MahatmaGandhi Bashing Brigade: Sid Harth
bademiyansubhanallah
The time has come for all political parties to think seriously about
re-casting public discourses on decency, honesty and morality in
politics. Otherwise, all political virtues would become illegitimate
in the context of modern conditions that shape the nation’s unified
and democratic consciousness.
Of late, politics has largely become the game of megalomaniacs,
eccentrics, casteists and communalists. We the common people too have
become immune to all sorts of galvanic shocks or how would one explain
our subdued reaction to the trenchant attack on Mahatma Gandhi, from
time to time, by political leaders?
After independence, from aspiring politicians to business tycoons,
every one has been trying to force “Gandhi” down our gullet precisely
to draw public attention. Now for the past 10/15 years, a parallel
trend has come to dominate the political scene: Castigate Gandhi.
Recently, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, while addressing
party functionaries in Lucknow, called Gandhi natakbaj or a phony who
“staged a drama by visiting Dalit homes and eating meals with them but
did little to help the cause of the Dalits”.
This remark came from a leader against whom there are allegations of
misuse of public funds, personal aggrandizement and naked exercise of
power. Instead of genuinely helping her state and its people, she
resorts to sloganeering and symbolism. Any serious discussion of her
performance gets quickly mired by name-calling and charges of racism.
It is also alleged that she befools the Dalits in the name of Ambedkar
and manipulates the political power to make personal gains, as a
result of which she has become the richest politician of India. She
has squandered public money on creating her own monuments and
installing her own statues.
She has earned for UP the dubious distinction of being an alarmingly
corrupt state. Miss Mayawati is currently facing allegations of
amassing assets beyond her known sources of income. She is reported to
have made over 100 crore in the Taj corridor scandal.
The problem of Mayawati is that she has been all these years trying to
keep the Dalit vote-bank in her safe deposit, but the recent Lok Sabha
election has blown apart her dreams. But why denigrate Gandhi? Because
Gandhi still stands as the supreme symbol of relentless and
uncompromising struggle against the curse of both sectarianism and
casteism in India where the practice is to use the name of Gandhi
either way and become famous. This habit has percolated down to all
those who have been aspiring for public attention.
The castigation of Gandhi is not always confined to criticism of his
policy but in most cases it gets personal. Once, filmmaker Ritwik
Ghatak referred to Gandhi as the “descendant of pig” in his
convocation address at Jadavpur University. The gay rights activist
Ashok Row Kavi described him as a “bastard bania” on a chat show on
TV.
At the Periyar Mela in Lucknow, BSP leader Kanshi Ram described Gandhi
as a “Gujarati bania” who betrayed the Dalits. The BSP had earlier
desecrated Raj Ghat as well. Leaders like Kanshi Ram and Miss Mayawati
actually helped the people from lower castes to perceive their social
status in a distorted form who quite naturally could not establish a
correct identity between social interest and their ideological
reflection.
Here lies the difference between Gandhi and these so-called Dalit
leaders. These Dalit leaders had never tried to cater to the new
secular national consciousness that Gandhi had. Gandhi’s basic appeal
was made on economic, political and of course, moral ground.
This is precisely the reason as to why the defilement of Gandhi became
necessary, first, for leaders like Guru Golwalkar, Bal Thackeray,
Kanshi Ram and now, Miss Mayawati. They did not show political will or
capacity to possess control over the social condition so that the down
trodden could be rescued from the socio-economic dead-end. On the
contrary, their programme included the defilement of a man who was
justifiably accorded the status of a national emblem by the
Constitution of India, in order to meet immediate political needs or
to cater to the immediate audience.
Mahatma bashing over the years by the RSS during his lifetime is part
of our history. To the RSS, the Mahatma was “an instrument to destroy
national consciousness”. Gandhi was not only the enemy in the eyes of
the Muslim League before the partition but he was also the RSS’s bete
noire since Gandhi believed that “no swaraj is possible without Hindu-
Muslim unity”. And thus, he, according to the RSS, “perpetrated the
greatest treason on our society… committed the most heinous sin of
killing the life spirit of a great and ancient people” (Golwalkar).
Pointing finger at the Mahatma, Golwalkar further said “strange very
strange, the traitors should be enthroned as national heroes and
patriots heaped with ignominy”.
The Mahatma was virtually branded by the RSS as a traitor to and enemy
of Hindus for which he had to pay the price with his life on 30
January, 1948. Then even Sardar Patel who was otherwise sympathetic to
the RSS, had to ban the organisation in 1948 as “in practice members
of the RSS had not adhered to their professed ideals. The
objectionable and even harmful activities of the Sangh have, however,
continued unabated and cult of violence sponsored and inspired by the
activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The latest and most
precious to fall was Gandhiji himself”.
Later, Bal Thackeray took up the cudgels for defending that very
position of the RSS on the Sangh’s behalf. He even gave a call for
installation of a statue of Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated
Gandhi. But then Mr Thackeray was never known for his weakness for the
Mahatma.
In a country where still certain political parties believe in
pernicious political doctrines like sectarianism and casteism,
attempts will be made to belittle the national symbol of communal and
caste harmony like Gandhi and Gandhisim. Political leaders like Miss
Mayawati and her ilk, who make sectarianism and casteism the very
basis of their politics, will continue to denigrate the Mahatma, but
the people must resolve to frustrate their nefarious design. It is the
duty of the state as well to check this trend which is dangerous in a
country where small interest groups have emerged commanding loyalty of
sub-sections of local society. Each group has its own local hero.
The writer is with
Dainik Statesman
...and I am Sid Harth
fanabba
Jihad Watch, Sharia Watch and Taqiyya Watch
www.faithfreedom.org
www.islam-watch.org
www.jihadwatch.org
www.actforamerica.org
www.citizenwarrior.com
www.politicalislam.com
Al Ghazali, perhaps the greatest Muslim scholar and a Sufi wrote:
"One must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once
a
year...one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they
are
in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set
fire to them and/or drown them...If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab
[People of The Book - primarily Jews and Christians] is enslaved, his
marriage
is [automatically] revoked.One may cut down their trees...One must
destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever
they
decide...they may steal as much food as they need...
DEMOTING ISLAM'S RELIGION STATUS: MARTEL SOBIESKEY
http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2009/04/demoting-islams-religion-status.html
A NEW KORAN
Sharia (Islamic Law) advocates Islamic Supremacism and mandates the
subjugation, oppression and exploitation of non-Muslims and women. A
group of devout Muslims rejects the idea that Sharia is part of the
Religion of Islam. This group, which calls itself "Muslims Against
Sharia", has a web site: www.reformislam.org . This group is engaged
in producing a New Koran that omits the Sharia-related verses from the
Koran.
bademiyansubhanallah
the Fifth Column:- Asma Jehangir
Asma Jehangir is a darling of the Dlehi establishment. She visits them
often. To show here “Hindu” credentials she dressed up in safron Red
to meet one of the most virulent mahasabah Hindus who is actually
wanted for murder of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Pakistan.
Mis Jehangir speaks ill about Pakistan on foreign shores, all under
the guise of liberal secularist humanism. Of course she has double
standards. She never criticizes Bharat. She is part and parcel of the
“Blame Pakistan First” crowd.
Newer Older »
July 19, 2009 • 1:47 pm
Mohandas Gandhi: The Naked Fakir unmasked–his sex life & political
failures
FAKIR UNMASKED:-
| RUPEE NEWS | December 27th, 2007/July 17th, 2009 | Moin Ansari |
معین آنصآرّی | Complied from recent books by Dr. Singh, Dr. Watson,
and two grandsons of Mr. Mohandas Gandhi. Additional material and
quotes are from Saijorni Naidu, records from South Africa, Mr. Bose
and Time Magazine | Sexual Antics of Gandhi–His political and personal
failures, urine drinking habit, love for enemas, consumption of his
own piss, his drinking of Holy Cow urine, Pedophilia Incest, Adultery,
weird fetishes, and Sexual Perversion. United States Congressional
Record on Mohandas Gandhi’s racism
“it costs the nation millions to keep Gandhi living in poverty.”
Sarojini Naidu
This article summarizes the writings of Gandhi’s grandsons, and other
authors and contains the following sections:
1) “Sexual Antics of Gandhi:” An anthology or research based on the
books by Gandhi’s grandsons.
2) “Gandhi’s Girls“:- very comprehensive Time Magazine article with
blow by blow details of the exploding news about Gandhi’s
indiscretions,
3) “Was Gandhi a Tantric:” Well researched article on the details of
his liaisons.
4) Other articles are being included and updated. The works of Tim
Watson and G.B. Singh published in 2008 are bing added/updated.
Mohandas (not Mahatma) Gandhi’s Failed Leadership in Politics and
Gandhi’s Domestic Violence and weird Sexual Perversion in his private
life.
Sex Life of Nehru: Menege De trios:-Tryst with Homosexuality:-Love
triangle Edwina, Nehru and Lord Mountbatten changed history
PERSONAL FAILURE: The Dark side of the pedophile
My meaning of brahmacharya is this: “One who never has any lustful
intention, who . . . has become capable of lying naked with naked
women . . . without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited.” –
M. K. Gandhi
The greater the temptation, the greater the renunciation. –M. K.
Gandhi
I threw you in the sacrificial fire and you emerged safe and sound. –
Gandhi to his grandniece Manu Gandhi
I can hurt colleagues and the entire world for the sake of truth. –M.
K. Gandhi (letter to shila Nayar)
[Gandhi] can think only in extremes-either extreme eroticism or
asceticism. –Jawaharlal Nehru
The professional Don Juan destroys his spirit as fatally as does the
professional ascetic, whose [mirror] image he is. –Aldous Huxley, Do
What You Will
If Gandhi was alive today, he would be arrested for sexual abuse and
put away for life as a sexual offender.
“We know from his autobiography how shamefully he treated his wife. He
was transparently honest and he had much less to hide from anyone
else. Nothing can be found if other public figures are to be
scrutinized because things have been carefully hidden and suppressed.”
Gandhi, the family man. Gandhi’s Grandson.
Gandhi used to beat his wife up routinely.
Gandhi was having sex when his father lay breathing his last
upstairs.
Gandhi denied sex to his wife for decades
Gandhi was an adulterer and had a spiritual marriage with two British
women who were in the Ashram
Gandhi slept naked with his niece (and 12 year old girls) and other
women to prove that he could control his manliness.
Gandhi would do enemas twice a day and if he liked you allowed you to
enter the piece up his rectum.
Gandhi used to drink his own urine and also the urine of cows. Chilled
Urine drinking hot in India. From Gandhi to Prime Minister Desai to
common man. Hindu India: A gift from the Hindu Gods:Cows Urine: UK
Telegraph reports by Julian West
Gandhi son left him and converted to Islam
The racist Gandhi was a total failure in South Africa where he tried
to stratify the society, Whites, Indians and Africans. His racism
towards the Africans was horrendous. His horrific advice to all Jews
to commit suicide was abomible. His atrocious letters to his friend
Hitler were the height of stupidiy.
Gandhi condones Zulu massacres and defends the British. Aug 4 1906
The sex life of Mr. Gandhi, and his failures as a politician
The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South
Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war
that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant
Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major
Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion.
Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African
society.Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down.
Gandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler.
Sex life of Mohandas Gandhi, his failures and sexual perversion
Gandhi’s wrote letters to his friend Hitler and supported him.
Gandhi’s horrific advice to Jews—Commit mass suicide. “We have no
doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we
believe that you are the monster described by your opponents.” Gandhi
to Hitler
“The Indian government contributed $10 million for the movie Gandhi
(Detailed debunking on this site). It is based on a book of fiction
called “Freedom at Midnight” by Collins et al. You can see glossed
over failures and the perversion in the movie Gandhi but it is not
overt and explicitly shown. You have to be smart and familiar with the
history to see it embedded in the movie.
For all his vaunted selflessness and modesty, he made no move to
object when Jinnah was attacked during a Congress session for calling
him “Mr. Gandhi” instead of “Mahatma“, and booed off the stage by the
Gandhi’s supporters.
He was determined to live his life as an ascetic, a symbol of a
religious man. As the poet Sarojini Naidu, who was known as the
“Nightingale of India” joked, “it costs the nation a fortune(millions)
to keep Gandhi living in poverty.” An entire village including an
Ashram was built for him His philosophy privileged the village way
over that of the city, yet he was always financially dependent on the
support of industrial billionaires like Birla. Birlas were the ones
who controlled his every move and were responsible for marketing
Gandhi Inc.
This is what Time Magazine says:
“Exceptions to the author’s reserve mostly center on Gandhi’s
limitations as a family man. Where the world sees a saint, Rajmohan
Gandhi sees a cruel husband and a mostly absent father, paying scant
attention to his children’s schooling and dragging wife Kasturba
across continents at will, belittling her desire for the simplest of
material possessions, then expecting her to comply when he turns from
amorous husband to platonic companion to apparent adulterer.”
Gandhi took on a magnetic personality in the presence of young women,
and was able to persuade them to join him in peculiar experiments of
sleeping and bathing naked together, without touching, all apparently
to strengthen his chastity. (Whether these experiments were always
successful is anyone’s guess.) It is also revealed that Gandhi began a
romantic liaison with Saraladevi Chaudhurani, niece of the great poet
Rabindranath Tagore—a disclosure that has created a buzz in the Indian
press. The author tells us that Gandhi, perhaps disingenuously, called
it a “spiritual marriage,” a “partnership between two persons of the
opposite sex where the physical is wholly absent.“
This bombshell occupies only five pages, but it gives Rajmohan Gandhi
enough material for his book’s redeeming feature—namely, the clear
depiction of the tensions between Gandhi’s erratic emotional compass
and his unswerving moral one. For despite the occasional salacious
lapses, the overarching principle that infused Gandhi’s life was his
intrinsic belief in the equality of all souls.
“Mahatma Gandhi was not shy of speaking about his relationship with
his women associates, except in a few cases. He wanted the world to
know of his tryst with Brahmacharya in which women constituted an
integral part. He kept a meticulous record and tried to make the
players keep the records too. Alas! Most of them seem to have either
destroyed the records or refused to disclose the intensity of their
feelings. A construct, however, is still possible based on Gandhiji’s
writings and on basis of writings of some of them, who were involved.
Gandhiji persuaded Kanchan Shah, his role model for Married
Brahmacharya, and Prabhavati, wife of Jaiprakash Narayan, to practice
married Brahmacharya. It was a difficult odyssey and the book tries to
analyse why it was difficult.”
“It was the revulsion from sex that forced Gandhiji to take the vow of
Brahamacharya in 1906. Then onwards, till the laboratory experiment in
Noakhali, Gandhiji kept trying to find out if it was possible to
overcome desire and remain a brahmachari. There were more than a dozen
women who came to closely associated with him at one time or the
other. Some of them were foreigners – Millie Graham Polak, Sonja
Schlesin, Esther Faering, Nilla Cram Cook, Margarete Spiegel and
Mirabehn. Prabhavati, Kanchan Shah, Shushila Nayyar and Manu Gandhi
formed a part of his entourage at various points in time. He called
JEKI “the Only Adopted Daughter”. Gandhiji was too found of Saraldevi
Chowdharani, Rabindranath Tagore’s niece, and often displayed her as
his mannequin for popularizing Khadi. He called her his “spiritual
wife”.
His closeness to Saraladevi or arguments on Brahmacharya with
Premabehn Kantak created a storm in the ashram and exposed him to
public glare. He was undaunted and made a tactical retreat to allow
the storm to subside. Soon things were back to normal. While the world
was unsure, the Mahatma was sure of his actions.
There was a definite attraction in Gandhiji that brought womenfolk to
him. It is quite possible that they were looking for glory and he
provided the opportunity. Some like Mirabehn were inspired by his
ideals and wanted to devote their entire life to his cause. But once
they came close, Gandhiji and not his cause became their obsession.
They hardly knew this was the next step to losing him, as the Mahatma
could not be chained. He had higher goals. The book is a psycho-
biography and a study of man-woman relationship involving one of the
greatest men in living memory.”
Gandhi’s limitations as a family man. Where the world sees a saint,
Rajmohan Gandhi sees a cruel husband and a mostly absent father,
paying scant attention to his children’s schooling and dragging wife
Kasturba across continents at will, belittling her desire for the
simplest of material possessions, then expecting her to comply when he
turns from amorous husband to platonic companion to apparent
adulterer. Gandhi took on a magnetic personality in the presence of
young women, and was able to persuade them to join him in peculiar
experiments of sleeping and bathing naked together, without touching,
all apparently to strengthen his chastity. (Whether these experiments
were always successful is anyone’s guess.) It is also revealed that
Gandhi began a romantic liaison with Saraladevi Chaudhurani, niece of
the great poet Rabindranath Tagore—a disclosure that has created a
buzz in the Indian press. The author tells us that Gandhi, perhaps
disingenuously, called it a “spiritual marriage,” a “partnership
between two persons of the opposite sex where the physical is wholly
absent.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1609478,00.html
Excerpts from Gandhi’ grandson’s Book “Mohandas”:
“Saraladevi was the topic of discussion in undertones and overtones
among his friends, associated and family members. How could Ba not be
affected? The years 1919 and 1920 were years of mental torture and
agony for her”. (page 220)
Gandhiji referred to “small-talks, whispers and innuendos” going
around of which he was well aware: “He was already in the midst of so
much suspicion and distrust, he told the gathering, that he did not
want his most innocent acts to be misunderstood and misrepresented”.
(page 339)
“The Sarla Devi episode in his life establishes his humanity. To
suppress any information on Gandhi would have meant doing injustice to
what he stood for all his life – truth. I have only presented the
facts as a scholar not a sensationalist journalist” (Mr Gandhi the
grandson of Mohandas Gandhi
The book “Mohandas” also describes Gandhi’s practice of brahmacharya
in his life. He would sleep nude with his niece Manu. “It’s a matter
of historical record. This has been written about many times. Even
Gandhi wrote about it. In doing so, he was surrendering his sexuality
and that of his partner’s, after passing a huge test,“
Dr. Sushila Nayar told Ved Mehta that she used to sleep with Gandhi as
she regarded him as a Hindu god.
Responding to noted Gandhian Rajmohan Gandhi’s recent claim about
Mahatma Gandhi’s fondness for Sarla Devi, his granddaughter Tara
Gandhi Bhattacharjee on Friday said as a man of great aesthetic
sensibility, if Gandhi felt attracted to a “woman of intellect”it
could be natural. Elaborating her point, Bhattacharjee said Mahatma
Gandhi also admired the way Rajkumari Amrit Kaur held her pen.
In another book “Mira and the Mahatma”, psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakkar
delves deep into the desires that lay buried in the “Mahatma’s” heart.
The hero pines for the company of his Mira who is away from him. “You
are on the brain. I look about me, and I miss you. I open the charkha
and miss you,” (Excerpt from Sudhir Kakkar’s book).
Indira Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi. How close were they?
Behold the God that supported the British wars, did not oppose
“Apartheid” in South Africa, beat his wife, slept naked with his niece
and had affairs with various women.”
In his book The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress: Secrets of the
Female Taoist Masters, Hsi Lai writes that Mahatma Gandhi
“periodically slept between two twelve-year-old female virgins. …as an
ancient practice of rejuvenating his male energy. . . . Taoists called
this method ‘using the ultimate yin to replenish the yang.’” Thackeray
questions Gandhi’s celibacy:
NEW DELHI, Dec. 27: Remarks by right-wing politician Bal Thackeray
questioning the celibacy of Mahatma Gandhi, father of the Indian
nation, have caused a furore, reports said on Friday. “Gandhiji was
always accompanied by two girls. Yet that was okay with everyone. If
we do something, we are criticised. Gandhi’s celibacy was a fraud,”
press reports quoted Thackeray, chief of the regional Shiv Sena party
which rules the western sate of Maharashtra in coalition with the
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as having said”.
“Freedom at Midnight”: Interested readers may look up Chapter 4 (A
Last Tattoo
“…at the age of sixty-seven, thirty years after he had sworn his vow
of brahmacharya, Gandhi awoke after an arousing dream with what would
have been to most men of that age a source of some satisfaction, but
was to Gandhi a calamity, an erection.” [Page 81, Freedom at Midnight,
Simon& Schuster Edition,1975].
The following is a quote from Collins and La Pierre in Freedom at
Midnight.Chapter 4 (A Last Tattoo For A Dieing Raj)
“Gandhi saw in Manu’s words the chance to make her the perfect female
votary. “If out of India’s millions of daughters, I can train even one
into an ideal woman by becoming an ideal mother to you” he told he “I
shall have remembered a unique service to womankind”. But first he
felt he had to be sure she was telling the truth. Only his closest
collaborators were accompanying him to Noakhali, he informed her, but
she would be welcome, provided she submitted to his discipline and
went through the test which he meant to subject her.
