7/4/2020 Mahatma Gandhi, Race and Caste

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Mahatma Gandhi, Race and Caste

July 3, 2020 / MuslimMirror / 1 Comment

By Ram Puniyani

During the course of agitation ‘Black lives matter’ some protestors defaced the statue of Mahatma
Gandhi in US. Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of Indian Nation, has the unique distinction of leading the
biggest ever mass movement in the World and leading the strong anti colonial movement. In this
direction he contributed two major tools as the basis of the mass movements, the one of non violence
and other of Satyagrah. He also stated that while making the policies what one should keep in mind is the
last, weakest person in the society. His life, which he called as his message became the inspiration of
many anti colonial, anti racial struggles in different parts of the World. He strongly supported the
concept of equality in India, where eradication of caste also became one of the aims of his life.

All this comes to one’s mind as a section of people, writers and intellectuals are labelling him as racist
and casteist, one who harmed the cause of dalits in India. Nothing can be farther from truth. These
elements are not seeing the whole journey of the man but do the cherry picking from his early writings,
when he was in the early phases of his work against prevalent injustices in the name of race and caste.
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Earlier also his statue was uprooted in Ghana, where calling him racist, ‘Gandhi Must fall’, movement on
the lines of ‘Rhodes must fall’ came up. Gandhi in no way can be put in the category of the likes of
Rhodes and others whose central work revolved around enslaving the blacks. The warped understanding
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of Gandhi comes from focussing only on Gandhi’s early writings. Gandhi who began his campaign for the
rights of Indians in South Africa, at times used derogatory terms against blacks. These terms were the
one’s which were prevalent, introduced by colonial masters, words like ‘African Savages’. Gandhi while
raising the voice for Indian working people in South Africa said that the colonialists are treating Indians
like African savages.

There was another process which ran parallel to this one of taking up the cause of people of Indian origin
in SA. Once he realized the plight of the blacks there, he started travelling in the third class to experience
the hardships being faced by them and much later he stated that they deserve to be treated in a just
manner. His overcoming of racial beliefs were best expressed in his sentence, “If we look into the future,
is it not a heritage we have to leave to posterity, that all the different races commingle  and  produce a
civilization that perhaps the world has not yet seen?”  (1908). His beliefs kept evolving and in 1942, in a
letter to Roosevelt, he wrote, ““I venture to think that the Allied declaration that the Allies are ghting
to make the world safe for freedom of the individual and for democracy sounds hollow so long as India
and, for that matter, Africa are exploited by Great Britain and America has the Negro problem in her own
home.”

The best response to accusations of Gandhi being a racist came from Nelson Mandela, who wrote, “All in
all, “Gandhi must be forgiven those prejudices and judged in the context of the time and the
circumstances.” Mandela recognized the crucial point that Gandhi’s views changed as he matured. He
wrote, “We are looking here at the young Gandhi, still to become Mahatma.” And from Martin Luther
King (Jr.) who was totally inspired by Gandhi in his anti racial struggles.

Caste is another of the phenomenon, which is tricky. Gandhi in early periods of his life talked of Varna
Dharma based on work; he glori ed the work of scavenging and also called dalits as Harijans. Many a
dalit intellectuals and leaders hold Gandhi responsible for opposing the ‘separate electorate’ granted to
SCs by McDonald Award. Gandhi saw this as a move to fragment the electorate on narrow lines as being
against Indian nationalism and went on hunger strike. Due to this hunger strike Ambedkar agreed for the
reserved constituency.

While many leaders-intellectuals see this as a betrayal by Gandhi, Ambedkar himself actually thanked
Gandhi for giving a satisfactory solution by giving higher reservation to SCs in reserved constituency.
And stated  “I am grateful to Mahatma: He  came to my rescue.” Bhagwan Das, a close follower of
Ambedkar, independently quotes Ambedkar’s speech: “I think in all these negotiations, a large part of
the credit must be attributed to Mahatma Gandhi himself. I must confess that I was surprised, immensely
surprised, when I met Mahatma, that there was so much in common between him and me.”

As such Race and Caste are akin and United Nations debated it in 2009, on these lines. In both the cases
Gandhi, the humanitarian par excellence, begins with terminologies and notions about caste and race
which were prevalent at those times. With his deeper engagement with the issues of society, he gives a
totally different meaning to the same. In matters of caste, he was deeply in uenced and empathetic to
Ambedkar, to the extent that he recommended that Ambedkar’s ‘Annihilation of caste’ be read by all.

While he dealt with race issue from the margins, in case of caste he went miles. His campaign for
eradication of untouchablity had far reaching back up effect to Ambedkar’s initiatives. It was Gandhi’s
disciple Nehru, who brought Ambedkar to the forefront of policy making by including him in the Cabinet.
Nehru also entrusted him with drafting Uniform Civil Code and it was Gandhi himself who suggested that
Ambedkar be made the Chief of drafting committee of Indian Constitution.

Only those who focus on Early Gandhi, Gandhi in the formative phase of his values and ideas, accuse him
of being a castist or racist. He did overcome these narrow, parochial social norms and policies to dream of
a fraternity, Indian and Global where caste and race are relegated to the backyard of human history.
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Tags: Castism, Racism

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One thought on “Mahatma Gandhi, Race and Caste”

anonymous says:
July 4, 2020 at 6:17 pm

Good article Prof.

History should always remember any intelligent personality’s views/opinions after he/she has
gained maturity, informed understanding and solution over any disputed or dif cult subject of
society he/she has grown up with!

And not the opinion when one is young, naive, at immature age when he/she may have many
incorrect opinions due to peer-pressure of society.

Lastly not to forget, the biggest of thinkers are mere mortal humans with limited God-gifted
intellect, and can make mistakes in life.

Stick to the honourable principles in life, not a single personality!

Despite his shortcomings about caste in society, Gandhiji lived his principle of Peace and ”Live
and let live” for everyone and strived for Hindu-Muslim amity in independent India for which he
was unjustly killed by coward Sanghi hate brigade. RIP.

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