Mahatma Gandhi News Digest, Germany : Issue for December 18 – 24, 2006
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Outlook – India – January 1, 2007
What to look out for in the year to come: a select preview.
Gandhi being hot now, the year brings a pile of new books on the Mahatma that arent the usual dry, scholarly tomes for the jholawallahs. The biggest of them all is Rajmohan Gandhis Mohandas, a warm but impersonal portrait of his grandfathers epic life. The author doesnt blanch from revealing the most intimate details of Gandhis life in a biography that promises to be a page-turner. And thats not the only Gandhi book by a family member. Tushar Gandhi, a great-grandson of Bapu, is also coming out with a populist book, Lets Kill Gandhi, which draws on family sources and aims to bury the half-truths and lies surrounding Gandhi.
Political memoirs will continue to hog headlines. Among the biggies next year are Finance Minister P. Chidambarams A View from the Outside: Why Good Economics Works For Everyone. Dont hold your breath for the tittle-tattle, thoughthis is a collection of columns he wrote in the interim between his two stints as finance minister. More promising is Yashwant Sinhas Confessions of a Swadeshi ReformerMy Years as Finance Minister. This is billed as a memoir/commentary and is bound to have some juice. Economist Bimal Jalan also turns from economics to politics, scrutinising how our political system works in Indias Politics: A View from the Backbench, a follow-up to his earlier The Future of India. P.V. Narasimha Raos much-revised The Insider Part Two will be finally out. Despite the addition of a few chapters discovered by his son after his death, PVs ringside view of prime ministership is to be published as an unfinished novel. Another ex-PM, I.K. Gujral, will be out with his memoirs without a protective coating of fiction, and theres a biography of famous Budgetman and lawyer Nana Palkhivala.
Non-fiction continues to rule the roost with Sudhir Kakars collection of provocative essays on what makes a desi, The Indians: Portrait of a People. Other non-fiction launches next year include Gurcharan Das Nishkam KarmaOn the Difficulty of Being Good and Patwant Singhs The Second Partition. In fiction, well have to wait a couple more years for the next Seth or Rushdie, but Hari Kunzru is back with My Revolution; so is David Davidar, this time with a more contemporary novel, despite its title: The Solitude of Emperors. But the really big ones are both pardesis: Dan Browns next book and one last round of Pottermania with the last of the series to be released in numerological fitness on 7/7/07.
Bapu’s Human Tryst
Outlook – India – January 1, 2007
The Mahatma’s attachment to a beautiful Bengali woman threatened his marriage, reveals his grandson.
MOHANDAS: A TRUE STORY OF A MAN, HIS PEOPLE AND AN EMPIRE by Rajmohan Gandhi, Penguin/ Viking, Rs 650; Pages: 760
For nearly 90 years, Gandhi’s large familywhich included, besides his wife, four sons, their wives and children, national leaders, fellow ashramites and freedom fighters and even his biographersnursed one of the few secrets in his open-book life: a passionate love relationship the Mahatma had with a fiery beauty from Bengal called Saraladevi. She was a dazzling woman, by all accountsbelonging to the cream of Bengal’s aristocratic intellectuals, a niece of Tagore’s, a writer and musician who was hailed in her time as Bengal’s Joan of Arc and goddess Durga come down to earth, and who drew around her a captivated circle of young men willing to fight and die at her instance. That Gandhi was clearly bewitched by her brilliance and beauty was no secret among his own circle of intimates, including C. Rajagopalachari, his sons, especially Devadas, and secretary Mahadev Desai, all of whom were worried enough to bring pressure upon him to end the affair for their sake and his. Even his wife Kasturba, one of the most unpossessive women in history, who took without a batting of an eyelid the series of infatuated women who passed in and out of her husband’s crowded life, was badly shaken by Gandhi’s evident intoxication with the spirited Saraladevi. Strangelyor perhaps predictably it was the one relationship in his life that even a compulsive confessor like Gandhi barely spoke about, keeping her deliberately out of his otherwise candid autobiography. Now his grandson, Rajmohan Gandhi, breaks the silence and reconstructs in his forthcoming biography, Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire, the moving story of the Mahatma’s greatest temptation and how he struggled to overcome it. An extract:
But something now happened to Gandhi that he had not bargained for. He felt powerfully drawn to Saraladevi, the 47-year-old Bengali wife of Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhuri, his Lahore host who was in jail at this time.
A niece of Tagore (her mother, Swarnakumari, was one of the poet’s two sisters), Saraladevi was the editor in her husband’s absence of his journal, Hindustan.
Gandhi would have seen her first 18 years earlier in December 1901, when Saraladevi conducted the orchestra for the opening song at the Calcutta Congress session that Gandhi attended. She had composed the song, and 58 singers joined in presenting it. We have no record of any comment about her at that time by Gandhi, but a book that Saraladevi wrote in the 1940s suggests that they may have met during the 1901 session. She thought of Gandhi at the time, she would say, “as a possible South African contributor” to a journal she was editing, Bharati.
She was 29 then. While there is no evidence of anything passing between them at that time, we know from Gandhi’s autobiography (written between 1925 and 1929) that in 1901 he spent some hours with her father, Janakinath Ghosal, one of the Congress secretaries. Evidently Gandhi answered correspondence for which Ghosal had no time, and the secretary “insisted on (Gandhi) having lunch with him”. Gandhi found Ghosal “talkative” and also (after discovering Gandhi’s history) embarrassed that he had given Gandhi “clerical work”.
