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SeanG
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278

Posted 12/22/2002 11:47 PM (GMT -6)

Your thoughts?

Electra
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Total Posts : 611

Posted 12/23/2002 5:04 AM (GMT -6)

Here is the total content of what I know about Ghandi:

1. He was a reformed Hindu.
2. He respected Christianity, especially Jesus, but he did not become a Christian because he was trying to lead India to independence from the British Empire, which had introduced Christianity.
3. He advocated nonviolent resistance, such as hunger strikes.
4. I think he got a Nobel Peace prize.
5. He was assassinated.
6. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others were influenced by him.

That’s it. I wish I knew more about him. Electra

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Matt. 10:8

Edited by - Electra on 12/23/2002 10:06:09 AM

honorman
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Total Posts : 1137

Posted 12/23/2002 5:42 AM (GMT -6)

He supported the caste system of his country. He totally neglected his wife and children. There is more...

¡Que Payaso!
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 108

Posted 12/25/2002 8:42 PM (GMT -6)

Sorry Electra, no peace prize.

http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/index.html

I don't know about any of that other stuff ya'll mentioned.

Payaso

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." - Bilbo Baggins

SeanG
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278

Posted 12/26/2002 3:54 PM (GMT -6)

Just two papers I pulled of the web... let me know what you guys think?

**********************
**********************
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.

Gandhi was once thrown out of a train compartment, which was reserved exclusively for the Whites. It was not that Gandhi was fighting on behalf of the local Africans that he broke the rule in getting into a Whites' compartment. No! that was not the reason. Gandhi was so furious that he and his merchant caste Indians (Banias) were treated on par with the local Africans. This is the real reason for his fighting race discrimination in South Africa, and he had absolutely no concern about the pitiable way the Africans were treated by the Whites.

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 note on Ghandi's Nonviolence by an unknown author:

Nonviolence: but the real center and raison d'etre of 'Gandhi' is ahimsa, nonviolence, which principle when incorporated into vast campaigns of noncooperation with British rule the Mahatma called by an odd name he made up himself, satyagraha, which means something like "truth-striving." During the key part of his life, Gandhi devoted a great deal of time explaining the moral and philosophical meanings of both ahimsa and satyagraha. But much as the film sanitizes Gandhi to the point where one would mistake him for a Christian saint, and sanitizes India to the point where one would take it for Shangri-la, it quite sweeps away Gandhi's ethical and religious ponderings, his complexities, his qualifications, and certainly his vacillations, which simplifying process leaves us with our old European friend: pacifism. It is true that Gandhi was much impressed by the Sermon on the Mount, his favorite passage in the Bible, which he read over and over again. But for all the Sermon's inspirational value, and its service as an ideal in relations among individual human beings, no Christian state which survived has ever based its policies on the Sermon on the Mount since Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire. And
no modern Western state which survives can ever base its policies on pacifism. And no Hindu state will ever base its policies on ahimsa.

Gandhi himself--although the film dishonestly conceals this from us--many times conceded that in dire circumstances "war may have to be resorted to as a necessary evil." It is something of an anomaly that Gandhi, held in popular myth to be a pure pacifist (a myth which governments of India have always been at great pains to sustain in the belief that it will reflect credit on India itself, and to which the present movie adheres slavishly), was until fifty not ill-disposed to war at all. As I have already noted, in three wars, no sooner had the bugles sounded than Gandhi not only gave his support, but was clamoring for arms. To form new regiments! Tofight! To destroy the enemies of the empire! Regular Indian army units fought in both the Boer War and World War I, but this was not enough for Gandhi.

He wanted to raise new troops, even, in the case of the Boer and Kaffir Wars, from the tiny Indian colony in South Africa. British military authorities thought it not reallyworth the trouble to train such a small body of Indians as soldiers, and were even resistant to training them as an auxiliary medical corps ("stretcher bearers"), but finally yielded to Gandhi's relentless importuning. As first instructed, the Indian Volunteer Corps was not supposed actually to go into combat, but Gandhi, adamant, led his Indian volunteers into the thick of battle. When the British commanding officer was mortally wounded during an engagement in the Kaffir War, Gandhi--though his corps' deputy commander--carried the officer's stretcher himself from the battlefield and for miles over the sun-baked veldt.

The British empire's War Medal did not have its name for nothing, and it was generally earned. ANYONE who wants to wade through Gandhi's endless ruminations about himsa and ahimsa (violence and nonviolence) is welcome to do so, but it is impossible for the skeptical reader to avoid the conclusion--let us say in 1920, when swaraj (home rule) was all the rage and Gandhi's inner voice started telling him that ahimsa was the thing--that this inner voice knew what it was talking about. By this I mean that, though Gandhi talked with the tongue of Hindu gods and sacred scriptures, his inner voice had a strong sense of expediency. Britain, if only comparatively speaking, was a moral nation, and nonviolent civil disobedience was plainly the best and most effective way of achieving Indian independence. Skeptics might also not be surprised to learn that as independence approached, Gandhi's inner voice began to change its tune. It has been reported that Gandhi "half-welcomed" the civil war that broke out in the last days. Even a fratricidal "bloodbath" (Gandhi's word) would be preferable to the British. And suddenly Gandhi began endorsing violence left, right, and center. During the fearsome rioting in Calcutta he gave his approval to men "using violence in a moral cause."