They would, he decreed, share each night the crude straw pallet which
passed for his bed. He regarded himself her mother; she had said that
she found nothing but a mothers love for him. If they were both
truthful, if he remained firm in his ancient vow of chastity and she
had never know sexual arousal, then they would be able to lie together
in the innocence of a mother daughter. If one of them was not being
truthful, they would soon discover it.
“…at the age of sixty-seven, thirty years after he had sworn his vow
of Brahmacharya, Gandhi awoke after an arousing dream with what would
have been to most men of that age a source of some satisfaction, but
was to Gandhi a calamity, an erection.”[Page 81, Freedom at Midnight ,
Simon & Schuster Edition,1975].
Collins does not mention what Manu said or did, or what the
collaborators heard!! Apparently Bose did. He raised Cane, and alerted
many around Gandhi.
Erik H Erikson (american psychoanalys) while doing his research in
india on Ghandi wrote about Ghandis episodes with other women besides
Manu the articles were also published in new yorker of 1996. He gives
the reference of a book by Nirmal Bose : My days with Gandhi. It deals
with this problem and other, very respectfully in two chapters
On 3.2.1947 he said, as Nirmal Bose quotes :
” What [ he was ?]doing was not for imitation. It was undoubtedly
dangerous, but it ceased to be so if the conditions were rigidly
observed. ”
GANDHI GETS CAUGHT WITH HIS PANTS DOWN:-LITERALLY
“During his Noakhali tour of 1946, Gandhi used to sleep with the
nineteen-year-old Manu. When Nirmal Bose, his Bengali interpreter, saw
this he protested, asserting that the experiments must be having bad
psychological effects on the girl.
In his book “My Days with Gandhi”, published in 1953 with great
difficulty and at his own expense, he offers a Freudian interpretation
to Gandhi’s experiments. It is generally believed that Gandhi started
sleeping with women toward the close of his life. According to Sushila
Nayar, he started much earlier. However, at the time he called it
‘nature cure.’ She told Mehta, ‘long before Manu came into the picture
I used to sleep with him just as I would with my mother. He might say
my back aches. Put some pressure on it. So I might put some pressure
on it or lie down on his back and he might just go to sleep. In the
early days there was no question of calling this a brahamacharya
experiment. It was just part of nature cure. Later on, when people
started asking questions about his physical contact with women, the
idea of brahamacharya experiments was developed. Don’t ask me any more
questions about brahamacharya experiments. There is nothing to say,
unless you have a dirty mind like Bose.’Mahatma Gandhi and His
Apostles is an extremely well-written book. Mehta has made it highly
readable with his subtle expression and suave sarcasm, particularly
when he reproduces his conversations with Gandhians. He has shown
courage in unraveling some of the myths woven around Gandhi by his
blind followers. The latter will certainly be dismayed by Mehta’s
forthrightness. The book has created a tumult in the Indian
Parliament. It will be a great pity if it is banned”.
http://www.sikhtimes.com/books_020278a.html
POLITICAL FAILURE OF GANDHI:
For his services in helping the British raise an army, he was awarded
titles.Meanwhile India was still suffering under British colonial
rule. Gandhi arrived in England during the first week of the World
War, and again he supported the British by raising and leading an
ambulance corps; but he became ill and returned to India in January
1915….In the spring of 1918 Gandhi was persuaded by the British to
help raise soldiers for a final victory effort in the war. Charlie
Andrews criticized Gandhi for recruiting Indians to fight for the
British. Gandhi spoke to large audiences……
The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South
Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war
that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant
Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major
Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion.
Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African
society.
Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down.
Gandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler.
THE “MAHATMA” MONIKER WAS AWARDED TO GANDHI AS REWARD FOR HIS SUPPORT
FOR THE WAR: GANDHI LET HIMSELF BE USED EVANGALIST MISSIONARIES IN THE
SUBCONTINENT FOR CONVERSION.
The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South
Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence.
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war
that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant
Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major
Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion.
Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African
society.
Mr. Mohandas Gandhi was converted into a “Mahatma” under the auspices
of the British in South Africa. Its genesis was started by the white
Christian clergy. Rev. Joseph J. Doke, a Baptist Minster was the first
to write the biography of M. K. Gandhi.
What started as a ploy became an avalanche under a well planned
scheme. Pastor John H. Holmes, a Unitarian “priest” from New York
praised Gandhi in his writings and sermons with titles like:
After the Labor Atlee government took over in Britain, the only point
of discussion was “when” to dismantle the colonies. Nigeria, Malaysia,
Kuwait, Iraq all got their independence without any “Gandhi”.What kind
of national leaders sits in a religious “Ashram” and wears a monk like
religious uniform? Would this sort of enlightened soul be acceptable
to a diverse population? The answer is no.
“Gandhi: The Modern Christ”,
“Mahatma Gandhi: The Greatest Man since Jesus Christ”,
“Mahatma Ji: Reincarnation of Christ”and
“Gandhi before Pilate.”
Romain Rolland, the French Nobel Laureate in literature thought of
Gandhi not only as a Hindu saint, but also “another Christ”. He wrote
Gandhi’s new biography in French which poured praise on the the deity—
“Gandhi is the One Luminous, Creator of All,” “Mahatma.”
At this juncture the Nehru-Gandhi loyalist Hindus were brought in.
Muslims and others from the Subcontinent were left aghast when
Krishnalal Shridharni elevated Gandhi to the status of twentieth
century Hindu god – “The seventh reincarnation of Vishnu, Lord Rama.”
One of the objectives of colonialism was the “civilize” the “natives”
and the “tribes”. According to Rudyard Kipling this was the “White
Man’s Burden”. The British machinery and their acolytes, the Christian
clergy had an ulterior motive in building the Gandhi myth. Similar
schemes had worked in Africa and Latin America. Local deities were
“included” in Christian concepts to make it more palatable to the
people. Later these “local influences” would be purged.
The Colonial rulers thought that by elevating Gandhi to a 20th century
messiah and then converting him would open the flood gate for
evangelizing and converting the Hindu and masses. However Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi was not Emperor Constantine, and was unable to
fulfill the wishes of the colonial masters.
Many believe that this wish of foreign funded Christian Missionaries
is being fulfilled by Christian Sonia Gandhi and her Christian lobby.
Many Indians are upset that Glady Stains was awarded Padmshree. Many
Indians are upset at the missionary activities of the faith healer
Benny Hinn’s organized in Bangalore with the support of Andhra
Government to please, Sonia Gandhi, the Pope and the Vatican City’s
its Indian ambassador.
The biggest Urban Myth is that Mr. Gandhi led a movement for the
independence from the British. Gandhi did not bring the British empire
to its knees. By supporting the British war effort in South Africa as
well as in the Subcontinent, he actually prolonged Britain’s
occupation of the Subcontinent and prolonged the life of the British
Empire. In 1945 the tottering “empire” was its knees already. Actually
it had been knocked out (KO!).
WW2 with 50 million dead had totally destroyed London and decimated
the infrastructure of the country. There was no appetite for empire.
British voters threw out Churchill. The exhausted British had already
decided to leave all her colonies after the 2nd world war.
It is nonsensical to say that Gandhi won freedom for the Subcontinent
“without spilling a drop of blood.”Non-violence was just a slogan. One
million died in 1947. In the 40’s when the British colonial rule was
taking its last breadth there was a strong wave of nationalism across
the globe, in China, in Malaysia, in Nigeria, in South Africa, and in
the Subcontinent. Many of the leaders were Tipu Sultan, Bahadar Shah
Zafar, Alam Iqbal, Mohhammad Ali Jinnah, Maula Mohammad Azad, The Ali
Brothers, Maulana Abdul Bari Farangi Mahali, Lokmanya Tilak, Chaudhry
Rehmat Ali, Gokhale, Lal Lajpat Rai, Veer Savarkar and many other
unnamed heroes.
Their sacrifices were not less than Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi came to the
political scene in India after Jinnah, Iqbal, and Sir Syed. He came
after Tilak Yug, Subhash Chandra Bose launched the “Azad Hind Fauj.”
The devastating affects of the 2nd Tribal War (World War II) forced
the British government to abandon her Colonial Empire.
GANDHI WAS “CREATED” TO USE THE SOUTH AFRICANS IN THE BRITISH WARS:
Gandhi was a creation of the British and they used him to get the
South Africans to fight in the British wars. He also stratified the
South African society. From Oct. 1899 to May 31st, 1902 Mahatma Gandhi
did not mention in “Non-Violence.”At the beginning of the South
African War, Gandhi argued that “Indians must support the War effort
in order to legitimize their claims to full citizenship. ”
The “Prophet of Non-Violence“, the “apostle of peace” urged the
Indians to support the British by enlisting in the army during World
War I.
GANDHI WAS A TOTAL FAILURE IN SOUTH AFRICA: Gandhi was a failure in
South Africa and a failed attorney in Bombay. His failure hardened
“Apartheid” and it took decades to dismantle it. This created a rift
with the Black of South Africa who rejected this. Gandhi urged the
colonial authorities to raise a volunteer militia of Indians to fight
for the Empire. Gandhi informed the “South African Natal Authorities”
that it would be a “criminal folly” if they did not enlist Indians for
the war. Mr. Gandhi urged the Indian community to show their loyalty
to the British Empire by raising funds for the War. He reminded them
that they were in South Africa due to the courtesy of the Empire.
• “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.
GANDHI WAS IMPORTED TO THE SUBCONTINENT BY THE BRITISH:The British
Empire included many countries in Africa and Asia. In the Subcontinent
it included more than 500 states. At the end of the 2nd Tribal War in
Europe (WW2), the pillars of the once mighty British Empire were
collapsing. In the Subcontinent the War of Independence of 1857 (also
known as “Indian Mutiny“) had failed.Gandhi’s arrival in India was a
carefully planned and crafted scheme to get rid of the Muslim
leadership in the Indian National Congress. Some of the biggest
millionaires in India devised a marketing plan to construct a leader
for a superstitious, illiterate and colonized people. Gandhi was the
perfect candidate.
He was imported from South Africa. Special trains were constructed to
transport Gandhi in “3rd class” bogeys. “the brilliance of his image:
the huge ears, toothless smile, round glasses, the loincloth, the
staff. I remember a factoid from somewhere that the most recognized
characters on earth were Gandhiji and, no offence, Mickey Mouse. And
no, it wasn’t the big ears. It was the deliberate cultivation of an
iconic figure with his sartorial abnegation, something that would
appeal instantly and instinctively to his target audience, the average
Indian. Something that would resonate strongly with the ascetic
tradition of the land; the intentional invocation of the poorest of
the poor, the salt of the earth…..As Sarojini Naidu is said to have
complained, it cost India millions to keep Gandhiji in poverty. But
the packaging and positioning” The Man who knew marketing byRajeev
Srinivasan The man who knew marketing
The Salt March and his fast in Calcutta were managed events for
publicity and fund raising. Huge crowds were attracted to this circus.
Funds were generated to support the Indian National Congress and other
organizations which unleashed a campaign of terror against the Muslims
of Bengal and Kashmir. Initially the INC was not a communal
organization but it used the RSS and the Jan Sangh to do its dirty
work. The machinery worked overtime to put the Subcontinent on the
track of Ram Rajhya.
Gandhi first introduced Hindu religious symbols to Motilal Nehru’s
Secular Indian National Congress and then tried to make all of India
succumb to a racist Hindu Ram Rajha rule.
G D Birla’s personal memoirs “‘In the Shadow of the Mahatma: A
Personal Memoir’” reveal that he undertook many visits to England on
his own and utilised the opportunity of to sell Gandhi. He acted as
the appointed agent of Gandhi to meet Winston Churchill, Lord Halifax,
Sir Samuel Hoare, Lord Lothian, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay McDonald and
several other great English statesmen were G D Birla’s close friends.
G D Birla’s was in close touch Lala Lajpath Rai, Pundit Madanmohan
Malaviya, Pundit Motilal Nehru, Srinivasa Sastri, Sardar Vallabhai
Patel, Rajaji and several others. The racists bigots like Patel, Rai
and others were the ones who were advising Birla on how to sell Ram
Rajha to the British under the guise of Non-violence, Sunil Khilnani
has says that Gandhi’s vision was essentially religious His solution
was to forge an Indian identity out of the shared knowledge of ancient
scriptures. “He turned to the legends and stories from the India’s
popular religious traditions, preferring their lessons to the supposed
ones of the history“.
Today’s India tells us that it didn’t work then and it doesn’t work
now. In today’s India, Hindu nationalism is rampant in the form of the
Bhartiya Janta Party. During the recent elections, Gandhi and his
ideas have scarcely been mentioned. India has had wars with all her
neighbors, Nepal, Burma, Bangaldesh, Sikkim, Bhutan, Sril Lanka and of
course Pakistan.The British brought Gandhi back to India from South
Africa to sabotage Indian national movement against British rule. The
Congress Party at the time was a secular party. At the expense of
other important people Nehru-Gandhi were imposed on the party which
had been set up under the patronage of the British authorities.
“One of his reason for launching the Civil Disobedient Movement is to
contain the violence of revolutionaries.” Gandhi’s letter to the
Viceroy in1930
The 2nd World War broke out in 1939 after Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
Initially, Mr. Gandhi favored offering “non-violent moral support” to
the British effort, but other Congress leaders were offended by the
unilateral inclusion of the people of the Subcontinent into the war,
without the consultation of the people’s representatives (INC,ML, AD,
RSS, Jan Sangh etc.).
MR GANDHI INTRODUCED RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM INTO THE SUBCONTINENTAL
POLITICS: THIS LED TO THE ALIENATION OF MUSLIMS ETC.
Mr. Gandhi introduced religious symbols into politics which led to the
Indian National attracting the communalists like Patel. As a result of
the Ashrams and the satyargarhs and the Banda Mahtaram INC became a
Hindu Party with the Muslims in the Muslim League and the Sikhs in the
Akali Dal. Unable to agree on the Cabinet Mission Plan all agreed to
gain independence in a different manner from the British. Gandhi’s
religious symbols eventually led to the BJP ruling India, Ayodhia and
the massacres in Gujrat. Secularism in India means “Hinduism Light”.
Dynastic “Democracy” in India was imposed to wrest the control of
India from Muslim lands. Land reforms were forced on a vulnerable
Muslim population and their lands were confiscated.
SCHEME TO DETHRONE THE MUSLIMS FROM THE CORRIDORS OF POWER: A scheme
was created to disable the Muslim infrastructure of India and get rid
of the rulers who had ruled India for more than a thousand years. A
word that had not been in vogue was issued into the lexicon of the
English language. This word “Democracy” did not appear in the American
Constitution and Socrates, Jeffersen, Hamilton and others had written
much against it. However the word galvanized the people of Britain and
America to fight Fascism. It worked to draw in the Americans to the
war. The British used this word to seduce the Hindus of the
Subcontinent to lure them into supporting them so that after they
left, they would rule the Subcontinent–something they had not dreamed
about in more than a thousand years.
The politics of sex locked the British Empire into irrational decision
making. There is an overwhelming body of evidence to show that Lord
Mountbatten was gay. Lord Mountbatten was seduced by Mr. Nehru whose
homosexual tendencies have been mentioned by Stanley Wolpert and
others. Lord Mountbatten’s wife Edwina’s affair with Mr. Nehru is well
known also.
GANDHI WAS A FAILURE IN THE SUBCONTINENT:Gandhi had pledged to keep a
several fasts to death to prevent. Invariably he got sick enough and
stopped.
“The anti-Muslim thrust of some of Gandhi’s Hindu opponents combined
with Muslim separatism to produce Pakistan.” Gandhi’s grandson
The Gandhi opponents in India were unhappy with him for “allowing
Pakistan”. They also think that the “protest fast unto death and the
non-violent arm of Gandhism was a fraud. Both Mahatma Gandhi and
British Empire knew this. This was a friendly fight as Congress, its
allies and left fronts are doing. After all they are true loyalist of
Nehru Gandhi dynasty. “
THE NON-VIOLENCE SLOGAN WAS FOR THE SAKE OF THE BRITISH RULERS
The “Non Violence” theme in the Subcontinent was a great marketing
ploy of Mr. Nehru and Mr. Gandhi. Gandhis sole contribution to history
was to make 150 million Muslims of India subservient to the Hindus.
Attempts to make another 300 million subservient continue.Other than
lip service he was unable to eliminate the caste system in India. Sati
and “White Widows” remain instilled in the fabric of India.
Source: Mohandas by Gandhi’s grandson, In Search of Truth by Mohandas
Gandhi, Freedom at Midnight by Le Pierre (screen play for the movie
Gandhi).
Mohandas– a true story of a man, his people and an empire, on Mahatma
Gandhi” by former Parliamentarian and writer Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi
Sources: Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1609478,00.html
Gandhi’s racism: The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant-Major
Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer War and Zulu
Rebellion. Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the
society in South Africa, Whites, Indians and Blacks based on the Hindu
Caste system. Behold the “Enlightened One” that supported the British
effort in World War one, and packed off thousands to the war effort to
be used as cannon-fodder. Behold the pacifist that sent thousands to
kill millions. Behold the “mahatma” that supported the British in
World War 2 and encouraged the Indians to support the British war,
thus perpetuating the colonial rule in the Subcontinent and supporting
the Empire.
END OF ARTICLE
APPENDIX 1
Gandhi’s girls – sex scandal Washington Monthly, July-August, 1987 by
Art Levine
Gandhi’s Girls
India, 1942: In the end, the political demise of Mohandas Gandhi came
with stunning speed. Until last week, he was the reversed Mahatma–the
Great Soul– leader of 400 million Indians in the drive for
independence from British colonial rule. With the election of the
Labour Government in Britain increasingly likely, chances never seemed
brighter for the free India that Gandhi had sought for so long.
But by week’s end, in the wake of newspaper accounts of Gandhi’s
sexual peccadilloes, bizarre personal habits and mind-bending cult
practices, his career–and perhaps Indian nationalism –lay in ruins.
Those closest to Gandhi likened it to a Greek tragedy, a giant cut
down by his own hands. “Gandhi’s personal life was a political time
bomb waiting to explode,’ said one distraught associate. “Now it’s
finally blown up in our faces.’
Ironically, Gandhi set the stage for his demise through his own
pronouncements on sex. His obsession began in 1885 when he learned of
his father’s death while in bed with his wife. By 1906, he had taken a
much celebrated vow of celibacy. An extraordinary commitment, but even
then Gandhi was angling for moral loopholes. “If for want of physical
enjoyment,’ he wrote, “the mind wallows in thoughts of enjoyment, then
it is legitimate to satisfy the hungers of the body.’ For years,
supporters now admit, Gandhi had pushed the outer limits of propriety.
“The man in the loin cloth, it seems, has thought a good deal about
loins,’ said one observer.
After years of such rumors, it was the specific nature of the latest
charges, followed by other damaging revelations, that undermined his
political base. The shock waves were felt throughout the British
empire–and new questions were raised about how relevant a politician’s
character was to his work, and whether in the case of Gandhi, the
Fourth Estate went too far.
A Spiritual Experience? The trouble began a week ago when the New
Delhi Herald published a front page story reporting that Gandhi had
spent the weekend with five attractive young women–aides in his
nonviolent campaign–at his ashram in Sevegram. Meanwhile, his wife
Kasturbai was 2,000 miles away at their mountain retreat in Kashmir
recuperating from an illness.
Escorting them was Gandhi’s aide, the movie star-handsome Jawaharlal
Nehru. With his urbane charm and stylish taste in jackets, Nehru never
had any pretense to celibacy. (His intimacies with Lady Mountbatten
are infamous.) Campaign insiders said that they had long been alarmed
by Gandhi’s ties to Nehru, and several suggested their time together
be cut back. “We told him to dump Nehru,’ said one aide. “But the old
man would just sit there and smile. He didn’t see the storm coming.’
It was advice Gandhi must now wish he had heeded. New Delhi Herald
reporters and photographers were hiding in nearby bushes, guarding
both the front and rear entrances. Except for a breath of fresh air at
3 A.M., the women had spent the entire night with the erstwhile
spiritual leader. If the chronology was indicting, the photographs
were positively damning. Wielding telephoto lenses, the Herald
photographers snapped shots that seem sure to snuff out a political
career. The scene: Gandhi and his cabal sprawled on his rope bed–
naked.