Gandhi’s 1901 meeting with Saraladevi may have been cursory, but it is likely that he remembered her. A photograph of her at graduation suggests an impressive appearance. An unusually talented singer and writer, Saraladevi went on to train Bengali youth in militant patriotism, thereby attracting the police’s attention. Earlier she was a Vivekananda disciple, and the Swami is said to have wanted her to accompany him to the West.
In 1905, in Bengal a year of tension over its partition, she married Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhuri of the Punjab, already twice a widower, and an Arya Samajist.This she did at the instance of her parents, who may have felt that in Lahore their daughter would be safe from the arm of Calcutta’s police. At 33, Saraladevi was older than most brides of her time, and her husband apparently called her “the greatest shakti in India”.
How much of her career between 1901 and 1919 was known to Gandhi is unclear. When visiting Lahore in 1909, (Henry) Polak [1] stayed in the home of Saraladevi and her husband (where many a visitor to Lahore was put up), but we do not know that Gandhi suggested this arrangement.
On October 27, 1919, within days of his arrival in Lahore, Gandhi would write to Anasuyaben in Ahmedabad: “Saraladevi’s company is very endearing.
She looks after me very well.” The following months saw a special relationship that Gandhi called “indefinable” after its character changed in June 1920. In between he had not only overcome his caution regarding exclusive relationships but even thought of a “spiritual marriage”, whatever that may have meant, with Saraladevi.
Though at 47 her frame held no lure, to Gandhi she conveyed an aesthetic and political appeal around which Eros too might have lurked. Cultured in both Indian and Western terms, she wrote and spoke well and had, in Gandhi’s view, a “melodious” singing voice. Politically, she could be imagined as embodying not only the prestige of a Tagore connection but also the spirit of the presidency of Bengal, and, in addition, the strand of violence in India’s freedom effort. A merger with her might bring him closer to winning all of India to satyagraha.
Whether or not he consciously toyed with such considerations, they probably influenced him.
In 1933 he would also say (to Father William Lash and E. Stanley Jones [2]) that he had been prevented from “rushing into hellfire” by the thought of Kasturba and because of interventions by his son Devadas, Mahadev Desai and another young relative, Mathuradas Trikamji, grandson of his half-sister, Muliben.
Perhaps she gave him an emotional support that a man always on the give needed. The general of satyagraha carried more aches in his bosom than he realised.
1935 he would say to Margaret Sanger [3], after referring to Kasturba’s illiteracy, that he had “nearly slipped” after meeting “a woman with a broad, cultural education” but had fortunately been freed from a “trance”. He was speaking of the 1919-20 pull. The remark in the last page of the autobiography about his experiences (after “returning to India”) of “the dormant passions lying hidden within me” seems also to recall the 1919-20 period.
Another element may also have been at work: perhaps this “endearing” woman and aesthete who “looked after” him “very well” gave Gandhi an emotional support that he, a man who in his world was always on the give, seldom received but always needed, whether or not he or others in his circle of followers and associates recognised the need. The supremely self-assured founder and general of satyagraha carried more aches in his bosom than he or those around him realised, and if India and truth spoke to him, so did his very human, if also greatly subjugated, self.
Martin Green, who more than others has researched this relationship and the career of Saraladevi, speaks of Gandhi “closing the door that had opened before him” and adds: “He and she together would certainly have made an extraordinary political combination.”
Yet Green also notes the unstable nature of the relationship, and of Saraladevi’s personality, which apparently included a “sense of being unappreciated” and contradictory elements of strength and indecisiveness, drive and inertia, feminism and male appeasement. While in some ways a “headstrong feminist”, she also supported polygamy if the first wife was infertile.
Gandhi seems to have opposed her; he “argued” with Saraladevi on this question, he would tell Sanger.
Between the end of October 1919 and the middle of February 1920, Gandhi spent some weeks in Delhi but the bulk of the time in the Punjab, travelling to conduct his inquiry (and promote khadi) or working on his report in the Lahore home of the Chaudhuris. Saraladevi often accompanied Gandhi on his travels in the Punjab, spoke or sang at his meetings, wore and championed khadi, and asked the Punjab to absorb the meaning of satyagraha. Both she and Gandhi spoke of their disappointment that many in the province had taken repression lying down.
By the end of December Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhuri was released.
His autobiography makes no reference to the relationship, though a few letters reveal his thoughts on it. “It was so personal I did not put it in my biography,” he told Sanger.
Gandhi would say, in a report for Navajivan written on January 23: “Where earlier I had seen a woman, separated from her husband and living all alone, the image of a lioness, I saw today a happy couple…. I saw a new glow on Smt Saraladevi’s face. The face which had been lined with care was today bright with joy.”
By this time the couple’s teenage son Dipak had been sent to Sabarmati, where ashramites questioned the relaxations that Gandhi seemed to propose for the boy. And when, in March 1920, Saraladevi was herself at the ashram, there was criticism of the time Gandhi spent talking with her.
For four to five monthsbetween January and May 1920Gandhi was clearly dazzled by her personality and seemed to fantasise that Providence desired them together to shape India to a new design.
He wrote to her that he often dreamt of her, and that she was a great shakti. In February 1920 Young India carried a song by Saraladevi on the front page, and Navajivan another poem by her, along with Gandhi’s comment that it was “perfect”.
But his son Devadas and others (Desai, Mathuradas and C.R. [Rajagopalachari] were among them) questioned Gandhi and asked him to think of the consequences for Kasturba, people like them and Gandhi himself if he continued the special relationship with Saraladevi. “It was their love which chained me so tightly and strongly” and saved him, Gandhi would say to Father Lash.
