
Gandhi for the Post-Truth Age - lermontov
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/gandhi-for-the-post-truth-age
======
ex3xu
I am reminded of restorative justice advocate Bryan Stevenson's quote from his
memoir describing his life's work of defending death row inmates: "Each of us
is more than the worst thing we've ever done." Certainly this might apply to
someone who is credited with world-changing outcomes like Mohandas Gandhi?

To me, the fact that these kinds of questions about Gandhi's legacy is even a
conversation being held in public discourse -- this says little about Gandhi,
and a lot about our collective inability to handle the cognitive dissonance of
good people making mistakes or having dark sides. More relevant to this
conversation than an appraisal of Gandhi is James Gunn getting kicked off of
his movie, or any of the other random people who get fired or lives ruined for
some random crap they posted on Twitter. When can we start collectively
adopting some understanding of restorative principles and put the days of
outrage culture behind us?

Sure, Gandhi had real flaws -- MLK as well with his womanizing, Churchill with
his drinking and many other men and women with great accomplishments in their
lifetime. Nassir Ghaemi wrote an interesting book on how he believes there is
even a link between great leaders and certain kinds of mental illness. It is
sobering and reasonable to have a conversation about the consequences and
harms perpetuated by the flaws and mistakes of our past icons, made throughout
a lifetime. But to borrow from the article:

> ...even Gandhi’s harshest detractors do not deny that he steadfastly
> defended, and eventually sacrificed his life for, many values under assault
> today—fellow-feeling for the weak, and solidarity and sympathy between
> people of different nations, religions, and races.

The guy was a man of tremendous courage and tenacity, who paved a path for
other great men of courage and tenacity to win significant moral victories for
our collective conscience. (Though this path may have become obsolete as
"having a conscience" goes out of fashion among modern overlords.) Having read
Zinn's A People's History of the United States, I can confidently say there's
plenty of worthwhile things to be conflicted or outraged about when it comes
to historical revisionism. But Gandhi? Not high on my list. Attacking the guy
because he lacked the full modern conception of intersectionality is like
knocking over an Amelia Earhart statue because she didn't fly across the
Atlantic in an F-22. How are you going to try to diminish someone's historic
accomplishments by comparing them to a modern contextualization of the task?

But despite my position on the absurdity of the premise, I think this article
does draw some interesting parallels between Gandhi's thought and life's work
and some of the challenges we face in political economy today. I'm grateful to
the author for mentioning that Tim Rogan book on the moral economists, as I
have only recently become of Karl Polanyi and his ideas and have not heard of
Tawney or Thompson.

~~~
sonnyblarney
The problem with your argument is that the points against Gandhi do not just
boil down to a 'bad action'. This is not about 'the worst thing he's ever
done' i.e. some statement, or action, or whatever - it was his outlook and
actions which were consistently problematic.

Gandhi's legacy is full of hypocritical issues like hyper nationalism, racism,
his weird personal habit of sleeping with young girls and boys (and a ton of
other weird sexual ideologies), his forbidding of his wife to receive 'Western
Medicine' which led to her death but then of course his own consumption of
such medicine when his life was at risk etc. etc..

The 'absurdity' I think is the degree to which these figures are hyper
romanticized, and our inability to just see them for who they are.

From: Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, Joseph Lelyveld

"Gandhi’s pejorative reference to nakedness is ironic considering that, as Mr.
Lelyveld details, when he was in his 70s and close to leading India to
independence, he encouraged his 17-year-old great-niece, Manu, to be naked
during her “nightly cuddles” with him. After sacking several long-standing and
loyal members of his 100-strong personal entourage who might disapprove of
this part of his spiritual quest, Gandhi began sleeping naked with Manu and
other young women. He told a woman on one occasion: “Despite my best efforts,
the organ remained aroused. It was an altogether strange and shameful
experience.

Yet he could also be vicious to Manu, whom he on one occasion forced to walk
through a thick jungle where sexual assaults had occurred in order for her to
retrieve a pumice stone that he liked to use on his feet. When she returned in
tears, Gandhi “cackled” with laughter at her and said: “If some ruffian had
carried you off and you had met your death courageously, my heart would have
danced with joy.""

This is more than a 'drinking problem'.

