler for doing that which we know Hitler to have done, viz. the deportation of Jews and others, the mass killings, the ruthless oppression of the subject populations, the self-destructive military policies imposed on the Germans in the final stage of the war. But in reality, Gandhi�s approach, if successful, would precisely have prevented that terrible outcome. Most of Hitler�s atrocities were made possible by the war circumstances. In peacetime, the German public would not have tolerated the amount of repression which disfigured their society in 1941-45. Indeed, even in the early (and for German civilians, low-intensity) part of the war, protests from the public forced Hitler to stop the programme of euthanasia on the handicapped.

Moreover, it was the paranoia of the Nazi leadership about Jews as a �fifth column�, retained from their (subjective and admittedly distorted) World War 1 experience of Leftist agitators in the German cities stabbing the frontline soldiers in the back, which made them decide to remove the Jews from society in Germany and the occupied countries. This is clear from official Nazi statements such as Heinrich Himmler�s Posen speech of October 1943. In a non-war scenario, at least an organized transfer of the Jews to a safe territory outside Europe could have been negotiated and implemented. Under a peace agreement, especially one backed up by sufficient armed force on the part of the other treaty powers, Hitler could have been kept in check. By escalating rather than containing the war, the Allied as much as the Axis governments foreclosed the more humane options. (More on this in Elst: The Saffron Swastika, Voice of India, Delhi 2001, p.506-517, and in Elst: Gandhi and Godse, Voice of India, Delhi 2001, p.48-56)

When you start a war, you don�t know beforehand just what terrible things will happen, but you do know in general that they will be terrible. That is the basic rationale of pacifism, and Gandhi was entirely correct to keep it in mind when most political leaders were getting caught up in war fever. Containing Hitler for a few more decades would have been a trying and testing exercise for Germany�s neighbours, but Gandhi never claimed that non-violence was the way of the weak and the lazy. At any rate, would this effort in long-term vigilance not have been preferable to a war with fifty million dead, many more lives ruined, many countries overrun by Communism and fated to further massacres, and the unleashing of nuclear weapons on the world?

The chances for peace in 1939

At that point in time, Hitler’s “worthy object” to which Gandhi refers, the topic of heated diplomatic exchanges and indeed the professed casus belliof the impending German invasion of Poland, was the rights of the German minority in Poland along with the issue of the “corridor”. This was a planned overgro�und railway-cum-motorway which should either link German Pomerania with German East Prussia through Polish West Prussia (including the city of Danzig); or, in case a referen�dum in West Prussia favoured the region’s return to Germany from which it had been taken in 1919, link land-locked Poland with a harbour set aside for the Poles on the Baltic coast through West Prussia. In 1945, all the regions concerned were ethnically cleansed of Germans and allotted to Poland, and Germany no longer claims any of them, but in 1939 many observers felt that the German demands were reasonable or at any rate not worth opposing by military means (�Who would want to die for Danzig?�).

It was common knowledge that Poland was oppressing its German and Jewish minorities, so a case could be made that the advancement of the German minority (it goes without saying that Hitler cared less for the Polish Jews) was a just cause. It was also the type of cause which could be furthered through non-violent protests and mobilizing non-violent international support. It wouldn’t formally humiliate Poland by making it give up territory or sovereignty, so perhaps the Polish government could be peacefully persuaded to change its ways regarding the minorities. On this point, Gandhi was undeniably right as well as true to himself by high�lighting the non-violent option in striving for a worthy political object.

The question of the corridor was less manageable, as it did involve territory and hence unmistakable face-losing concessions by one of the parties. The apprehension which troubled the Poles and their well-wishers was that the demand of a corridor was merely the reasonable-sounding opening move of a total conquest of Poland. It is difficult to estimate Nazi Germany’s exact plans for conquest, which was then already and has since remained the object of mythoma�nic war propaganda. Among the uninformed public, it is still widely believed that the Nazis aimed at �conquering the world�, no less; but this is nonsense. Hitler was ready to respect the British empire, and his alleged plan for an invasion of America was shown to be a British forgery planted in order to gain American support. In repeated peace offers to France and Britain in autumn 1939 and throughout 1940, Hitler proposed to withdraw from all historically non-German territories (which would still leave him in control of Austria, Sudetenland, West Prussia and some smaller border regions of Poland and, from May-June 1940 on, also Luxemburg, the Belgian East Cantons and French Elzas-Lotharingen) and maintain a territorial status-quo thenceforth.