An autobiography that Saraladevi later wrote makes no reference to the relationship. Nor does Gandhi’s, though a few letters and recorded conversations reveal his thoughts on it. “It was so personal I did not put it into my autobiography,” he said to Sanger. Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhuri had died in 1923, but Saraladevi and her son Dipak were very much alive when the autobiography was written and Gandhi could not have referred to the episode without hurting her again.
Saraladevi was heart-broken when Gandhi informed her that their relationship could not continue as once thought. The change seems to have occurred in the middle of June 1920, for on June 12, after receiving a telegram from Gandhi, Rajagopalachari wrote to him: “Had your telegram. Words fail me altogether. I hope you have pardoned me.” We can infer that Gandhi’s telegram (its text is not known) signified a change in the relationship to one who had voiced his concern.
Determined to nail down the change, Rajagopalachari wrote Gandhi a strong letter on June 16. Addressed to “My dearest Master”, the letter said that between Saraladevi and Kasturba the contrast was similar to that between “a kerosene oil Ditmar lamp” and “the morning sun”. Asserting that Gandhi had nursed a “most dreadful delusion”, CR added: “The encasement of the divinest soul is yet flesh…. It is not the Christ but the shell that I presume to warn and criticise. Come back and give us life…. Pray disengage yourself at once completely.”
The break was made.
Devadas has written that when he was leaving for a course of study in Benares (probably in the summer of 1920), his father “suddenly stepped forward and with great love kissed me on the forehead”. Gandhi was showing gratitude, and not just love, to his 20-year-old son.He would say in August in a letter to Kallenbach [4], “Devadas is with me, ever growing in every way and every direction.”
And to Saraladevi he wrote on August 23 that Mathuradas and other allies were right to be “jealous of his character, which was their ideal”. To deserve their love, which was “so pure and unselfish”, he would, he told her, “surrender all the world”.
A shattered Saraladevi complained she had “put in one pan all the joys and pleasures of the world, and in the other Bapu and his laws, and committed the folly of choosing the latter”.
What if anything Gandhi told Ba is not known. We must assume the relationship shocked and wounded her but its ending enhanced her prestige in the circles around him.
She demanded an explanation, which Gandhi finally tried to offer in a letter he sent in December 1920:
“I have been analysing my love for you. I have reached a definition of spiritual (marriage). It is a partnership between two persons of the opposite sex where the physical is wholly absent. It is therefore possible
between brother and sister, father and daughter. It is possible only between two brahmacharis in thought, word and deed….
“Have we that exquisite purity, that perfect coincidence, that perfect merging, that identity of ideals, the self-forgetfulness, that fixity of purpose, that trustfulness? For me I can answer plainly that it is only an aspiration. I am unworthy of that companionship with you…. This is the big letter I promised. With dearest love I still subscribe myself, Your L.G.”
The initials stood for Law Giver, the title with which she had rebuked Gandhi. A brave effort, the letter could not assuage Saraladevi’s feelings. In the years that followed she would criticise Gandhi, at times accusing him of allowing non-violence to break out in hatred, and at other times saying that he possessed a Christo-Buddhist rather than a Hindu frame of mind.
Communication did not cease, however. In the 1940s, at her instance, Gandhi suggested Dipak’s name to Jawaharlal as a possible match for his daughter Indira. That idea did not work out but after Saraladevi and Gandhi were both no more, Dipak married Radha, the daughter of Maganlal Gandhi. Saraladevi and Gandhi had known of this romance. After giving some of her time to the education of girls, Saraladevi turned to spirituality and in 1935 adopted a guru. She died in 1945.
What if anything Gandhi told Kasturba about the episode is not known, but we must assume that she noticed both the attachment and its severance. Others too would have told her, including Devadas, who was devoted to his mother. We must assume also that the relationship shocked and wounded Kasturba while it lasted, and that its ending enhanced her prestige in circles around him. Writing about her in the letter he wrote to Kallenbach after a two-year gap, Gandhi said in August 1920: “Mrs Gandhi is at (the) Ashram. She has aged considerably but she is as brave as ever.”
Twelve years later Gandhi would write to Ramdas that he did not want any of his sons “to behave towards his wife as I did towards Ba…. (S)he could not be angry with me, whereas I could with her. I did not give her the same freedom of action which I enjoyed…. My behaviour towards Ba at Sabarmati progressively (changed)…and the result was that…(h)er old fear of me has disappeared mostly, if not completely”.
Though Gandhi didn’t mention it, the Saraladevi episode which occurred a year after Kasturba’s life-saving intervention over milk may have contributed to the improvement in his attitude.
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1.Gandhi’s English friend from Johannesburg, sub-editor in English newspaper Critic. Gandhi was best man at his wedding with Millie.
2. A 20th century Methodist Christian missionary whose sympathy for the cause of Indian self-determination brought him close to Gandhi and Nehru.
3.Well-known American proponent of birth-control who met Gandhi when she came to India in 1935
4.Hermann Kallenbach, Gandhi’s Jewish friend from South Africa who was an architect until he became his ardent follower
Interview with Rajmohan Gandhi
Outlook – India – by Sheela Reddy – January 1, 2007
“I Wanted To Capture A Real Person Who Could Be Seen, Touched And Understood”
The biographer grandson reminisces about the nation’s Bapu, and explains why he chose to pull Gandhi’s great secret out of the family closet.
In a warmly intimate interview with Sheela Reddy, biographer Rajmohan Gandhi reminisces about his grandfather, the nations Bapu, and explains why he chose to pull Gandhis great secret out of the family closet. He describes his own personal struggle to separate the man from the Mahatmaa struggle which, on his own admission, left him sometimes in tears and at other times shooting “my fist into the air with excitement”. Excerpts:
Q: The Saraladevi episode must have been a painful chapter in the familys lifewhat made you decide to break the silence?
