Plenty of them around and who cares about a Gandoo any way. We Punjabi's don't. He was our second biggest enemy, after British. Nathoo Ram Godse was right to eliminate him.
If you haven't lived for some time in the UK, you wouldn't know what a stupid newspaper the Daily Mail is. In fact, it's not correct to call it a newspaper. It is nothing but a cheap, vicous yellow pamphlet for the spread of the most rabid and untruthful political venom. The people who read such rubbish are likewise imbiciles.
The governments wanting to ban books should do well to research the matter before taking any action. Do not rely on anything written in a British tabloid.
Westerners can't understand love, friendship, philosophy... can add many other things. It is quite natural in India, that every one considers his close friend part of his family, sometime more than that. Almost every one would have come across such relationship during college or high school. If you see guys in a boys hostel, they share everything, right from friend's shirt, 2-3 guys sleeping in a same bed, go together everywhere. One of my western friends, asked me in a wierd manner when he saw guys getting along with each other like this. After my explanation, he was impressed and told me that in Europe, people would definitely think if 2 guys move closely, they are homosexual. It is a pitty when some one so many years after Gandhiji's death has come up to write a controversial book on Gandhi, eve without knowing Gandhiji, or not related in anyways. Of course, I haven't read the book, so can't criticize the contents. How can you rely on a mere Letter evidence and conclude. After all Mahatma was not a simple human being to understand...
Re: Western thinking
by HowAboutThis on Apr 04, 2011 12:26 PM
Rediff Moderator: Gurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. U got 2 b, the first genetic sample to confirm Darwinism. I quit.
Re: Western thinking
by HowAboutThis on Apr 04, 2011 12:21 PM
Gandhi was a mere human being. Racial disrimination in South Africa and emigration to foreign land for education and work helped him how india were colonised.
Gandhi was racist and hypocrite than what indians were taught in books and glorified by indian media. Gandhi became mellow and bit spiritual because of continous imprisonment in fighting against state.
Re: Re: Western thinking
by Xin Xin on Apr 04, 2011 04:31 PM
What about the treachery& low grade opportunism of our great mahatma gandhee,the father of the nation! It is time all hindus&all patriotic indians watch the greatest film ever made by great Satyjit Ray to tear the mask of wicked western looters&to tear the mask of our great freedom fighters who were fake& british double agents! How many hindus&patriotic indians have seen the film made by great Satyajit Ray relating to the Bengal Famine!During the second world war, the british looters&colonizers packed& sent millions of tonnes of food stuffs to England starving millions of hindus to death and the great film(ashaani sanket or distant thunder) by Satyajit foucsses on this himalayan tragedy or holocaust! What is more the great non-violent saint or great freedom fighter mahatma ganhdee kept quiet all along when millions of hindus were being starved to death&it was this very same mahatma gandhee who asked all hindus and indians to support england in world war and this resulted in sacrifice of thousands and thousands of hindus,sikhs and buddhists in war too.After seeing the great film and after seeing india's pitiable state now as a slavish nation begging for help from western and british looters preventing indian slaves even to visit that country and preventing them even entering UK and Europe and USA,etc all Hindus will be forced now to weep now and for decades together too, is it not?
Since 1947,the distribution of credit-for-independence has been so uneven (mostly in favour of MKS) that 2-3 gen down the line we have started to pit leaders against leaders, d reality must be diff. We are indebted to all those who fought for the freedom, rt from the street dog who might have just barked at the brits to the men-women to tested their own resolve by engaging brits in violent/non-violent resistance. Can we actually support one kind of resistance over another? Are we informed enough to make such judgements?
Of all the approaches for the FREEDOM, the one envisaged by MKS had the biggest mass-appeal and SELF-DEVELOPMENT was at the core of it. Armed struggle was certainly not the option for Indians whose societies were deeply divided on caste, religious, lines nt to mention the illiteracy and the financial hardship prevailing in those times. Nevertheless all revolutionaries who fought for India were an unwavering source of inspiration for all those indians who resisted brits non-violently.
