Gandhi in The Handmaid’s Tale

Dear Gandhi lovers:

Of course, you have a right to love your leader. Of course, you have a right to consider him a saint. This is the best you can do.

But, political Gandhi was a complete failure. And some of you did acknowledge that. Gandhi who recommended his nonsensical ``non-violence`` strategy against Hitler`s aggression is why most Jews hate Gandhi. Then of course by now most people on this site do recognize that Gandhi was also a ``women hater``. Oh, yes, the facts. Can you handle the facts?

As always respectfully submitted,

Behram B. Atashband

Re: # 1084

behram:

you havn`t got back with your ``facts`` regarding gandhis views on women. are you ever going to?

also, i asked you about jinnahs ``integrity``. waiting for your reply

Behram akalband
you wrote about `almost universal hate` of Jews and Parsis towards Gandhi
Here is list of famous Jews
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-leaders-famousjewslist.html

and here is a list of Parsis
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/fam_zor.html

Can you quote few instances of such hate from members of this list?

Re: # 1081

Dear friend:

Allow me to explain the basic principle of the Zoroastrian doctrine. It is to destroy evil regardless of where they are found, and not to surrender to it. Gandhi with his non-violent strategy was wrong in this basic philosophy. It is an established fact that Gandhi suggested the Jews should not resist Hitler`s evil, because Gandhi thought his non-violent strategy is better. This is where he should be in ``cookoo land`` with the rest of his lovers. Besides he never cared for women anyway!

As always,

Respectfully submitted,

Behram B. Atashband

Re: # 1085

``Allow me to explain the basic principle of the Zoroastrian doctrine. It is to destroy evil regardless of where they are found, and not to surrender to it. ``

what has Zoroastrian to do with gandhis philisophy? anyway, if you are too bent to teach it, go and tell this to your irani brethen who enmasse surrenderred to the invaders faith.

``It is an established fact that Gandhi suggested the Jews should not resist Hitler`s evil, because Gandhi thought his non-violent strategy is better.``

behram,

gandhi believed in his philisophy and as per #1087 advised jews for non-violent struggle against hitler. this was before the mass killings and Auswitch. the most you can say is gandhi was wrong wrt hitler. hitler proved to be a far greater maniac than it was thought initially. moreover when asked later would he defend the country by satyagraha if hitler invaded india, he said no. even the allies didn`t enter war to protect jews, they had their own territories to defend. havn`t you heard of how americans didn`t bomb the railway lines ferrying the jews to the slaughter house, as they had more important job at hand? so what it makes the americans now? anti-semitic?

Re: # 1088

Dear Netizen:

With due respects this is exactly why I have been suggesting that Gandhi was inauthentic. These days we call it being flaky. Without insulting any body, I repeat your words...
[gandhi was wrong wrt hitler.] [moreover when asked later would he defend the country by satyagraha if hitler invaded india, he said no.] Obviously, his non-violent strategy had limitations. Do you agree?

If you agree, then we have two (2) strikes against Gandhi. Strike one (1) is that Gandhi had problem with women, and strike two (2) his non-violent strategy had limits.

I submit, with utmost respect and humility

Re: # 1099

``With due respects this is exactly why I have been suggesting that Gandhi was inauthentic. These days we call it being flaky. Without insulting any body, I repeat your words...
[gandhi was wrong wrt hitler.] [moreover when asked later would he defend the country by satyagraha if hitler invaded``

behram:

it is my undrstanding that you have no clue about gandhi or jinnah. you just landed on this thread when you saw anti-gandhi lines in the article.
earlier i thought you really have some scoop on gandhi and will defend it intelligently as you have done in case romair. but your posts have confirmed that you are a silly debator and have no grasp of topic at hand. you are jumping from one argument to another just to prove that gandhi was ``inauthentic`` without substantiating anything.
you jumped in the bandwagon claiming gandhi was anti-women solely on the basis of the article and 300+ posts.
then you started calling gandhi anti-jew
now you are saying gandhi was ``inauthentic`` because he said that saytagraha won`t work against hitler.
my understanding of your ``inauthentic``-ness is that a person should cling to his/her beliefs and not modify/change if the belief is useless/doesn`t suit the current scenario. and even if it causes suffereing. Well, from where i come it is called, stubborness, adamant

i have realised that you still havn`t replied to my jinnahs question.
let me rewrite it :

initially jinnah was an ambassodor of hindu-muslim unity but later said ``hindu and muslims are two separate nations``

hence acoording to ``your`` definition won`t it make him ``in-authentic``.
if yes.

you were initially saying that jinnah was ``authentic`` but now after conming to the above conclusion you will also turn out to be ``inautheticate``, isn`t?