A: The(res an) item from the family archives being published for the first time: a powerful letter written in June 1920 to Gandhi by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, whose daughter would eventually marry Gandhis youngest son.
Saraladevi was the subject of the letter, which Gandhi heeded. As a worshipper of truth, which Gandhi was, he demands the frankest scrutiny of his own life. There was therefore no question of my suppressing the Saraladevi story. When I first referred to it in my 1995 study, The Good Boatman, a respected relative mildly complained to me, and a most likeable Gandhi follower in Gujarat asked me, “Was that bit really necessary?” But there was no opposition as such. After the detailed account presented in Mohandas, I expect many to recognise that the episode actually enhances Gandhi. Not only will people feel closer to him in his humanity, they will admire him the more, for it is nobler to fight great battles when temptations tug at you.
Q: Have his experiments with brahmacharya been blown out of proportion?
Some have pointed out that Indian tradition offers examples comparable to Gandhis experiments.
My own study suggested that perfecting his chastity was only one of the reasons for Gandhis experiments. Calming bouts of trembling and a need for warmth were other reasons. No one in Gandhis time or later has ever suggested that Gandhis experiments were a cloak for lust. My study indicated that the old man who continued to fight great battles until his last day needed the sort of security that the child Mohan had found beside his mother. Like his seeming sternness towards the family, the brahmacharya experiments were a consequence of the giant size of Gandhis undertaking.
Q: Would you consider him an unfeeling husband and father?
A: No. Most of his apparent sternness with his wife and sons was a direct consequence of what he saw as an irresistible call to take on all Indians as his family. He agonised over his inability, flowing from that call, to give preferential treatment to his wife and sons. At times Kasturba and his sons understood his agony. At other times they were pained by this inability.
Q: Is it harder for a grandson to write about Gandhi than an outsider?
A: Thrills and hurts marked the journey. Often I cried in pain, shedding actual tears, for example when facing Gandhis seeming sternness with Kasturba and their sons. At other times I literally shot my fist into the air with excitement. These moments of wonderment outnumbered the moments of pain. As when I found in a 23-year-old Mohandas in South Africa a mastery of tactics on top of a firmness of resolve. Or when, at 27, he faced with cool courage a white mob that wanted to lynch him in Durban. And when at 40, while on a ship from England to South Africa, he penned a winning strategy for Indias liberty, and again when, five years later, he sailed for India with a perfect confidence that he would implement that strategy. His audacity bowled me over time and again, for example in his willingness to launch, right from the moment of his arrival in India in 1915, three huge battles at one and the same time: one for Indias liberty, another for Hindu-Muslim understanding, and a third against untouchability.
Q: Why another biography of Gandhi when he is already the most written-about person in history?
A: Because his fame greatly eclipses our knowledge of him. I wanted to capture a real person who could be seen, touched and understood.
Q: How difficult was it to weed out the myths from the man?
A: Not very, for I discarded all assumptions and sought to discover the real person at every stage of his life.
Q: What is the secret of Gandhis success as the leader of a nation that didnt exist until he created it?
A: Combining bold goals with a bold renunciation. He suppressed every smaller longing for the sake of creating a national longing. He embraced India as something more important than his family, his fellow-Banias, his fellow-Gujaratis. Consciously he cultivated parts of India far from Gujarat, and strove to identify himself with every single Indian.
Q: Was he guilty of breaking his pledge not to accept Partition?
A: In a technical sense, yes, for he did not fast unto death in a bid to prevent it. But he knew that a fast by him would not prevent Partition. He sought (unsuccessfully) to prevent it in other ways, in part through his “Jinnah card”; he toiled for an India-Pakistan understanding that would render Partition meaningless; and in pursuit of that goal he planned a visit to Pakistan that was prevented by the assassination.
The anti-Muslim thrust of some of Gandhis Hindu opponents combined with Muslim separatism to produce Pakistan. Also, Gandhis “Jinnah card” was shrewder and more realistic than is usually acknowledged. It might have done the trick, but Nehru, Patel, CR, Rajendra Prasad, Pant and the other Congress leaders compelled Gandhi to take the card back.
Q: What are your own personal memories of your grandfather?
A: Between the summer of 1946, when I was 11, and January 30, 1948, when I was 12-and-a-half, he spent many months in Delhi, where my siblings and I lived with our father Devadas (Gandhis fourth and youngest son and editor of Hindustan Times) and mother Lakshmi (CRs daughter.) During this period I was often with him, usually for the 5 pm multi-faith prayer meeting he held. Frequently I sat close to him, facing the audience that came to join the prayers and listen to his post-prayer remarks. Hindu-Muslim tension was high at this time, and there were occasions when some in the audience protested angrily at the reading of verses from the Quran. I would ask myself, “What if someone comes up and attacks him? Can I help defend him?” Then I would look at my grandfather, see his calm face, and find calm myself. I was not old enough to understand very much, but not too young to see that the old man was unfazed by anger and also friendly towards the protesters. I should add that a sporting event in my school kept me from the January 30 prayer meeting to which he was walking when killed.
Exile PM to visit Tibetan Gandhian Project in South India
Phayul.com – India – December 24, 2006
NEW YORK, December 21, 2006–Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, will travel early next month to South India to make an assessment of one of his pet pilot projects: an eco-friendly farming initiative to serve as a model, showing all Tibetan settlements in India that it makes good economic sense to abandon the four-decade-old chemical farming practice and switch over to organic farming.