As far as deciphering the letters by MKS, written 100 years ago, is concerned the writer has come from a world distinctly different from ours both culturally/historically. They ridicule bindi-sporting women, poke fun at elephant/monkey faced gods, can their be relied upon?We indians made MKS a mahatma, he never called himself one. he was a simple man who adopted a lifestyle which ordinary indians could look upon,follow and lend themselves to the process of selfdevelopment
Re: I hate congress but love* Gandhi Ji ( *non-sexual )
by Shri Hegde on Apr 04, 2011 10:43 AM
We should not mix Congress and Gandhiji, these are 2 different things, just happen to have some overlap. I too think his vision for India and getting mass involvement in the struggle was a vision - years ahead of the time. It's because of this vision which was successfully internalized and implemented, we have India, else it might have been few separate kingdoms or provinces. Other thing about our people and culture making demigods of humans be it Gandhi or Sachin, is also a problem, because these personalities never asked them to be made demigods but we do and then bash them for their humanly mistakes or behaviors.
Re: Re: I hate congress but love* Gandhi Ji ( *non-sexual )
by HowAboutThis on Apr 04, 2011 11:34 AM
Religious, Spiritual and mass exploitation were being done right before Gandhi and till now by all political parties and politicians.
Separate Kingdoms or Provinces were united by Britishers and some foundation was laid by mughals conquering parts of varioous parts of India.
As part of governance, all princely and law less lands were united by British Raj with an identity called India. Gandhi was not even born, when Britishers started doing that.
It’s easy to sit in a/c office and on a cushioned chair after 60-70 years of the struggle and pass these comments. I bet many of this bashers have neither any clue of the freedom struggle nor talked to anyone who were part of it. These people can't even stand up for a single cause in their life, but think they can bash Gandhiji. The fact of the matter is Gandhi and other great leaders were the vehicle to get freedom. Gandhijis credit was that he got the whole nation behind the freedom dream and struggle, he believed that the value of freedom is lot greater by mass participation. He obviously inspired thousands of real leaders in every corner of India from all walks of society; from education to business to social reform to religion to health, etc. His followers were thousand times better, committed and self-less than today's leaders from any party. He was also instrumental in bringing other ideas to main-stream like fight against untouchably, leprosy; women rights and land reforms. His ideas on non-violence, self-reliance, spiritualism and simple living are unmatched and eternally meaningful.
Re: Gandhi bashing a fasion for ignorant mortals
by HowAboutThis on Apr 04, 2011 11:27 AM
Fight against untouchability by Gandhi is farce and desi media created. In South Africa, he was fighting for separate treatments for Indians, and South Africans. He was dead against blacks being mixed with Asians or Indians. Gandhi was purely racist. When whites separated Asians/Indians from Whites, he was fighting for non-segregation but for equal treatment. In India, Ambedkar and Untouchability was to avoid split of Dalits under Ambedkar where Muslims were already going for demand of separate Muslim state.
Simple living , spiritualism and religious cards to make mass indians support him and show solidarity for a cause of self rule independence. These tactics were also successfully implemented later on by NTR, and Laloo Prasad Yadav.
Gandhi was in favour of imposing levies and taxes on locals more than migrants. He being a migrant to South Africa demanded for more tax on blacks as he believed the migrant indians in South Africa work more and deserve less tax than local blacks. He fought with britishers against local black tribes. He fighting for land reforms is million dollar question.
Land Reforms in India was done by communists and socialists as india were under foreign rule and have minimum asset distribution among all indians who were enslaved under foreign rule.
Going for khadi industry was just a means to show non-cooperation to british raj as part of quit india movement.
Re: Re: Gandhi bashing a fasion for ignorant mortals
by Indian Dreamer on Apr 04, 2011 02:48 PM
I think you need to consult a psychiatrist immediately!
Re: Gandhi bashing a fasion for ignorant mortals
by Ramesh on Apr 05, 2011 07:33 AM
...are unmatched and eternally meaningful. ------------
Your point about fathoming the reality of the struggle is very important. However, it is easy to belittle the scholarship of the author. We only impoverish ourselves this way.
