Gandhi---Hero Or Otherwise?

For reasons I can only guess at so many persons are pushing the teachings of that full-of-self, family abusing, opponent of human progress and attorney "Mahatma" Gandhi as an golden example of humane humaness.It might be well to take a really close look at Gandhi and the British he so opposed as to what they have left to India and the world.

We might also look at the fruits of his behaviors and thoughts in the smaller world of his family.


1. Gandhi, India, The British & Inheritances
The British found the very disorganized sub-continent of India, misruled by petty and great tyrants, with poor roads made very unsafe by thugee (Worshipers of the goddess Kali, which devotees murdered in her name---And enriched themselves by robbing those victims), unequal treatment of the People under too many non-systems of law and the will of self-serving Maharajahs and other princes, suttee (All but mandatory suicide of widows), religious discrimination and wars-and-terrorism based on Faith differences the lack of any common language or good communications AND too many other evils and limiting factors to list here.

The British imposed order, law and some measure of justice. All, including the various tyrants, were brought under a more-or-less equal rule-of-law; Thugee and suttee were suppressed; The prior and many wars between princes were stopped and banditry across the North-West frontier was resisted; Roads were repaired and made straight and a model railroad system installed; The land was mapped, telegraph service (The first "Internet") was established; Trade was facilitated and some industries established (The basis of today's "Indian Economic Miracle"); English, now THE international language, was introduced and widely spread throughout that sub-Continent; Some measures towards the limiting of evils of the caste system were begun (And are still a "work-in-progress); The peaceful worship of God and gods was protected; And, other positive steps, too many to list here, were taken towards civilization.

What then was Gandhi's thrust and gifts to us---Directly or indirectly? A return towards primitivism, Hindi as an imposed and not neutral language; Resistance to law and order; Three "Indias" rather than one as accomplished by a genocidal division; Return to inter-Religious warfare and terrorism (Including the recent Hindu assaults on Christians as added to the jihad supporters violence towards everyone who disagrees with them); Uncontrolled and barely resisted banditry across the NW frontier; Military dictatorship in Pakistan as the only rational alternative to chaos or the misrule of Mullahs; AND, too many other evils and anti-civilization acts and results to list here.

"By their fruits you will know them".

2. About the family of famous Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi, history of his sons.

MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI

(1869-1948), Indian political leader

His Fruits: "You want my sons to be holy men before they are men!" Gandhi's wife once exclaimed. It was true. "A blot which I have never been able to efface," wrote Gandhi, was his own absence when his father breathed his last. At that moment, Mohandas was in bed with Kasturbai, his pregnant child-wife; he never forgave himself. He abandoned sexual relations at age 37 and evidently saw his four sons as living reminders of his own sexual "curse." All of them, according to one account, "tried to live up to their father's expectations of them, but each, in his own way, failed, and in Gandhi's attitude toward their failure there was, by his own testimony, an element of guilt for sexual excesses in his childhood marriage." His sons resented their upbringing as disciples. They were not, for example, allowed the formal education which Mohandas himself had received and which would have provided them with their own choice of livelihood.

Harilal Gandhi (1888-1948) rebelled most strongly. He renounced all family ties in 1911 and embarked upon a tragic, lifelong path of self-destruction. He became a Muslim convert, an alcoholic, an embezzler; accounts of his arrests, public drunkenness, and destitution became commonplace. "I was a slave of my passions when Harilal was conceived," said Mohandas. Harilal appeared at his father's funeral in such derelict condition that few recognized him. He died in a tuberculosis sanitarium two months later.

Manilal Gandhi (1892-1956) was in disgrace in 1916 after he lent his elder brother some money. Mohandas sent him to South Africa, where he edited an Indian newspaper. Later he spent a brief period in India, bitterly astonished at the Mahatma's genial, old-age mellowness.

Ramdas Gandhi (1898-1969) had no taste for asceticism, yet participated in the grueling civil protests of the 1930s. Numerous jailings wrecked his health. Born and raised in South Africa, he never adjusted to the idealistic poverty imposed by his father.

Mohandas acted as midwife at the delivery of his youngest son, Devadas Gandhi (1900-1957).

Alone of all the sons, Devadas stayed near his father, sometimes being granted the privilege of serving as his secretary.

In 1976 Gandhi's direct descendants numbered 47 in five nations. According to Ved Mehta, author of Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles, they "do everything from selling life insurance to working in space engineering; one is a Moral Re-Armament evangelist." Deposed Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi is no relation.


"By their fruits you will know them."