Professor Rinpoche will inspect an enclave of 86 acres in the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe, an acreage that serves as a research and training institute for organic and natural farming, and is put under the cultivation of rice, lentil, peanut, ragi (finger millet), regular millet, soya bean, sun flower, green manure and a wide variety of vegetables.
Bylakuppe is the biggest Tibetan settlement in India with a population of 18,000.
“Even though much of this year’s harvest has already been reaped, when Professor Samdhong Rinpoche visits the farm, he will find different types of beans in full bloom,” Tibet.net reported.
About 150 kilometers away is another Tibetan settlement, Kollegal, where a small number of farmers volunteered in 2003 to take part in the first ever pilot project, much before Bylakuppe.
In 2004 the pioneers of Kollegal Tibetan settlement reported an average increase in yield of 35 percent as compared to neighboring cultivators.
The matter was helped further by the fact that the pioneering farmers no longer had to invest heavily on expensive chemical fertilizers, pesticides and hybrid seeds.
They also saw heart-warming signs of micro-organism returning to soil, which they knew portended well for the future. And, things have gotten better since then.
The challenge however is to sell the idea to mainstream farmers, who continue to engage in chemical farming.
This is likely to prove an uphill task insofar as the switch-over in the initial years would demand a great deal of labor, time and care, which would have been fine if the land-holding were sizeable enough to make farming a viable means of livelihood.
Unfortunately, land-holding in Tibetan settlements is so tiny less than one acre a personthat settlers cannot imagine themselves bettering their life through agriculture and animal husbandry. In Kollegal, for example, there are more than 4,000 refugees with only 3,000 acres of land. Bylakuppe’s 18,000 Tibetans have only 4,800 acres of agricultural land.
Presently, much of settlers’ time and energy is spent on the sweater business, a far more lucrative occupation than farming. Hawking jumpers and other warm garments on the sidewalks of Indian cities is the economic mainstay for 50 percent of Tibetan refugees in India; farming has become at best a secondary occupation.
Economic benefit of sweater business, however, comes with its curse. It is gnawing at the social fabrics of the community as able-bodied men and women are forced to spend months on the footpaths of great Indian cities, far away from their settlements, far away from their children and elderly parents, far away from the cultural institutes built so painstakingly over so many years.
To counter this unfortunate situation the exile government formulated a comprehensive plan to build a robust economic life in the settlements, a component of which is a switch-over to organic farming, plus creation of other economic opportunities by introducing small-scale industries and service sectors.
Among many models of development, the exile prime minister chose the Gandhian model of local self-sufficiency and non-violent means of livelihood.
There are plans for the introduction of projects for solar and wind energy, soil and water conservation, rain water harvesting, organic composting, and many other related projects, all of which are estimated to cost $3 million.
The exile prime minister is convinced that as time passes organic farmingultimately leading to natural farmingwill demand much lesser labor, giving settlers more time than ever before for other economic activities and cultural pursuits.
On being elected to the highest political office of the Tibetan exile government in September 2001, Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, said his government would make efforts to give a new lease of life to the settlements.
This government’s socio-economic policy, he said, would draw inspirations from the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Masanobu Fukuoka, and Schumacher, he said.
“We will consider making efforts to protect the environment of Tibetan settlements by starting forestation projects with emphasis on medicinal plants that are suitable to the geographical conditions of respective settlements.”
“In addition, we will consider promoting traditional animal husbandry practices, which will pave the way for the use of organic manure, organic pest control, and bio-gas,” he said.
Tory chairman invited to Gandhi event in Delhi
NewKerala.com – India – December 21, 2006
London, Dec 21: Francis Maude, chairman of the Conservative Party, has been invited to attend celebrations in New Delhi next month commemorating the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi launching his satyagraha movement.
The invitation for the Jan 29 and 30 celebrations was extended to him by Indian High Commissioner Kamlesh Sharma at the Conservative party office here on Wednesday.
The Indian government has organised the event to celebrate the centenary of the start of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent protests in South Africa.
Maude said after the meeting with Sharma: “I am deeply honoured that His Excellency Kamlesh Sharma came in person to invite the Conservative Party to join in these celebrations.
“They commemorate an early milestone in Gandhi’s long struggle for Indian independence. Gandhi was an inspirational character whose life of self-sacrifice and dedication to others will long be remembered.
“We can all benefit from reading Gandhi’s teachings, with their emphasis on the power of the peace to prevail. The Conservative Party is changing to better represent modern Britain.
“I know we have more work to do. It is by becoming a totally inclusive party that we can hope to encourage greater cohesion so that all communities in this country live in peace and harmony.”
Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity
Bangladesh-Web.com – Bangla Desh – by Baldev Singh – December 21, 2006
“Truth comes out breaking the walls of a fortress” is a Punjabi saying. For the lovers of truth G. B. Singh has exploded the Gandhi myth apostle of peace, emancipator of untouchables and liberator of India by peaceful means from the British yoke by publishing his labor of love, Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity. G. B. Singh studied Gandhi for over twenty years collecting Gandhis speeches, writings and other documents, which the promoters of Gandhi left out intentionally to create a twentieth century messiah by fusing Jesus Christ and Vishnu.
The oppressors the proponents of colonialism, slavery, racism and casteism – have imposed their own version of history on the victims through manipulation, deception and hypocrisy. For example there is holocaust museum in the capital of United States in the memory of six million Jews who fell victim to the atrocities of Nazis in World War II. It is commendable and such museums should be built in every capital in the world to remind people of the heinous crimes of the Nazis.
But why not a museum about the genocide of native Americans or a museum about slavery in the capital of United States? It takes moral courage to look into the face of truth! In order to avoid the obligation to intervene in Rwanda, the Western powers led by President Clinton put pressure on the United Nations Security Council not to characterize the mass murder of Tootsies as genocide.