Let us allow the words of the accomplished author to reach the educated elite and our youngsters. To read Mr. Lelyveld is real education. We may not agree with all he says, but having read part of the book can confidently say that it is very well written and there is much to learn.
Let us not doubt the quality of scholarship at work, and let us raised our standard of debate such that the writer and other learned ones from outside review their long held assumptions and ideas. To widen Indian participation in such societal dialogue process, and improve its capability, access to such works is all the more necessary.
Mr Lelyveld has done India a great service by providing deeper insights into Mahatma. The conclusion on intellectual integrity is a crucial one. This perhaps explains the deviation from intellectual integrity we find so common place in our politics, and the dynastic model which Congressmen seem unable to live without.
There surely are enough points where the conclusions of Mr Lelyveld can be questioned, there are also many more where we need to learn from the insights he provides.
Re: Mahatma out of Gandhi
by Xin Xin on Apr 04, 2011 04:35 PM
Excellent comment,Sathish, Mohandas gandhee was made mahatma and packaged as mahatma gandhee and given himlayan publicity by western media and indian media and using all geobbelian tricks including the trick of non-violence which allowed to make millions of hindus morrons and ennich and cowards forever and allowed looting of trillions of dollars wihout getting hurt or killed and this fooling and looting of hindus westerners and desi looters continues even now, What a Shame that a billion hindus have been brain-washed and made moroons and ennuchs forever,Shame!
Re: Mahatma out of Gandhi
by HowAboutThis on Apr 04, 2011 11:44 AM
Once system and governance is installed by then colonial powers and now NATO, US or European Union does is to install a person who understands and complies with them. Nehru was chosen by Britishers and endorsed by Gandhi too / Nehru choice was no more nor less than Karzai selection in Afghanistan and currently what is happening in Egypt, Tunisia and many more in Middle East...
Gandhi was helpful in projecting the unification of all princely states and lawless lands which britishers dreamt for, with mass people supporting blindly Gandhi for his attire reflecting then indians. As indians were suprestitious, and illiterate religious cards helped him to pull their attention.
Re: Mahatma out of Gandhi
by yadlapalli rao on Apr 04, 2011 09:59 AM
Good 5 Star eminities shelter at ALLAHABAD Make Nehru the PM and Gandhi the father of NATION
each a religiously inclined political leader - a Congregationalist Zulu and a neo-Christian Hindu
-- reference to John Dube and Mahatma -------
Have only read up to third chapter of the book downloaded to Kindle. It is a fascinating book, sheds light on South African years of MKG. A serious intellectual output who exposes clinically the inconsistencies and also evolution of his thought processes. This cutting down a larger than life image to near normalcy is a welcome development.
What also comes through is the lack of appreciation of Hindu thought, and bit of a bias against Brahmins. May be it is just my perception. The editorial efforts to cast MKG as only concerned about British Indian not Africans is persistent, and also trace his notions of social equality to Christian thoughts.
Interestingly he calls MKG as a neo-Christian Hindu, whether it is the editorial liberty of the writer or an apt description of MKG is a matter of judgement. The convenient truth is the movie like recollection of the Autobiography to which author has exposed convincingly with factual evidence does make Mahatma reveal him as more of a political man than one imbued with intellectual integrity.
This intellectual comedown of Mahatma is heart wrenching, but can not be doubted.
Re: Editorial liberty and political truths
by Ramesh on Apr 04, 2011 07:32 AM
The convenient truth in the movie like recollection of the Autobiography, which the author has exposed convincingly with factual evidence, does make Mahatma more of a political man than one imbued with intellectual integrity.
Re: Re: Editorial liberty and political truths
by Ramesh on Apr 05, 2011 04:12 AM
May be Christianity really inspired MKG on social equality. He could have received this message from Islam, Buddhism or within Sanatana Dharma and its offshoots like Sikhism, Jainism, and many other significant regional rebellion religious thought streams.
More critically the issue of social equality or inequality may have nothing to do with religion, the overriding factors perhaps are social, economic structure, political power relationship.