Late Sunday morning, a weary Gandhi finally spotted the Herald
reporters and confronted them. The women were only there as an
experiment in self-restraint, he insisted, and nothing sexual
transpired between them. “True brachmacharya (celibacy) is this: one
who, by constant-attendance upon God, has become capable of lying
naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being
in any manner whatsoever sexually excited. I have done nothing wrong,’
Gandhi insisted.
The Indian public wasn’t buying it. His explanations had become the
issue of the campaign, according to a poll taken two days after the
Herald story broke. Only 34 percent of those questioned believed
Gandhi’s claim that he hadn’t had sexual relations with the women–and
a scant 16 percent believed he hadn’t been sexually excited. A mere 26
percent claimed to be disturbed by the incident itself; what bothered
them, said 75 percent of India’s citizens, was the appearance of
hypocrisy.
But the questions kept coming. Every stop on his campaign swing turned
into a media circus. A protest march in Dandi was cut short by a
throng of reporters, barraging Gandhi with questions about his sexual
self-control. A new low in political discourse may have been reached
when a reporter for the Bombay Post asked during a sit-in, “Did you
get an erection last weekend?’ Although Gandhi was well within his
rights when he responded, “I don’t have to answer that,‘ some
observers felt that the appearance of evasiveness further eroded his
credibility.
Matters were only made worse when the Herald was widely rumored to be
on the verge of publishing more damaging photos–of nothing less than
unmistakable signs of Gandhi’s physical excitement. When a pack of
enterprising reporters caught up with her at her sickbed, Mrs. Gandhi
stuck by her man. She told them: “Honestly, if Mahatma told me that
nothing happened, then nothing happened.’
More Revelations: Still, by week’s end, the prospects for Gandhi’s
political recovery looked grim, despite his denials and counter-
attacks. In the next few days, there were other newspaper accounts of
Gandhi’s celibacy experiments. The Bombay Post ran an insiders’
account of life in Gandhi’s ashram. Contrary to the image he had
cultivated of a gentle, loving soul, the two-part series, “The Dark
Side of Gandhi,’ detailed the brutal regimen imposed on his followers.
His 100-plus disciples, forced to live in primitive mud and bamboo
huts, were awakened daily at a A.M. to eat nothing but a few crumbs of
unseasoned vegetarian gruel and dry wheat. Weakened, they were
subjected to long harangues on arcane religious topics. Eyewitness
accounts were gruesome. “We had to spend hours on our knees chanting
prayers and spinning cotton,’ said one American follower who defected.
“We were like zombies.’ Cult experts say Gandhi had dozens of
ingenious schemes to weaken his followers’ ties to their families and
strengthen his control over them. Their secret name for their leader:
“Bapu,’ or father.
The Post story was the final straw. In his political death throes,
Gandhi made a dramatic appearance before his supporters–and stopped
just short of abandoning his campaign for a free India. “I intended,
in all honesty, to come to you this sunrise and tell you that I was
leaving the cause. But, then, after tossing and turning all night, as
I have through this ordeal, I woke up and said, “Heck, my goodness,
no.”
Instead, Gandhi with his back against the proverbial wall reached deep
into his bag of tricks and, like a cat with nine lives, pulled yet
another rabbit from his hat: a hunger strike. Over the course of a
fifty-year career, Gandhi had turned this familiar strategy into a
crowd pleaser that could move the masses or pummel an Empire. “Under
certain circumstances, fasting is the one weapon God has given us for
use in times of utter helplessness,’ said Gandhi defiantly.
No one doubts that Gandhi can go weeks on end without even a drop of
chutney. But political analysts are doubtful that the man, once dubbed
“Mr. Hunger Strike,’ could make this latest gambit work. “Gandhi
represents the politics of the past,’ said Patreek Chardeli. “A new
generation of Indians wants vital, robust leadership. I don’t think a
starving old man is well positioned to do it.’ More ominously, other
pundits said the political damage was too much to contain– even with a
high-profile play for sympathy. Davidahr Garthati, the media
consultant credited with Gandhi’s decision to abandon the suit and tie
of his early barrister days and “go native’ instead, was equally
pessimistic. Garthati noted, “His celibacy shtick was crucial to the
saint image he’d cultivated for all these years. The non-violence
thing, the spinning wheels, the fasting–that was brilliant. But his
celibacy really set him apart, made him genuinely holy. Without it,
he’s just another pacifist do-gooder.’
Political opponents moved quickly to capitalize on the gaffe.
Columnist Robert Novakilli, a longtime Gandhi critic, lambasted
Gandhi’s hijinks from his nationally broadcast McRajan Group. “The
real perversion is Gandhi’s political agenda. For years, he and his
pacifist pals have had two things in mind: tinkering with the salt tax
and cozying up to Stalin.’ And his most formidable rival, Moslem
leader Muhammed Ali Jinnah, sought to subtly position himself to pick
up Gandhi’s fleeing supporters. “Family life has always been sacred to
me,’ he told reporters, standing outside his family’s mosque with his
wife and daughter. “I don’t think it’s my place to comment on the
controversy surrounding some of those in the public eye. It’s up to
the Indian people to judge for themselves.’
And their judgment seemed harsh. Within a matter of days, the squalid
controversy over Gandhi’s private parts turned him from a national
hero into a laughingstock. On his nightly radio program, comedian
Charu Carson quipped, “Well, at least we know the Mahatma is big
enough for the job of running India.’ He added, to more laughter, “I
guess he was really meditating his brains out this weekend.’ Editorial
cartoonists had a field day, as a bulging loin cloth quickly became
the Mahatma’s new trademark.
In the next few days more revelations came trickling out about other
celibacy “experiments’ he had been conducting since his forties,
including one report of a pleasure trip down the Ganges with Nehru and
two female assistants on the awkwardly named Holy Cow. The Post also
revealed that at the end of each day, he had one of his attractive,
young female disciples administer an enema, which he insisted was for
“health’ and “cleansing’ purposes. “Gandhi gives as much as he takes–
even to total strangers,’ said one Gandhi aide.
New Ground rules: Gandhi’s sudden demise triggered an orgy of self-
examination in the media. Did the press go too far? “At first, I
agonized over whether we should risk tarnishing a great man’s
reputation with close-up photos of naked women and speculation about
his sex life,’ said Ved
Fiedleraba, who led the Herald stakeout. “But then I realized that the
public had a right to know.’ Fiedleraba reasoned that if there was the
slightest possibility that Gandhi was lying about his celibacy, then
that raised serious questions about his candor and his ability to
negotiate with foreign leaders were India ever to become independent.
“So, naturally, it was my moral obligation to set up camp outside his
bedroom.’
Clearly, the ground rules have changed. Historically, the press has
had a gentlemen’s agreement with India’s rulers. When Viceroy Lord
Lillybottom himself brought a bevy of beauties to the Taj Mahal, the
muckrakers of Madras looked the other way. But with the rise of Indian
Nationalism and the decline of British sea power, the mores of Indian
society have been loosened–and so have those of the press. Today,
nothing is off limits, even enemas. Many wondered what’s next: asking
Jinnah whether he had violated the Koran’s strictures against amorous
relations with pigs or other unholy animals? But for now it was Gandhi
who was caught in this whirlwind. This smiling man, from a more polite
age, seemed oblivious to the new rules of his beloved India.
Whatever the press’s ultimate responsibility, the longstanding doubts
over Gandhi’s character left India’s nationalist movement in disarray.
Behind the scenes, some Congress party operatives were privately
relieved. “We feel betrayed,’ said one. “Gandhi promised he would
remain celibate, at least until India achieved independence. Now that
he’s gone, at least we can move on.’
Ultimately, Gandhi’s fate hinged on those questions of character,
rather than any moral revulsion. In her essay “Gandhi’s Women Problem,
Women’s Gandhi Problem,’ Sukai Lessardai voiced the concerns of many
women wary of Gandhi’s apparent philandering. “Whether or not he was
celibate, his need to prove his spiritual manhood by lying with five
naked women is an affront to the dignity and equality of women
everywhere.’ And as Willmed Schneidermanai of the Indian Enterprise
Institute points out, “It’s not so much the fact that he slept with
these women or regularly indulged in enemas; it’s that he showed such
bad judgment in doing so. I think this raises serious questions about
Gandhi’s self-discipline and insensitivity to the appearances of
impropriety –and finally about Gandhi’s ability to lead a successful
non-violent movement.’
Now the question is: Whither India? In his stead, there are other
leaders who could possibly win independence for India–the Moslem
Jinnah, or even Vallabhaai Patel–but neither has the stature and name
recognition of a Gandhi. Non-violent disobedience seems a memory now.
And nationalism itself is on the backburner. As the likely next
Viceroy of the Raj, Lord Louis Mountbatten, points out, “If an entire
nation could be led down the primrose path by this charlatan and
hypocrite, the Indian people are not yet ready for independence.’ Wise
heads in India and Britain agreed, and with Gandhi’s political demise,
a tumultuous chapter in India’s history closes, and calmer times lie
ahead.
APPENDIX 2: With additional ref. information
More than disciples?: Gandhi and two “aides’: Character flaw?: Gandhi
stalked by questions about his judgment– and candor
COPYRIGHT 1987 Washington Monthly Company , COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_v19/ai_5167040/pg_4
WAS GANDHI A TANTRIC?
By Nicholas Gier, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of
Idaho (ng...@uidaho.edu). For a complete version, which will appear in
Gandhi Marg (2007) click here. For a 900-word version click here.
My meaning of brahmacharya is this: “One who never has any lustful
intention, who . . . has become capable of lying naked with naked
women . . . without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited.” –
M. K. Gandhi
The greater the temptation, the greater the renunciation. –M. K.
Gandhi
I threw you in the sacrificial fire and you emerged safe and sound. –
Gandhi to his grandniece Manu Gandhi
I can hurt colleagues and the entire world for the sake of truth. –M.
K. Gandhi (letter to Sushila Nayar)
[Gandhi] can think only in extremes-either extreme eroticism or
asceticism. –Jawaharlal Nehru
The professional Don Juan destroys his spirit as fatally as does the
professional ascetic, whose [mirror] image he is. –Aldous Huxley, Do
What You Will
Some scholars believe that it is unseemly to write about the sex lives
of great thinkers. William Bartley, for example, has been criticized
for documenting, quite successfully in my opinion, Ludwig
Wittgenstein’s homosexual encounters, information that helps us better
understand his life and work. If we use this information in an ad
hominem attack against these thinkers’ worldviews, then we have indeed
erred and done them an injustice.
Full and accurate biographies, however, are essential for those of us
who wish to capture the full measure of a person’s life and character.
It is therefore unfortunate that D. K. Bose, Gandhi’s faithful
secretary and interpreter in Bengal, was forced to self publish his
book My Days with Gandhi. He only thought that he was being truthful,
but many considered him an apostate, and Sushila Nayar, one of
Gandhi’s female intimates, thought he had “a dirty mind.”
Most people would rather not hear about Martin Luther King’s
extramarital liaisons, but they remain embarrassing facts, along with
the plagiarized passages in his doctoral dissertation, that must be
integrated into our understanding of this great saint of nonviolence.
King confessed that what he did was wrong and he sought forgiveness
from his wife and sought repentance. Sadly, I do not think that we can
say that same thing about Gandhi’s response to those who criticized
his intimate relations with young women. Furthermore, King did not
defend his actions by saying that they were part of his spiritual
development, something that Gandhi of course did.
It is now widely known that Gandhi shared his bed with young women as
part of his experiments in brahmacharya, a Sanskrit word usually
translated as “celibacy,” but generally understood as the ultimate
state of yogic self-control. Gandhi believed that Indian ascetics who
sought refuge in forests and mountains were cowards, and he was
convinced that the only way to conquer desire was to face the
temptation head-on with a naked female in his bed.
I take Gandhi at his word that he did not have carnal relations with
these women-his sleeping quarters were open to all to observe-so he
was not among the left-handed Tantrics who engaged in ritual sex with
their yoginis. At the same time, Gandhi’s Tantricism cannot be right-
handed kind because this school proscribes intimate contact with
women.
As would be expected, we will find that Gandhi was a very distinctive
Tantric. Perhaps it can be said that Gandhi was somehow simultaneously
a left-handed and right-handed Tantric. Raihana Tyabji, a close
associate with a Tantric past, thought that Gandhi’s position
straddling right-handed and left-hand Tantra was untenable, and that
the only way to free himself and his women from sexual desire was “to
give free rein to it-to indulge it and satiate it. But he wouldn’t
listen.”
It is not widely known that Gandhi subscribed to Shakta theology, one
that puts skakti, the power of the Hindu Goddess, at the center of
existence. Shakta theology is the foundation of Hindu Tantricism.
Scholars have warned us that not all Shaktas are Tantrics, but
Gandhi’s sexual experiments with young women definitely suggest some
association with Tantra. It is also possible that that Gandhi’s sexual
experiments may have been an abuse of personal power rather than a
practice of Hindu spirituality.
One defense that could be made for Gandhi’s actions is that he
experienced intimate relations with men as well. Hermann Kallenbach, a
South Africa associate, was very close to the Mahatma. Kallenbach
promised that he would travel to the “ends of the earth in search of
[Gandhian] Truth,” and he also promised Gandhi that he would never
marry. Gandhi reciprocated by declaring unconditional love and a
declaration that they would always be “one soul in two bodies.”
Gandhi was also very close to Pyarelal Nayar, Sushila Nayar’s brother,
and boasted that Pyarelal slept closer to him than his sister did. For
Gandhi, however, sleeping with men was different from sharing a bed
with women. Abha Gandhi’s husband Kanu once objected to his wife
sleeping with the Mahatma and offered himself as a “bed warmer.”
Gandhi rejected his proposal by making it clear that brahmacharya
tests required young women as bedmates. Finally, if someone makes an
appeal to the Indian custom and necessity of intimate Indian family
sleeping arrangements, Girja Kumar is not convinced: “Not even in
India do grown-up daughters sleep with their fathers.”
I
In his book My Days with Gandhi Bose does mention in passing that
Gandhi’s techniques are “reminiscent of the Tantras,” and Gandhi
himself said that he read the books on Tantra written by Sir John
Woodroofe, but, as far as I know, only Gopi Krishna has argued at any
length about Gandhi’s Tantricism.
In his on-line essay “Mahatma Gandhi and the Kundalini Process,”
Krishna argues that the only way that we can explain Gandhi’s actions
with these young women is to assume he was a kundalini yogi. Krishna
speculates that “upward flow of reproductive energy [shakti]” started
as soon as he committed himself to brahmacharya in 1906. Gandhi was
37, “the usual time,” from Krishna’s own experience, “for the
spontaneous arousal of the Serpent Power.”
As evidence that Gandhi had perfected this state, Krishna cites this
passage from Gandhi’s Key to Health: “[the brahmachari's] sexual
organs will begin to look different. . . . He does not become impotent
for lack of the necessary secretions of sexual glands. But these
secretions in his case are sublimated into a vital force pervading his
whole being.” Krishna claims that this passage makes it “patently
clear” that Gandhi had attained the state of brahmacharya, but it is
not clear that Gandhi is writing about himself, and that, except
during the crisis with Manu, he rarely ever claimed spiritual
perfection.
As the kundalini yogi matures, Krishna states that he “needs constant
stimulation to increase the supply of reproductive juices. . . . The
Tantras and other works on kundalini clearly acknowledge the need of
an attractive female partner in the practices undertaken to awaken
shakti.” Gandhi does in fact say that “my brahmacharya . . .
irresistibly drew me to woman as the mother of man. She became too
sacred for sexual love.”
Krishna admits that Gandhi himself most likely “had no inkling of the
transformative process at work in him,” even though he claims that
Gandhi noticed that his male organ had shrunk. Krishna brushes aside
criticism of Gandhi’s actions and also concern for the young women’s
mental health, because “nature accomplishes her great tasks in her own
way and leaves short-sighted mortals wondering how it could happen.”
Apart from the speculative nature of Krishna’s theory, we should be
most concerned about his disregard for the women’s well being, as well
has the implication that Gandhi was driven by forces over which he had
no control.
II
For Gandhi the virtues of patience, self-control, and courage were
absolutely essential to defeat the temptation to retaliate and respond
with violence. Gandhi made it clear that each of these virtues were
found most often in women. Gandhi once said that he wanted to convert
the woman=s capacity for “self-sacrifice and suffering into shakti-
power.” Gandhi describes womankind as follows: “Has she not great
intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater
powers of endurance, has she not greater courage?” He also claimed
that nonviolence is embodied in the woman: she is “weak in
striking. . . strong in suffering.”
The women around Gandhi were amazed how comfortable they felt in his
presence and how much of a woman he had become to them. Millie Polak
observed that “most women love men for [masculine] attributes. Yet,
Mohandas Gandhi has been given the love of many women for his
womanliness.” His orphaned grandniece Manu considered Gandhi as her
new mother, and she simply could not understand all the controversy
surrounding their sleeping together.
The fact that women felt no unease in his presence was proof to Gandhi
that he was approaching perfection as a brahmachari. Indeed, Bose
contends that Gandhi attempted to “conquer sex” was “by becoming a
woman.” Gandhi told Pyarelal Nayar that he once tore the burning sari
off a woman in his ashram, but “she felt no embarrassment, because she
knew I was a brahmachariand so almost like a sister to her.”
Alternatively, Gandhi says that his goal was the state of “complete
sexlessness” recommended by Jesus and that this condition could be
achieved by becoming a eunuch by prayer not by an operation.
Gandhi is no doubt referring to shaktiwhen he states that “all power
comes from the preservation and sublimation of the vitality that is
responsible for the creation of life.” Gandhi may very well be
indicating a Tantric process of empowerment that involves the
preservation and sublimation of a male vitality that has its source in
shakti. When Gandhi did his first radio broadcast on November 12,
1947, he declared that the phenomenon of broadcasting demonstrated
“shakti, the miraculous power of God.”
When Gandhi once described himself as “half a woman,” an alternative
view of masculine and feminine power suggests itself. The Chinese/
Jungian view of complementary yin (anima) and yang (animus) energies
is found in this passage: “A man should remain man and yet should
learn to become woman; similarly, a woman should remain woman and yet
learn to become man.” Hsi Lai uses the yin/yang model to explain
Gandhi’s sexual experiments: “He didn’t do this for the purpose of
actual sexual contact, but as an ancient practice of rejuvenating his
male energy. . . . Taoists called this method ‘using the yin to
replenish the yang.”
The source of Gandhi’s dipolar views of male and female may have been
Christian rather than Asian. While a young man in England, Gandhi came
into contact with the Esoteric Christian Union, whose interpretation
of the image of God meant that the individual “must comprise within
himself the qualities Bmasculine and feminineB of existence and be
spiritually both man and woman.” When he confessed to Kedar Nathji and
Swami Anand that his sexual experiments were “unorthodox,” Gandhi says
that his views on this subject had been influenced by “Western writers
on this subject.”
III
It is the male who is active in Tantric rites. Only males undergo
initiation, and the only instruction females receive, if they get any,
is that they “should not even mentally touch another male.” Gandhi’s
Tantricism definitely follows this androcentric approach. Gandhi also
takes the defiant stance of the Tantric who says that he cares nothing
for what others thinks of his practice: “The whole world may forsake
me but I dare not leave what I hold is the truth for me.” Gandhi once
admonished a critic that he would sleep with a thousand women if that
is what it took to reach spiritual purity. Gandhi’s experiments in
truth took on the value free aspects of the scientific method, and
left-handed Tantrics believe that their actions are above conventional
law and morality.
Normally Tantric practices are tightly structured, highly ritualized,
and the initiation procedures, guided by a guru, are esoteric. The
only bona fide guru in Gandhi’s spiritual development was
Raichandcharya, a Jain saint, not a Tantric, with whom Gandhi
corresponded during his formative South Africa period. Gandhi
officiated at daily worship and hymn singing, encouraged the chanting
of the Ramanama (the god Rama’s name), and followed an unconventional
diet, but these practices are not Tantric in any way. The chanting of
the Ramanama is said to have magical properties, but its use is so
widespread in India it may not indicate any special Tantric
associations. Nevertheless, Gandhi does connect the chanting of Rama’s
name with “an alchemy [that] can transform the body” that leads to
“the conservation of vital energy.”
Gandhi’s experiments with truth were highly personalized but not
spiritually esoteric as are Tantric practices. Only after the sexual
experiments came under public scrutiny did Gandhi started telling his
female associates to keep their activities secret. Not until his last
days, when his sleeping with Manu became public, did Gandhi confess
that this secrecy was actually a sign of untruthfulness. Gandhi’s
secrecy was simply expedient and not spiritually required.