The making of Gandhi myth stared in South Africa by white Christian clergy. Rev. Joseph J. Doke, a Baptist Minster was the first to write the biography of M. K. Gandhi. Soon many other European and American clergymen and writers rushed in to make their input. John H. Holmes, a Unitarian pastor from New York praised Gandhi in his writings and sermons with titles like: Gandhi: The Modern Christ, Mahatma Gandhi: The Greatest Man since Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ji: Reincarnation of Christ and Gandhi before Pilate. Romain Rolland, French Nobel Laureate in literature looked at Gandhi not only as a Hindu saint, but also another Christ. He wrote Gandhis new biography in French.
The English translation of this book opens with: He is the One Luminous, Creator of All, Mahatma. Impressed with lavish propaganda about Gandhi in the West, the Hindu propaganda machine came into action and it churned out a plethora of literature to elevate Gandhi to the status of twentieth century Hindu god “The seventh reincarnation of Vishnu, Lord Rama,” proclaimed Krishnalal Shridharni.
Portraits of Gandhi depicted him as Hindu avatar and Christian saint. The Indian government under Prime Minister Indra Gandhi financed one-third the cost of the production of the movie “Gandhi” for the portrayal of Gandhi as “an absolute pacifist.”
The Christian clergy had an ulterior motive in building the Gandhi myth. They thought that by elevating Gadhi to a 20th century messiah and then converting him would open the flood gate for evangelizing Hindu masses. Little did they realize that Gandhi hoodwinked them with his insincere statements about Christianity? He was a die-hard Hindu, a true believer and defender of the caste order the essence of Hinduism?
Gandhi apologists indulged in gross deception by claiming that Gandhis Satyagrah in South Africa was in the defense of the rights of native people. Nothing could be further from truth than this bald lie. How could Gandhi, a diehard supporter of the caste system think of the welfare of African blacks he regarded lower than the Untouchables of India -slightly above the animal level? His Satyagrah was for the better treatment of Indians, who, according to Gandhi were treated the same way as savage Kaffirs (native people) were.
In his stay of twenty years in South Africa, he had no social contacts with the Kaffirs, as he did not see any common ground with them in the daily affairs of life. He was horrified when he was lodged with “natives” in the same jail ward. He did not like wearing the same clothes with label “N” born by the natives, nor he liked their food and sharing lavatory with them. It was the jail experience, which brought out his racism in the open. ” Kaffir and Chinese prisoners are wild, murderous and given to immoral ways. Kaffirs are as a general rule uncivilized the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animal.”
He proclaimed that the British Empire was for the welfare of the whole world and he accepted the superiority and predominance of white race. But he reminded the white people that upper caste Indians share with the Europeans a common heritage the blood of the noble Aryan race. According to him it is Aryan blood, which is responsible for the advancement of human civilization. He suggested to Rev, Doke to civilize the Kaffirs by converting them to Christianity and by infusing Aryan blood into their race. He told the white colonists that the preservation of racial purity (Apartheid) was as important to the Indians as to Europeans.
He urged the colonial authorities to raise a volunteer militia of Indians to fight for the Empire. He told the Natal authorities that it would be a “criminal folly” if they did not enlist Indians for the war. He was rebuffed with sarcastic and derogatory comments about the fighting ability of people like Gandhi. However, his persistence persuaded the authorities to form a volunteer ambulance corps of Indians under the command of Sergeant-Major Gandhi during the Boer War and Zulu Rebellion.
He 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. It is not for us to judge whether the Kaffir revolt is justified or not. We are co-colonists with whites of this land whereas the black savages are as yet unfit to participate in the political affairs of the colony.
He was a mean spirited parochial Hindu. Sergeant- Major Gandhi selected only Gujrati Hindus as his assistants, three Sergeants and one Corporal in spite of the fact the ambulance corps (20-24 men) was made up mostly of non-Gujratis with substantial number of Muslims.
The Russian Revolution of 1914 spurted national movements against colonial rule. The British brought Gandhi back to India to sabotage Indian national movement against British rule. The congress Party dominated by Gandhi was set up under the patronage of the British authorities. The “apostle of peace” urged the Indian people to support the British by enlisting in the army during World War I. In his letter he wrote to the Viceroy in1930, he said, ” One of his reason for launching the Civil Disobedient Movement is to contain the violence of revolutionaries.”
On the advice of white promoters of Gandhi, black clergy and civil rights leaders traveled to India to seek Gandhis advice about solving the problem of segregation and civil rights of blacks. How little did they know that Gandhi regarded the black people slightly above the animal level? Moreover, they were ignorant of the fact that caste system was originally imposed, as racial discrimination (Varna Ashrama Dharma) similar to the Apartheid system, on the black natives of India by their Caucasian conquerors. But later on due to emergence of new racial groups due to miscegenation between the two groups, Varna Ashrama Dharma evolved into caste system tied to hereditary occupations. Untouchabilty is as integral a part of Hindu faith as anti- Semitism of the Nazis.
It is noteworthy that not a single black leader met Dr. B. R. Ambedkar M. A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University, M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees from London University and Bar-at-Law from Greys Inn, London – who was the undisputed leader of the Untouchables at that time. Gandhi propaganda machine manipulated the visit of black leaders, as it did not want them to find truth about Gandhis views on the caste system. “I believe in Varnashrama (caste system) which is the law of life. The law of Varna (color and / or caste) is nothing but the law of conservation of energy. Why should my son not be scavenger if I am one? He, Shudra (lowest caste) may not be called a Brahmin (uppermost caste), though he (Shudra) may have all the qualities of a Brahmin in this birth. And it is a good thing for him (Shudra) not to arrogate a Varna (caste) to which he is not born. It is a sign of true humility.”
