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Mahatma Gandhi Racist
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Pretorian
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Posts: 170 		  Quote Fula Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Mahatma Gandhi Racist
    Posted: 18-Jan-2012 at 10:57

GANDHI ON BLACKS AND RACE RELATIONS (Zulus and Kaffirs were African tribes in South Africa) Kaffirs is a racist term equal to the "N" word

  • “A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.” (Reference: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of India (CWMG), Vol I, p. 150)
  • Regarding forcible registration with the state of blacks: “One can understand the necessity for registration of Kaffirs who will not work.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, p. 105)
  • “Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian Location should be chosen for dumping down all the Kaffirs of the town passes my comprehension…the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, pp. 244-245)
  • His description of black inmates: “Only a degree removed from the animal.” Also, “Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.” - Mar. 7, 1908 (Reference: CWMG, Vol VIII, pp. 135-136)
  • 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

http://www.zimbio.com/Ghandi+quotes/articles/23/ML+King+know+Gandhi+racism
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Posts: 6084 		  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jan-2012 at 11:32
This is a very difficult subject, fula, and can look as if he was racist in the way suggested. However it could equally be seen as someone trying to differentiate Indians from those being treated badly already. I have heard this kind of thing happened in Uganda too. I think I would have to gain further information on this to get a fuller picture of what was really going on. 
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Posts: 869 		  Quote Baal Melqart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jan-2012 at 13:32
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

This is a very difficult subject, fula, and can look as if he was racist in the way suggested. However it could equally be seen as someone trying to differentiate Indians from those being treated badly already. I have heard this kind of thing happened in Uganda too. I think I would have to gain further information on this to get a fuller picture of what was really going on. 


That may be for you but the research I did on his writings have convinced me of his true colours, a deceiver of the highest magnitude! He is a racist, Indian-supremacist who clearly viewed his race as far superior to the inferior 'animal-like' kaffirs and his entire life was later dedicated to bringing peace, freedom and independence to his own people. This in light of his conceptions does not make him a good person in my book, but simply one who sought good for his own and cared little for the rest. I know you can argue to the opposite but I think that people are generally fooled because of the famous picture we have of him.
Timidi mater non flet
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Posts: 6084 		  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jan-2012 at 13:44
Originally posted by Baal Melqart

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

This is a very difficult subject, fula, and can look as if he was racist in the way suggested. However it could equally be seen as someone trying to differentiate Indians from those being treated badly already. I have heard this kind of thing happened in Uganda too. I think I would have to gain further information on this to get a fuller picture of what was really going on. 


That may be for you but the research I did on his writings have convinced me of his true colours, a deceiver of the highest magnitude! He is a racist, Indian-supremacist who clearly viewed his race as far superior to the inferior 'animal-like' kaffirs and his entire life was later dedicated to bringing peace, freedom and independence to his own people. This in light of his conceptions does not make him a good person in my book, but simply one who sought good for his own and cared little for the rest. I know you can argue to the opposite but I think that people are generally fooled because of the famous picture we have of him.
You might be right, Baal Melqart, I haven't the extent of knowledge to confirm or deny what you've said. I look forward to more information to be process on this thread, and hopefully some of it by your good self. I wonder if the question differs depending on the stage of his life?
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Posts: 170 		  Quote Fula Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jan-2012 at 15:16

^^I only recently found this out...many people are not aware of his comments and true intentions. Like Baal Meqart stated he was only interested in his own kind which is truly hypocritical. He truly believed in the cast system. More info on the way
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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jan-2012 at 19:25
I've known about Gandhi's darker side for some time. He may have worn peasants' diapers to serve his political ends, but he remained prejudiced towards the lower orders: a product of both his traditional upbringing and colonial-era British education
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Posts: 170 		  Quote Fula Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jan-2012 at 07:08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRV8PYDIa8I
a little more info

Edited by Fula - 19-Jan-2012 at 07:09
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Posts: 6084 		  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jan-2012 at 15:28
Originally posted by Fula

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRV8PYDIa8I
a little more info
I'm really shocked, fula.Shift+R improves the quality of this image. Shift+A improves the quality of all images on this page.
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Posts: 170 		  Quote Fula Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jan-2012 at 06:48
^^Tell me about it Unhappy...I highly doubt Martin Luther King Jr was aware of this darker side as he claimed influence from him.
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Posts: 6084 		  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jan-2012 at 07:06
Originally posted by Fula

^^Tell me about it Unhappy...I highly doubt Martin Luther King Jr was aware of this darker side as he claimed influence from him.
It really is sad, and yes I doubt Martin Luther King Jr was aware of this darker side.
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Posts: 107 		  Quote oxydracae Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Mar-2012 at 08:57
Gandhi was supporter of British Empire, that is why he was supporting apartheid in South Africa. and sleeping naked with young girls is part of Tantric Yoga.
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Posts: 869 		  Quote Baal Melqart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Mar-2012 at 11:28
Here is a link to an archive of all of Ghandi's writings:

http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/cwmg.html



enjoy Wink

A few excerpts:

Even the
children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the
Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir1.