IV
Before Gandhi started his brahmacharyaexperiments in 1938, he had a
string of intimate relationships with European and Indian women. While
he was in South Africa, Gandhi fell in love with Millie Polak, the
wife of Henry Polak, both of whom lived with Gandhi at Phoenix Farm.
Kumar describes their first contact as follows: “Gandhiji and Millie
started conversing through their eyes. They made a pact between them
immediately. Poor Henry was left stranded.” As with all of his female
friends, Gandhi insisted that he and Millie be sisters or
alternatively that he be her father, but after they were together in
London in 1909 without Henry, Gandhi dared to suggest that he was a
substitute husband.
Even though Millie was smitten by him, she stood up to Gandi’s
controlling nature and argued against his absurd dietary ideas and his
goal to force chastity on all his coworkers. This independent spirit
that defines most of his female intimates of this early period stands
in instructive contrast to the passive participants in the later
brahmacharyaexperiments. For example, Kumar describes Manu as a
devotee who “was prepared to sacrifice her life at the altar of her
personal God.” Gandhi controlled every aspect of Manu’s life, and when
she once forgot his favorite soap at their last stay, he made her walk
back through a dark jungle to retrieve it.
When Millie finally broke off their 3-year affair, Gandhi’s attentions
turned to Maud Polak, Henry’s sister. Maud worked with Gandhi at
Phoenix Farm as his personal secretary until 1913. In a letter to
Henry, Gandhi described Maud seeing him off at a railway station: “She
cannot tear herself from me. . . . She would not shake hands with me.
She wanted a kiss. [This incident] has transformed her and with her
me.”
Esther Faering, a young Danish missionary, was the next major love in
Gandhi’s life. From her very first visit at the Satyagraha Ashram in
1917, Kumar describes Faering as “completely hooked on” Gandhi, and as
with Millie Polak, “an instant chemistry developed” between them.
Gandhi “experienced an intensely personal passion for Esther,” and she
praised him as the “Incarnation of God in man.”
The other ashramites were alarmed at Gandhi’s obsession with Faering,
and Kasturba Gandhi was particularly cool to her husband’s new love
interest. Gandhi made matters worse by siding with Faering against his
wife. While he was away from the ashram, he wrote daily letters to
Faering, which Kumar describes as having the passionate intensity of
the poets of Hinduism and Sufi Islam. He hazards a guess that “Esther
must have stirred,” as young beautiful women are supposed to do in the
Tantric yogi, “the serpent resting uncoiled in [Gandhi's] kundalini.“
One would expect Gandhi to have at least been serially monogamous in
his relationships, but that was not the case. While Faering was
struggling against Kasturba and other ashramites, and receiving
Gandhi’s constant support from afar, he was conducting what Kumar
calls a “whirlwind romance” with Saraladevi Chowdharani, a Bengali
revolutionary married to a Punjabi musician. Her father was a
secretary of Indian National Congress in Calcutta, and by virtue of
her singing and activism, Saraladevi was celebrated as Bengal’s Joan
of Arc and as an incarnation of the Goddess Durga. She rose to the
challenge and wrote that “my pen reverberated with the power of
Shiva’s trumpet and invited Bengalis to cultivate death.”
After the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919, Gandhi stayed at
Saraladevi’s home in Lahore and then toured India together during
1920. Her husband, R. D. Chowdhary, was in jail for the first eight
months this period, but he was content, as was Henry Polak, to share
his wife with the Mahatma. Gandhi agreed with Chowdhary that
Saraladevi was the “greatest shakti of India.”
Gandhi called Saraladevi his “spiritual wife” after “an intellectual
wedding,” and he reported that he bathed “in her deep affection” as
she showered “her love on [him] in every possible way.” Kasturba
Gandhi had refused to wear khadi-the homespun and hand woven garments
that Gandhi made famous-but Saraladevi became the Mahatma’s most
elegant khadimodel. Kumar describes them as “lovelorn teenagers with
stars in their eyes,” and depicts Saraladevi as “aristocratic,
gorgeously dressed, sensuously beautiful, and imperious. In short, she
had everything that [Kasturba] lacked.”
In contrast to his later brahmacharyamistresses, Saraladevi, just as
Millie Polak before her, did not bow to Gandhi’s authority in any way.
For example, as the quotation above implies, she agreed with fellow
Bengalis, such as the young Aurobindo, that independence required
violent revolution. Following her Goddess, Durga’s shaktiwas always
accompanied by violence, and Saraladevi eventually broke with Gandhi
over this very issue.
Kumar concludes that just as his relation to Faering, while “full of
sensuality,” was asexual, Gandhi’s romance with Saraladevi was
“probably . . . entirely platonic.” There was, however, a “large
component of eroticism” and the “line of demarcation between sexual,
sensuous, erotic and platonic was only of degree and not of kind.”
Kumar’s phrasing is unfortunate and logically incoherent, because
“degree” means a slippery slope and not a strict line between the
intellectual/spiritual and the physical. In letters to Saraladevi in
July, 1920, Gandhi insists that being “spiritually” married means that
the “physical must be wholly absent,” but he then admits that he is
“too physically attached to” her for there to be a true “sacred
association.”
In his conversations with Margaret Sanger, Gandhi refers to a “woman
with whom I almost fell,” and “the thought of my wife kept me from
going to perdition.” Writing to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, a later bedmate,
he admitted the he, “with one solitary exception,” had never “looked
upon a woman with lustful eyes.” These two references must have been
to Saraladevi Chowdharani.
Madeleine Slade, who became Gandhi’s beloved Mirabehn, was the
daughter of a British naval officer who was once stationed in Bombay.
Mirabehn first learned of Gandhi through Romain Rolland, who was then
writing a Gandhi biography. She wrote to Gandhi requesting that she
become a member of the Sabarmati Ashram, but he required that she live
as an ascetic for one year before coming to India. More than any of
his disciples, Mirabehn eagerly took to the austerities that Gandhi
demanded. As opposed to Kasturba, who disliked latrine duties,
Mirabehn eagerly took charge of the toilets, even those for all the
delegates to a meeting of the Indian National Congress.
At their first meeting in November, 1925, Mirabehn found Gandhi
“divine,” and she was able to confirm Rolland’s claim that he was
indeed the second Christ. They fell in love with one another and Kumar
says that “Mira was Saraladevi . . . all over again.” Once again,
because of Gandhi’s fascination for her, Mirabehn was shunned by the
ashramites. Gandhi soon discovered that Mirabehn’s emotional
instability caused his blood pressure to rise, so he frequently sent
her away on other tasks. They did, however, keep in contact with
weekly self-described “love letters,” and Gandhi wrote that she
haunted his dreams.
Mirabehn agreed with Gandhi’s depiction that their passion was like a
“bed of hot ashes,” a veritable ascetic-erotic rhapsody of yogic
tapas.Gandhi also shared with Mirabehn agonies about his spontaneous
erections, daytime ejaculations, and wet dreams, for which he
castigated himself unmercifully, and they even discussed the causes
and cures of constipation.
V
Of the women closely associated with Gandhi, at least ten were said to
have slept in his bed. They can be identified as follows:
Sushila Nayar was only 15 when she came to the Sabarmati Ashram and
then became Gandhi’s intimate companion, with some periods of
alienation and remove, for the rest of his life. Gandhi claimed that
Nayar was a natural brahmachari, having observed it from childhood.
They bathed together and even used the same bath water, but Gandhi
assured everyone that he kept his “eyes tightly shut.”
Lilavati Asar, associated with Gandhi from 1926-1948, slept in his bed
and gave him “service,” which meant bathing and massaging.
Sharada Parnerkar slept “close” to Gandhi and rendered “service.” She
was very ill in October, 1940, and Gandhi gave her regular enemas.
Amtul Salaam, whom Gandhi called his “crazy daughter,” was a Punjabi
from Patiala. She was also a bedmate and masseuse. Gandhi once wrote
about the joy he gave Salaam when she received a massage from him.
Prabhavati Narayan, a Kashmiri, lived in an unconsummated marriage
with Jayaprakash Narayan, Indira Gandhi’s most famous political foe.
Because of her lack of sexual interest or desire, Gandhi thought that
Prabhavati would be a perfect married brahmachari. In addition to
sleeping with Gandhi, she also gave him “service.”
Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur, married to a Rajasthani prince, was India’s
first health minister and was a Gandhi associate for 30 years.
Although older, she slept right along with the younger women in
Gandhi’s quarters. She also helped with baths and massages.
Sucheta Kriplani, a member of Parliament and professor at Benares
Hindu University, was a member of Gandhi’s Peace Brigade in East
Bengal in 1947. She maintained a brahmacharimarriage with J. B.
Kriplani, a famous socialist and saint. Gandhi fought their union
tooth and nail. Although Gandhi invited Mrs. Kriplani to his bed on a
regular basis, he insisted that married couples in his ashrams always
sleep in different quarters.
Abha Gandhi was a Bengali who accompanied the Mahatma in East Bengal.
She started sleeping with Gandhi when she was 16; she also bathed him
and washed his clothes.
Kanchan Shah, also a married woman, had a “one night stand” with
Gandhi and was banned from brahmacharya experiments because she
reputedly wanted to have sex with him. Gandhi gave the following
instructions on brahmacharimarriage to Shah and her husband: “You
should not touch each other. You shall not talk to each other. You
shall not work together. You should not take service from each other.”
But Gandhi of course received “service” from his women on a daily
basis. On the hypocrisy of taking what he denied to others, Kumar has
this to say: “The vow of brahmacharya was a revenge he took upon
everyone else.”
Manu Gandhi was his brother’s granddaughter and she was his constant
companion for the last eight years of his life. Interestingly enough,
there is a temple to Manu, a powerful rain goddess, in Gandhi’s home
city of Porbandar.
Most accounts of Gandhi’s spiritual experiments focus on those with
Manu in 1946-47 in East Bengal. Although he conceded at the time that
it “may be a delusion and a snare,” and although he seemed to be
recalling his earlier experiments at Sevagram-”I have risked perdition
before now”-he was still confident that he had “launched on a
sacrifice [that] consists of the full practice of truth” and the
development of a “non-violence of the brave.” He said that these tests
were no longer an experiment, which could be seen as optional, but a
compulsory sacred duty (yajna). His hut where he slept with Manu was
called “holy ground,” and Manu’s father had to sleep elsewhere when he
visited.
There is some confusion about whether the women simply slept next to
him or shared the same cover, or whether they slept clothed or
unclothed. The scenario appeared to be that they first slept next to
him, then slept under the same cover without clothes. Significantly,
Gandhi admitted that “all of them would strip reluctantly. . . and
they did so at my prompting.” As to the reason for complete nakeness,
Sushila Nayar recalls Gandhi’s explanation to Manu: “We both may be
killed by the Muslims at any time. We must both put our purity to the
ultimate test. . . and we should now both start sleeping naked.”
Gandhi described his sleeping with Manu as a “bold and original
experiment,” one that required a “practiced brahmachari” such as he
was, and a woman such as Manu who was free from passion. Confessing as
she even might have done with her own mother, Manu told Gandhi that
she had not ever experienced sexual desire. Presumably because of
these ideal conditions, Gandhi predicted that the “heat would be
great.” It is not clear whether Gandhi was speaking of the yogi heat
of tapas, or the heat of the negative reactions that he anticipated.
One has to admire Manu because it was she, not Gandhi, who suggested
that they not sleep together any longer. It is harder to credit
Gandhi, particularly when he said that the experiments ceased because
of Manu’s “inexperience,” not because of any failing on his part. As
Kumar states: “Just five days before Gandhiji was assassinated, he
charged her with failing to realize the potential of mahayajna.” So it
was Manu’s fault, not his.
Controversy about the practice continued during the summer of 1947,
but Gandhi was pleased when two editors of his journal Harijan, who
had resigned in protest about the experiments, confessed that they had
misjudged Gandhi. It is not clear that the experiments stopped because
Pyarelal notes that “the practice was for the time being
discontinued”; indeed, after returning to Delhi, Manu and Gandhi
resumed sleeping together and “continued right till the end.”
Gandhi’s “sacred associations” actually began at his Sevagram ashram
as early as 1938, when his wife Kasturba was still alive. Sushila
Nayar not only slept with him there, but also gave him regular
massages, sometimes in front of visitors, and they, as I have noted,
bathed together. About his relations to Nayar, Gandhi states: “She has
experienced everything I have in me. . . . She is more absorbed in me.
Hence I would even make her sleep by my side without fear.” Nayar told
Ved Mehta that “long before Manu came into the picture, I used to
sleep with him just as I would with my mother. . . . In the early days
there was no question of calling this a brahmacharya experiment. It
was just part of a nature cure. Later on, when people started asking
questions about his physical contact with women, the idea of
brahmacharya experiments was developed.” The fact that Gandhi changed
the justification for these experiments after closer public scrutiny
suggests that his motivation for these actions may not have been as
pure as he wanted people to assume.
In an extremely candid confession, Gandhi admits that at Sevagram he
had made a grave mistake:
I feel my action was impelled by vanity and jealousy. If my experiment
was dangerous, I should not have undertaken it. And if it was worth
trying, I should have encouraged my co-workers to undertake it on my
conditions. My experiment was a violation of the establishment norms
of brahmacharya.Such a right can be enjoyed only by a saint like
Shukadevji who can remain pure in thought, word and deed at all times
of day.
Gandhi, however, could not maintain his resolve, because shortly
thereafter (as soon as 12 hours!) intimate contact with women of the
ashram resumed. According to Mark Thomson, “Gandhi explained that he
could not bear the pain and anguish suffered by women devotees denied
the opportunity to serve him in this fashion.” Gandhi confessed that
he “could not bear the tears of Sushila and fainting away of
Prabhavati.” In February, 1939, there was another crisis. Gandhi
admitted that four women at Sevagram did not like “giving service” and
they were ordered to sleep “out of reach” of his arms.
When Gandhi spoke of the dangers of his sexual experiments in 1938, he
must have realized that he was not ready for the test. While he did
claim that he “can keep [sexual desire] under control,” he admitted he
had not “completely eradicated the sex feeling,” a criterion that he
had honored from the traditional rules of brahmacharya. Gandhi openly
admitted that there were some “black nights,” presumably sleeping with
his women, in which God “saved me in spite of myself.”
One of these dark nights must have been May 9, 1938. In a letter to
Nayar’s brother, Gandhi admitted that he may have had “a dirty mind”
and may have played “the role of Satan.” His “diseased mind” might
have “aroused him” and thereby compromised Nayar, causing her “untold
misery.” Gandhi was obviously wrong when he claimed previously that
Nayar’s natural purity could “forestall any mistake I may make,” and
that “contact with her has brought greater purity to me.” Although he
took all the blame upon himself, Gandhi appears incredibly obtuse in
assuming that Nayar had no reason to feel disturbed or unhappy about
the psychological effects of her intimate relations with him.
Sushila Nayar was away from the ashram for long periods for her
medical education. When she finished, Gandhi begged her to return as
the ashram’s doctor. He was upset that she now refused to be called
his daughter, and he urged her, without her preconditions, to “rush to
me and become one with me.” Reading the dozens of letters exchanged
during this time, it is clear that Nayar was still very troubled about
what happened at Sevagram. She wrote that she would return only on
“conditions,” which were that she would not have to give Gandhi
“service.” Nayar reluctantly submitted to Gandhi’s indomitable will in
September, 1940. While he was in Delhi, she did give him a massage,
but she came to him “with great difficulty.” She also sent him a
letter beforehand, which he described as “hurtful.” While describing
himself as unhappy, he acknowledged that Nayar was suffering “deep
misery.”It looked as if Nayar could have succeeded in tearing herself
away from Gandhi’s possessive domination, just as his earlier
intimates had, but she did eventually return to him and was with him
and Manu in East Bengal.
Although Gandhi declared that he, compared to other men, could take
greater liberty” with women, and that no woman “has been harmed by
contact with me or been prey to lustful thoughts,” there is sufficient
evidence to prove that Gandhi’s experiments had a deleterious effect
on his female intimates’ mental health. There was intense competition
among the women for Gandhi’s attention. For example, Lilavati Asar and
Amtul Salaam were very jealous of Sushila Nayar, and Gandhi promised
Asar that he would stop sleeping with Nayar because of her anger.
Gandhi was always inclined to blame others for not understanding the
unique nature of his experiments. In 1940 Gandhi admitted that the
“atmosphere here [Sevagram] cannot be said to be natural for anyone,”
but nevertheless the conflict was caused by those who were not
properly “absorbed” in it. Those who had learned “master the
atmosphere” could live at Sevagram “comfortably and grow.” Several
visitors attested to definite signs of psychological turmoil among
Gandhi’s women companions. In 1947 Swami Ananda and Kedar Nath, two
visitors with substantial spiritual credentials, queried Gandhi as
follows: “Why do we find so much disquiet and unhappiness around you.
Why are your companions emotionally unhinged?” The former Tantric
Raihana Tyabji observed that the more Gandhi’s young women “tried to
restrain themselves and repress their sexual impulses . . . the more
oversexed and sex-conscious they became.”
After learning of the experiments, Bose wrote that he would “never
tempt [himself] like that; nor would my respect for a woman’s
personality permit me to treat her as an instrument of an experiment
undertaken only for my own sake.” He was also concerned about the
women’s emotional health: “Whatever may be the value of the
[experiment] on Gandhiji’s own case, it does leave mark of injury on
the personality of others who are not of the same moral stature as he
himself is, and for whom sharing in Gandhiji’s experiment is no
spiritual necessity.”
Bose was also concerned about Gandhi’s own emotional state, observing
that Sushila Nayar’s presence brought him out of his normal
“unruffled” composure. On December 17, 1946 at 3:20 AM, Bose heard two
loud slaps and “deeply anguished cry” from Gandhi’s sleeping quarters.
He went in to find both Nayar and Gandhi in tears. Bose had assumed
that Gandhi had slapped Nayar, but she insisted that Gandhi had hit
himself on the forehead twice, a physical form of Gandhi’s “self-
suffering” that Manu had witnessed as well. Bose also mentions an
unnamed woman “Z,” who “was not always disinterested in her relations
with” with Gandhi, and who also upset him and distracted him from his
political work.
VI
In conclusion, if we can call Gandhi a Tantric, then it is a very
unique nonritualistic, nonesoteric practice combining aspects of both
left- and right-handed Tantric schools. It also must be said, no
matter how much we want to hold Gandhi in the highest esteem, that
there is sufficient evidence to conclude that Gandhi was inconsistent
in his justifications for his sexual experiments and not completely
sincere in carrying them out. This would then lead one to question
whether these experiments were a spiritual necessity or simply a
personal indulgence and abuse of power.
If the goal of the true Tantric is to transform desire into something
sacred, then personally I am less and less certain that Gandhi
achieved this goal. As Aldous Huxley once said: “The professional Don
Juan destroys his spirit as fatally as does the professional ascetic,
whose [mirror] image he is.”
ENDNOTES
[1]Letter to R. A. Kaur, March 18, 1947.
[2]Quoted in Ved Mehta, Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles(Harmondsworth,
Middlesex: Penquin Books, 1976), p. 213. I rely heavily on Mehta for
two reasons: (1) his book was well received and republished by Yale
University Press; and (2) he sought out all the living Gandhian
associates and interviewed them extensively.
[3]Quoted in Girja Kumar, Brahmacharya: Gandhi and His Women Associates
(New Delhi: Vitasta Publishing, 2006), p. 90.
[4]The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Government of
India Publications, 1958), vol. 93, p. 340.
[5]Jawaharlal Nehru, Selected Works (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1974),
p. 349.
[6]Aldous Huxley, Do What You Will (New York: Doubleday, 1928), p.
45.
[7]William Bartley, Wittgenstein (Chicago: Open Court, 2nd ed.,
1985).
[8]Quoted in Mehta, p. 203.
[9]Jeffrey Kripal, Kali’s Child (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1993).
[10]Gandhi, Young India 8 (January 21, 1926), p. 30.
[11]Quoted in Mehta, p. 211.
[12]Collected Works, vol. 79, p. 301.
[13]Ibid., vol. 96, p. 183.
[14]See Mehta, p. 201.
[15]Kumar, p. 294.
[16]Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi(New Delhi: Orient Longman,
1974), p. 2.
[17]Pyarelal Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase(Ahmedabad:
Navajivan, 2nd ed., 1966), vol. 1, bk. 2, p. 229.
[18]Gopi Krishna, “Mahatama Gandhi and the Kundalini
Proces” (Institute of Consciousness Research, 1995) at
http://www.icrcanada.org/gandhi.html (accessed on June 11, 2006). All
the citations are from the second section of the essay.