~~~
Asooka
The actions of those people are romanticised and from those actions is
constructed a metaphorical figure that resembles, but does not equal the
actual man. You need the man in order to have a story and you need the story
in order to convey the message. The idealised romantic Gandhi is a tool with
which to illustrate the moral, and an ideal for which to strive. Of course you
shouldn't mirror Gandhi in all matters, but his idealised version is still a
good example to follow.

Were Gandhi's actions so abhorrent as to make it good to tear down the morals
of social justice his activism taught us? Is he such a monster that you would
destroy your own culture and society by denying them the good examples he set
with the other part of his life? In a way you're cutting off your nose to
spite someone else's face. What Gandhi did is done and whoever can claim
damages that should be repaid can claim them via court. But the man is dead
now and putting him on trial is a disservice to his memory and to our culture.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"Were Gandhi's actions so abhorrent as to make it good to tear down the moral"

Yes.

Gandhi - during the height of his 'moral claims' \- was a 70 year old man
sleeping with a harem of young girls, urging them not to sleep with their
husbands, got erections, possibly had intercourse, and then talked about it,
and oppressed / moved aside anyone who didn't agree.

The logic he would use to validate his sexual predation is byzantine, i.e.
based on a 'spiritual experiment', and exactly the same as the insane logic
that cult leaders use:

"If I don't let Manu sleep with me, though I regard it as essential that she
should," he announced, "wouldn't that be a sign of weakness in me?" [1]

He's also on the record with hyper racist, xenophobic and Hindu nationalist
rhetoric.

Gandhi was a Hindu nationalist, of the same vein as most other nationalists -
but he used 'non violent' populist rhetoric because he was an intellect and
'non violence' was going to be the only reproach that would work. Were Indians
to be able to organize in terms of hard power during the Raj, they certainly
would have i.e. Momar Gaddafi, Fidel Castro, even George Washington! India has
a different culture and so their 'George Washington' was going to look a
little different.

But the issue is not Gandhi of course : the issue is _the perception of
Gandhi_.

Consider how much hagiography there is out there about Gandhi - even his
Wikipedia page is not only bereft of his questionable behaviour, but it's
turned upside down!

Have a look [2]

His Wiki entry states that 'his time in South Africa' was formative, and
enabled him to develop his views on racism, Imperialism etc. etc. - when in
fact, at the very same time, we have him on record with his most racist
ideology: "Gandhi described black Africans as “savage,” “raw” and living a
life of “indolence and nakedness,” and he campaigned relentlessly to prove to
the British rulers that the Indian community in South Africa was superior to
native black Africans." [3]

So the 'common public record' is distorted to the point that it's totally
upside down!

This is because the 'common public record' is guarded by groups in the East
who want to maintain his idol status, and groups in the West who want to
embrace particularly his anti-Imperial (read: anti Western?) views.

Gandhi did some very good things for Hindu India surely, and had some very
positive and powerful things to day, but he was hugely flawed.

Hey, George Washington fought for a war of 'independence' where 'all men
should be free' ... and he had slaves!

It is what it is.

[1] [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/books/featu...](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/books/features/thrill-of-the-chaste-the-truth-about-gandhis-sex-
life-1937411.html)

[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi)