37. So far as the feeling has been expressed, it is to degrade the
Indian to the position of the Kaffir

The British rulers take us to
be so lowly and ignorant that they assume that, like the Kaffirs2 who
can be pleased with toys and pins, we can also be fobbed off with
trinkets.

Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised—the convicts
even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like
animals. Each ward contains nearly 50 to 60 of them. They often
started rows and fought among themselves. The reader can easily
imagine the plight of the poor Indian thrown into such company!

The most important reason why we
should not assume that it is because of our frail physique that we are thought weak is that the Kaffirs are thought weak by the whites despite
their superior physical strength. They are intellectually backward.
They are unlettered and have no arts.
Timidi mater non flet
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Posts: 107 		  Quote oxydracae Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Mar-2012 at 09:50
Few quotes by Gandhi, I think he was diggerent person when he was in South Africa.
 
"In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh as truth, as I want others also to be. Measuring myself by that standard I must exclaim with Surdas: ' Where is there a wretch So wicked and loathsome as I? I have forsaken my Maker, So faithless have I been.' For it is an unbroken torture to me that I am still so far from him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am. I know that it is the evil passions within that keep me so far from Him, and yet I cannot get away from them."
 
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
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Posts: 4734 		  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Mar-2012 at 17:32
I have to admit that I didn't know this side on Gandhi; it doesn't really surprise me though, as people do as they would do, doing and thinking of their fellow brother human being what they don't want to be done to them, history is nothing is not a pile of proof of that. People who rave against those who oppressed them when to oppress others; those who were genocided, went to genocide others; those who were abused to go abuse others, etc - the earth would be a paradise if people didn't do that on the regular basis they do Humans are just humans - and no one deserve to be idolized because everyone has his/her flaws in thinking and acting.
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I've believed in people only to be let down badly. It is always a painful experience. Life has shown me that these things happen.
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Posts: 86 		  Quote Jinit Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Mar-2013 at 06:48
I think it is better to understand the historical context in which those statements were written before judging the character of Gandhi from those staements.
 
 
First of all the word Kaffir wasn't used as racial slur in those days. It is only during apartheid era that the word got the negative attachment.

The word was used officially in this way, without derogatory connotations, during the Dutch and British colonial periods until the early twentieth century. It appears in many historical accounts by anthropologists, missionaries and other observers, as well as in academic writings. For example, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford originally labeled many African artifacts as "Kaffir" in origin. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica made frequent use of the term, to the extent of having an article of that title.

Occasionally, the word was used to refer specifically to the Xhosa people, as in such inoffensive linguistic works as interpreter Bud' Mbelle's 'Kafir Scholar's Companion', Kropf's 'Kaffir-English Dictionary', J. Torrend's 'Outline of Xosa-Kafir Grammar', and J. McLaren's 'Introductory Kaffir Grammar', where a distinction was made between the 'Kaffir' Xhosa and the other Bantu tribes of Southern Africa; Bud' Mbelle was himself a member of the Mfengu tribe, closely related to the Xhosa and Zulu people. More recent editions of both of these works have had their names sanitised by current standards, and the word 'Kaffir' has been replaced by the word 'Xhosa' wherever deemed necessary, especially in the case of the 'Revised Kaffir Bible' - a translation of the Bible into the Xhosa language. British Kaffraria was a colony in the Eastern Cape.
 
------- 
 
Second, Gandhi was from the elite class of the Indians who were very much pampored by every one (both Indians and British) in India at that time as they were the people who were running the India on behalf of british. And they used to think just like the british. They were the Indians by birth however by attitude and thinking they were very much British in nature (popularly known as macaulay's children). And hence he saw nothing wrong in superior british ruling the other class of the people. which is reflected very well in his early writings. However he didn't receive the same treatment in south Africa and he also realized the true nature of the empire after he himself became the victim of the racist and discriminatory policies in South Africa. and hence he changed his ideology and thinking. He didn't saw british superior to anyother race any more. And as result he was also the first one to ask for the complete independance at the time when other Indian leaders were asking for the dominion status. And this is also reflected very well in his writings.
 
-----
 
Few excerpts from Gandhi's autobiagraphy - "The story of my experiments with truth" reflects  this change in his thoughts and ideology over time
 
This  first one is from his accounts on the boer wars.