[19]Gandhi, Key to Health, trans. Sushila Nayar (Ahmedabad: Navajivan
Trust, 1948), p. 24. Krishna’s English translation differs
significantly from this one, so I wonder if he is citing the same
text. He himself gives no reference.
[20]Cited in Bose, p. 171.
[21]Pyarelal, p. 214.
[22]Gandhi, Womans’s Role in Society(Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing,
1959), p. 8.
[23]Gandhi, Harijan (November 14, 1936), p. 316). “Woman is the
incarnation of ahimsa. Ahimsa means infinite love, which again means
infinite capacity for suffering” (Harijan [February 24, 1940], p. 13.
[24]Cited in Martin Green, Gandhi: Voice of a New Revolution (New
York: Continuum, 1993), p. 261.
[25]Quoted in Mehta, p. 213.
[26]Bose, p. 177. Mrs. Polak noted a Atrait of sexlessness@ even in
his South Africa days (Gandhiji as We Know Him, ed. Ch. Shukla
[Bombay, 1945], p. 47). A Mrs. Shukla said that Athere are some things
relating to our lives that we women can speak of . . . with no
man . . . . But while speaking to Gandhiji we somehow forgot the fact
that he was a man@ (C. Shukla, Gandhiji=s View of Life [Bombay, 1951],
p. 199). See also The Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 595; 2nd ed., vol. 1, bk.
2, p. 234.
[27]Cited in Metha, p. 44.
[28]Pyarelal, p. 585. This story may have variations, but the one that
I read clearly indicated that the Gopis were embarrassed to come out
of the Yamuna River and redeem their saris for a kiss from Krishna.
Radha of course was the single exception.
[29]Ibid., pp. 219, 220.
[30]Brian K. Smith, “Eaters, Food, and Social Hierarchy in Ancient
India,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58:2 (Summer,
1990), pp. 177, 178.
[31]Gandhi, Harijan (July 23, 1938), p. 192.
[32]V. S. Gupta, “Gandhi and the Mass Media” at http://mkgandhi-sarvodaya.org/mass_media.htm,
visited on May 30, 2006.
[33]Quoted in Pyarelal, p. 217.
[34]Gandhi’s Letters to Ashram Sisters, ed. K. Kalelkar and trans. A.
L. Mazmudar (Ahmedadbad: Navajivan, 2nd rev. ed., 1960), p. 94.
[35]Hsi Lai, The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress: Secrets of
Female Taoist Masters(Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 200), p. 16. Lai
states that he became interested in “the matter of transformational
sex” by reading about Gandhi’s experiments.
[36]Pyarelal, p. 223.
[37]As told to Bose, pp. 149-50.
[38]Devi-Mahatyma, 1.59 (Coburn translation).
[39]Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1965), p. 202.
[40]Brahmavaivarta Purana, Rakriti-Khanda55.87, trans. Tracy
Pintchman, The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition(Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 1994), p. 164.
[41]Bharati, p. 236.
[42]Collected Works, vol. 87, p. 13. Compare this with the Tantric
yogi who said “Let my kinsmen revile me. . . let people ridicule me on
sight . . . .” (cited in Bharati, p. 238).
[43]“Thousands of Hindu and Moslem women come to me. They are to me
like my own mother, sisters, and daughters. But if an occasion should
arise requiring me to share the bed with any of them I must not
hesitate, if I am the bramacharya that I claim to be. If I shrink from
the test, I write myself down as a coward and a fraud” (Collected
Works, vol. 87, p. 15).
[44]See Bharati, pp. 200, 202, 203. Other exceptions were an active
Shiva in Tamil Shaivism and a static female in the Markandeya Purana
(p. 213).
[45]Hevajra Tantra, trans. D. L. Snellgrove, excerpted in The World of
the Buddha, ed. Lucian Stryk (New York: Grove Press, 1968), p. 311.
[46]See Buddha’s Lions: The Lives of the Eighty-Four Siddhas, trans.
and ed. James B. Robinson (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing Co., 1979).
[47]Bharati, p. 21.
[48]See N. F. Gier and Paul K. Kjellberg, “Buddhism and the Freedom of
the Will” in Freedom and Determinism: Topics in Contemporary
Philosophy, eds., J. K. Campbell, D. Shier, M. O’Rourke (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2004), pp. 277-304. See sections on Nagarjuna.
[49]Bharati, pp. 19, 200.
[50]Ibid., p. 20.
[51]Cited in Bose, p. 172.
[52]Collected Works, vol. 87, p. 14.
[53]Cited in Bose, p. 153.
[54]Gandhi,Harijan (June 29, 1947), p. 212.
[55]Quoted in Metha, p. 48.
[56]Douglas R. Brooks, The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introduction
to Hindu Shakta Tantrism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990),
p. 58.
[57]Ibid., p. 69.
[58]Kumar, p. 90.
[59]See ibid., p. 97.
[60]Ibid., p. 317.
[61]Collected Works, vol. 96, p. 34.
[62]Kumar, pp. 145-46.
[63]Ibid., p. 152.
[64]Cited in ibid., p. 216.
[65]Collected Works, vol. 17, p. 375; vol. 16, p. 516.
[66]Ibid., vol. 16, p. 316. “Spiritual wife” found in ibid., vol. 18,
p. 130.
[67]Kumar, pp. 223, 218.
[68]Ibid., p. 225.
[69]Collected Works, vol. 18, pp. 20, 71.
[70]Ibid., vol. 35, p. 70.
[71]Ibid., vol. 47, p. 49.
[72]Ibid., vol. 67, p. 117.
[73]Ibid., vol. 93, p. 204.
[74]Ibid., pp. 335-36.
[75]See Kumar, p. 7.
[76]Collected Works, vol. 70, p. 220.
[77]Kumar, p. 288.
[78]Collected Works, vol. 87, pp. 13-14, 15. “Non-violence of the
brave” cited in Bose, p. 159.
[79]Quoted in Kumar, p. 321.
[80]Ibid., vol. 79, p. 238.
[81]Quoted in Metha, p. 203.
[82]Cited in Bose, p. 103.
[83]Cited in ibid., p. 134.
[84]Kumar, p. 331.
[85]Pyarelal, pp. 226, 238. In letters to Mannalal G. Shah on March 6
and 7, 1945, Gandhi wrote equivocally: “As far as possible I have
postponed the practice of sleeping together. But it cannot be given up
altogether” (cited in Kumar, p. 8).
[86]Collected Works, vol. 93, p. 333.
[87]Quoted in Mehta, p. 203. The question of whether Gandhi’s touching
of women was appropriate had been raised as early as 1935. His
response entitled “A Renunciation” can be read in Harijan, September
21, 1935.
[88]Collected Works, vol. 67, pp. 104-5.
[89]Mark Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashrams (Columbia, MO: South Asia
Books, 1993), p. 202.
[90]Collected Works, vol. 67, p. 117.
[91]Ibid., vol. 93, pp. 237-38.
[92]Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase(Ahmedabad: Navajivan
Publishing, 1st ed., 1958), vol. 1, p. 588. “Now mere abstention from
sexual intercourse cannot be termed brahmacharya. So long as the
desire for intercourse is there, one cannot be said to have attained
brahmacharya” (Key to Health, p. 23).
[93]Cited in Bose, p. 171.
[94]Collected Works, vol. 93, p. 161.
[95]Ibid., p. 33.
[96]Ibid., p. 349. In a letter to Sushila Nayar on August 5, 1940,
Gandhi states that one condition of her return was “taking care of
[his] body,” and he acknowledged that this was not acceptable to her
(Collected Works, vol. 93, p. 343).
[97]Ibid., pp. 364-66.
[98]Ibid., p. 333.
[99]Ibid., p. 338.
[100]Pyarelal, 2nd ed., vol. 1, bk. 2, p. 228.
[101]Quoted in Mehta, p. 211.
[102]Bose, p. 150.
[103]Ibid., p. 151.
[104]Ibid., p. 95.
[105]Ibid., p. 159.
[106]See Hugh Urban, Tantra: Sex. Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the
Study of Religion (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
2003), p. 67.
[107]Mahanirvana Tantra 7.13, 22, cited in Urban, p. 65.
[108]Wendy Doniger, Foreward in Edward C. Dimock, Jr., The Place of
the Hidden Moon(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. xiii;
cited in Kripal, p. 117.
[109]Kripal, p. 118.
[110]Kathamrita2.62; 5.140-41 (trans., Kripal); see The Gospel of
Ramakrishna, p. 701.
[111]From the Ramakrishna Mission website at http://www.sriramakrishna.org/sdlife.htm,
accessed on June 9, 2006.
[112]Cited in Urban, p. 93.
[113]P. B. Saint-Hilaire, The Future Evolution of Man(Pondicherry: All
India Press, 1963), p. 148.
[114]P. Nallaswami,Shivajñana Siddiyar3.2.77; cited in R. C. Zaehner,
Evolution in Religion: A Study in Sri Aurobindo and Pierre Teihard de
Chardin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 104.
[115]Cited in Urban, p. 101. It seems that Aurobindo has not left
Tantra behind, as Urban claims, but has simply embraced a right-handed
form of it.
[116]Huxley, p. 45.
India the failed state is breaking up
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Rebutting Cohen
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Also on this site: Why Pakistan was created?
http://moinansari.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/why-we-created-pakistan-the-pakistan-ideology/
For his services in helping the British raise an army, he was awarded
titles.Meanwhile India was still suffering under British colonial
rule. Gandhi arrived in England during the first week of the World
War, and again he supported the British by raising and leading an
ambulance corps; but he became ill and returned to India in January
1915….In the spring of 1918 Gandhi was persuaded by the British to
help raise soldiers for a final victory effort in the war. Charlie
Andrews criticized Gandhi for recruiting Indians to fight for the
British. Gandhi spoke to large audiences……
>Thackeray questions Gandhi’s celibacy:
NEW DELHI, Dec. 27: Remarks by right-wing politician Bal Thackeray
questioning the celibacy of Mahatma Gandhi, father of the Indian
nation, have caused a furore, reports said on Friday.
“Gandhiji was always accompanied by two girls. Yet that was okay with
everyone. If we do something, we are criticised. Gandhi’s celibacy was
a fraud,” press reports quoted Thackeray, chief of the regional Shiv
Sena party which rules the western sate of Maharashtra in coalition
with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as having
said”.
“Freedom at Midnight”: Interested readers may look up Chapter 4 (A
Last Tattoo
“…at the age of sixty-seven, thirty years after he had sworn his vow
of brahmacharya, Gandhi awoke after an arousing dream with what would
have been to most men of that age a source of some satisfaction, but
was to Gandhi a calamity, an erection.” [Page 81, Freedom at Midnight,
Simon& Schuster Edition,1975].
The following is a quote from Collins and La Pierre in Freedom at
Midnight.Chapter 4 (A Last Tattoo For A Dieing Raj)
“Gandhi saw in Manu’s words the chance to make her the perfect female
votary. “If out of India’s millions of daughters, I can train even one
into an ideal woman by becoming an ideal mother to you” he told he “I
shall have remembered a unique service to womankind”. But first he
felt he had to be sure she was telling the truth. Only his closest
collaborators were accompanying him to Noakhali, he informed her, but
she would be welcome, provided she submitted to his discipline and
went through the test which he meant to subject her.
They would, he decreed, share each night the crude straw pallet which
passed for his bed. He regarded himself her mother; she had said that
she found nothing but a mothers love for him. If they were both
truthful, if he remained firm in his ancient vow of chastity and she
had never know sexual arousal, then they would be able to lie together
in the innocence of a mother daughter. If one of them was not being
truthful, they would soon discover it.
“…at the age of sixty-seven, thirty years after he had sworn his vow
of Brahmacharya, Gandhi awoke after an arousing dream with what would
have been to most men of that age a source of some satisfaction, but
was to Gandhi a calamity, an erection.”[Page 81, Freedom at Midnight ,
Simon & Schuster Edition,1975].
Collins does not mention what Manu said or did, or what the
collaborators heard!! Apparently Bose did. He raised Cane, and alerted
many around Gandhi.
Erik H Erikson (american psychoanalys) while doing his research in
india on Ghandi wrote about Ghandis episodes with other women besides
Manu the articles were also published in new yorker of 1996. He gives
the reference of a book by Nirmal Bose : My days with Gandhi. It deals
with this problem and other, very respectfully in two chapters
On 3.2.1947 he said, as Nirmal Bose quotes :
” What [ he was ?]doing was not for imitation. It was undoubtedly
dangerous, but it ceased to be so if the conditions were rigidly
observed. ”
GANDHI GETS CAUGHT WITH HIS PANTS DOWN:-LITERALLY
“During his Noakhali tour of 1946, Gandhi used to sleep with the
nineteen-year-old Manu. When Nirmal Bose, his Bengali interpreter, saw
this he protested, asserting that the experiments must be having bad
psychological effects on the girl.
In his book “My Days with Gandhi”, published in 1953 with great
difficulty and at his own expense, he offers a Freudian interpretation
to Gandhi’s experiments. It is generally believed that Gandhi started
sleeping with women toward the close of his life. According to Sushila
Nayar, he started much earlier. However, at the time he called it
‘nature cure.’ She told Mehta, ‘long before Manu came into the picture
I used to sleep with him just as I would with my mother. He might say
my back aches. Put some pressure on it. So I might put some pressure
on it or lie down on his back and he might just go to sleep. In the
early days there was no question of calling this a brahamacharya
experiment. It was just part of nature cure. Later on, when people
started asking questions about his physical contact with women, the
idea of brahamacharya experiments was developed. Don’t ask me any more
questions about brahamacharya experiments. There is nothing to say,
unless you have a dirty mind like Bose.’Mahatma Gandhi and His
Apostles is an extremely well-written book. Mehta has made it highly
readable with his subtle expression and suave sarcasm, particularly
when he reproduces his conversations with Gandhians. He has shown
courage in unraveling some of the myths woven around Gandhi by his
blind followers. The latter will certainly be dismayed by Mehta’s
forthrightness. The book has created a tumult in the Indian
Parliament. It will be a great pity if it is banned”.
http://www.sikhtimes.com/books_020278a.html
POLITICAL FAILURE OF GANDHI:
For his services in helping the British raise an army, he was awarded
titles.Meanwhile India was still suffering under British colonial
rule. Gandhi arrived in England during the first week of the World
War, and again he supported the British by raising and leading an
ambulance corps; but he became ill and returned to India in January
1915….In the spring of 1918 Gandhi was persuaded by the British to
help raise soldiers for a final victory effort in the war. Charlie
Andrews criticized Gandhi for recruiting Indians to fight for the
British. Gandhi spoke to large audiences……
The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South
Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war
that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant
Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major
Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion.
Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African
society.
Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down.
Gandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler.
THE “MAHATMA” MONIKER WAS AWARDED TO GANDHI AS REWARD FOR HIS SUPPORT
FOR THE WAR: GANDHI LET HIMSELF BE USED EVANGALIST MISSIONARIES IN THE
SUBCONTINENT FOR CONVERSION.
The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South
Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence.
Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war
that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant
Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties
Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major
Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion.
Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African
society.
Mr. Mohandas Gandhi was converted into a “Mahatma” under the auspices
of the British in South Africa. Its genesis was started by the white
Christian clergy. Rev. Joseph J. Doke, a Baptist Minster was the first
to write the biography of M. K. Gandhi.
What started as a ploy became an avalanche under a well planned
scheme. Pastor John H. Holmes, a Unitarian “priest” from New York
praised Gandhi in his writings and sermons with titles like:
After the Labor Atlee government took over in Britain, the only point
of discussion was “when” to dismantle the colonies. Nigeria, Malaysia,
Kuwait, Iraq all got their independence without any “Gandhi”.What kind
of national leaders sits in a religious “Ashram” and wears a monk like
religious uniform? Would this sort of enlightened soul be acceptable
to a diverse population? The answer is no.
“Gandhi: The Modern Christ”,
“Mahatma Gandhi: The Greatest Man since Jesus Christ”,
“Mahatma Ji: Reincarnation of Christ”and
“Gandhi before Pilate.”
Romain Rolland, the French Nobel Laureate in literature thought of
Gandhi not only as a Hindu saint, but also “another Christ”. He wrote
Gandhi’s new biography in French which poured praise on the the deity—
“Gandhi is the One Luminous, Creator of All,” “Mahatma.”
At this juncture the Nehru-Gandhi loyalist Hindus were brought in.
Muslims and others from the Subcontinent were left aghast when
Krishnalal Shridharni elevated Gandhi to the status of twentieth
century Hindu god – “The seventh reincarnation of Vishnu, Lord Rama.”
One of the objectives of colonialism was the “civilize” the “natives”
and the “tribes”. According to Rudyard Kipling this was the “White
Man’s Burden”. The British machinery and their acolytes, the Christian
clergy had an ulterior motive in building the Gandhi myth. Similar
schemes had worked in Africa and Latin America. Local deities were
“included” in Christian concepts to make it more palatable to the
people. Later these “local influences” would be purged.
The Colonial rulers thought that by elevating Gandhi to a 20th century
messiah and then converting him would open the flood gate for
evangelizing and converting the Hindu and masses. However Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi was not Emperor Constantine, and was unable to
fulfill the wishes of the colonial masters.
Many believe that this wish of foreign funded Christian Missionaries
is being fulfilled by Christian Sonia Gandhi and her Christian lobby.
Many Indians are upset that Glady Stains was awarded Padmshree. Many
Indians are upset at the missionary activities of the faith healer
Benny Hinn’s organized in Bangalore with the support of Andhra
Government to please, Sonia Gandhi, the Pope and the Vatican City’s
its Indian ambassador.
The biggest Urban Myth is that Mr. Gandhi led a movement for the
independence from the British. Gandhi did not bring the British empire
to its knees. By supporting the British war effort in South Africa as
well as in the Subcontinent, he actually prolonged Britain’s
occupation of the Subcontinent and prolonged the life of the British
Empire. In 1945 the tottering “empire” was its knees already. Actually
it had been knocked out (KO!).
WW2 with 50 million dead had totally destroyed London and decimated
the infrastructure of the country. There was no appetite for empire.
British voters threw out Churchill. The exhausted British had already
decided to leave all her colonies after the 2nd world war.
It is nonsensical to say that Gandhi won freedom for the Subcontinent
“without spilling a drop of blood.”Non-violence was just a slogan. One
million died in 1947. In the 40’s when the British colonial rule was
taking its last breadth there was a strong wave of nationalism across
the globe, in China, in Malaysia, in Nigeria, in South Africa, and in
the Subcontinent. Many of the leaders were Tipu Sultan, Bahadar Shah
Zafar, Alam Iqbal, Mohhammad Ali Jinnah, Maula Mohammad Azad, The Ali
Brothers, Maulana Abdul Bari Farangi Mahali, Lokmanya Tilak, Chaudhry
Rehmat Ali, Gokhale, Lal Lajpat Rai, Veer Savarkar and many other
unnamed heroes.
Their sacrifices were not less than Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi came to the
political scene in India after Jinnah, Iqbal, and Sir Syed. He came
after Tilak Yug, Subhash Chandra Bose launched the “Azad Hind Fauj.”
The devastating affects of the 2nd Tribal War (World War II) forced
the British government to abandon her Colonial Empire.
GANDHI WAS “CREATED” TO USE THE SOUTH AFRICANS IN THE BRITISH WARS:
Gandhi was a creation of the British and they used him to get the
South Africans to fight in the British wars. He also stratified the
South African society. From Oct. 1899 to May 31st, 1902 Mahatma Gandhi
did not mention in “Non-Violence.”At the beginning of the South
African War, Gandhi argued that “Indians must support the War effort
in order to legitimize their claims to full citizenship. ”
The “Prophet of Non-Violence“, the “apostle of peace” urged the
Indians to support the British by enlisting in the army during World
War I.
GANDHI WAS A TOTAL FAILURE IN SOUTH AFRICA: Gandhi was a failure in
South Africa and a failed attorney in Bombay. His failure hardened
“Apartheid” and it took decades to dismantle it. This created a rift
with the Black of South Africa who rejected this. Gandhi urged the
colonial authorities to raise a volunteer militia of Indians to fight
for the Empire. Gandhi informed the “South African Natal Authorities”
that it would be a “criminal folly” if they did not enlist Indians for
the war. Mr. Gandhi urged the Indian community to show their loyalty
to the British Empire by raising funds for the War. He reminded them
that they were in South Africa due to the courtesy of the Empire.
• “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.