In 1921, Gandhi delivered violent speeches inciting racial hatred against the British. During bloody demonstrations and riots against the visit of Prince of Wales, William Francis Doherty, an American citizen working in Bombay was murdered. Gandhi personally got involved in the cover up of this gruesome murder through bribery and intimidation, as he was concerned that the details of this murder would tarnish Gandhis image in the West.
It is a cruel joke and one of the biggest fabrications of the twentieth century that Gandhi won Indian freedom without spilling a drop of blood. The truth is that it was the devastating effect of World War II that forced the British government to dismantle its Colonial Empire. Moreover, it was Gandhi and his Hindu dominated Congress party that engineered the partition of the country on communal lines, as the Muslim dominant states stood in the way of high caste Hindus to set up their Ram Raj (mythical Hindu kingdom) based on caste ideology. Additionally, the Partition of India in 1947 is one of the major upheavals of the twentieth century.
In the State of Punjab alone, 11-12 million people lost their homes and hearths where their ancestors had lived for centuries. May be as many as one million people perished in the communal frenzy and thousands of young women were kidnapped while Gandhi was reciting the murderous sermons from his favorite scripture Bhagvad Gita. He kept insisting up to the last moment that the country would be partitioned only over his dead body!
The ascetic in loincloth used to sleep in buff with naked young girls to perform experiments to test his celibacy. Dr. Sushila Nayar told Ved Mehta that she used to sleep with Gandhi as she regarded him as a Hindu god. The man, who had taken vow of poverty, demanded and got even in jail the same comforts enjoyed by British high officials in India.
The “apostle of peace,” who counseled a Jewish delegation” to oppose the evil of Nazism by “soul force” – by committing mass suicide, was all praise for annexing Kashmir by armed aggression.
He told his Sikh followers that rusty sword is useless in the age of Atom Bomb. The development of nuclear weapons by India – a country that ranks among the poorest in the world and is near the bottom of human development index chart of the United Nations exposes the real face of the “absolute pacifist” and the nation that calls him “father.” After all didnt lord Krishna tell Arjana during the battle of Mahabharata “Victory is truth.”
Although, the Indian people have started peeking at the man behind the mask of divinity, there is no let up in the perpetuation of Gandhi myth in the West, especially the United States.
Lillete Dubeys production of SAMMY is close to making a Century
Munbai Theatre Guide – India – December 20, 2006
The Primetime Theatre Companys latest production ‘SAMMY – a word that broke an Empire!’ is based on the journey of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The play has been written by Partap Sharma and has been directed by Lillete Dubey. It returns to Mumbai after a successful month long tour of Belgium and the United States.
The play which won 4 National awards at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) in March 2006, performed to standing ovations and full houses in Brussels, Antwerp (in both cities it played to simultaneous translations in French and Flemish!), New York, Boston, Stanford, San Francisco, Houston, and Los Angeles and has been promptly invited back to the US in July next year!
SAMMY which has been performed in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Ludhiana, Jaipur and Chandigarh in India, has also done several shows in Dubai, Bangkok, and Malaysia and is slated for a 2 week run in London in Feb 07 and a New Zealand tour in Aug 07.
The play continues to perform in Mumbai as well, and has its next show in Mumbai on Friday, 5th Jan, 07 at 7.30 p.m at the Sophia Bhabha Hall, where it will celebrate its 100th show!
CAST: Joy Sengupta, Ravi Dubey, Zafar Karachiwala, Denzil Smith, Neha Dubey, Anu Menon, Asif Beg and Vikrant Chatturvedi.
A Nonviolent Alternative
Cumberland Times News – USA – by Michael A. Sawyers – December 18, 2006
FORT ASHBY, W.Va. – Craig Etchison hopes for and works toward a world in which peace is the norm – a planet on which violence is rejected as a means to resolve conflicts.
Etchison’s launching pad for peace is in Fort Ashby, at his home, where he created, about five years ago, the Center for Nonviolent Alternatives. Tom Robertson, who taught at Allegany College of Maryland, helped establish the center, but has since relocated.
“This is not pie-in-the-sky stuff,” Etchison said during a recent interview. “In the past 55 years, the United States has struck the first military blow in more than 200 overseas operations. Not one resulted in a democratic government. Since 1985, though, there have been six major nonviolent revolutions that resulted in democracies in places such as Poland, Argentina and the Philippines.”
It takes a knowledge of violence to appreciate nonviolence.
Etchison, now a professor of English at ACM, was in the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam in 1969. “I saw the horrors of violence close up,” he said. “Trying to solve conflicts with violence is like trying to catch fireflies when blindfolded. It can’t be done. Violence only leads to more violence. Most people who have been in combat don’t have a positive view of war. Those who send us to war usually have not experienced combat.”
Etchison is inspired in his efforts to make the world more peaceful by other monarchs of calm change such as Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., the Berrigan brothers and Cindy Sheehan.
“Ghandi told us, ‘There is no path to peace. Peace is the path,’ ” Etchison said.
He is hard-pressed to come up with examples of success in his local efforts.
“It is so easy to get depressed, to think that nothing I do is going to make a difference, but to do that would be to give up on life,” Etchison said. “When I get down, I think of the quote, ‘We are called to pull the plow, not to see the crop brought in.’ ”
Etchison said he has not experienced hostile reaction to his peaceful efforts, but knows a cold shoulder when he sees or feels one. Neither ACM nor the Allegany County Board of Education has taken him up on a standing offer to teach a course about nonviolent alternatives to conflict resolution.
