Why this adulation for Ghandi, this fraud?

[Brenus]

A question: Am I the only one irritated when people put Ghandi as a political model, a racist, deeply Hindu so believing in the natural inequality and supporter of the Caste system, paedophile and incestuous, the man who always supported the strongest and the richest? The man who told the Jews to obey to Hitler? His politic was a complete and total failure, but he got credit for the Independence (allegedly peaceful, of you don’t count the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives during the process) against a Power that was ready to give it if you were not Communist (and Ghandi was far of it).

[HoreTore]

You're kidding, right?

He's adored because of his immense contribution to, you might say foundation of, the theory of non-violent resistance.


It's no different from people admiring Henry Ford for his contribution to industrialization even though he was a rabid anti-semite and the US publisher of the protocols.

[Slyspy]

Is it because he decided that the path to independence needn't be covered in blood?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I'll give you racist, but the rest is a joke.

[Major Robert Dump]

I thought Ben Kingsley did a fabulous job and doubt that just a mere movie could cause all the effects listed in the OP.

[Greyblades]

I knew ghandi. He was a prick.

[rajpoot]

Gandhi was deeply flawed and can be criticised due to a wide variety of reasons, but the ones you mention are not even close.

deeply Hindu so believing in the natural inequality and supporter of the Caste system

Let's begin with this. Gandhi coined the term Harijan (translates to God's people). He used it to refer to the lowest of the Indian castes who were shunned by everyone else. He was vehemently against untouchability and the persecution of lower castes. So this, is pretty much entirely wrong.

paedophile and incestuous

Source?
What is known is (through his autobiography no less) that he was married off as a kid, as was prevalent in those times. And he was already doing stuff with his wife before either of them were 18.

the man who always supported the strongest and the richest?

I don't know what you mean by the strongest and the richest. Specific examples would be welcome.
People here, specially Hindus, criticise him because he was too supportive of Muslims, and at some level was partly responsible for sowing the seeds that lead to the partition of India.

All that said, I do agree giving Gandhi full credit for independence is unfair. While he played a considerable role, but other factors and other people, contributed just as much.

[Brenus]

I have to go so not so much time:
But:
Peaceful and non-violent: 9 millions Refugees from India going to Pakistan. 5 millions from Pakistan to India. Eatimated death tolls: 500,000. Is it a very succesfull policy or a complete failure? Followed by wars, one still active.
Ghandi: Bath by his nieces.
Ghandi: Fight temptation having virgins in his bed.

That is: "Perform sexual activities with under aged girl 33-15 without penetration" in the modern Crown Court Language, crime classified 3.

Have to go, will be back for the rest of the myth.

[Fragony]

Down with us-syndrome

[Sarmatian]

I have to go so not so much time:
But:
Peaceful and non-violent: 9 millions Refugees from India going to Pakistan. 5 millions from Pakistan to India. Eatimated death tolls: 500,000. Is it a very succesfull policy or a complete failure? Followed by wars, one still active.

Well, considering we're talking about a region as ethnically and culturally diverse as Europe almost, with huge differences in education, quality of life, full of religious strife, where 600-700 millions live...

Not that bad...

Ghandi: Bath by his nieces.
Ghandi: Fight temptation having virgins in his bed.

That is: "Perform sexual activities with under aged girl 33-15 without penetration" in the modern Crown Court Language, crime classified 3.

Have to go, will be back for the rest of the myth.

Considering the rest, I don't believe actually sleeping beside another person is considered a sexual activity. Bathing can be, in theory, but we have to consider the context. Old people being bathed by nurses in homes sexual? Or people in hospitals?

[rajpoot]

Even though I think non-violence is over-rated, myself. Its basically just asking to be assassinated, if history is any indication.

True dat.

[TinCow]

This thread reminds me of something I ran across while writing my undergrad thesis.

“Mr. Ghandi and Herr Hitler were two hardly distinguishable specimens of the same species of foreigner… both of them superlatively exotic, and the average member of a British Cabinet may have reasoned in November 1937 that the guileless tamer of Ghandi [Lord Halifax] had at any rate ‘a sporting change’ of taming Hitler likewise. Were not both these political ‘mad-mullahs’, non-smokers, non-drinkers of alcohol, non-eaters of meat, non-riders on horseback, and non-practicers of blood-sports in their cranky private lives?” (Arnold Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 1937, vol. I, p. 338)

[PanzerJaeger]

Just like with MLK in the US, unsuccessful groups often seek a hero. When a genuine one does not present him/herself, any scumbag with a bit of political skill often suffices.

[Strike For The South]

Just like with MLK in the US, unsuccessful groups often seek a hero. When a genuine one does not present him/herself, any scumbag with a bit of political skill often suffices.

I love you

[Sarmatian]

Even though I think non-violence is over-rated, myself. Its basically just asking to be assassinated, if history is any indication.

Really? As a soldier, would you be able to shoot an unarmed person?

[HoreTore]

Really? As a soldier, would you be able to shoot an unarmed person?

I think he's referring to how all the figureheads associated with non-violent protest have "assassinated" listed as their cause of death(MLK, Ghandi, etc).