Re: Re: Re: Editorial liberty and political truths
by Ramesh on Apr 05, 2011 04:24 AM
The neo-Christian Hindu is an erroneous inference.
Think Mahatma actually proved to be a very effective anti-dote to Xian conversion. The lure of lucre, land, education and health facilities plus various coercive methods were deployed to convert Indian masses and thereby deprive them of their sense of history.
Mahatma by reaching out to poverty stricken Indian masses by using Hindu religious idioms was able to hold out hope that freedom would be able to address the social and cultural evils afflicting them.
The Indian Constitution and caste emancipation efforts like Mandal Commission, OBC reservation, all of these took place all party consensus demonstrate that the aspirations which Mahatma evoked and committed himself to, were delivered by Indian politicians to considerable extent. Even leftists stalwarts including Jyoti Basu respected and one could even say abided by Mahatma. Though this gigantic effort over last 60 years is still remains a work-in-progress.
Re: Editorial liberty and political truths
by HowAboutThis on Apr 04, 2011 12:06 PM
Indians were JUST nature worshippers with local customs and traditions modified with foreign invasions and cultures over time. Indian were never religious, but were superstitutious. Hindu word was coined by Maharastrian, possibly Savarkar.Not sure.
With foriegners like Arabs bringing unified Islam and Westerners bringing unified Christianity, the confused soul of Gandhi too was attracted towards modern Christianity at that time. Yeap, Gandhi was almost ready to accept Christianity , but was racially biased towards him in South Africa. Same thing applies to Ambedkar confused in trying to find a religion who will bestow them with favours on name of religions.
Indians need to thank Westerns for not dancing to the tunes of religious cards of Gandhi or Ambedkar. If westerners did what Gandhi or Ambedkar religious cards dreamt of, by this time, all indians would have been converted to Chrisianity or religion supported by then powerful nations.
May it be westerners or others, religion, cultures, superstitions and mulitple traditions were good business which everyone exploited.
Doing their best here to malign and torture Mr. Lelyveld - for speaking out the truth.
Obviously honesty dont work good with the Ganzdhi loving szxickulars.
They keep living in their artificially manufactured dream world filled with ridiculous propositions -
a) Ganzcdhi got India independence
b) Gandhi's support to khilafat movement united hzcindus and mzxlims
c) Gandhi refusing to support israel's creation, denying holocaust and asking jews to go back to their respective european countries and IGNORE the genocide of their people (same advice he gave to pnzjabi and bengali hindus, but not mxlims)
Overall, the fraud-atma serves the purpose of making sonzia-raoul's surname look good..
Dont be swayed by reviews, first of all no one has seen the book, secondly dont forget that all that you have today including the fresh air that you are allowed to breathe because one man decided one day to sacrifice any and everything he had WITHOUT A GUARANTEE that despite doing all this he will be able to achieve what he is sacrificng for. If I go by the reviews, just read the lines carefully, could not have bapu been trying to reform this person EVEN AT THE COST OF HIM BEING CALLED A BISEXUAL LATER ON. Remember he was a visionary who saw the future, he had said at the time of khilafat movement that an opportunity to unite hindus and muslims will not present itself for a 100 yrs to comes......WAS HE NOT TRUE>>>>>DONT POISON YOUR MIND>>>>>>>>THERE ARE MANY WHO WILL DO ANY THING TO GET A CHEAP REVIEW>>>>>>>>NAI HAS NOT RESPONDED AND THEY DONT NEED TO SUCH IDIOTS
Re: Mahatma
by Kris Kane on Apr 04, 2011 04:04 AM
you mor0n, cant you see how KHILAFAT movement is singularly responsible for hzcindu mzxlim DIVIDE rather than hzcindu mzlim unity.
Tell me onething Mr. Genius - If today if India starts supporting Al Kaeda, will that lead to hzcindu mzxlim unity ?
Same was the case with Ganzxdhi's decision to support ALi Bros - an unforgivable, unpardonable crime - that led to division of mother India and rise of iszlamic extremism that led to millions of deaths of innocents.