It is possible that he meant it when he agreed to limit his territorial ambitions to historically German regions, at least where the competition consisted of allied or somehow respected nations such as the Italians or the French. However, in the case of the despised Slavic countries Poland and Ukraine, the fear of German conquest was more thoroughly justified.

In early 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the fledgling Soviet Union gave Germany control of Poland and western Ukraine. As a soldier, Hitler had applauded this gain of “living space”, which was to be settled with German farmers after moving the Slavs to Siberia. It was also this brief gain which made the subsequent defeat in World War 1 and the implied loss of territory so unbearable for Hitler and many Germans of his generation. There is no doubt that the Nazi leaders had an eye on these fertile territories for a future expansion of Germany. It was less certain that they wanted to conduct this annexation at once: would they abide by an agreement on a mere corridor if one were concluded, respecting Poland’s sovereignty over the rest of its territory?

The safest course was not to take chances and contain Hitler’s expan�sionism by military deterrence. As Poland itself could not provide this, it sought and received the assurance of help from Britain and France. This implied that a brief local war triggered by German aggression against Poland would turn into a protracted international war on the model of the Serb-Austrian crisis of 1914 triggering the Great War now known as World War 1. It was at this point that Gandhi asked Hitler to desist from any plans of invading Poland. There can be no doubt that this was a correct demand for a pacifist to make. Was it perhaps a foolish demand, in the sense that no words should have been wasted on Hitler? We will consider this question later on, but note for now that in July 1939 everything was still possible, at least if we believe in human freedom.

Gandhi’s second letter to Hitler

On 24 December 1940, on the eve of Christmas, which to Christians is a day of peace when the weapons are silenced, Gandhi wrote a lengthy second letter to Hitler. The world situation at that time was as follows: Germany and Italy controlled most of Europe and seemed set to decide the war in their favour, the German-Soviet pact concluded in August 1939 was still in force, and under Winston Churchill, a lonely Great Britain was continuing the war it had declared on Germany immediately after Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1939.

On this occasion, Gandhi took the trouble of justifying his addressing Hitler as “my friend” and closing his letter with “your sincere friend”, in a brief statement of what exactly he stood for: “That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespec�tive of race, colour or creed.” This very un-Hitlerian reason to befriend Hitler, what Gandhi goes on to call the “doctrine of universal friendship”, contrasts with the Hitler-like hatred of one�s enemy which is commonly thought to be the only correct attitude to Hitler.

Gandhi certainly earns the ire of post-war public opinion by stating: “We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents.” To be sure, this was written in a period of fairly limited warfare, well before the total war with the Soviet Union and the USA, and well before the mass killing and deportation of Jews. But the prevailing attitude today is one of judging Hitler and his contemporaries� dealings with him as if they all had the knowledge that we have acquired in and since 1945. By that standard, anyone doubting the British government�s hostile depiction of Hitler, including Gandhi, was practically an accomplice to Hitler�s crimes.

However, while not giving up on the chance of converting Hitler to more peaceful ways, Gandhi was not that mild in judging the crimes Hitler had already committed. In particular, he criticized the already well-publicized Nazi conviction that the strong have a right to subdue the weak: “But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especial�ly in the estimation of men like me who believe in human friendline�ss. Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity.”

So, Gandhi felt forced to join the ranks of Hitler’s opponents: “Hence we cannot possibly wish success to your arms.” Yet this did not make him join the British war effort nor even some non-violent department of the British Empire’s cause: “But ours is a unique position. We resist British imperialism no less than Nazism.” To Gandhi, British imperialism is closely akin to Nazi imperialism: “If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny.”

In outlining his position vis-�-vis British imperialism, Gandhi at once explained his attitude vis-�-vis Nazism: “Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field.” This was exactly what Gandhi was now trying out on Hitler: to convert him rather than defeat him, thus sparing him defeat if only he had listened.