I must skip many other experiences of the period between 1897 and 1899 and come straight to the Boer War. When the war was declared, my personal sympathies were all with the Boers, but I believed then that I had yet no right, in such cases, to enforce my individual convictions. I have minutely dealt with the inner struggle regarding this in my history of the Satyagraha in South Africa, and I must not repeat the argument here. I invite the curious to turn to those pages. Suffice it to say that my loyalty to the British rule drove me to participation with the British in that war. I felt that, if I demanded rights as a British citizen, it was also my duty, as such, to participate in the defence of the British Empire. I held then that India could achieve her complete emancipation only within and through the British Empire.


The second one is regarding the Zulu rebellion which took place in 1906. The change in his thoughts can be seen.

Just when I felt that I should be breathing in peace, an unexpected event happened. The papers brought the news of the out break of the Zulu 'rebellion' in Natal. 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 rightness or otherwise of the 'rebellion' was therefore not likely to affect my decision. Natal had a Volunteer Defence Force, and it was open to it to recruit more men. I read that this force had already been mobilized to quell the 'rebellion'. I considered myself a citizen of Natal, being intimately connected with it.
.....

On reaching the scene of the 'rebellion', I saw that there was nothing there to justify the name of 'rebellion'. There was no resistance that one could see. The reason why the disturbance had been magnified into a rebellion was that a Zulu chief had advised non-payment of a new tax imposed on his people, and had assagaied a sergeant who had gone to collect the tax. At any rate my heart was with the Zulus, and I was delighted, on reaching headquarters, to hear that our main work was to be the nursing of the wounded Zulus. The Medical Officer in charge welcomed us. He said the white people were not willing nurses for the wounded Zulus, that their wounds were festering, and that he was at his wits' end. He hailed our arrival as a godsend for those innocent people, and he equipped us with bandages, disinfectants, etc., and took us to the improvised hospital. The Zulus were delighted to see us. The white soldiers used to peep through the railing that separated us from them and tried to dissuade us from attending to the wounds. And as we would not heed them, they became enraged and poured unspeakable abuse on the Zulus.

-------

The another accusation is that in S. Africa he faught only for the Indians and not for the Africans. It wasn't because of racism. He had his own ideas about it which may be right or wrong but it was certainly not because of racism.

Gandhiji foresaw already, according to his first biographer, the Reverend J. J. Doke, thecoming confrontation between the African people and the whites. He said:

"When the moment of collision comes, if, instead of the old ways of massacre,
assegai and fire, the Natives adopt the policy of Passive Resistance, it will be a grand change for the Colony ..."
After his return to India in 1914, when Gandhiji devoted much of his time to mobilise Indian public opinion in support of the Indians in South Africa, he repeatedly stressed that the Indians should maintain amicable relations with the Africans and should not press any claims if they conflicted with the interests of the African majority, they should not be pressed. That message was also carried to South Africa by his associates, theReverend C. F. Andrews and Mrs. Sarojini Naidu.
In 1928, commenting on a report that some Indians in South Africa favoured separation from Africans in education, Gandhiji wrote in Young India on April 5, 1928:

"Indians have too much in common with the Africans to think of isolating themselves from them. They cannot exist in South Africa for any length of time without the active sympathy and friendship of the Africans. I am not aware of the general body of the Indians having ever adopted an air of superiority towards their African brethren, and it would be a tragedy if any such movement were to gain ground among the Indian settlers of South Africa."

Gandhiji was cautious in responding to suggestions by militant Indian leaders in the 1930s for a united struggle by African, Coloured and Indian people. He did not receive timely information when a Non-European United Front was formed in Cape Town in 1939, and came under criticism for expressing reservations about an Indo-African united front. But his reasoning was significant.

He told the Reverend S. S. Tema, a member of the African National Congress, in aninterview on January 1, 1939:

"The Indians are a microscopic minority. They can never be a menace to the
white population. You, on the other hand, are the sons of the soil who are being
robbed of your inheritance. You are bound to resist that. Yours is a far bigger
issue. It ought not to be mixed up with that of the Indian. This does not preclude
the establishment of the friendliest relations between the two races."

As sentiment for unity grew among the Africans and Indians, Gandhiji revised his views. He showed no hesitation in supporting Dr. Yusuf M. Dadoo, a leader of NEUF, in his efforts to build unity of Indians and Africans in resistance to unjust laws, warning only that the movement should remain strictly non-violent.
 
 
------ 
 
So Gandhi was racist in his young days but not at the time when he became a mass leader!!!
 
Also most of the internet sources uses "collected work of Mahatma Gandhi" as their source to show Gandhi as racist. The Collected works of MAhatma Gandhi is a very huge source with 100 volumes. and most of the quotes that portray him as racist are taken from the first 2 or 3 volumes which deals with his earlier days in S. Africa. while totally neglecting the later volumes which in my opinion is misinterpretation and manipulation.
 

 


Edited by Jinit - 28-Mar-2013 at 08:40
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