Gandhi: A Life Book

This is a very interesting book about a very complicated and interesting man. Gandhi has become a symbol for non-violent triumph whose example is thought to be a clear-cut defense of such method of social change. Of course, along the way, he's earned his share of critics. (see this article, written about the same time a movie about Gandhi came out, for the most outspoken example: I personally think the article has some good points and badly misrepresents other aspects of his life.) He's thought of as something of a civil rights hero the same way Martin Luther King is, which is accurate in many ways (MLK explicitly sought to imitate Gandhi in many ways), but incomplete. To his fans in the west, he's the saint to end all saints, nearly christlike. To his opponents, he's essentially an aberration that managed to help bring down relatively benign British rule, with significant consequences, many of which negative, and whose influence is uncertain in any case.d

My opinion, at least at this point, is that any such narrative of his life is likely wrong. Few characters in history are as clear cut in any one direction as their fans or opponents seek to portray, but never is that more so than with Gandhi. I personally find it hard to deny several, very difficult truths, seem to be true about him:

A. His early work in South Africa was very good and he was very right about the moral issues at stake. However, his triumph was incomplete. That I suppose can be said of all civil rights movements, but it seems to me to be especially true here.

B. His moral code is largely laudatory, particularly his attitude of forgiveness to enemies and his humility (such as it was, it was not always). If not unambiguously good, it at least is overwhelmingly so, with some mistakes. His methods of application, however, are much more complicated and difficult to judge.

Furthermore, his seeming full embrace of relativism planted the seeds of the undoing of much of what was good about his work. That is the thing that bothers me most. Hinduism, it seems to me, lends its self to this type of thinking more than other religions, and as a Hindu I suppose such errors could come as no great surprise. It does surprise me somewhat, however, given his obvious intelligence, he did not see the obvious problems this presented. It is one thing to say that a deity has plans for other religions that may not be entirely true, even your own. It is another thing to declare mutually exclusive philosophies equally true.

C. His political/civil rights work, while it almost always had its heart in the right place, is VERY difficult to judge. The mere fact that the British left can be credited to him, but it is probably inaccurate. And much of what he sought to accomplish, such as a unified Indian subcontinent, not only didn't happen, but didn't happen with massive amounts of bloodshed, which he sought to avoid at all costs. Can you call him a failure because of this? No, I don't think you can. I do, however, think it is inaccurate to call his successes unqualified, however. The qualifications are rather large. I also found certain aspects of his various causes badly misguided, even if secondary. Namely his dedication to vegetarianism and other dietary customs that I cannot see could do anything but hurt the poor and oppressed he sought to help. But those flaws are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, and have a deeply philosophical/theological basis that is difficult to really discuss deeply without reaching agreement on some much more important questions.

D. His personal moral example is even more complicated. While there is little doubt he was a man with much genuine earnestness in seeking what Aristotle called "the good," his actual conduct, as the book clearly relates, was not without controversy, even which he was aware of. His mid-life dedication to celibacy, even as a married man, clearly has very difficult implications both for himself and his wife. His arguable disregard, at times, for the well being of his family as most people would understand it, is similarly difficult. His late-life, incredibly odd relationships with young girls to "test" his vow of celibacy, can only be seen, I think, as a weakness he fooled himself into thinking was for some higher purpose.

Anyhow, this book was clearly sympathetic, and glossed over much of the difficult theology to placate western audiences. But neither did it shy away from some of his controversies, or present the information in such a way that made it difficult to question. Considering the saintly image Gandhi has amongst some, Yogesh Chadha gives one of the more objective views of him I've seen.

Anyhow, this is something I'm going to want to think more about. Perhaps study more. I can say that since I wanted to learn more about Gandhi, I think I made a pretty good choice of books to start with.