---

also, no one was discussing that gandhis satyagraha was an all-weather movement. the discussion was about manto and family calling him racist/casteist/male chavunist. its seems that in order to prove gandhis ``in-authenitic``-ness you lost track of the discussion itself.

---

``Strike one (1) is that Gandhi had problem with women``

i am still waiting for your arguments on this. once again manto and family`s arguments are disbarred on the basis of shallowness.

---

``and strike two (2) his non-violent strategy had limits. ``

yet again, it was never a part of the discussion. no one has so far claimed that gandhis non-violent strategy is applicable is all scenarios.

Re: # 1104


Dear Netizen:

Again, with due respects. Integrity to me is to do what I say I will do.

When Jinnah wanted hindu-muslim unity he was 100% authentic because that is exactly what he wanted. When Gandhi did not want the breakup of India, he was 100% authentic up untill August 14, 1947; because India was united. Gandhi became inauthentic after that.

When, on the other hand, Jinnah was forced out of his hindu-muslim unity dream then of course momentarily he could be considered out of integrity. He regained his integrity with his determination to get Pakistan. And that is where he is 100% full of integrity.

Besides, we never consider Jinnah to be a Mahatama.

Knowledge is just like love, it is in the eyes of the beholder [earlier i thought you really have some scoop on gandhi and will defend it intelligently as you have done in case romair]

[you are a silly debator and have no grasp of topic at hand]

Knowledge is just like love, it is in the eyes of the beholder

[you jumped in the bandwagon claiming gandhi was anti-women solely on the basis of the article and 300+ posts.]

This is false here is my very first post:

#44 by behram1 on October 4, 2005 8:52pm PT

Dear Aisha,

Thank you for an excellent article.

Several of my Parsi friends from India did not have high regards for Gandhi, although he was from Gujrat. Those who were well read always admired Jinnah because he was the most emancipated person of his time.

Keep up the good work.

Respectfully submitted,

Behram B. Atashband

---

And here is my first post critical of a Gandhi lover


#46 by behram1 on October 4, 2005 9:45pm PT
Re: # 40

Dear Anil:

With your permission I like to respond to your post #40 to Aisha.

You suggest that all men of Gandhi’s generation had similar views regarding women. If this logic is true, then in today’s world all men should have similar views regarding women. And you would agree that they do not.

I have always condemned and written-off certain aspects of our previous society. It is not what Gandhi has said or not said that I would like to debate. You must agree that when there is a discussion regarding India with non-Indians (read westerners, mainly Americans), there is a certain amount of pride that Gandhi-lovers exude, whilst Pakistanis and/or Jinnah are mentioned as a jest.

As you have rightly suggested, Gandhi is dead physically. But his values and those who get political mileage out of his values are still around and that is exactly what is being discussed.

Aisha, has shown no malice towards the dead Gandhi. She has only enlightened another view about the political Gandhi, which some of us would like to observe and understand.

You are absolutely correct that this person was a failed lawyer, and until very late in his life he was a failed politician as well. I am amazed that his values does not fit today’s world that is barely 60 years after his death. And some Gandhi lovers have deflected the topic at hand and tried to articulate the happenings of the world some 200 years ago.

By your own assertion, you who have lived in the US since 1970, should know this well by now that those who desire public life expose their values and views about everything, from early childhood. With such a standard, why should Gandhi be an exception?

Anil, your assertion that Indians have moved on and left August 15 behind is completely bogus and cannot be validated. Your effort, nevertheless, is admirable.

Personally I believe that Aisha has done an excellent service by highlighting the inadequacies of a corrupt politician. If you have moved on, thank you. Please don`t waste your time here.

Respectfully submitted,

Behram B. Atashband

---

And when the corrupt thought of Gandhi lovers started comparing Gandhi with the Prophet of Islam continued unrestricted that I decided to really get involved.

And here is where I really jumped in I provided some criteria between values and authenticity.