Follows an explanation of the Gandhian method of making “their rule impossible by non-violent non-co-operation”, based on “the knowledge that no spoliator can compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or unwilling, of the victim”. In a slogan: “The rulers may have our land and bodies but not our souls.” To this, Hitler probably made a mental comment that prisoners, such as the many people whom he himself was locking away, were quite entitled to their souls, as long as they left their land as living space and their bodies as slave labour to the rulers.

Unlike many of his countrymen, Gandhi rejected the idea of achieving freedom from British rule with German help: “We know what the British heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid.” Instead, Gandhi explained to Hitler, the non-violent method could defeat “a combination of all the most violent forces in the world”.

In Gandhi’s view, a violent winner is bound to be defeated by superior force in the end (a prediction proven true in Hitler’s case), and even the memory of his victory will be tainted by its violent nature: “If not the British, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud.” Here Gandhi probably projected his own disapproval of violent methods onto the masses of mankind, who are less inhibited by scruples about glorifying violent winners. Look at the lionization of Chengiz Khan in Mongolia, of Timur and Babar in Uzbekistan, of Alexander in Greece and Macedonia, even though their empires didn�t last forever; and rest assured that the Germans would likewise have been proud of Hitler if he had been victorious.

Gandhi had to address Hitler

Gandhi would not have been Gandhi if he hadn’t attempted to prevent World War 2. This was, to our knowledge, the single most lethal war in world history, with a death toll estimated as up to 50 million, not mentioning the even larger number of refugees, widows and orphans, people deported, people maimed, lives broken by the various horrors of war. It would be a strange pacifist who condoned this torrent of violence.

Nowadays it is common to lambast those who opposed the war. American campaigners against involvement in the war, such as aviator Charles Lindbergh, are routinely smeared as Nazis for no other reason than that they opposed war against the Nazis (or more precisely, war against the Germans, for only a minority of the seven million Germans killed during the war were Nazis). Leftist readers may get my point if they recall how those who opposed anticommunist projects such as the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba were automatically denounced as being Communists themselves. Do they think this amalgamation of opposition to war and collusion (or actual identity) with the enemy is justified?

Gandhi�s utterances regarding Nazism leave no doubt about his firm hostility to this militaristic and freedom-hating doctrine. Yet, he opposed war against Nazism. This was entirely logical, for he rejected the militaristic element in both Nazism and the crusade against it. He did support the fight against Nazism but envisioned it as a non-violent struggle aimed at convincing rather than destroying.

It is not certain that this would have worked, but then Gandhism is not synonymous with effectiveness. Gandhi�s methods were successful in dissuading the British from holding on to India, not in dissuading the Muslim League from partitioning India. From that angle, it simply remains an open question, an untried experiment, whether the Gandhian approach could have succeeded in preventing World War 2. By contrast, there simply cannot be two opinions on whether that approach of non-violent dissuasion would have been Gandhian. The Mahatma would not have been the Mahatma if he had preferred any other method. Our judgment of his letters to Hitler must be the same as our judgment of Gandhism itself: either both represented a lofty ethical alternative to the more common methods of power politics, or both were erroneous and ridiculous.

(January 2004)

Council of Khalistan CONGRESSIONAL RECORD – [ Diese Seite übersetzen ]
www.khalistan.com/CongRecords/CR121305_Towns_RacismOfIndianFounderExposed.htm

United States of America Congressional Record on Mohandas Gandhi

RACISM OF INDIAN FOUNDER EXPOSED (Extensions of Remarks – December 13, 2005)

HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS OF NEW YORK IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2005
Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, the unveiling of a statue of Mohandas K. Gandhi in Johannesburg, South Africa, set off a discussion about the anti-black racism of the founder of India.

When the eight-foot high Gandhi statue was unveiled, portraying him as a young human-rights lawyer, many leaders attacked Gandhi’s anti-black statements. “Gandhi had no love for Africans,” said one letter in The Citizen, a South African newspaper. “To him, Africans were no better than the `Untouchables’ of India.”

As you may know, Mr. Speaker, the dark-skinned aborigines of the subcontinent, known as Dalits or “Untouchables,” occupy the lowest rung on the ladder of India’s rigid and racist caste system. The caste system exists to protect the privileged position of the Brahmins, the top caste. Although it was officially banned by India’s constitution in 1950, it is still strictly practiced in Hindu India.