[Rhyfelwyr]

Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela - all deeply flawed and even reprehensible characters who gained a misplaced 'hero' status because of the fact that they happened to oppose some sort of 'Imperialist' order.

I don't know how much truth there is in many of the particular accusations surrounding Ghandi. But sleeping naked with young women screams abuse of power to me, whatever he claims to have been doing.

[Greyblades]

When I think of Ghandi I cannot help but say; meh.

Okay more like I have a level of ambivalence that is generally a stalemate between "great that he managed to start a precident of great change without bloodshed" and "did he really have to campaign for independence, what's wrong with emancipation and equality in a joined India and Britain?"

[Empire*Of*Media]

A question: Am I the only one irritated when people put Ghandi as a political model, a racist, deeply Hindu so believing in the natural inequality and supporter of the Caste system, paedophile and incestuous, the man who always supported the strongest and the richest? The man who told the Jews to obey to Hitler? His politic was a complete and total failure, but he got credit for the Independence (allegedly peaceful, of you don’t count the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives during the process) against a Power that was ready to give it if you were not Communist (and Ghandi was far of it).

I hate Ghandi. I always try to wipe him off the map as soon as I can. Cant let him get nukes or he goes all trigger-happy. Better to put him down early than deal with a nuclear India later on.

hahaha !!!! these Loyalist British and Americans just love to Colonize and plunder !! and When Great Gandhi wiped them in their 300 years of colonization of India with just peaceful words, not even rebellion, they are just on too much heat of wrath and anger!!!!
WHO are you to Insult and tell some lies of others and yours from hatred to Gandhi That Shaked the World and puted a cruel Imperialist Empire to its Knees?!! have you seen him personally?!! what have YOU done for the world?! WHICH GREAT PERSON DID YOU HAVE IN YOUR USA & BRITAIN & EUROPE?!!! Calling Gandhi Racist !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh my god !! what should i say to you Imperialists & RACISTS & IGNORANTS & HATERS !!!! it was your USA & BRITAIN that tortured non whites and then non Europeans with their Racism & Segregation Idealogies and supportions and depleted the poor countries resources of the world !! it was your Colonist Imperialist Governments (USA & BRITAIN & FRANCE&....) that raped women and sold them to slavery!!

and the Sex Matter??!! oh dont want me to bring a large scroll of Peviations and Perversions even sex scandals of your abhorrent peoples in your Imperialist governments & Military, because this thread will be completely full !!!!

Oh my god what a disgusting thread !!!!! what a Disgusting World !!!!!

[Ronin]

A question: Am I the only one irritated when people put Ghandi as a political model, a racist, deeply Hindu so believing in the natural inequality and supporter of the Caste system, paedophile and incestuous, the man who always supported the strongest and the richest? The man who told the Jews to obey to Hitler? His politic was a complete and total failure, but he got credit for the Independence (allegedly peaceful, of you don’t count the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives during the process) against a Power that was ready to give it if you were not Communist (and Ghandi was far of it).

Same thing as Mother Teresa, a very good PR campaign.
you push the good angle, and the bad stuff stays hidden or is even just actively ignored by the majority.

[Brenus]

Writing in red making it more what? Real?

First who told you I was a soldier? Second, you accused me to be a liar, it is a pure insult.

I was 32, not THAT old… I will pass on your accusation of being lazy or unemployed, even if the two are not related as the Conservative Media try to let us believe.

I know it is hard for you, but you have to deal with the reality, and not with phantasms.

So, Nehru (the man who brought independence to India) was an imperialist lackey, when he said that Ghandi sexuality was “abnormal and unnatural”

You answer to the facts that are presented for debate by shouts, insults and denegation. Bring facts against what I say. Did Ghandi slept with nubile young underage girls: yes.
Did he sleep with his grand-niece (polite way to say having sex): yes.
These facts are not denied by his followers/admirations, they are minimized. I don’t.
There are enough pictures of him and the 2 young girls to sustain this.

Come with proofs contradicting that my sources. By the way, I have 3 sources: Indian, English (in favour of Ghandi) and Socialist movement. Yes, I am a lefty. Sorry. The reference to Orwell should have given you a hint, and everybody knows that Orwell was a horrible Imperialist…

About supporting imperialism and so, I prefer to laugh. This kind of vocabulary was employed in the past, by the like of the Gestapo or GEPEOU. You don’t know me, don’t know my history, and the little I gave you, you even don’t understand it.

By the way, Ghandi was never tortured by the English, Some more dangerous opponents were, not him. Well, each time a social movement could endangered the English Empire, he pulled the strike off (1919, 1922, 1930 etc)…

Ghandi didn’t push the English out. The English left because they wanted to do so. It was better to leave the countries to self-exploit and it save money. They will finance the police and the army that will kill the strikers. Do you notice that no country break ties with the former Colonial Power? Even Algeria, having gained its independence after a long and bloody war against France, exported his youth to go to work in the French Factories…

Ghandi was there just to deliver the intact factories to his Indian Landlords and factories owners Friends.

You, my friend, are the toy and the puppet of the Imperialists, not me.