GANDHI WAS IMPORTED TO THE SUBCONTINENT BY THE BRITISH:The British
Empire included many countries in Africa and Asia. In the Subcontinent
it included more than 500 states. At the end of the 2nd Tribal War in
Europe (WW2), the pillars of the once mighty British Empire were
collapsing. In the Subcontinent the War of Independence of 1857 (also
known as “Indian Mutiny“) had failed.Gandhi’s arrival in India was a
carefully planned and crafted scheme to get rid of the Muslim
leadership in the Indian National Congress. Some of the biggest
millionaires in India devised a marketing plan to construct a leader
for a superstitious, illiterate and colonized people. Gandhi was the
perfect candidate.
He was imported from South Africa. Special trains were constructed to
transport Gandhi in “3rd class” bogeys. “the brilliance of his image:
the huge ears, toothless smile, round glasses, the loincloth, the
staff. I remember a factoid from somewhere that the most recognized
characters on earth were Gandhiji and, no offence, Mickey Mouse. And
no, it wasn’t the big ears. It was the deliberate cultivation of an
iconic figure with his sartorial abnegation, something that would
appeal instantly and instinctively to his target audience, the average
Indian. Something that would resonate strongly with the ascetic
tradition of the land; the intentional invocation of the poorest of
the poor, the salt of the earth…..As Sarojini Naidu is said to have
complained, it cost India millions to keep Gandhiji in poverty. But
the packaging and positioning” The Man who knew marketing byRajeev
Srinivasan The man who knew marketing
The Salt March and his fast in Calcutta were managed events for
publicity and fund raising. Huge crowds were attracted to this circus.
Funds were generated to support the Indian National Congress and other
organizations which unleashed a campaign of terror against the Muslims
of Bengal and Kashmir. Initially the INC was not a communal
organization but it used the RSS and the Jan Sangh to do its dirty
work. The machinery worked overtime to put the Subcontinent on the
track of Ram Rajhya.
Gandhi first introduced Hindu religious symbols to Motilal Nehru’s
Secular Indian National Congress and then tried to make all of India
succumb to a racist Hindu Ram Rajha rule.
G D Birla’s personal memoirs “‘In the Shadow of the Mahatma: A
Personal Memoir’” reveal that he undertook many visits to England on
his own and utilised the opportunity of to sell Gandhi. He acted as
the appointed agent of Gandhi to meet Winston Churchill, Lord Halifax,
Sir Samuel Hoare, Lord Lothian, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay McDonald and
several other great English statesmen were G D Birla’s close friends.
G D Birla’s was in close touch Lala Lajpath Rai, Pundit Madanmohan
Malaviya, Pundit Motilal Nehru, Srinivasa Sastri, Sardar Vallabhai
Patel, Rajaji and several others. The racists bigots like Patel, Rai
and others were the ones who were advising Birla on how to sell Ram
Rajha to the British under the guise of Non-violence, Sunil Khilnani
has says that Gandhi’s vision was essentially religious His solution
was to forge an Indian identity out of the shared knowledge of ancient
scriptures. “He turned to the legends and stories from the India’s
popular religious traditions, preferring their lessons to the supposed
ones of the history“.
Today’s India tells us that it didn’t work then and it doesn’t work
now. In today’s India, Hindu nationalism is rampant in the form of the
Bhartiya Janta Party. During the recent elections, Gandhi and his
ideas have scarcely been mentioned. India has had wars with all her
neighbors, Nepal, Burma, Bangaldesh, Sikkim, Bhutan, Sril Lanka and of
course Pakistan.The British brought Gandhi back to India from South
Africa to sabotage Indian national movement against British rule. The
Congress Party at the time was a secular party. At the expense of
other important people Nehru-Gandhi were imposed on the party which
had been set up under the patronage of the British authorities.
“One of his reason for launching the Civil Disobedient Movement is to
contain the violence of revolutionaries.” Gandhi’s letter to the
Viceroy in1930
The 2nd World War broke out in 1939 after Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
Initially, Mr. Gandhi favored offering “non-violent moral support” to
the British effort, but other Congress leaders were offended by the
unilateral inclusion of the people of the Subcontinent into the war,
without the consultation of the people’s representatives (INC,ML, AD,
RSS, Jan Sangh etc.).
MR GANDHI INTRODUCED RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM INTO THE SUBCONTINENTAL
POLITICS: THIS LED TO THE ALIENATION OF MUSLIMS ETC.
Mr. Gandhi introduced religious symbols into politics which led to the
Indian National attracting the communalists like Patel. As a result of
the Ashrams and the satyargarhs and the Banda Mahtaram INC became a
Hindu Party with the Muslims in the Muslim League and the Sikhs in the
Akali Dal. Unable to agree on the Cabinet Mission Plan all agreed to
gain independence in a different manner from the British. Gandhi’s
religious symbols eventually led to the BJP ruling India, Ayodhia and
the massacres in Gujrat. Secularism in India means “Hinduism Light”.
Dynastic “Democracy” in India was imposed to wrest the control of
India from Muslim lands. Land reforms were forced on a vulnerable
Muslim population and their lands were confiscated.
SCHEME TO DETHRONE THE MUSLIMS FROM THE CORRIDORS OF POWER: A scheme
was created to disable the Muslim infrastructure of India and get rid
of the rulers who had ruled India for more than a thousand years. A
word that had not been in vogue was issued into the lexicon of the
English language. This word “Democracy” did not appear in the American
Constitution and Socrates, Jeffersen, Hamilton and others had written
much against it. However the word galvanized the people of Britain and
America to fight Fascism. It worked to draw in the Americans to the
war. The British used this word to seduce the Hindus of the
Subcontinent to lure them into supporting them so that after they
left, they would rule the Subcontinent–something they had not dreamed
about in more than a thousand years.
The politics of sex locked the British Empire into irrational decision
making. There is an overwhelming body of evidence to show that Lord
Mountbatten was gay. Lord Mountbatten was seduced by Mr. Nehru whose
homosexual tendencies have been mentioned by Stanley Wolpert and
others. Lord Mountbatten’s wife Edwina’s affair with Mr. Nehru is well
known also.
GANDHI WAS A FAILURE IN THE SUBCONTINENT:Gandhi had pledged to keep a
several fasts to death to prevent. Invariably he got sick enough and
stopped.
“The anti-Muslim thrust of some of Gandhi’s Hindu opponents combined
with Muslim separatism to produce Pakistan.” Gandhi’s grandson
The Gandhi opponents in India were unhappy with him for “allowing
Pakistan”. They also think that the “protest fast unto death and the
non-violent arm of Gandhism was a fraud. Both Mahatma Gandhi and
British Empire knew this. This was a friendly fight as Congress, its
allies and left fronts are doing. After all they are true loyalist of
Nehru Gandhi dynasty. “
THE NON-VIOLENCE SLOGAN WAS FOR THE SAKE OF THE BRITISH RULERS
The “Non Violence” theme in the Subcontinent was a great marketing
ploy of Mr. Nehru and Mr. Gandhi. Gandhis sole contribution to history
was to make 150 million Muslims of India subservient to the Hindus.
Attempts to make another 300 million subservient continue.Other than
lip service he was unable to eliminate the caste system in India. Sati
and “White Widows” remain instilled in the fabric of India.
Source: Mohandas by Gandhi’s grandson, In Search of Truth by Mohandas
Gandhi, Freedom at Midnight by Le Pierre (screen play for the movie
Gandhi).
Mohandas– a true story of a man, his people and an empire, on Mahatma
Gandhi” by former Parliamentarian and writer Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi
Sources: Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1609478,00.html
What the world thinks of Mohandas Gandhi:
http://www.kush.co.za/workarea/show.asp?ArticleNo=36
www.Gandhism.net/gandhiandblacks.php
www.Gandhism.net/sergeantmajorgandhi.php
www.Gandhism.net/southafricanblacks.php
www.DalitVoice.org/Templates/oct_a2005/articles.htm
SikhSpectrum.com Monthly. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and … –
[ Diese Seite übersetzen ]
Mahatma Gandhi’s letters to Hitler
koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhihitler.html
Council of Khalistan CONGRESSIONAL RECORD – [ Diese Seite
übersetzen ]
http://www.khalistan.com/CongRecords/CR121305_Towns_RacismOfIndianFounderExposed.htm
www.Guardian.co.uk/southafrica/story/0,13262,1065018,00.html
APPENDIX
Gandhi’s girls – sex scandal Washington Monthly, July-August, 1987 by
Art Levine
Gandhi’s Girls
India, 1942: In the end, the political demise of Mohandas Gandhi came
with stunning speed. Until last week, he was the reversed Mahatma–the
Great Soul– leader of 400 million Indians in the drive for
independence from British colonial rule. With the election of the
Labour Government in Britain increasingly likely, chances never seemed
brighter for the free India that Gandhi had sought for so long.
But by week’s end, in the wake of newspaper accounts of Gandhi’s
sexual peccadilloes, bizarre personal habits and mind-bending cult
practices, his career–and perhaps Indian nationalism –lay in ruins.
Those closest to Gandhi likened it to a Greek tragedy, a giant cut
down by his own hands. “Gandhi’s personal life was a political time
bomb waiting to explode,’ said one distraught associate. “Now it’s
finally blown up in our faces.’
Ironically, Gandhi set the stage for his demise through his own
pronouncements on sex. His obsession began in 1885 when he learned of
his father’s death while in bed with his wife. By 1906, he had taken a
much celebrated vow of celibacy. An extraordinary commitment, but even
then Gandhi was angling for moral loopholes. “If for want of physical
enjoyment,’ he wrote, “the mind wallows in thoughts of enjoyment, then
it is legitimate to satisfy the hungers of the body.’ For years,
supporters now admit, Gandhi had pushed the outer limits of propriety.
“The man in the loin cloth, it seems, has thought a good deal about
loins,’ said one observer.
After years of such rumors, it was the specific nature of the latest
charges, followed by other damaging revelations, that undermined his
political base. The shock waves were felt throughout the British
empire–and new questions were raised about how relevant a politician’s
character was to his work, and whether in the case of Gandhi, the
Fourth Estate went too far.
A Spiritual Experience? The trouble began a week ago when the New
Delhi Herald published a front page story reporting that Gandhi had
spent the weekend with five attractive young women–aides in his
nonviolent campaign–at his ashram in Sevegram. Meanwhile, his wife
Kasturbai was 2,000 miles away at their mountain retreat in Kashmir
recuperating from an illness.
Escorting them was Gandhi’s aide, the movie star-handsome Jawaharlal
Nehru. With his urbane charm and stylish taste in jackets, Nehru never
had any pretense to celibacy. (His intimacies with Lady Mountbatten
are infamous.) Campaign insiders said that they had long been alarmed
by Gandhi’s ties to Nehru, and several suggested their time together
be cut back. “We told him to dump Nehru,’ said one aide. “But the old
man would just sit there and smile. He didn’t see the storm coming.’
It was advice Gandhi must now wish he had heeded. New Delhi Herald
reporters and photographers were hiding in nearby bushes, guarding
both the front and rear entrances. Except for a breath of fresh air at
3 A.M., the women had spent the entire night with the erstwhile
spiritual leader. If the chronology was indicting, the photographs
were positively damning. Wielding telephoto lenses, the Herald
photographers snapped shots that seem sure to snuff out a political
career. The scene: Gandhi and his cabal sprawled on his rope bed–
naked.
Late Sunday morning, a weary Gandhi finally spotted the Herald
reporters and confronted them. The women were only there as an
experiment in self-restraint, he insisted, and nothing sexual
transpired between them. “True brachmacharya (celibacy) is this: one
who, by constant-attendance upon God, has become capable of lying
naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being
in any manner whatsoever sexually excited. I have done nothing wrong,’
Gandhi insisted.
The Indian public wasn’t buying it. His explanations had become the
issue of the campaign, according to a poll taken two days after the
Herald story broke. Only 34 percent of those questioned believed
Gandhi’s claim that he hadn’t had sexual relations with the women–and
a scant 16 percent believed he hadn’t been sexually excited. A mere 26
percent claimed to be disturbed by the incident itself; what bothered
them, said 75 percent of India’s citizens, was the appearance of
hypocrisy.
But the questions kept coming. Every stop on his campaign swing turned
into a media circus. A protest march in Dandi was cut short by a
throng of reporters, barraging Gandhi with questions about his sexual
self-control. A new low in political discourse may have been reached
when a reporter for the Bombay Post asked during a sit-in, “Did you
get an erection last weekend?’ Although Gandhi was well within his
rights when he responded, “I don’t have to answer that,‘ some
observers felt that the appearance of evasiveness further eroded his
credibility.
Matters were only made worse when the Herald was widely rumored to be
on the verge of publishing more damaging photos–of nothing less than
unmistakable signs of Gandhi’s physical excitement. When a pack of
enterprising reporters caught up with her at her sickbed, Mrs. Gandhi
stuck by her man. She told them: “Honestly, if Mahatma told me that
nothing happened, then nothing happened.’
More Revelations: Still, by week’s end, the prospects for Gandhi’s
political recovery looked grim, despite his denials and counter-
attacks. In the next few days, there were other newspaper accounts of
Gandhi’s celibacy experiments. The Bombay Post ran an insiders’
account of life in Gandhi’s ashram. Contrary to the image he had
cultivated of a gentle, loving soul, the two-part series, “The Dark
Side of Gandhi,’ detailed the brutal regimen imposed on his followers.
His 100-plus disciples, forced to live in primitive mud and bamboo
huts, were awakened daily at a A.M. to eat nothing but a few crumbs of
unseasoned vegetarian gruel and dry wheat. Weakened, they were
subjected to long harangues on arcane religious topics. Eyewitness
accounts were gruesome. “We had to spend hours on our knees chanting
prayers and spinning cotton,’ said one American follower who defected.
“We were like zombies.’ Cult experts say Gandhi had dozens of
ingenious schemes to weaken his followers’ ties to their families and
strengthen his control over them. Their secret name for their leader:
“Bapu,’ or father.
The Post story was the final straw. In his political death throes,
Gandhi made a dramatic appearance before his supporters–and stopped
just short of abandoning his campaign for a free India. “I intended,
in all honesty, to come to you this sunrise and tell you that I was
leaving the cause. But, then, after tossing and turning all night, as
I have through this ordeal, I woke up and said, “Heck, my goodness,
no.”
Instead, Gandhi with his back against the proverbial wall reached deep
into his bag of tricks and, like a cat with nine lives, pulled yet
another rabbit from his hat: a hunger strike. Over the course of a
fifty-year career, Gandhi had turned this familiar strategy into a
crowd pleaser that could move the masses or pummel an Empire. “Under
certain circumstances, fasting is the one weapon God has given us for
use in times of utter helplessness,’ said Gandhi defiantly.
No one doubts that Gandhi can go weeks on end without even a drop of
chutney. But political analysts are doubtful that the man, once dubbed
“Mr. Hunger Strike,’ could make this latest gambit work. “Gandhi
represents the politics of the past,’ said Patreek Chardeli. “A new
generation of Indians wants vital, robust leadership. I don’t think a
starving old man is well positioned to do it.’ More ominously, other
pundits said the political damage was too much to contain– even with a
high-profile play for sympathy. Davidahr Garthati, the media
consultant credited with Gandhi’s decision to abandon the suit and tie
of his early barrister days and “go native’ instead, was equally
pessimistic. Garthati noted, “His celibacy shtick was crucial to the
saint image he’d cultivated for all these years. The non-violence
thing, the spinning wheels, the fasting–that was brilliant. But his
celibacy really set him apart, made him genuinely holy. Without it,
he’s just another pacifist do-gooder.’
Political opponents moved quickly to capitalize on the gaffe.
Columnist Robert Novakilli, a longtime Gandhi critic, lambasted
Gandhi’s hijinks from his nationally broadcast McRajan Group. “The
real perversion is Gandhi’s political agenda. For years, he and his
pacifist pals have had two things in mind: tinkering with the salt tax
and cozying up to Stalin.’ And his most formidable rival, Moslem
leader Muhammed Ali Jinnah, sought to subtly position himself to pick
up Gandhi’s fleeing supporters. “Family life has always been sacred to
me,’ he told reporters, standing outside his family’s mosque with his
wife and daughter. “I don’t think it’s my place to comment on the
controversy surrounding some of those in the public eye. It’s up to
the Indian people to judge for themselves.’
And their judgment seemed harsh. Within a matter of days, the squalid
controversy over Gandhi’s private parts turned him from a national
hero into a laughingstock. On his nightly radio program, comedian
Charu Carson quipped, “Well, at least we know the Mahatma is big
enough for the job of running India.’ He added, to more laughter, “I
guess he was really meditating his brains out this weekend.’ Editorial
cartoonists had a field day, as a bulging loin cloth quickly became
the Mahatma’s new trademark.
In the next few days more revelations came trickling out about other
celibacy “experiments’ he had been conducting since his forties,
including one report of a pleasure trip down the Ganges with Nehru and
two female assistants on the awkwardly named Holy Cow. The Post also
revealed that at the end of each day, he had one of his attractive,
young female disciples administer an enema, which he insisted was for
“health’ and “cleansing’ purposes. “Gandhi gives as much as he takes–
even to total strangers,’ said one Gandhi aide.
New Ground rules: Gandhi’s sudden demise triggered an orgy of self-
examination in the media. Did the press go too far? “At first, I
agonized over whether we should risk tarnishing a great man’s
reputation with close-up photos of naked women and speculation about
his sex life,’ said Ved
Fiedleraba, who led the Herald stakeout. “But then I realized that the
public had a right to know.’ Fiedleraba reasoned that if there was the
slightest possibility that Gandhi was lying about his celibacy, then
that raised serious questions about his candor and his ability to
negotiate with foreign leaders were India ever to become independent.
“So, naturally, it was my moral obligation to set up camp outside his
bedroom.’
Clearly, the ground rules have changed. Historically, the press has
had a gentlemen’s agreement with India’s rulers. When Viceroy Lord
Lillybottom himself brought a bevy of beauties to the Taj Mahal, the
muckrakers of Madras looked the other way. But with the rise of Indian
Nationalism and the decline of British sea power, the mores of Indian
society have been loosened–and so have those of the press. Today,
nothing is off limits, even enemas. Many wondered what’s next: asking
Jinnah whether he had violated the Koran’s strictures against amorous
relations with pigs or other unholy animals? But for now it was Gandhi
who was caught in this whirlwind. This smiling man, from a more polite
age, seemed oblivious to the new rules of his beloved India.
Whatever the press’s ultimate responsibility, the longstanding doubts
over Gandhi’s character left India’s nationalist movement in disarray.
Behind the scenes, some Congress party operatives were privately
relieved. “We feel betrayed,’ said one. “Gandhi promised he would
remain celibate, at least until India achieved independence. Now that
he’s gone, at least we can move on.’
Ultimately, Gandhi’s fate hinged on those questions of character,
rather than any moral revulsion. In her essay “Gandhi’s Women Problem,
Women’s Gandhi Problem,’ Sukai Lessardai voiced the concerns of many
women wary of Gandhi’s apparent philandering. “Whether or not he was
celibate, his need to prove his spiritual manhood by lying with five
naked women is an affront to the dignity and equality of women
everywhere.’ And as Willmed Schneidermanai of the Indian Enterprise
Institute points out, “It’s not so much the fact that he slept with
these women or regularly indulged in enemas; it’s that he showed such
bad judgment in doing so. I think this raises serious questions about
Gandhi’s self-discipline and insensitivity to the appearances of
impropriety –and finally about Gandhi’s ability to lead a successful
non-violent movement.’
Now the question is: Whither India? In his stead, there are other
leaders who could possibly win independence for India–the Moslem
Jinnah, or even Vallabhaai Patel–but neither has the stature and name
recognition of a Gandhi. Non-violent disobedience seems a memory now.
And nationalism itself is on the backburner. As the likely next
Viceroy of the Raj, Lord Louis Mountbatten, points out, “If an entire
nation could be led down the primrose path by this charlatan and
hypocrite, the Indian people are not yet ready for independence.’ Wise
heads in India and Britain agreed, and with Gandhi’s political demise,
a tumultuous chapter in India’s history closes, and calmer times lie
ahead.
Photo: More than disciples?: Gandhi and two “aides’
Photo: Character flaw?: Gandhi stalked by questions about his
judgment– and candor
COPYRIGHT 1987 Washington Monthly Company , COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_v19/ai_5167040/pg_4
WAS GANDHI A TANTRIC?
By Nicholas Gier, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of
Idaho (ng...@uidaho.edu)
For a complete version, which will appear in Gandhi Marg (2007) click
here. For a 900-word version click here.
My meaning of brahmacharya is this: “One who never has any lustful
intention, who . . . has become capable of lying naked with naked
women . . . without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited.” –
M. K. Gandhi
The greater the temptation, the greater the renunciation. –M. K.