Others have pointed out that Gandhi ignored the suffering of black people during the colonial occupation of South Africa. When he was arrested and forced to share a cell with black prisoners, he wrote that they were “only one degree removed from the animal.” In other words, Mr. Speaker, he described blacks as less than human. We condemn anyone who says this in our country, such as the Ku Klux Klan and others, as we should. Why is Gandhi venerated for such statements?

In addition, G.B. Singh, a Gandhi biographer, has looked through many pictures of him and never seen one single black person. Gandhi also attacked white Europeans.

Gandhi is honored as the founder of India. These statements and attitudes reveal the racist underpinning behind the secular, democratic facade of India. It explains a worldview that permits a Dalit constable to be stoned to death for entering the temple on a rainy day, that allows the murders of over 300,000 Christians in Nagaland, over 250,000 Sikhs in Punjab, Khalistan, over 90,000 Muslims in Kashmir, tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims elsewhere in the country, including Graham Staines and his two young sons, and tens of thousands of Assamese, Bodos, Dalits, Manipuris, Tamils, and other minorities. It explains why the pro-Fascist, Hindu militant RSS is a powerful organization in India, in control of one of its two major political parties.

India must abandon its racist attitudes and its exploitation of minorities. It must allow the enjoyment of full human rights by everyone. Until it does so, we should stop our aid and trade with India. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, the essence of democracy is the right to self-determination. India must allow self-determination for Kashmir, as it promised the United Nations in 1948, in Punjab, Khalistan, in Nagaland, and wherever the people seek to free themselves from the boot of Indian oppression. We should put this Congress on record in support of self-determination for the people of the subcontinent in the form of a free and fair plebiscite on the question of independence. Khalistan declared its independence on October 7, 1987. The people have never been allowed to have a simple, democratic vote on the matter. Instead, India continues to oppress the people there with over half a million troops.

Mr. Speaker, reporter Rory Carroll of The Guardian wrote an excellent article on the controversy about the Gandhi statue. I would like to place it in the Record at this time.
——————————————————————————–
[The Guardian, Friday Oct. 17, 2003]

RACISM OF INDIAN FOUNDER EXPOSED (Extensions of Remarks – December 13, 2005)

HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
OF NEW YORK
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2005
Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, the unveiling of a statue of Mohandas K. Gandhi in Johannesburg, South Africa, set off a discussion about the anti-black racism of the founder of India.

In addition, G.B. Singh, a Gandhi biographer, has looked through many pictures of him and never seen one single black person. Gandhi also attacked white Europeans.

GANDHI BRANDED RACIST AS JOHANNESBURG HONOURS FREEDOM FIGHTER (By Rory Carroll)

It was supposed to honour his resistance to racism in South Africa, but a new statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg has triggered a row over his alleged contempt for black people. The 2.5 metre high (8ft) bronze statue depicting Gandhi as a dashing young human rights lawyer has been welcomed by Nelson Mandela, among others, for recognising the Indian who launched the fight against white minority rule at the turn of the last century.

But critics have attacked the gesture for overlooking racist statements attributed to Gandhi, which suggest he viewed black people as lazy savages who were barely human.

Newspapers continue to publish letters from indignant readers: “Gandhi had no love for Africans. To [him], Africans were no better than the `Untouchables’ of India,” said a correspondent to The Citizen.

Others are harsher, claiming the civil rights icon “hated” black people and ignored their suffering at the hands of colonial masters while championing the cause of Indians.

Unveiled this month, the statue stands in Gandhi Square in central Johannesburg, not far from the office from which he worked during some of his 21 years in South Africa.

However, the new statue has prompted bitter recollections about some of Gandhi’s writings.

Forced to share a cell with black people, he wrote: “Many of the native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves.”

The Johannesburg daily This Day said GB Singh, the author of a critical book about Gandhi, had sifted through photos of Gandhi in South Africa and found not one black person in his vicinity.

The Indian embassy in Pretoria declined to comment, as it prepared for President Thabo Mbeki’s visit to India.

Khulekani Ntshangase, a spokesman for the ANC Youth League, defended Gandhi, saying the critics missed the bigger picture of his immense contribution to the liberation struggle.