---

#267 by behram1 on October 6, 2005 9:29am PT

Dear Yasser and all,

Thank you very much for all the efforts that you have taken in disseminating the voluminous information regarding the subject matter. This should create the enhanced value of our lives as we go forward. Forward-looking individuals (or groups) would normally want the world to be a better place while exiting the world. Almost all thoughts and values are evaluated against a barometer of how are we contributing to the conversation going forward to make the future a better place. As a society we provide integrity to almost all our values. (My definition of integrity is I do what I say that I will do).

We discard values that are not in congruence with the prevailing norms of our society, whether these are today’s values or values of yesteryears. If these values are not in conformance with the actual inner-self value then the world recognizes the in-authenticity of the proposed value. Regardless of how popular the individual or the group may be, it is the complete (read 100%) value that is authenticated.

It appears Gandhi continued his struggle with this in-authenticity. What he projected for public discourse, what he preached was not what he practiced. As an individual he was not an authentic person.

Respectfully submitted,

Behram B. Atashband

---

So you see, I have remained values oriented and consistent with my integrity.

I am sorry if Gandhi had no integrity from time to time.

As always respectfully submitted,

Behram B. Atashband

Re: # 1124

``When Jinnah wanted hindu-muslim unity he was 100% authentic because that is exactly what he wanted. When Gandhi did not want the breakup of India, he was 100% authentic up untill August 14, 1947; because India was united. Gandhi became inauthentic after that. ``

so as i understand, jinnah had integrity for some time, then he lost it and then after getting pakistan he once again had integrity. wooo..... you must have studied jinnah even more than the cheer-leader.

regardign you, all along you were saying that jinnah had no blot so you had integrity but now you accept that he had no integrity some time in his life so that maked you also inauthentic, as your stand is different than what it was until 2 hours earlier.
that means you have no integrity.

WOOOF... at last i have become an expert on the sciences of integrity.


``Knowledge is just like love, it is in the eyes of the beholder``
c`mon, this is a stupid statement

``And when the corrupt thought of Gandhi lovers started comparing Gandhi with the Prophet of Islam continued unrestricted that I decided to really get involved.``

please tell me what did you bring in? unsubstantiated conclusions? To maligh gandhi


``And here is where I really jumped in I provided some criteria between values and authenticity. ``

we would appreciate if you gives some examples from gandhis life as i have given several view-points.

Re: # 1085

Gandhi on Jews & Middle-East


A Non-Violent Look at Conflict & Violence

Article Written on November 20, 1938
Published in Harijan on November 26, 1938
This Web Page Last Updated: October 09,2005

It is of utmost importance to remember the time of this writing. It is 1938, Hitler is ruling Germany, and the clouds of a terrible conflict have begun to form. Gandhi`s article shows his incredible sense of right and wrong, his blind faith in his methodology, and his profound vision of things to come. -Ed.

by Mohandas K. Gandhi

Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question.

My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.

But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

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. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. 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.

The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colorable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.

But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which many inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.

But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means?

Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.

Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Musalmans or the Hindus, though, as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all the one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment . And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the god fearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.

It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for the Jews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. The persecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that the white Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beings created to serve the whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and colored races including Asia tics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government. Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis (soldiers of non-violence) from their contemplated step. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid after eight years of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of a threat of war.

But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. they are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And they have organized world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in nonviolent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turned in to a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanized man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted that latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.

And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart, who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown in to the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in the their favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.

I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.

Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilization by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the word`s Literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jews can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West, to be despised or patronized. He can command the attention and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.

© 1987 Navajivan Trust.

Godot #1075
Who will you look at if choice is between Count Dracula and that `barrel chested rock`?

Acha- Well I did not see that he was Khalistani.. he is a US Army officer... though.


1067 has another question. Please feel free to post a reply either way. Historical query.

Re: # 1079

`Well I did not see that he was Khalistani``

well you don`t see many things ....

Re: # 1079

i saw you replied to 1078, i hope you were not blind to 1077. Read it and reply back.

#1074 by scout

[my computer just suffered a massive stroke when i made the badkismat choice of clicking on this article]

Looks like you`re using a 486. There are newer models in the market and you must consider buying one.

chowk staff,

my computer just suffered a massive stroke when i made the badkismat choice of clicking on this article

kindly remove all the diarrhea by beej or remove the seed itself

this twit has turned chowk into a kabarkhana