WingNews logo WingNews GitHub [2]
top | item 21144398

Gandhi Is Deeply Revered, but His Attitudes on Race and Sex Are Under Scrutiny

43 points| happy-go-lucky | 6 years ago |npr.org | reply

66 comments

order
[+] rapsey|6 years ago|reply
This recent trend of taking down past figures because they do not meet current criteria for acceptable behavior in society is disturbing. It's like people are trying to erase lessons from the past.
[+] nabla9|6 years ago|reply
Their failings don't remove their achievements.

In the case of Gandhi it's not just the current criteria. Even during his time people saw him as a shitty person. It's good that we stop worshiping great men.

Rabindranath Tagore saw him as a nihilist with fierce joy of annihilation. Many Dalits (untouchables) saw Gandhi as the enemy. While he worked alongside them in some aspects, he was patronizing towards them. Ambedkar said that Gandhi did not deserve to be called mahatma.

Gandhi was monster towards his family. He denied education for his family and tried to force his sons to celibacy. He was against giving his wife penicillin to safe her life for religious reasons and she died. When he himself became a sick soon after, taking quinine was suddenly OK.

Gandhi was a fanatical opponent of sex for pleasure. But just because he didn't do intercourse didn't mean he was not sexually active. For all his celibacy, he had a harem of teenage girls who fought hysterically for the opportunity to sleep naked with him and hold him. Those same girls also gave him his daily enema. He was in today's terminology into 'assplay' and practiced erotic sexual denial with underage girls.

[+] JustFinishedBSG|6 years ago|reply
Gandhi already didn't meet the criteria for acceptable behavior during his lifetime though. It's just that people didn't know.
[+] sshagent|6 years ago|reply
Exactly. Else we might as well consider anyone who ever said anything more than ten years most likely a bigot, sexist and generally horrible....which with todays context is probably accurate.
[+] dagw|6 years ago|reply
This is hardly recent. I remember hearing this exact conversation about Gandhi at least 25 years ago.
[+] CathedralBorrow|6 years ago|reply
What's the difference between discussing and 'taking down'? Is there any way to talk about this without disturbing you, or would you rather that this topic not be discussed at all?
[+] mruniverse|6 years ago|reply
We laude past figures with our current criteria for acceptable behavior. Why not criticize?
[+] ricc|6 years ago|reply
I personally believe that bringing revered heroes back down to earth is beneficial in the long the run. This humanizes them and hopefully will make the common folk realize that whatever they achieved, they can also achieve. And if more people will have that mindset, I think human progress will accelerate.
[+] saiya-jin|6 years ago|reply
I don't see anything disturbing there. In fact, having double standards is far more disturbing to me, a mindset which can allow a lot of self-justifiable amoral behavior.

Historical figures are what they are - part of history, nobody is/should be changing that. But if one wants to look up to somebody these days, have them as some sort of role model, well then they better be up to current (and ideally even future) standards.

This way, life and morals are relatively simple, pure and hard to bend. Which might not serve some types of personalities very well, but that's another topic and frankly their own (self) fight

[+] yakshaving_jgt|6 years ago|reply
I've been rewatching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air recently, and from some of the protagonist's behaviour and script, I'm surprised Will Smith hasn't yet drawn the ire of the perpetually offended. Of course, we know that moral standards aren't applied equally…
[+] beerandt|6 years ago|reply
Martin Luther argued for the holocaust after starting the reformation.

Nelson Mandela was involved in the terror attacks that burned political enemies alive.

Abraham Lincoln despised the black population (certainly moreso than Robert E Lee) and argued against any steps toward social or civic equality.

[+] growlist|6 years ago|reply
Kind of amusing that Gandhi was attacked from the establishment, imperialist side by Churchill, and is now under attack from the opposite side. Poor Gandhi can't win.
[+] quetzthecoatl|6 years ago|reply
somehow i feel it's the same side. The "establishment" uses whatever is the trendy means. He is a human, not a saint. It's good that people point out stupid things he believed in/did/said - it only humanizes Gandhi.
[+] puranjay|6 years ago|reply
I don't know enough about Gandhi's views on race to comment here, but his views on sex have to be seen in the context of the Indian society at that time.

This historical revisionism is so absurd. It expects people to be isolated from their social context.

[+] ptah|6 years ago|reply
I would actually hold him up as an example of how to move from being racist to becoming a fighter against racism.

either way his development of non-violent resistance is still invaluable

[+] jamil7|6 years ago|reply
Revolutionaries are ordinary human beings with real character flaws and struggles. A lot of them have been people looking for redemtion or with nothing left to lose.
[+] _x5md|6 years ago|reply
As with many historical figures, I feel we need to separate the person from their legacy & achievements more. Yes Gandhi was a dick, but the fight for a free India and the end of the caste system seems a good cause to me.

That doesn't mean it was 'all worth it' or 'ok, beacuse...'; it means the person and the effects they had on the world are not the same thing. A terrible person can do good & a good person can commit heinous acts.

The other way around the ridiculousness is more obvious: The nazis fixed the German economy and saved the country from collapse; so the whole genocide and war thing are no longer relevant?