Though Gandhi has often been portrayed as a sort of saint and sage, the world’s ultimate pacifist, a proponent of universal love, and the person who was almost single-handedly responsible for gaining Indian independence from British rule, these all seem to be immense exaggerations and inaccuracies that (—perhaps largely due to the Academy Award winning 1983 film Gandhi—) have caught on and made him out to be a model of wisdom and moral uprightness that he by all means fell greatly short of in reality.
Though generally a promoter of nonviolence, Gandhi supported and directly contributed to the British Empire’s involvement in the Kaffir War and World War I, and also seemed to hold a belief that if necessary, thousands or even of millions of Indians should be willing to die for the sake of the political causes he supported.
Though he reformed and moderated India’s Hindu caste system and to some degree improved the lot of those grouped in the lower ranks of this social order, he nevertheless wholeheartedly was a proponent of the system, and thereby supported the subjection of the “untouchables” to a lifetime of unavoidable poverty and suffering.
Though he devoted himself to many causes aimed at improving the life of Indians, he did not seem to show anywhere near the same concern for the welfare of other peoples around the world; and he even seemed to have a genuine disdain for black natives of southern Africa—a disdain that borders on what most of us today would consider pure racism.
During Word War II, when asked about what he felt should be done in response to Nazi Germany’s possible impending extermination of the Jews it held captive, he suggested, in no uncertain terms, that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide for the sake of arousing Germans and the world as a whole to Hitler’s violence.
As a husband and father, he seemed to unfairly impose almost all of his beliefs onto his wife and children, thus causing him to disown his eldest son for wanting to get married, banish his second son for giving minor financial assistance to his struggling older brother, and forbid his ailing wife from taking British-produced medicines as she lay on the verge of death.
With his disciples, he for the most part assumed the role of their absolute life director, as if he were some sort of all-knowing infallible individual whose various suggestions—or better yet, commands—ought to be heeded and followed as if they came from the lips of an omniscient being; even though it was painfully obvious (, at least to most of those who weren’t enamored with Gandhi,) that he often advised others on matters he was quite ignorant or misled about—for instance, he promoted nutritional regimens that ended up causing himself and others to become severely malnutritioned, and he prescribed natural cures that included the use of ingredients such as cow dung.
And though he played a role in earning India its independence from the British Empire, it is likely that his actual net contribution to India’s liberation might have not have been that significant. In fact, according to many sources familiar with the matter, India was inevitably headed towards independence with or without Gandhi, and Gandhi’s involvement might have even slowed down the process and done more harm than good.
Finally, it should be noted that despite Gandhi’s tremendous influence on India during his day, the region was hardly able to successfully remain free from violence in its post-independence era. In fact, the newly independent region soon became a virtual hotbed of deadly violence, as it became clear that