“I’ll go any place at any time to talk to people about nonviolence,” Etchison said (304-298-4704).
Another teacher of peace, Colman McCarthy, by way of his Center for Peace, conducts such classes in various parts of the United States.
“He has had classes in St. Louis or D.C. that are stuffed with students,” Etchison said. “The classes aren’t required and they are offered at times like 6:30 a.m. and they are full. These are kids who live with daily violence and they are looking for alternatives.”
A Hagerstown native, Etchison finds peace and enjoyment in fishing, especially for smallmouth bass, in places as removed as Maine or as near as Patterson Creek, just a long cast from his home.
Etchison’s letters are published often on the editorial page of the Cumberland Times-News. They deal with subjects ranging from what Etchison terms environmental violence (mercury in tuna and global warming) to the fighting in Iraq.
“The Pentagon itself has called global warming the greatest threat to the safety of our country,” Etchison said.
“For 5 percent of what we have spent in Iraq fighting, less than $40 billion, we could feed, clothe, educate and provide clear water to every kid in the world. Think about how many fewer terrorists that would create.”
Michael A. Sawyers can be reached at msawyers@times-news.com.
Leaders mark centenary of Gandhi’s teachings
SABC News – South Africa – December 18, 2006
Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, the deputy president, said it’s possible to have an Aids free South Africa. Mlambo Ngcuka spelt out her formula for achieving this while addressing hundreds of people on Robben Island to mark the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings.
Former political enemies converged on Robben Island yesterday to mark the centenary of Mahatma Ghandhi’s Satyagraha teachings – teachings of non-violent resistance to oppression and colonialism espoused by Ghandi. FW de Klerk, the former president, also took part in the celebrations. De Klerk said many lives could have been saved if the country heeded to Gandhi’s teachings.
Mlambo Ngcuka said the struggle also depended on the magnanimity of the oppressor who had the might, the power, the weapon, the law on their side and the will to oppress, however, it is significant that in Mr de Klerk’s time he abandon all of that and gave peace a chance.
She said there is a different struggle now facing the country – that of defeating a burden of diseases including HIV/Aids. “There are decisions that we will have to make as individuals, that I will not infect anybody else and I will not re infect myself if I’m not infected I will not be infected period. If I’m a young person, I will delay my sexual experience so that I don’t start another generation of infected people.”
IFP leaders’ role in dismantling apartheid not recognised
The IFP leader bemoaned that his role in dismantling apartheid is often not recognised. Mangosuthu Buthelelzi, the IFP leader, said: “It’s often not mentioned that in February 1990 when Mr de Klerk announced the release of Mr Mandela, this great man mentioned only my name among people who helped him decide to release Mr Mandela.”
PTC Organisers say they have chosen Robben Island as the place to mark the centenary of Ghandhi’s teachings as it is a symbol of the triumph of human spirit over oppression.
P.A. youth helps others travel world
Mercury News – USA – by Laura Pedersen – December 19, 2006
Mahatma Gandhi has competition. Up-and-coming competition, that is. He’s only 19, but Wolf Price has his eye set on making a difference in the world, one teenager at a time.
Price, founder of the non-profit the World of Possibilities, is not your average overachiever. His priorities aren’t college classes or internships, but inspiring teenagers around the world to make a difference.
Getting there from here: Price said what pushed him toward international volunteering were a strong work ethic, a supportive family and self-funded travels.
He’s found various ways of paying for his trips, including working at YMCA summer camps and Whole Foods Market. Price also has sold some of his photographs.
His parents’ encouragement has helped. “I think they’ve been really supportive about it because I think they see the confidence I have about it, and the fact that I’m using my own money to do the traveling.”
`Bye, Mom. I’m off to Europe!’: Price’s travels became the jumping-off point for what would become his non-profit group.
His first big trip was to Europe the summer before his senior year.
Inspired, Price chose to graduate early from high school and return to Europe. On that trip he took only his bicycle, wallet, maps and passport. The trip quickly became more than listening to British accents and adopting the phrase “rubbish bin” over “trash can.”
“I think just experiencing hospitality and seeing such amazing things at such a young age and doing it all by myself was the most empowering and inspiring experience,” he said.
Price chose the same no-frills tactic for a trip to Asia. For eight months, he traveled, volunteering along the way.
“I spent one month in a monastery in Thailand,” he said. “I went to Cambodia to teach at an orphanage; I went to Nepal and taught art and English. In India, I learned about Tibetan refugees.”
Exploring the world: It was after this trip that he began working on the World of Possibilities.
“I realized that this is what can be my career,” he said. “This is what I know can help people.”
The group will target teens at risk of becoming involved in drugs or crime.
Price had planned to start work on this project after getting a stable job, but he decided against it.
“If I waited, there was a danger because something might get in the way,” he said, “because the passion and power is in me now, and I want to continue sustaining it.”
This commitment also means that he chose not to continue on to college, a decision he said he doesn’t regret.
He’s exploring South America on bicycle and foot until early next year. He hopes to build international connections that will help his organization grow.
“I’ll volunteer and work with organizations and get to know the culture of humanitarian efforts there so I can understand what they need,” he said.
The future: After returning from South America, Price plans to start building up his organization.
He already has plans for the first big project. “We’ll take six kids to Thailand do to some volunteering and teach English.”
And after that? “I really want to go back to Asia.”
His advice for people who want to make a difference? “The most important thing is to get out there. I just know people will be inspired.”
The articles of the Mahatma Gandhi News Digest originate from external sources.
They do not represent the views of GandhiServe Foundation.
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