Quote of the Day: Gandhi was no (liberartian) saint

Politicians and bureaucrats are corrupt, driven by baser instincts. They make money for themselves and for their families. Gandhi’s ambition was limited to becoming a saint, often at the cost of his family. Being corrupt is bad enough, but what kind of warped thinking does it require to be corrupt and still not use it materially for the self and the family, while providing a cover for others to rape and plunder? Gandhi’s character should inspire an utter cringe.

Gandhi was a loony. He could never evolve beyond sex and vegetarianism. His understanding of religion was more of a dogma than an appreciation for deeper things in life. He attempted to do some basic experiments though not of the kind too different from what a five year old child does when playing with round stones or water. He drank his own urine, which had no rational medicinal basis even in those days

So difficult it was for Gandhi to understand his sexuality that even at his old age, he shared his bed with different young women, his disciples, calling this “nature cure”. He did this to practice his control on “brahmacharya” (celibacy). In Gandhi’s view experiment of sleeping naked with women helped him in contemplating upon social problems. He involved his 19-year old niece in his experiments. Another was the 16-year old wife of Gandhi’s great-nephew. There were many others, at least some of them married. Most likely, he did not have sex with these women. In what Gandhi did, the women ended up being guinea pigs of his human experiments and faced humiliation in a deeply conservative society.

Were Gandhi not looking for sainthood, he would have been more kind with his family. He would not have fought the English. He would have spread the message of freedom he learnt in England. He would have used the English to liberate the Indian society from its very deep-rooted dogmas. He would have listened to Tagore. Alas, “freedom” for him and for the top people in India’s “freedom movement” was more of a socialist construct heavily influenced by personal political motivations. Very likely, Gandhi did not even understand what Tagore meant.

Gandhi was no saint. In fact, I feel ashamed writing about someone who was a common human from the masses, with simplistic beliefs and conduct. His mistakes and sins were nothing unusual in the ever-contradictory and hypocritical cesspool that Indian society exists in. He was not to be one, but it was the accidents of the history that gave him a position of a saint. He was not responsible for killing anyone. If he did, he did not consciously mean to. His work might have and indeed did cause a lot of pain, but that was not really his mistake, for he did not have the foresight to look much further in life, not too unlike someone who does a 9-to-5 job and cannot think beyond his evening beer to understand the consequences of his actions. He deserves no place in history and certainly not in the libertarian philosophy, either as a hero or as a villain.

This interesting quote is from Jayant Bhandari writing at the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada.

Quote of the Day: The State is a Soulless Machine

It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and fail to develop nonviolence at any time. The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence

This quote is from Mahatma Gandhi, a political leader and inspiration to India’s independence via non-violent resistance movement, from his The Non Violent State Essay