I knew there was something about Ben Kingsley that I thought was amiss.
Posted on 03/25/2005 9:24:33 AM PST by Yashcheritsiy
Gandhi’s desire for Indians to be segregated from blacks was so strong that he went to Johannesburg in late August of 1904 to protest the placing of blacks in the Indian section of the city
LAHORE: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1870-1948), the man who inspired great leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, may have harboured racial sentiments against black people if an article on Sulekha.com is to be believed.
The article quotes a series of letters and petitions from Gandhi, linking the black people of Africa to savages and portraying them as little better than animals. Gandhi writes, “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”.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytimes.com.pk ...
This article is from a Pakistani publication. Um, yeah, Pakistan has absolutely no bias whatsoever when it comes to India. /sarcasm
In this country and others, many people find satisfaction and emotional release by calling everyone else a "racist". It has gotten to the point that the term has become meaningless: everyone and everything is "racist". This puerile name calling is easier than thinking.
Of course it's not surprising that this springs from a pro- Aryan type of philosophy like Gandhi seems to have had.
Cordially,
One problem with your argument - a person who actually does think that darker skinned people are inferior really *is* a racist, regardless of the abuse that the term has endured for the last couple of decades.
I knew there was something about Ben Kingsley that I thought was amiss.
Gandhi stayed away from Delhi to stop the bloodshed in Calcutta & elsewhere while India gained independence.He was on one of his numerous fasts to death to prevent the bloodshed in Calcutta-so I don't know where you got that nugget from.About the "I am a Mahatma" part,well what he said was if he took an assasin's bullet with the name of God on his lips,ONLY THEN can I be considered as a true Mahatma-which he did.
**I work with several India-born immigrants (all naturalized US citizens now), all 'degreed professionals', and there definitely is a distinction between the way they treat their 'lighter skintone' colleagues (ethnicity doesn't seem to be a factor) of almost any level within the organization and those of darker tones (darker than 'classic caucasian'; still lighter or darker than themselves). Dare One say "class distinction'?, etc.**
That's a shame, but it is true. IIRC, the Vedas are full of references to the conquest and subjugation of the "dark, noseless" aborigines of the Indian subcontinent. A lot of the hard-line Hindu leaders in the 1930s and 1940s sided with the German Nazis against the British, and it wasn't just out of opposition to British rule in India, but because of some supposedly shared Aryan connexion. Also IIRC, the term "varna" used to indicate caste is a term which originally meant "colour" or somesuch.
Request denied. Face it, Gandhi was both a socialist, AND a racist, in the true and systematic sense of the word. Just because he might be a personal hero of yours (and I have no idea if he is or not) has no bearing on my opinion of him. Look, nobody has the right to not be offended. I see junk on here all the time that, if I had a thin skin, would be offensive to me. You know what I do? I grow a thicker skin and tough it out.
He may very well have stayed away for that stated purpose. I merely quoted an excerpt from the linked article, although I forgot to include quotation marks. The article does quote Gandhi as stating, "And if the whole of Calcutta swims in blood, it will not dismay me. For it will be a willing offering of innocent blood."
Can you explain the apparent contradiction?
Cordially,
which linked article?
Gandhi was a young man when he was in South Africa. He had been raised within the Indian caste system and it's no surprise that his views during that time reflected his upbringing.
Even so, he was always a squeaky wheel during those years and stuck his neck out for his community. When he returned to India in his later years, he fought vigorously to lift the so-called "untouchables" from their pariah-hood and end the abject discrimination that they endured within the caste system.
Gandhi's spiritual journey was a life-long event and his place in history and his influence are assured. Even George Wallace came to embrace those he had attempted to deny.
And Gandhi certainly had his good points.
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." -- Mahatma Gandhi
It feels like a bad dream...I am on the Free Republic website, aren't I?
It feels like a bad dream...I am on the Free Republic website, aren't I?
Relax. He probably thinks Lincoln was a racist too.
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