“Later he got more enlightened.”

www.House.gov/towns

Gandhi a racist? – Democratic Underground

www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×866503

The Truth Seeker – The Myth of Mahatma Gandhi
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Gandhi – Behind the mask of Divinity
by, Honourable Mr. G B Singh – (a serving Colonel in the US Army)

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www.PrometheusBooks.com/catalog/book_1474.html

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Gandhi under Cross Examination
by, Honourable Mr. G B Singh & Honourable Mr. Tim Watson $ 14

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The Myth of Mohandas Gandhi:- Debunked by Facts. He gets an “F” on …

Dr. Koenraad ELST

http://www.kush.co.za/workarea/show.asp?ArticleNo=36
www.Guardian.co.uk/southafrica/story/0,13262,1065018,00.html
www.Gandhism.net/gandhiandblacks.php
www.Gandhism.net/sergeantmajorgandhi.php
www.Gandhism.net/unletter.php
Gandhi used to beat his wife up routinely.
Gandhi was having sex when his father lay breathing his last upstairs.
Gandhi denied sex to his wife for decades
Gandhi was an adulterer and had a spiritual marriage with two British women who were in the Ashram
Gandhi slept naked with his niece (and 12 year old girls) and other women to prove that he could control his manliness.
Gandhi would do enemas twice a day and if he liked you allowed you to enter the piece up his rectum.
Gandhi used to drink his own urine and also the urine of cows.Chilled Urine drinking hot in India. From Gandhi to Prime Minister Desai to common man
Hindu India: A gift from the Hindu Gods:Cows Urine: UK Telegraph reports by Julian West
Gandhi son left him and converted to Islam
The racist Gandhi was a total failure in South Africa where he tried to stratify the society, Whites, Indians and Africans. His racism towards the Africans was horrendous. His horrific advice to all Jews to commit suicide was abomible. His atrocious letters to his friend Hitler were the height of stupidiy.
Gandhi condones Zulu massacres and defends the British. Aug 4 1906
The sex life of Mr. Gandhi, and his failures as a politician
The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion. Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African society.Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down.
Gandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler.
Sex life of Mohandas Gandhi, his failures and sexual perversion
www.Gandhism.net/southafricanblacks.php
www.DalitVoice.org/Templates/oct_a2005/articles.htm
SikhSpectrum.com Monthly. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and … -
Mahatma Gandhi’s letters to Hitler
koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhihitler.html
Council of Khalistan CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -
http://www.khalistan.com/CongRecords/CR121305_Towns_RacismOfIndianFounderExposed.htm
www.House.gov/towns
http://rupeenews.com/2007/12/25/six-stories-of-mohandas-gandhi-his-failures-sexual-perversion/
Hsi Lai: Gandhi “slept between two 12-year-old female virgins”
Gandhi condones Zulu massacres and defends the British. Aug 4 1906
The sex life of Mr. Gandhi, and his failures as a politician
The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion. Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African society.Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down.
Gandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler.
Sex life of Mohandas Gandhi, his failures and sexual perversion

Gandhi’s first letter to Hitler

The chances for peace in 1939

Gandhi’s second letter to Hitler

Gandhi had to address Hitler

(January 2004)

Council of Khalistan CONGRESSIONAL RECORD – [ Diese Seite übersetzen ]
www.khalistan.com/CongRecords/CR121305_Towns_RacismOfIndianFounderExposed.htm
RACISM OF INDIAN FOUNDER EXPOSED
(Extensions of Remarks – December 13, 2005)

HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
OF NEW YORK
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2005
Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, the unveiling of a statue of Mohandas K. Gandhi in Johannesburg, South Africa, set off a discussion about the anti-black racism of the founder of India.

In addition, G.B. Singh, a Gandhi biographer, has looked through many pictures of him and never seen one single black person. Gandhi also attacked white Europeans.

RACISM OF INDIAN FOUNDER EXPOSED
(Extensions of Remarks – December 13, 2005)

HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
OF NEW YORK
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2005
Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, the unveiling of a statue of Mohandas K. Gandhi in Johannesburg, South Africa, set off a discussion about the anti-black racism of the founder of India.

In addition, G.B. Singh, a Gandhi biographer, has looked through many pictures of him and never seen one single black person. Gandhi also attacked white Europeans.

GANDHI BRANDED RACIST
AS JOHANNESBURG HONOURS FREEDOM FIGHTER
(By Rory Carroll)