[3]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03/what-
did-mahatma-gandhi-think-of-black-people/?utm_term=.8d166a7cb356)

~~~
intended
This is calumny, to the point that there is a 3 year old badhistory post
specifically dealing with these insinuations.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3iiwxr/the_sexu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3iiwxr/the_sexual_proclivities_of_one_mohandas_k_gandhi/)

> he interesting thing about Gandhi, though, was that his views did evolve and
> change. What he saw and experienced in South Africa changed his views on
> racial supremacy, particularly in Africa. By 1906, he wrote about the
> Bambatha Rebellion, saying:

>>"The Zulu 'rebellion' was full of new experiences and gave me much food for
thought. The Boer War had not brought home to me the horrors of war with
anything like the vividness that the 'rebellion' did. This was no war but a
man-hunt. To hear every morning reports of the soldiers' rifles exploding like
crackers in innocent Hamlets, and to live in the midst of them was a trial.
But I swallowed the bitter draught, especially as the work of my Corps
consisted only in nursing the wounded Zulus. I could see that but for us the
Zulus would have been uncared for. This work, therefore, eased my
conscience.""

>Working in and among Africans humanised them for him, and made it so that his
ideas of them changed. Much like any other human being, Gandhi grew and
learned from his experiences. Would it have been great from the outset if he'd
known that Africans were equal people? Sure, but in the early 20th century,
I'm not going to fault him for being racist and then changing.

------
phakding
Everything is so black and white nowadays or it always was, I dont know.
Gandhi had his failings, but if you aggregate his life, he was definitely a
positive force in the world.

~~~
jhowell
Unless you're from a minority group his disparaged from a perspective of
genetic superiority... net positive...

~~~
intended
Is this related to the lines he recanted later? Which groups?

------
partycoder
Gandhi is usually associated with peaceful behavior because of his non-violent
resistance ideas.

But these romanticized portrayals of Gandhi often omit darker aspects of his
persona like his racist quotes about Africans.

~~~
intended
Theres a reddit bad history post on gandhi, and its probably the gold standard
for dealing with the new edge to Gandhi's history. (Learning about Gandhi is
like peeling off alternating layers - hes a saint, no he isn't, oh he really
is a saint).

IN essence, Gandhi grew up and discarded his racist views.

Do note that this portrayal deals specifically with this particular criticism
which is popular today, and provides the (usually) missing context.

Heres the bad history post -
[https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3iiwxr/the_sexu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3iiwxr/the_sexual_proclivities_of_one_mohandas_k_gandhi/)

------
eevilspock
I find it interesting that there are no comments about how SV culture and
ethos compare to Gandhi's ideas, as described in the article, on morality and
how to achieve a better world.

------
Dravidian
When, a human such as Gandhi is worshipped especially in an era when factual
history is plausible; his shortcomings would definitely be contended with.

There is no doubt that he's a tactician & along with great thinkers of that
period paved way for the united republic of India; an unition of several
civilizations made plausible by the common anger towards colonial British.

But is his shortcomings a worthy argument to defame him? One does for sure -
'Casteism'; when a certain group of people are subjugated to carry human
feaces in their head & you call it a noble duty defined by your religion; that
man - The Gandhi & anyone who endorses the inhuman activity deserves to be
shamed.

~~~
pm90
He didn’t call it a noble duty. He said they were gods own people, to try to
de-stigmatize them and legitimize them in the eyes of a very religious
country.

~~~
saiya-jin
Well you either make them equal to the rest or keep them at the bottom.

I read an article about him recently, basically he was racist towards
africans, and also refused antibiotics for his wife which died because of
that. Argument was that no foreign agent should be inside her body or
something similar. When he got seriously sick, he happily accepted medicine
though.

I guess any influential/powerful figure has their dark side. Perfectly fine,
balanced and nice people don't end up in the spotlight, they just live their
ordinary lives and die their ordinary deaths. And sometimes, the dark side can
be pretty deep one, especially after some time passes and societal norms
change (ie Churchill discussed here recently too).