Gandhi
I threw you in the sacrificial fire and you emerged safe and sound. –
Gandhi to his grandniece Manu Gandhi
I can hurt colleagues and the entire world for the sake of truth. –M.
K. Gandhi (letter to Sushila Nayar)
[Gandhi] can think only in extremes-either extreme eroticism or
asceticism. –Jawaharlal Nehru
The professional Don Juan destroys his spirit as fatally as does the
professional ascetic, whose [mirror] image he is. –Aldous Huxley, Do
What You Will
Some scholars believe that it is unseemly to write about the sex lives
of great thinkers. William Bartley, for example, has been criticized
for documenting, quite successfully in my opinion, Ludwig
Wittgenstein’s homosexual encounters, information that helps us better
understand his life and work. If we use this information in an ad
hominem attack against these thinkers’ worldviews, then we have indeed
erred and done them an injustice.
Full and accurate biographies, however, are essential for those of us
who wish to capture the full measure of a person’s life and character.
It is therefore unfortunate that D. K. Bose, Gandhi’s faithful
secretary and interpreter in Bengal, was forced to self publish his
book My Days with Gandhi. He only thought that he was being truthful,
but many considered him an apostate, and Sushila Nayar, one of
Gandhi’s female intimates, thought he had “a dirty mind.”
Most people would rather not hear about Martin Luther King’s
extramarital liaisons, but they remain embarrassing facts, along with
the plagiarized passages in his doctoral dissertation, that must be
integrated into our understanding of this great saint of nonviolence.
King confessed that what he did was wrong and he sought forgiveness
from his wife and sought repentance. Sadly, I do not think that we can
say that same thing about Gandhi’s response to those who criticized
his intimate relations with young women. Furthermore, King did not
defend his actions by saying that they were part of his spiritual
development, something that Gandhi of course did.
It is now widely known that Gandhi shared his bed with young women as
part of his experiments in brahmacharya, a Sanskrit word usually
translated as “celibacy,” but generally understood as the ultimate
state of yogic self-control. Gandhi believed that Indian ascetics who
sought refuge in forests and mountains were cowards, and he was
convinced that the only way to conquer desire was to face the
temptation head-on with a naked female in his bed.
I take Gandhi at his word that he did not have carnal relations with
these women-his sleeping quarters were open to all to observe-so he
was not among the left-handed Tantrics who engaged in ritual sex with
their yoginis. At the same time, Gandhi’s Tantricism cannot be right-
handed kind because this school proscribes intimate contact with
women.
As would be expected, we will find that Gandhi was a very distinctive
Tantric. Perhaps it can be said that Gandhi was somehow simultaneously
a left-handed and right-handed Tantric. Raihana Tyabji, a close
associate with a Tantric past, thought that Gandhi’s position
straddling right-handed and left-hand Tantra was untenable, and that
the only way to free himself and his women from sexual desire was “to
give free rein to it-to indulge it and satiate it. But he wouldn’t
listen.”
It is not widely known that Gandhi subscribed to Shakta theology, one
that puts skakti, the power of the Hindu Goddess, at the center of
existence. Shakta theology is the foundation of Hindu Tantricism.
Scholars have warned us that not all Shaktas are Tantrics, but
Gandhi’s sexual experiments with young women definitely suggest some
association with Tantra. It is also possible that that Gandhi’s sexual
experiments may have been an abuse of personal power rather than a
practice of Hindu spirituality.
One defense that could be made for Gandhi’s actions is that he
experienced intimate relations with men as well. Hermann Kallenbach, a
South Africa associate, was very close to the Mahatma. Kallenbach
promised that he would travel to the “ends of the earth in search of
[Gandhian] Truth,” and he also promised Gandhi that he would never
marry. Gandhi reciprocated by declaring unconditional love and a
declaration that they would always be “one soul in two bodies.”
Gandhi was also very close to Pyarelal Nayar, Sushila Nayar’s brother,
and boasted that Pyarelal slept closer to him than his sister did. For
Gandhi, however, sleeping with men was different from sharing a bed
with women. Abha Gandhi’s husband Kanu once objected to his wife
sleeping with the Mahatma and offered himself as a “bed warmer.”
Gandhi rejected his proposal by making it clear that brahmacharya
tests required young women as bedmates. Finally, if someone makes an
appeal to the Indian custom and necessity of intimate Indian family
sleeping arrangements, Girja Kumar is not convinced: “Not even in
India do grown-up daughters sleep with their fathers.”
I
In his book My Days with Gandhi Bose does mention in passing that
Gandhi’s techniques are “reminiscent of the Tantras,” and Gandhi
himself said that he read the books on Tantra written by Sir John
Woodroofe, but, as far as I know, only Gopi Krishna has argued at any
length about Gandhi’s Tantricism.
In his on-line essay “Mahatma Gandhi and the Kundalini Process,”
Krishna argues that the only way that we can explain Gandhi’s actions
with these young women is to assume he was a kundalini yogi. Krishna
speculates that “upward flow of reproductive energy [shakti]” started
as soon as he committed himself to brahmacharya in 1906. Gandhi was
37, “the usual time,” from Krishna’s own experience, “for the
spontaneous arousal of the Serpent Power.”
As evidence that Gandhi had perfected this state, Krishna cites this
passage from Gandhi’s Key to Health: “[the brahmachari's] sexual
organs will begin to look different. . . . He does not become impotent
for lack of the necessary secretions of sexual glands. But these
secretions in his case are sublimated into a vital force pervading his
whole being.” Krishna claims that this passage makes it “patently
clear” that Gandhi had attained the state of brahmacharya, but it is
not clear that Gandhi is writing about himself, and that, except
during the crisis with Manu, he rarely ever claimed spiritual
perfection.
As the kundalini yogi matures, Krishna states that he “needs constant
stimulation to increase the supply of reproductive juices. . . . The
Tantras and other works on kundalini clearly acknowledge the need of
an attractive female partner in the practices undertaken to awaken
shakti.” Gandhi does in fact say that “my brahmacharya . . .
irresistibly drew me to woman as the mother of man. She became too
sacred for sexual love.”
Krishna admits that Gandhi himself most likely “had no inkling of the
transformative process at work in him,” even though he claims that
Gandhi noticed that his male organ had shrunk. Krishna brushes aside
criticism of Gandhi’s actions and also concern for the young women’s
mental health, because “nature accomplishes her great tasks in her own
way and leaves short-sighted mortals wondering how it could happen.”
Apart from the speculative nature of Krishna’s theory, we should be
most concerned about his disregard for the women’s well being, as well
has the implication that Gandhi was driven by forces over which he had
no control.
II
For Gandhi the virtues of patience, self-control, and courage were
absolutely essential to defeat the temptation to retaliate and respond
with violence. Gandhi made it clear that each of these virtues were
found most often in women. Gandhi once said that he wanted to convert
the woman=s capacity for “self-sacrifice and suffering into shakti-
power.” Gandhi describes womankind as follows: “Has she not great
intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater
powers of endurance, has she not greater courage?” He also claimed
that nonviolence is embodied in the woman: she is “weak in
striking. . . strong in suffering.”
The women around Gandhi were amazed how comfortable they felt in his
presence and how much of a woman he had become to them. Millie Polak
observed that “most women love men for [masculine] attributes. Yet,
Mohandas Gandhi has been given the love of many women for his
womanliness.” His orphaned grandniece Manu considered Gandhi as her
new mother, and she simply could not understand all the controversy
surrounding their sleeping together.
The fact that women felt no unease in his presence was proof to Gandhi
that he was approaching perfection as a brahmachari. Indeed, Bose
contends that Gandhi attempted to “conquer sex” was “by becoming a
woman.” Gandhi told Pyarelal Nayar that he once tore the burning sari
off a woman in his ashram, but “she felt no embarrassment, because she
knew I was a brahmachariand so almost like a sister to her.”
Alternatively, Gandhi says that his goal was the state of “complete
sexlessness” recommended by Jesus and that this condition could be
achieved by becoming a eunuch by prayer not by an operation.
Gandhi is no doubt referring to shaktiwhen he states that “all power
comes from the preservation and sublimation of the vitality that is
responsible for the creation of life.” Gandhi may very well be
indicating a Tantric process of empowerment that involves the
preservation and sublimation of a male vitality that has its source in
shakti. When Gandhi did his first radio broadcast on November 12,
1947, he declared that the phenomenon of broadcasting demonstrated
“shakti, the miraculous power of God.”
When Gandhi once described himself as “half a woman,” an alternative
view of masculine and feminine power suggests itself. The Chinese/
Jungian view of complementary yin (anima) and yang (animus) energies
is found in this passage: “A man should remain man and yet should
learn to become woman; similarly, a woman should remain woman and yet
learn to become man.” Hsi Lai uses the yin/yang model to explain
Gandhi’s sexual experiments: “He didn’t do this for the purpose of
actual sexual contact, but as an ancient practice of rejuvenating his
male energy. . . . Taoists called this method ‘using the yin to
replenish the yang.”
The source of Gandhi’s dipolar views of male and female may have been
Christian rather than Asian. While a young man in England, Gandhi came
into contact with the Esoteric Christian Union, whose interpretation
of the image of God meant that the individual “must comprise within
himself the qualities Bmasculine and feminineB of existence and be
spiritually both man and woman.” When he confessed to Kedar Nathji and
Swami Anand that his sexual experiments were “unorthodox,” Gandhi says
that his views on this subject had been influenced by “Western writers
on this subject.”
III
It is the male who is active in Tantric rites. Only males undergo
initiation, and the only instruction females receive, if they get any,
is that they “should not even mentally touch another male.” Gandhi’s
Tantricism definitely follows this androcentric approach. Gandhi also
takes the defiant stance of the Tantric who says that he cares nothing
for what others thinks of his practice: “The whole world may forsake
me but I dare not leave what I hold is the truth for me.” Gandhi once
admonished a critic that he would sleep with a thousand women if that
is what it took to reach spiritual purity. Gandhi’s experiments in
truth took on the value free aspects of the scientific method, and
left-handed Tantrics believe that their actions are above conventional
law and morality.
Normally Tantric practices are tightly structured, highly ritualized,
and the initiation procedures, guided by a guru, are esoteric. The
only bona fide guru in Gandhi’s spiritual development was
Raichandcharya, a Jain saint, not a Tantric, with whom Gandhi
corresponded during his formative South Africa period. Gandhi
officiated at daily worship and hymn singing, encouraged the chanting
of the Ramanama (the god Rama’s name), and followed an unconventional
diet, but these practices are not Tantric in any way. The chanting of
the Ramanama is said to have magical properties, but its use is so
widespread in India it may not indicate any special Tantric
associations. Nevertheless, Gandhi does connect the chanting of Rama’s
name with “an alchemy [that] can transform the body” that leads to
“the conservation of vital energy.”
Gandhi’s experiments with truth were highly personalized but not
spiritually esoteric as are Tantric practices. Only after the sexual
experiments came under public scrutiny did Gandhi started telling his
female associates to keep their activities secret. Not until his last
days, when his sleeping with Manu became public, did Gandhi confess
that this secrecy was actually a sign of untruthfulness. Gandhi’s
secrecy was simply expedient and not spiritually required.
IV
Before Gandhi started his brahmacharyaexperiments in 1938, he had a
string of intimate relationships with European and Indian women. While
he was in South Africa, Gandhi fell in love with Millie Polak, the
wife of Henry Polak, both of whom lived with Gandhi at Phoenix Farm.
Kumar describes their first contact as follows: “Gandhiji and Millie
started conversing through their eyes. They made a pact between them
immediately. Poor Henry was left stranded.” As with all of his female
friends, Gandhi insisted that he and Millie be sisters or
alternatively that he be her father, but after they were together in
London in 1909 without Henry, Gandhi dared to suggest that he was a
substitute husband.
Even though Millie was smitten by him, she stood up to Gandi’s
controlling nature and argued against his absurd dietary ideas and his
goal to force chastity on all his coworkers. This independent spirit
that defines most of his female intimates of this early period stands
in instructive contrast to the passive participants in the later
brahmacharyaexperiments. For example, Kumar describes Manu as a
devotee who “was prepared to sacrifice her life at the altar of her
personal God.” Gandhi controlled every aspect of Manu’s life, and when
she once forgot his favorite soap at their last stay, he made her walk
back through a dark jungle to retrieve it.
When Millie finally broke off their 3-year affair, Gandhi’s attentions
turned to Maud Polak, Henry’s sister. Maud worked with Gandhi at
Phoenix Farm as his personal secretary until 1913. In a letter to
Henry, Gandhi described Maud seeing him off at a railway station: “She
cannot tear herself from me. . . . She would not shake hands with me.
She wanted a kiss. [This incident] has transformed her and with her
me.”
Esther Faering, a young Danish missionary, was the next major love in
Gandhi’s life. From her very first visit at the Satyagraha Ashram in
1917, Kumar describes Faering as “completely hooked on” Gandhi, and as
with Millie Polak, “an instant chemistry developed” between them.
Gandhi “experienced an intensely personal passion for Esther,” and she
praised him as the “Incarnation of God in man.”
The other ashramites were alarmed at Gandhi’s obsession with Faering,
and Kasturba Gandhi was particularly cool to her husband’s new love
interest. Gandhi made matters worse by siding with Faering against his
wife. While he was away from the ashram, he wrote daily letters to
Faering, which Kumar describes as having the passionate intensity of
the poets of Hinduism and Sufi Islam. He hazards a guess that “Esther
must have stirred,” as young beautiful women are supposed to do in the
Tantric yogi, “the serpent resting uncoiled in [Gandhi's] kundalini.“
One would expect Gandhi to have at least been serially monogamous in
his relationships, but that was not the case. While Faering was
struggling against Kasturba and other ashramites, and receiving
Gandhi’s constant support from afar, he was conducting what Kumar
calls a “whirlwind romance” with Saraladevi Chowdharani, a Bengali
revolutionary married to a Punjabi musician. Her father was a
secretary of Indian National Congress in Calcutta, and by virtue of
her singing and activism, Saraladevi was celebrated as Bengal’s Joan
of Arc and as an incarnation of the Goddess Durga. She rose to the
challenge and wrote that “my pen reverberated with the power of
Shiva’s trumpet and invited Bengalis to cultivate death.”
After the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919, Gandhi stayed at
Saraladevi’s home in Lahore and then toured India together during
1920. Her husband, R. D. Chowdhary, was in jail for the first eight
months this period, but he was content, as was Henry Polak, to share
his wife with the Mahatma. Gandhi agreed with Chowdhary that
Saraladevi was the “greatest shakti of India.”
Gandhi called Saraladevi his “spiritual wife” after “an intellectual
wedding,” and he reported that he bathed “in her deep affection” as
she showered “her love on [him] in every possible way.” Kasturba
Gandhi had refused to wear khadi-the homespun and hand woven garments
that Gandhi made famous-but Saraladevi became the Mahatma’s most
elegant khadimodel. Kumar describes them as “lovelorn teenagers with
stars in their eyes,” and depicts Saraladevi as “aristocratic,
gorgeously dressed, sensuously beautiful, and imperious. In short, she
had everything that [Kasturba] lacked.”
In contrast to his later brahmacharyamistresses, Saraladevi, just as
Millie Polak before her, did not bow to Gandhi’s authority in any way.
For example, as the quotation above implies, she agreed with fellow
Bengalis, such as the young Aurobindo, that independence required
violent revolution. Following her Goddess, Durga’s shaktiwas always
accompanied by violence, and Saraladevi eventually broke with Gandhi
over this very issue.
Kumar concludes that just as his relation to Faering, while “full of
sensuality,” was asexual, Gandhi’s romance with Saraladevi was
“probably . . . entirely platonic.” There was, however, a “large
component of eroticism” and the “line of demarcation between sexual,
sensuous, erotic and platonic was only of degree and not of kind.”
Kumar’s phrasing is unfortunate and logically incoherent, because
“degree” means a slippery slope and not a strict line between the
intellectual/spiritual and the physical. In letters to Saraladevi in
July, 1920, Gandhi insists that being “spiritually” married means that
the “physical must be wholly absent,” but he then admits that he is
“too physically attached to” her for there to be a true “sacred
association.”
In his conversations with Margaret Sanger, Gandhi refers to a “woman
with whom I almost fell,” and “the thought of my wife kept me from
going to perdition.” Writing to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, a later bedmate,
he admitted the he, “with one solitary exception,” had never “looked
upon a woman with lustful eyes.” These two references must have been
to Saraladevi Chowdharani.
Madeleine Slade, who became Gandhi’s beloved Mirabehn, was the
daughter of a British naval officer who was once stationed in Bombay.
Mirabehn first learned of Gandhi through Romain Rolland, who was then
writing a Gandhi biography. She wrote to Gandhi requesting that she
become a member of the Sabarmati Ashram, but he required that she live
as an ascetic for one year before coming to India. More than any of
his disciples, Mirabehn eagerly took to the austerities that Gandhi
demanded. As opposed to Kasturba, who disliked latrine duties,
Mirabehn eagerly took charge of the toilets, even those for all the
delegates to a meeting of the Indian National Congress.
At their first meeting in November, 1925, Mirabehn found Gandhi
“divine,” and she was able to confirm Rolland’s claim that he was
indeed the second Christ. They fell in love with one another and Kumar
says that “Mira was Saraladevi . . . all over again.” Once again,
because of Gandhi’s fascination for her, Mirabehn was shunned by the
ashramites. Gandhi soon discovered that Mirabehn’s emotional
instability caused his blood pressure to rise, so he frequently sent
her away on other tasks. They did, however, keep in contact with
weekly self-described “love letters,” and Gandhi wrote that she
haunted his dreams.
Mirabehn agreed with Gandhi’s depiction that their passion was like a
“bed of hot ashes,” a veritable ascetic-erotic rhapsody of yogic
tapas.Gandhi also shared with Mirabehn agonies about his spontaneous
erections, daytime ejaculations, and wet dreams, for which he
castigated himself unmercifully, and they even discussed the causes
and cures of constipation.
V
Of the women closely associated with Gandhi, at least ten were said to
have slept in his bed. They can be identified as follows:
Sushila Nayar was only 15 when she came to the Sabarmati Ashram and
then became Gandhi’s intimate companion, with some periods of
alienation and remove, for the rest of his life. Gandhi claimed that
Nayar was a natural brahmachari, having observed it from childhood.
They bathed together and even used the same bath water, but Gandhi
assured everyone that he kept his “eyes tightly shut.”
Lilavati Asar, associated with Gandhi from 1926-1948, slept in his bed
and gave him “service,” which meant bathing and massaging.
Sharada Parnerkar slept “close” to Gandhi and rendered “service.” She
was very ill in October, 1940, and Gandhi gave her regular enemas.
Amtul Salaam, whom Gandhi called his “crazy daughter,” was a Punjabi
from Patiala. She was also a bedmate and masseuse. Gandhi once wrote
about the joy he gave Salaam when she received a massage from him.
Prabhavati Narayan, a Kashmiri, lived in an unconsummated marriage
with Jayaprakash Narayan, Indira Gandhi’s most famous political foe.
Because of her lack of sexual interest or desire, Gandhi thought that
Prabhavati would be a perfect married brahmachari. In addition to
sleeping with Gandhi, she also gave him “service.”
Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur, married to a Rajasthani prince, was India’s
first health minister and was a Gandhi associate for 30 years.
Although older, she slept right along with the younger women in
Gandhi’s quarters. She also helped with baths and massages.
Sucheta Kriplani, a member of Parliament and professor at Benares
Hindu University, was a member of Gandhi’s Peace Brigade in East
Bengal in 1947. She maintained a brahmacharimarriage with J. B.
Kriplani, a famous socialist and saint. Gandhi fought their union
tooth and nail. Although Gandhi invited Mrs. Kriplani to his bed on a
regular basis, he insisted that married couples in his ashrams always
sleep in different quarters.
Abha Gandhi was a Bengali who accompanied the Mahatma in East Bengal.
She started sleeping with Gandhi when she was 16; she also bathed him
and washed his clothes.
Kanchan Shah, also a married woman, had a “one night stand” with
Gandhi and was banned from brahmacharya experiments because she
reputedly wanted to have sex with him. Gandhi gave the following
instructions on brahmacharimarriage to Shah and her husband: “You
should not touch each other. You shall not talk to each other. You
shall not work together. You should not take service from each other.”
But Gandhi of course received “service” from his women on a daily
basis. On the hypocrisy of taking what he denied to others, Kumar has
this to say: “The vow of brahmacharya was a revenge he took upon
everyone else.”
