Every coin has two sides: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

September 24, 2022

India is marking the 153rd birthday of Mohandas Gandhi, the man known as the father of the nation, and across the country, there are exhibits, commemorations, marches, prisoner releases, etc.

But the celebrations this week mask a deeper unease. A century and a half after the birth of the revered leader of India’s independence struggle, Gandhi and his legacy are getting an update — and much of it is not positive.

Gandhi Is Deeply Revered, But His Attitudes On Race And Sex Are Under Scrutiny

Even as admiration for Gandhi remains widespread, aspects of his life and philosophy are increasingly a source of controversy. Scholars have highlighted the racist language he used as a young man living in South Africa as well as his defense of India’s caste system.

Gandhi is often given the title “Mahatma,” or “great soul,” and many in India refer to him simply as “Bapu,” a word for father. He inspired leaders such as Nelson Mandela and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote that Gandhi served as a “continual reminder” that “it is possible to resist evil and yet not resort to violence.” But in his long life in the public eye — his collected works comprise nearly 100 volumes — Gandhi delved not only into politics but also economics, religion, sexuality, sanitation, and even diet.

One recent critique centers on Gandhi’s two decades in South Africa as a younger man. During that time, he repeatedly referred to black South Africans using a racial slur and described them as inferior to Indians, views that prompted a university in Ghana to remove a statue of Gandhi in the year 2019.

This might sound quite severe but it is righteous enough when you know some of the racist things Gandhi wrote back when he was in Africa.

For instance, he once wrote that white folks, despite their flaws, should be “the predominating race” in South Africa.

You see, the young Gandhi as you know went over to England to get himself an education. It seems it was his dealing with the ruling British that convinced him that the Europeans were just more civilized than black people in Africa.

He also wrote in a letter summing up the beliefs of the British that the “general belief seems to prevail in the Colony that the Indians are a little better, if at all, than savages or the Natives of Africa.”

In 1904, he wrote another letter stating that he was upset about these people (Africans) living among Indians, saying,
“About the mixing of the Kaffirs(a derogatory term used for Africans) with the Indians, I must confess I feel most strongly.” He wrote that as long as blacks were mixing with Indians then diseases such as the plague would further spread.

Many people even accuse him of being a hypocrite, stating that he didn’t believe in the rights of Africans at all while also working with the British government in segregating whites from blacks.

A stunning example of this is when Gandhi petitioned the colonial government in South Africa to ensure that Indian people didn’t have to share the same queue as black people when they went to the post office in Durban. He didn’t think it was fair that Indians couldn’t queue with the whites.

Some people now try to cover for Gandhi saying he was just a product of his times, although one would think a person of high intelligence would still have known right from wrong even if they didn’t always fight for what was right.

Gandhi believed in the Aryan brotherhood. This involved whites and Indians higher up than Africans on the civilized scale to that extent he was a racist. To the extent that he wrote Africans out of history or was keen to join with the whites in their subjugation, he was a racist.

Experiments with celibacy, comments on rape: Gandhi’s controversies

His experiments with celibacy

In the year 1946, Gandhiji asked his 19-year-old great-niece Manu to sleep in his bed to test his sexual desire and vows of celibacy. He was in his 70s then.

At the time, many did express disapproval over this behavior. His stenographer R. P. Parasuram, left his ashram when Gandhi refused to stop these “experiments.”

To quote his biographer, historian Ramchandra Guha and author of the two-volume biography Gandhi Before India and Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948 from an interview on NPR.org, “Gandhi was also obsessed with his own sexuality and celibacy, which is hugely problematic. He was doing these experiments to test his celibacy. He wanted to make sure he was not a sexual predator. Those experiments cannot be defended. They were an imposition on young people and an exercise in power because he is the great Mahatma and she’s just a young follower.”

His views on women and contraception

The renowned birth control activist Margaret Sanger visited Mahatma Gandhi in 1935, as part of her tour of India. In their conversation, Gandhi told Sanger that sex should only be part of procreation and that women should resist their husbands. Sanger told Gandhi that women had as strong feelings about “physical union” as men did and contraception helped in avoiding unwanted pregnancies. Gandhi disagreed, and stated all sex was lust, and though he had fathered four children with his wife Kasturba, he had now become celibate and spiritual after taking a vow of celibacy at the age of 38

Earlier in 1934, when asked whether contraceptives were the best option after self-control, he replied, “Do you think that the freedom of the body is obtained by resorting to contraceptives? Women should learn to resist their husbands. If contraceptives were resorted to as in the West, frightful results will follow. Men and women will be living for sex alone. They will become soft-brained, unhinged mental and moral wrecks.”

Gandhi also held strong views on women and rape. He wrote, “I have always held that it is physically impossible to violate a woman against her will. The outrage takes place only when she gives way to fear or does not realize her moral strength. If she cannot meet the assailant’s physical might, her purity will give her the strength to die before he succeeds in violating her… It is my firm conviction that a fearless woman, who knows that her purity is her best shield can never be dishonored. However beastly the man, he will bow in shame before the flame of her dazzling purity.”

And yet we respect him and address him by titles like “Mahatma Gandhi”.I admit that Gandhi did bring a lot of positive aspects into Indian society and immensely contributed to the Indian freedom struggle, but we must also be aware of these other acts that we always turn a blind eye to.

There are many more reasons beyond this but I will be writing that in the coming blogs, so please do stay tuned for that.

- Shachi.Shriram.Kerur

References from: 1. shethepeopletv.com

2. The Infographics Show

3.npr.org

4.washingtonpost.com