I presume we all have some darker side which we are aware of, that's why maybe
the very strong desire to idolize somebody who is so high above the rest.

~~~
intended
I find the bad history post on Gandhi to be the shortest path to get up to
speed with the current iteration of Gandhi criticism -
[https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3iiwxr/the_sexu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3iiwxr/the_sexual_proclivities_of_one_mohandas_k_gandhi/)

The upshot being that as a barrister in South Africa he was privileged and
racist as was the norm, but his exposure as a stretcher bearer during an
uprising helped him awaken and discard that aspect of his thought.

But its always interesting to see how Gandhi gets discussed, the more people
learn about him. In essence Gandhi is constantly being torn down, and
constantly being rediscovered and built back up

------
fromtheparty42
Why are people even calling out the wrong fact presenters like Pankaj Mishra.

He has proved himself to be a wrong, factually, ethically person all the time.

~~~
sbmthakur
Could you share a few examples of his factual incorrectness?

------
lake99
Reading the first paragraph, and the article already seems off to a shaky
start.

> The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, cites V. D. Savarkar, a far-right
> Hindu supremacist who was accused of involvement in Gandhi’s assassination,
> in 1948, as his ideological mentor.

I am not Hindu, and I can't stand Savarkar. However, I've never heard a
justification for calling him a Hindu supremacist. He wanted India to be a
Hindu country, not because he thought Hindus were superior, but more as a
homeland for what he conceived as Hindu culture. I don't like this recent
trend of calling everyone you can't stand a [something]-supremacist.

~~~
notafraudster
I do not believe there is a trend of calling "everyone you can't stand a
[something]-supremacist" \-- surely this is a dishonest retort to a label that
is being applied very specifically to a radical nationalist.

Now, if your dispute is that you think there's daylight between an ethno-
religious nationalist and an ethno-religious supremacist, fine, make that
argument, but let's not act like the label is coming entirely out of left
field. And please be aware that if you draw a distinction between those
things, you provide cover for actual [something]-supremacists, because god
knows David Duke has had no problem saying "gee whiz, I'm just saying I see
America as a homeland for what I conceive as White culture". In fact, the
shift from "white supremacist" to "white separatist" or "white nationalist"
has been a very deliberate project by white supremacists, and I suspect the
same is true for (ethno-)nationalists of all stripes.

~~~
lake99
> surely this is a dishonest retort to a label that is being applied very
> specifically to a radical nationalist

It's not dishonest at all. I have noticed this trend in the last couple of
years, where the likes of Sam Harris and Douglas Murray are called white-
supremacists. Modi has been called a Hindu supremacist. I don't know much
about David Duke, so I'll not comment about him.

> if your dispute is that you think there's daylight between an ethno-
> religious nationalist and an ethno-religious supremacist, fine, make that
> argument

Why does this case need to be made? There have been plenty of common
counterexamples throughout modern history. Just look at the plethora of
atheist Jews who are Zionists but don't believe in the concept of the promised
land, or look at the formation of Pakistan, or even the split up of
Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia, which did not have religious motivations.

It's not like I have no skin in the game. If the likes of Pravin Togadia
(actual Hindu supremacist -- I've heard his speeches live) have their way, and
India became a Hindu country, I'll be made a refugee. But yes, dishonest
characterizations of political opponents and calling them
[something]-supremacists is a trend now.

~~~
watwut
What does split of Czechoslovakia has with any of this? At least make examples
that make some sense instead of invoking generaly obscure events in hope
people wont catch the trick.

------
qazpot
>> black activists such as Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., and Benjamin Mays were
enthralled by the phenomenon of an Indian leading people of color in the
campaign against British colonialism in India.

Is the writer calling Indians "people of color"

~~~
nfg
Is that incorrect? Wikipedia says:

The term "person of color" (plural: people of color, persons of color;
sometimes abbreviated POC)[1] is used primarily in the United States to
describe any person who is not white.

I'm not from the US myself and so am not greatly acquainted with how it's
usually employed.

------
fromthestart
This is political propaganda and has nothing to do with tech. Also fertile
ground for flame topics. Flagged.

~~~
dang
The content is inevitably partly political, but the article is not propaganda.
It's a review of recent writings about Gandhi, interesting not just for how
different they are but because interpretations of Gandhi have changed so much
over time.

HN is explicitly not just for "tech". Please review the site guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Your last sentence breaks them too.

