Archive:Controversies surrounding Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi , widely celebrated as the father of the Indian independence movement and a global symbol of non-violent resistance, held a range of views that have drawn significant historical criticism. His writings and public statements — many drawn from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, published by the Indian government — document positions on race, caste, gender, and colonialism that have been a topic of controversy. This article documents those controversial views as recorded in primary sources.

Views on Jewish people and the Holocaust

Opposition to a Jewish homeland

Gandhi opposed the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. In November 1938 he wrote: "The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me... Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home." He further wrote that every country was the Jews' home, "including Palestine, not by aggression, but by loving service."

Response to Nazi persecution

Gandhi's prescribed response to Nazi persecution was non-violent submission. In 1938 he wrote that Jews "who claim to be the chosen race" should "prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth." Following the Holocaust, Gandhi stated in a 1947 interview with Louis Fischer: "Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves in the sea from cliffs... It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions."

Assessment of Hitler

In December 1940 Gandhi stated: "I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed." In a direct letter to Hitler, Gandhi stated he did not believe him to be "the monster described by your opponents." The letter addressed Nazi aggression against Czechoslovakia, Poland and Denmark without mentioning the persecution of Jews once.

Contemporary Jewish responses

Gandhi's positions drew direct rebukes from prominent Jewish thinkers. Martin Buber responded in 1939: "An effective stand in the form of non-violence may be taken against unfeeling human beings in the hope of gradually bringing them to their senses; but a diabolic universal steamroller cannot thus be withstood." Rabbi Judah Magnes similarly challenged Gandhi directly: "How can Jews in Germany offer civil resistance? The slightest sign of resistance means killing or concentration camps."

Late acknowledgment

In 1946 Gandhi acknowledged that "the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world." When asked shortly before his assassination about a solution to the Palestinian problem, he said it had "become a problem which seems almost insoluble."

Views on Black Africans

Racial hierarchy and separatism

During his years in South Africa, Gandhi consistently sought to distance Indians from Black Africans within the colonial racial order.In 1894 he complained that Indians were being dragged down "to the position of a raw Kaffir." In 1896 he wrote that Indians faced "a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness." In 1903 he stated explicitly: "We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do… We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race."

Use of racial slurs and derogatory characterisations

Gandhi's writings from South Africa repeatedly used the racial slur "Kaffir" and characterised Black Africans in derogatory terms. In 1908 he wrote that the British rulers assumed that "like the Kaffirs who can be pleased with toys and pins, we can also be fobbed off with trinkets." That same year, following imprisonment, he wrote: "Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised – the convicts even more so…. The reader can easily imagine the plight of the poor Indian thrown into such company!" He further described many native prisoners as "only one degree removed from the animal."

Segregationist campaigns

Gandhi actively campaigned for racial segregation in shared civic spaces. In 1904 he wrote: "Under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians, I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population." In 1905 he opposed the opening of a school to all coloured children, describing it as "unjust to the Indian community." In 1908 he expressed outrage at being housed at the same level as Black prisoners, stating that "to be placed on the same level with the Natives seemed too much to put up with." In 1909 he wrote: "I have resolved in my mind on an agitation to ensure that Indian prisoners are not lodged with Kaffirs…. I observed with regret that some Indians were happy to sleep in the same room as the Kaffirs…. This is a matter of shame to us." He also lobbied the Governor directly for separate lavatories, telling him that "Indian prisoners should never be lodged with Kaffirs."

Warnings against social contact

In 1910 Gandhi warned Indians against contact with Black women, writing: "Some Indians do have contacts with Kaffir women. I think such contacts are fraught with grave danger. Indians would do well to avoid them altogether."

some of his supporters say that Gandhi in his later age had evolved past his racial views and ceased using racial slurs towards Africans.

Views on white colonial authority

Support for British imperial structures

Gandhi for much of his early political life operated within and expressed loyalty to British imperial frameworks. . He strongly believed that the British Empire was for the welfare of the entire world and maintained this view for a long time. In WWI he recruited Indian soldiers for the British army to express loyalty to the Empire. He remained loyal to the ideals of the British Empire, to, in his own words, its "spiritual foundations."

Views on women and sexuality

Celibacy experiments

Gandhi believed that true brahmacharya meant one could "lie naked with women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner sexually excited." He invited young women to share his bed in what he Described as spiritual experiments or experiments in brahmacharya.Among those women was his own grandniece Manu Gandhi. When Vallabhbhai Patel wrote to Gandhi telling him the practice was immoral, Gandhi responded: "For me Manu sleeping with me is a matter of dharma." He further stated: "If I don't let Manu sleep with me, though I regard it as essential that she should, wouldn't that be a sign of weakness in me?"

Views on menstruation and contraception

Gandhi viewed menstruation as the "manifestation of the distortion of a woman's soul by her sexuality."He also believed the use of contraceptives was a sign of whoredom.

Views on rape and female resistance

In 1920 Gandhi wrote that if a woman could not defend herself from an assailant, "her purity will give her the strength to die before he succeeds in violating her".

Views on caste and Dalit rights

Defence of the varna system

Gandhi's position for decades was that the reform of untouchability within the caste structure, not the abolition of caste itself. Even within his vision of a Gandhian utopia, the Shudras were to continue as a servile class, and Dalits were to be integrated into the Shudra varna rather than liberated from the caste order entirely.