Manu Gandhi was his brother’s granddaughter and she was his constant
companion for the last eight years of his life. Interestingly enough,
there is a temple to Manu, a powerful rain goddess, in Gandhi’s home
city of Porbandar.
Most accounts of Gandhi’s spiritual experiments focus on those with
Manu in 1946-47 in East Bengal. Although he conceded at the time that
it “may be a delusion and a snare,” and although he seemed to be
recalling his earlier experiments at Sevagram-”I have risked perdition
before now”-he was still confident that he had “launched on a
sacrifice [that] consists of the full practice of truth” and the
development of a “non-violence of the brave.” He said that these tests
were no longer an experiment, which could be seen as optional, but a
compulsory sacred duty (yajna). His hut where he slept with Manu was
called “holy ground,” and Manu’s father had to sleep elsewhere when he
visited.
There is some confusion about whether the women simply slept next to
him or shared the same cover, or whether they slept clothed or
unclothed. The scenario appeared to be that they first slept next to
him, then slept under the same cover without clothes. Significantly,
Gandhi admitted that “all of them would strip reluctantly. . . and
they did so at my prompting.” As to the reason for complete nakeness,
Sushila Nayar recalls Gandhi’s explanation to Manu: “We both may be
killed by the Muslims at any time. We must both put our purity to the
ultimate test. . . and we should now both start sleeping naked.”
Gandhi described his sleeping with Manu as a “bold and original
experiment,” one that required a “practiced brahmachari” such as he
was, and a woman such as Manu who was free from passion. Confessing as
she even might have done with her own mother, Manu told Gandhi that
she had not ever experienced sexual desire. Presumably because of
these ideal conditions, Gandhi predicted that the “heat would be
great.” It is not clear whether Gandhi was speaking of the yogi heat
of tapas, or the heat of the negative reactions that he anticipated.
One has to admire Manu because it was she, not Gandhi, who suggested
that they not sleep together any longer. It is harder to credit
Gandhi, particularly when he said that the experiments ceased because
of Manu’s “inexperience,” not because of any failing on his part. As
Kumar states: “Just five days before Gandhiji was assassinated, he
charged her with failing to realize the potential of mahayajna.” So it
was Manu’s fault, not his.
Controversy about the practice continued during the summer of 1947,
but Gandhi was pleased when two editors of his journal Harijan, who
had resigned in protest about the experiments, confessed that they had
misjudged Gandhi. It is not clear that the experiments stopped because
Pyarelal notes that “the practice was for the time being
discontinued”; indeed, after returning to Delhi, Manu and Gandhi
resumed sleeping together and “continued right till the end.”
Gandhi’s “sacred associations” actually began at his Sevagram ashram
as early as 1938, when his wife Kasturba was still alive. Sushila
Nayar not only slept with him there, but also gave him regular
massages, sometimes in front of visitors, and they, as I have noted,
bathed together. About his relations to Nayar, Gandhi states: “She has
experienced everything I have in me. . . . She is more absorbed in me.
Hence I would even make her sleep by my side without fear.” Nayar told
Ved Mehta that “long before Manu came into the picture, I used to
sleep with him just as I would with my mother. . . . In the early days
there was no question of calling this a brahmacharya experiment. It
was just part of a nature cure. Later on, when people started asking
questions about his physical contact with women, the idea of
brahmacharya experiments was developed.” The fact that Gandhi changed
the justification for these experiments after closer public scrutiny
suggests that his motivation for these actions may not have been as
pure as he wanted people to assume.
In an extremely candid confession, Gandhi admits that at Sevagram he
had made a grave mistake:
I feel my action was impelled by vanity and jealousy. If my experiment
was dangerous, I should not have undertaken it. And if it was worth
trying, I should have encouraged my co-workers to undertake it on my
conditions. My experiment was a violation of the establishment norms
of brahmacharya.Such a right can be enjoyed only by a saint like
Shukadevji who can remain pure in thought, word and deed at all times
of day.
Gandhi, however, could not maintain his resolve, because shortly
thereafter (as soon as 12 hours!) intimate contact with women of the
ashram resumed. According to Mark Thomson, “Gandhi explained that he
could not bear the pain and anguish suffered by women devotees denied
the opportunity to serve him in this fashion.” Gandhi confessed that
he “could not bear the tears of Sushila and fainting away of
Prabhavati.” In February, 1939, there was another crisis. Gandhi
admitted that four women at Sevagram did not like “giving service” and
they were ordered to sleep “out of reach” of his arms.
When Gandhi spoke of the dangers of his sexual experiments in 1938, he
must have realized that he was not ready for the test. While he did
claim that he “can keep [sexual desire] under control,” he admitted he
had not “completely eradicated the sex feeling,” a criterion that he
had honored from the traditional rules of brahmacharya. Gandhi openly
admitted that there were some “black nights,” presumably sleeping with
his women, in which God “saved me in spite of myself.”
One of these dark nights must have been May 9, 1938. In a letter to
Nayar’s brother, Gandhi admitted that he may have had “a dirty mind”
and may have played “the role of Satan.” His “diseased mind” might
have “aroused him” and thereby compromised Nayar, causing her “untold
misery.” Gandhi was obviously wrong when he claimed previously that
Nayar’s natural purity could “forestall any mistake I may make,” and
that “contact with her has brought greater purity to me.” Although he
took all the blame upon himself, Gandhi appears incredibly obtuse in
assuming that Nayar had no reason to feel disturbed or unhappy about
the psychological effects of her intimate relations with him.
Sushila Nayar was away from the ashram for long periods for her
medical education. When she finished, Gandhi begged her to return as
the ashram’s doctor. He was upset that she now refused to be called
his daughter, and he urged her, without her preconditions, to “rush to
me and become one with me.” Reading the dozens of letters exchanged
during this time, it is clear that Nayar was still very troubled about
what happened at Sevagram. She wrote that she would return only on
“conditions,” which were that she would not have to give Gandhi
“service.” Nayar reluctantly submitted to Gandhi’s indomitable will in
September, 1940. While he was in Delhi, she did give him a massage,
but she came to him “with great difficulty.” She also sent him a
letter beforehand, which he described as “hurtful.” While describing
himself as unhappy, he acknowledged that Nayar was suffering “deep
misery.”It looked as if Nayar could have succeeded in tearing herself
away from Gandhi’s possessive domination, just as his earlier
intimates had, but she did eventually return to him and was with him
and Manu in East Bengal.
Although Gandhi declared that he, compared to other men, could take
greater liberty” with women, and that no woman “has been harmed by
contact with me or been prey to lustful thoughts,” there is sufficient
evidence to prove that Gandhi’s experiments had a deleterious effect
on his female intimates’ mental health. There was intense competition
among the women for Gandhi’s attention. For example, Lilavati Asar and
Amtul Salaam were very jealous of Sushila Nayar, and Gandhi promised
Asar that he would stop sleeping with Nayar because of her anger.
Gandhi was always inclined to blame others for not understanding the
unique nature of his experiments. In 1940 Gandhi admitted that the
“atmosphere here [Sevagram] cannot be said to be natural for anyone,”
but nevertheless the conflict was caused by those who were not
properly “absorbed” in it. Those who had learned “master the
atmosphere” could live at Sevagram “comfortably and grow.” Several
visitors attested to definite signs of psychological turmoil among
Gandhi’s women companions. In 1947 Swami Ananda and Kedar Nath, two
visitors with substantial spiritual credentials, queried Gandhi as
follows: “Why do we find so much disquiet and unhappiness around you.
Why are your companions emotionally unhinged?” The former Tantric
Raihana Tyabji observed that the more Gandhi’s young women “tried to
restrain themselves and repress their sexual impulses . . . the more
oversexed and sex-conscious they became.”
After learning of the experiments, Bose wrote that he would “never
tempt [himself] like that; nor would my respect for a woman’s
personality permit me to treat her as an instrument of an experiment
undertaken only for my own sake.” He was also concerned about the
women’s emotional health: “Whatever may be the value of the
[experiment] on Gandhiji’s own case, it does leave mark of injury on
the personality of others who are not of the same moral stature as he
himself is, and for whom sharing in Gandhiji’s experiment is no
spiritual necessity.”
Bose was also concerned about Gandhi’s own emotional state, observing
that Sushila Nayar’s presence brought him out of his normal
“unruffled” composure. On December 17, 1946 at 3:20 AM, Bose heard two
loud slaps and “deeply anguished cry” from Gandhi’s sleeping quarters.
He went in to find both Nayar and Gandhi in tears. Bose had assumed
that Gandhi had slapped Nayar, but she insisted that Gandhi had hit
himself on the forehead twice, a physical form of Gandhi’s “self-
suffering” that Manu had witnessed as well. Bose also mentions an
unnamed woman “Z,” who “was not always disinterested in her relations
with” with Gandhi, and who also upset him and distracted him from his
political work.
VI
In conclusion, if we can call Gandhi a Tantric, then it is a very
unique nonritualistic, nonesoteric practice combining aspects of both
left- and right-handed Tantric schools. It also must be said, no
matter how much we want to hold Gandhi in the highest esteem, that
there is sufficient evidence to conclude that Gandhi was inconsistent
in his justifications for his sexual experiments and not completely
sincere in carrying them out. This would then lead one to question
whether these experiments were a spiritual necessity or simply a
personal indulgence and abuse of power.
If the goal of the true Tantric is to transform desire into something
sacred, then personally I am less and less certain that Gandhi
achieved this goal. As Aldous Huxley once said: “The professional Don
Juan destroys his spirit as fatally as does the professional ascetic,
whose [mirror] image he is.”
ENDNOTES
[1]Letter to R. A. Kaur, March 18, 1947.
[2]Quoted in Ved Mehta, Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles(Harmondsworth,
Middlesex: Penquin Books, 1976), p. 213. I rely heavily on Mehta for
two reasons: (1) his book was well received and republished by Yale
University Press; and (2) he sought out all the living Gandhian
associates and interviewed them extensively.
[3]Quoted in Girja Kumar, Brahmacharya: Gandhi and His Women Associates
(New Delhi: Vitasta Publishing, 2006), p. 90.
[4]The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Government of
India Publications, 1958), vol. 93, p. 340.
[5]Jawaharlal Nehru, Selected Works (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1974),
p. 349.
[6]Aldous Huxley, Do What You Will (New York: Doubleday, 1928), p.
45.
[7]William Bartley, Wittgenstein (Chicago: Open Court, 2nd ed.,
1985).
[8]Quoted in Mehta, p. 203.
[9]Jeffrey Kripal, Kali’s Child (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1993).
[10]Gandhi, Young India 8 (January 21, 1926), p. 30.
[11]Quoted in Mehta, p. 211.
[12]Collected Works, vol. 79, p. 301.
[13]Ibid., vol. 96, p. 183.
[14]See Mehta, p. 201.
[15]Kumar, p. 294.
[16]Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi(New Delhi: Orient Longman,
1974), p. 2.
[17]Pyarelal Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase(Ahmedabad:
Navajivan, 2nd ed., 1966), vol. 1, bk. 2, p. 229.
[18]Gopi Krishna, “Mahatama Gandhi and the Kundalini
Proces” (Institute of Consciousness Research, 1995) at
http://www.icrcanada.org/gandhi.html (accessed on June 11, 2006). All
the citations are from the second section of the essay.
[19]Gandhi, Key to Health, trans. Sushila Nayar (Ahmedabad: Navajivan
Trust, 1948), p. 24. Krishna’s English translation differs
significantly from this one, so I wonder if he is citing the same
text. He himself gives no reference.
[20]Cited in Bose, p. 171.
[21]Pyarelal, p. 214.
[22]Gandhi, Womans’s Role in Society(Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing,
1959), p. 8.
[23]Gandhi, Harijan (November 14, 1936), p. 316). “Woman is the
incarnation of ahimsa. Ahimsa means infinite love, which again means
infinite capacity for suffering” (Harijan [February 24, 1940], p. 13.
[24]Cited in Martin Green, Gandhi: Voice of a New Revolution (New
York: Continuum, 1993), p. 261.
[25]Quoted in Mehta, p. 213.
[26]Bose, p. 177. Mrs. Polak noted a Atrait of sexlessness@ even in
his South Africa days (Gandhiji as We Know Him, ed. Ch. Shukla
[Bombay, 1945], p. 47). A Mrs. Shukla said that Athere are some things
relating to our lives that we women can speak of . . . with no
man . . . . But while speaking to Gandhiji we somehow forgot the fact
that he was a man@ (C. Shukla, Gandhiji=s View of Life [Bombay, 1951],
p. 199). See also The Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 595; 2nd ed., vol. 1, bk.
2, p. 234.
[27]Cited in Metha, p. 44.
[28]Pyarelal, p. 585. This story may have variations, but the one that
I read clearly indicated that the Gopis were embarrassed to come out
of the Yamuna River and redeem their saris for a kiss from Krishna.
Radha of course was the single exception.
[29]Ibid., pp. 219, 220.
[30]Brian K. Smith, “Eaters, Food, and Social Hierarchy in Ancient
India,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58:2 (Summer,
1990), pp. 177, 178.
[31]Gandhi, Harijan (July 23, 1938), p. 192.
[32]V. S. Gupta, “Gandhi and the Mass Media” at http://mkgandhi-sarvodaya.org/mass_media.htm,
visited on May 30, 2006.
[33]Quoted in Pyarelal, p. 217.
[34]Gandhi’s Letters to Ashram Sisters, ed. K. Kalelkar and trans. A.
L. Mazmudar (Ahmedadbad: Navajivan, 2nd rev. ed., 1960), p. 94.
[35]Hsi Lai, The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress: Secrets of
Female Taoist Masters(Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 200), p. 16. Lai
states that he became interested in “the matter of transformational
sex” by reading about Gandhi’s experiments.
[36]Pyarelal, p. 223.
[37]As told to Bose, pp. 149-50.
[38]Devi-Mahatyma, 1.59 (Coburn translation).
[39]Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1965), p. 202.
[40]Brahmavaivarta Purana, Rakriti-Khanda55.87, trans. Tracy
Pintchman, The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition(Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 1994), p. 164.
[41]Bharati, p. 236.
[42]Collected Works, vol. 87, p. 13. Compare this with the Tantric
yogi who said “Let my kinsmen revile me. . . let people ridicule me on
sight . . . .” (cited in Bharati, p. 238).
[43]“Thousands of Hindu and Moslem women come to me. They are to me
like my own mother, sisters, and daughters. But if an occasion should
arise requiring me to share the bed with any of them I must not
hesitate, if I am the bramacharya that I claim to be. If I shrink from
the test, I write myself down as a coward and a fraud” (Collected
Works, vol. 87, p. 15).
[44]See Bharati, pp. 200, 202, 203. Other exceptions were an active
Shiva in Tamil Shaivism and a static female in the Markandeya Purana
(p. 213).
[45]Hevajra Tantra, trans. D. L. Snellgrove, excerpted in The World of
the Buddha, ed. Lucian Stryk (New York: Grove Press, 1968), p. 311.
[46]See Buddha’s Lions: The Lives of the Eighty-Four Siddhas, trans.
and ed. James B. Robinson (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing Co., 1979).
[47]Bharati, p. 21.
[48]See N. F. Gier and Paul K. Kjellberg, “Buddhism and the Freedom of
the Will” in Freedom and Determinism: Topics in Contemporary
Philosophy, eds., J. K. Campbell, D. Shier, M. O’Rourke (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2004), pp. 277-304. See sections on Nagarjuna.
[49]Bharati, pp. 19, 200.
[50]Ibid., p. 20.
[51]Cited in Bose, p. 172.
[52]Collected Works, vol. 87, p. 14.
[53]Cited in Bose, p. 153.
[54]Gandhi,Harijan (June 29, 1947), p. 212.
[55]Quoted in Metha, p. 48.
[56]Douglas R. Brooks, The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introduction
to Hindu Shakta Tantrism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990),
p. 58.
[57]Ibid., p. 69.
[58]Kumar, p. 90.
[59]See ibid., p. 97.
[60]Ibid., p. 317.
[61]Collected Works, vol. 96, p. 34.
[62]Kumar, pp. 145-46.
[63]Ibid., p. 152.
[64]Cited in ibid., p. 216.
[65]Collected Works, vol. 17, p. 375; vol. 16, p. 516.
[66]Ibid., vol. 16, p. 316. “Spiritual wife” found in ibid., vol. 18,
p. 130.
[67]Kumar, pp. 223, 218.
[68]Ibid., p. 225.
[69]Collected Works, vol. 18, pp. 20, 71.
[70]Ibid., vol. 35, p. 70.
[71]Ibid., vol. 47, p. 49.
[72]Ibid., vol. 67, p. 117.
[73]Ibid., vol. 93, p. 204.
[74]Ibid., pp. 335-36.
[75]See Kumar, p. 7.
[76]Collected Works, vol. 70, p. 220.
[77]Kumar, p. 288.
[78]Collected Works, vol. 87, pp. 13-14, 15. “Non-violence of the
brave” cited in Bose, p. 159.
[79]Quoted in Kumar, p. 321.
[80]Ibid., vol. 79, p. 238.
[81]Quoted in Metha, p. 203.
[82]Cited in Bose, p. 103.
[83]Cited in ibid., p. 134.
[84]Kumar, p. 331.
[85]Pyarelal, pp. 226, 238. In letters to Mannalal G. Shah on March 6
and 7, 1945, Gandhi wrote equivocally: “As far as possible I have
postponed the practice of sleeping together. But it cannot be given up
altogether” (cited in Kumar, p. 8).
[86]Collected Works, vol. 93, p. 333.
[87]Quoted in Mehta, p. 203. The question of whether Gandhi’s touching
of women was appropriate had been raised as early as 1935. His
response entitled “A Renunciation” can be read in Harijan, September
21, 1935.
[88]Collected Works, vol. 67, pp. 104-5.
[89]Mark Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashrams (Columbia, MO: South Asia
Books, 1993), p. 202.
[90]Collected Works, vol. 67, p. 117.
[91]Ibid., vol. 93, pp. 237-38.
[92]Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase (Ahmedabad: Navajivan
Publishing, 1st ed., 1958), vol. 1, p. 588. “Now mere abstention from
sexual intercourse cannot be termed Brahmacharya. So long as the
desire for intercourse is there, one cannot be said to have attained
brahmacharya” (Key to Health, p. 23).
[93]Cited in Bose, p. 171.
[94]Collected Works, vol. 93, p. 161.
[95]Ibid., p. 33.
[96]Ibid., p. 349. In a letter to Sushila Nayar on August 5, 1940,
Gandhi states that one condition of her return was “taking care of
[his] body,” and he acknowledged that this was not acceptable to her
(Collected Works, vol. 93, p. 343).
[97]Ibid., pp. 364-66.
[98]Ibid., p. 333.
[99]Ibid., p. 338.
[100]Pyarelal, 2nd ed., vol. 1, bk. 2, p. 228.
[101]Quoted in Mehta, p. 211.
[102]Bose, p. 150.
[103]Ibid., p. 151.
[104]Ibid., p. 95.
[105]Ibid., p. 159.
[106]See Hugh Urban, Tantra: Sex. Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the
Study of Religion (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
2003), p. 67.
[107]Mahanirvana Tantra 7.13, 22, cited in Urban, p. 65.
[108]Wendy Doniger, Foreward in Edward C. Dimock, Jr., The Place of
the Hidden Moon(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. xiii;
cited in Kripal, p. 117.
[109]Kripal, p. 118.
[110]Kathamrita2.62; 5.140-41 (trans., Kripal); see The Gospel of
Ramakrishna, p. 701.
[111]From the Ramakrishna Mission website at http://www.sriramakrishna.org/sdlife.htm,
accessed on June 9, 2006.
[112]Cited in Urban, p. 93.
[113]P. B. Saint-Hilaire, The Future Evolution of Man(Pondicherry: All
India Press, 1963), p. 148.
[114]P. Nallaswami,Shivajñana Siddiyar3.2.77; cited in R. C. Zaehner,
Evolution in Religion: A Study in Sri Aurobindo and Pierre Teihard de
Chardin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 104.
[115]Cited in Urban, p. 101. It seems that Aurobindo has not left
Tantra behind, as Urban claims, but has simply embraced a right-handed
form of it.
[116]Huxley, p. 45.
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For his services in helping the British raise an army, he was awarded
titles.Meanwhile India was still suffering under British colonial
rule. Gandhi arrived in England during the first week of the World
War, and again he supported the British by raising and leading an
ambulance corps; but he became ill and returned to India in January
1915….In the spring of 1918 Gandhi was persuaded by the British to
help raise soldiers for a final victory effort in the war. Charlie
Andrews criticized Gandhi for recruiting Indians to fight for the
British. Gandhi spoke to large audiences……