JimR-OCDS:
Actually Ghandi opposed the rioting and such to the point he went on a hunger fast until it stopped.
I am aware of the history, Mr Jim. He said he opposed the rioting. Hunger fast: too little too late. I knew people who had to go into hiding during the riots in order to stay alive. They were innocent. Mr Ghandi was at the centre of that.
Were people listening to his admonitions for peace or his earlier less peaceable pronouncements? A person in power has to be very careful of everything that he says and there had been times when he had not been careful. Those times came back to bite him.
JimR-OCDS:
Yes, its how they lived that counts and history shows that Gandhi did live a life of nonviolence and compassion for people.
We disagree then. Some folks do not have a problem with the caste system. They believe we should respect the ways of another culture. I look upon the caste system as a violence perpetrated upon the innocent.
JimR-OCDS:
There are countless numbers of non-Hindus who lived with Gandhi during his struggle for independence from British rule.
There were innumerable non-Hindus who lived peaceably among each other before the onset of Mr Ghandi’s politics. And not just non-Hindus of European descent either. It was common for those who could afford schools to be educated in Urdhu, Hindi, Hindustani, English, French, Greek, and Latin. At least. They played cricket together. When they graduated they made sure their school mates had jobs and continued to socialize together. Many of these non-Hindu peoples are now exiled or dead.
Exile is a great upheaval for folks. Many of these non-Hindu families had lived in India for tens of generations. That’s longer than many families have lived in Canada or the US, yet here those families are Canadian or American. There they were never accepted as Indian, even though their souls were rooted in the soil of the plains, mountains, and forests of India. Even though they fought on the Pacific Front and their wives, children, and churches offered comfort and relief to the refugees marching in from the East.
After the exile, these families arrived in Europe during the post-war period. I say Europe because not all were English. They were of various nationalities. In post-war Europe jobs were scarce, rationing of food was in full swing, and they were treated as outsiders.
JimR-OCDS:
They are his witnesses and they have more credibility than those who choose to spread hatred for the man.
Are you suggesting that I am spreading hatred for the man? If so, then why?
I thought it might be permissible on a discussion forum to bring forward a different opinion than yours. Mr Ghandi, you know, had difficulty overcoming his own hatred for the English. I am simply unpersuaded – given the outcome of his political career – that the man was a Saint. I guess I am pondering the notion of the tree being known by its fruit.
If whole populations of people in a country – people we would normally consider ‘citizens’ – have to leave that country in order to save their own lives, then I would question the leadership of that country. If large numbers of those people trying to leave were killed on their way out, I would question the leadership of that country. Moreover, I would hold the leadership of that country – as well as its citizens – accountable.
In the end, it seemed to me that India was held to a different standard. After India was ‘purged’ it was not the untouchables who confiscated the businesses. Moreover, for decades there seemed always to be new pockets of folks who did not ‘fit in’. Did you know that the lion’s share of Sikh holy books are now in Southwestern Ontario?
All this is neither here nor there. In the end, if folks want Ghandi to be sainted in the popular media then he will be sainted in the popular media. That’s just the way things go sometimes.
If my point of view is uncomfortable to hear, then the only thing I can say is that it was not put forward from hatred nor was it put forward to hurt or ‘one-up’ anyone. Not all things we come across in discussion are comfortable. Moreover there is more than one side to every story. In the popular media, we have heard Mr Ghandi’s side.
:tiphat:
) Cheney spread the propaganda of fear and false necessity to justify going to war.