How could he tell them that violence was wrong, he asked, "unless I demonstrate that nonviolence is more effective?" He blessed the Nawab of Maler Kotla when he gave orders to shoot ten Muslims for every Hindu killed in his state. He sang the praises of Subhas Chandra Bose, who, sponsored by first the Nazis and then the Japanese, organized in Singapore an Indian National Army with which he hoped to conquer India with Japanese support, establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. Meanwhile, after independence in 1947, the armies of the India that Gandhi had created immediately marched into battle, incorporating the state of Hyderabad by force and making war in Kashmir on secessionist Pakistan. When Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist in January 1948 he was honored by the new state with a vast military funeral--in my view by no means inapposite.

BUT it is not widely realized (nor will this film tell you) how much violence was associated with Gandhi's so-called "nonviolent" movement from the very beginning. India's Nobel Prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, had sensed a strong current of nihilism in Gandhi almost from his first days, and as early as 1920 wrote of Gandhi's "fierce joy of annihilation," which Tagore feared would lead India into hideous orgies of devastation--which ultimately proved to be the case. Robert Payne has said that there was unquestionably an "unhealthy atmosphere" among many of Gandhi's fanatic followers, and that Gandhi's habit of going to the edge of violence and then suddenly retreating was fraught with danger. "In matters of conscience I am uncompromising," proclaimed Gandhi proudly. "Nobody can make me yield." The judgment of Tagore was categorical.

Much as he might revere Gandhi as a holy man, he quite detested him as a politician and considered that his campaigns were almost always so close to violence that it was utterly disingenuous to call them nonviolent. For every satyagraha true believer, moreover, sworn not to harm the adversary or even to lift a finger in his own defense, there were sometimes thousands of incensed freebooters and skirmishers bound by no such vow.

SeanG!

"Evolution is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links not seen."

Edited by - SeanG on 12/26/2002 8:55:18 PM

SeanG
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278

Posted 12/27/2002 9:02 PM (GMT -6)

“Bueller…? Bueller…? … … Anyone…? Anyone…?”

SeanG!

"Evolution is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links not seen."

graygirl
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Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 78

Posted 12/28/2002 6:24 AM (GMT -6)

not sure what to say. first of all i don't know who Velu Annamalai is and the validity of his research.

my perception and limited knowledge of Ghandi is what's out there. Here is what MSN encarta says about him:

Gandhi became a leader in a complex struggle, the Indian campaign for home rule. Following World War I, in which he played an active part in recruiting campaigns, Gandhi, again advocating Satyagraha, launched his movement of passive resistance to Britain.

Economic independence for India, involving the complete boycott of British goods, was made a corollary of Gandhi's swaraj (Sanskrit, “self-ruling”) movement. The economic aspects of the movement were significant, for the exploitation of Indian villagers by British industrialists had resulted in extreme poverty in the country and the virtual destruction of Indian home industries. As a remedy for such poverty, Gandhi advocated revival of cottage industries; he began to use a spinning wheel as a token of the return to the simple village life he preached, and of the renewal of native Indian industries.

In 1932, Gandhi began new civil-disobedience campaigns against the British. Arrested twice, the Mahatma fasted for long periods several times; these fasts were effective measures against the British, because revolution might well have broken out in India if he had died. In September 1932, while in jail, Gandhi undertook a “fast unto death” to improve the status of the Hindu Untouchables. The British, by permitting the Untouchables to be considered as a separate part of the Indian electorate, were, according to Gandhi, countenancing an injustice. Although he was himself a member of the Vaisya (merchant) caste, Gandhi was the great leader of the movement in India dedicated to eradicating the unjust social and economic aspects of the caste system.

**********************************************************************

Above is what has been my perception of the man. I just don't know....there are always articles out there claiming a given leader was really corrupt/bad. i've read some stuff about Martin LUther King as well......I guess i just don't know.

Interesting though

GG

fyodor
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 179

Posted 12/29/2002 9:40 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
Mahatma Ghandi Was A Very Bad Man!

Perhaps, but inspired many great things...
The writings of Ghandi have indeed inspired MLK Jr.

In STRENGTH TO LOVE, MLK Jr. talks about his "Pilgrimmage to Non-Violence." He was in his own words on a "serious intellectual quest for a method that would eliminate social evil"

Certainly an extremely burdensome undertaking, yet his quest arrived lastly at Ghandi's concept of satyagraha. Satyagraha became the intellectual foundation on which MLK Jr. organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. (Strength to Love)

In his own words, "Christ furnished the spirit and motivation and Ghandi furnished the method."

Neither Ghandi nor MLK Jr. are all-encompassing role models however, both served future generations by organizing and testing methods of non-violent resistance for social change. Perhaps the best lesson to be learned from either is not who they were, but how they were in the face of corporate resistence. Just a suggestion. Both of them had a severe character flaws especially within their marriages. But, then again, haven't we all been swooned by sin.

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 12/30/2002 1:43 AM (GMT -6)

I can't comment on the posts about Ghandi's failings. Its a historical question about which I have neither the time or the inclination to dig deeper.

But I'd just say, IF Ghandi was indeed "a very bad man," he accomplished what no other "very bad man" ever accomplished: he not only liberated India, but managed to inspired some of the greatest minds and souls in our time. He must have been a very bad man with a powerful annointing.

And in the light of the annointing

I guess I'm not much interested in how bad he was.

Doc

"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6

Electra
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Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611

Posted 12/30/2002 10:25 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Sorry Electra, no peace prize.

http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/index.html

I don't know about any of that other stuff ya'll mentioned.

Payaso

Thanks for checking—I wasn’t sure about that one!

SeanG!, as for the papers you posted, I think that it is always important to know the strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, of people who have had great influence in history. Ghandi is an inspiring person to me (that I wish I knew more about) because of his great influence for good inspite of whatever weaknesses he had. Electra

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Matt. 10:8

Mephi2K
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713

Posted 12/30/2002 2:57 PM (GMT -6)

Samson was frequented prostitutes.
David was a liar, murderer, and adulterers.
Dr. Martin Luther King was a plagiarist of sorts and participated in an extra-marital affair.

So, I suppose, if what is being claimed is true, we can add Ghandi to the list of fallible, yet overidealized human beings.

It would seem that people that have spectacular impacts can be pretty cruddy in other areas. Hmm... I guess that just means that we shouldn't idolize ANYONE, but take their actions as EXAMPLES, in certain respects.

What else is new?

CalvinnHobbes
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 88

Posted 1/19/2003 8:28 AM (GMT -6)

If the Christians would live their lives according to the teachings of Jesus Christ, there would be no more Hindus left in India. ~Gandhi

"The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know." ~President John Adams

honorman
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137

Posted 1/19/2003 4:26 PM (GMT -6)

Christians not living the life is no excuse for rejecting the gospel. Also, as great Gandhi may or may not have been he was not a Christian.

Edited by - honorman on 01/19/2003 9:27:57 PM

CalvinnHobbes
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 88

Posted 1/19/2003 7:15 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
If the Christians would live their lives according to the teachings of Jesus Christ, there would be no more Hindus left in India. ~Gandhi

quote:
Christians not living the life is no excuse for rejecting the gospel

If I'm not mistaken, I believe Gandhi's intention here, in context, involved more of a commendation of the person of Christ and the power of his ethical teachings rather than a criticism of his inconsistent followers and excuse for rejecting them.

"The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know." ~President John Adams

the_tiller_man
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Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1

Posted 2/18/2003 7:17 PM (GMT -6)

I have read that Phd article on the "real" Mahatma Ghandhi and his efforts in South Africa. Can I just say that he was after all human, and subject to the same prejudices and fears we all are subject to. Besides, that article focuses on his views in his youth to his early thirties. It by no means allows for the fact that he could develop as a person, both intellectually and spiritually, and that the Ghandhi that the world knew from his role in India, was a different Ghandhi to the one who lived in South Africa.

Of course Ghandhi is not comparable to Jesus Christ but he did display Christ like qualities in older age. And unfortunately, Christianity was very much tied up with European politics and power because it was essentially the "white man's" or "the conquorer's" religion in that period of history - and as well all know, the Europeans had an attitude of superiority to all other races.

SeanG
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278

Posted 2/19/2003 4:21 AM (GMT -6)

There were rumors that he was on the verge of becoming a Christian… because he knew his particular worldview, or philosophy of life gave no answer to life’s problems. In fact, a Hindu who believes in the “Cosmic” wheel and reincarnation, are the ones who turn their head to the impoverished, the maimed, hungry, and un-educated. Why? Because they are suffering in this lifetime for a past. This is why it takes many “Mother Teresa’s” to go into countries such as India, and adopt them in Christian love and edict. In fact, Buddhism has been losing so many of its followers in some countries that they started a different type of Buddhism that is structured after the gospel. I think it is called “the pure way.” any way, if one believes truly in reincarnation, then one cannot posit that a child being raped is morally wrong, or that the Christian church had committed evil acts, and the like. While Biblical characters were all fallible sinners, and in some cases, down right murderers, their religio-philosophy had a means and way to deal with the problem. Not merely positing that all reality (and hence morally evil acts) is an illusion (maya).

I can only wonder if Ghandi ever did quietly give his life over to his creator… hell, Jean-Paul Satre did in his dying days. Amen!?

SeanG!

"Evolution is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links not seen."

“The problem with creation is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult, and left untried.”

Edited by - SeanG on 02/19/2003 09:22:12 AM

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