On Gandhi

Although a post about Gandhi may seem random, I had just finished reading about him in my philosophy class and many of my classmates and my instructor view this man as a saint and I can’t seem to figure out why. This man was a horrible father to his kids, a bad husband, and a pedofile of sorts. This seems to be quite a harsh accusation and I myself was shocked to hear some of this stuff. I never really like the to begin with, he seemed to be pretty wishy washy to me.

To give you a small bit of background Gandhi was studying to be in law. His father was very sick and according to the Hindu religion every one has Drama or duty according to ones state in life. He was by his fathers bedside the night that he died and he was with him from some time. After being with him he went up to his room and started to have sex with his wife. A servant came up to his room to announce his fathers death, so he was with his wife when his father died. Gandhi was mortified, in his eyes he had failed to carry out his Darma or his duty. He was filled with much guilt and shame and didn’t really know what to do with his life (it seemed). In his early years after his fathers death it almost seemed like he was searching for purpose. He basically then became the “Son of India” overnight. There was a protest for something (i forgot what) and he stood up and spoke his mind, people then liked what he said and that’s when he started his ‘cult’ following. That was the very, very, very short version.

So we see that a possible reason for Gandhi’s motivation was guilt. Not a bad motivation if good comes out of it right? Well not if you carry out that guilt for the rest of your life and never get over it. One must move on in his life, one can’t dwell on the past. If Gandhi then was guilty for not fulfilling his darmha in his early years do you not think that he would be most cautious not do fail again? Gandhi had two sons (I think I only remember two) one of them turned alright but the other one felt neglected. Gandhi would often go on long trips from his family and called for a radical change in the style of life, which he entitled Shatyagraha (the heart of his movement). His son feeling neglected and not part of his fathers life became very upset and became a drunkard and a  prostitute (kind of an odd combination). The over all conclusion in the class was that India was the greater good. More important than his family. Now I don’t know about you but I think God Himself would rather see Gandhi bring up too wonderful sons rather than ignoring them for the most part. If he realized this he could have raised his sons to tackle this issue rather than himself, two heads are better than one, no?

Gandhi also took the Hindu vow of chastity called—–. Now taking a vow of chastity in a marriage is a true sacrifice and not everyone is called to do it. I personally do not think that Gandhi was called to do it. I think that the motivation behind him taking this vow was because of his guilt. Now, I know that his religion preaches darmah and duty but this is taking it  bit too far. He didn’t see his wife enough anyways when he clearly could have. Like I said before he should brought up his sons in a way that they would tackle the freedom and unity of India, his primary job was too make ripples in the water, make a path for his sons to follow and then to let them do the rest. But Gandhi did not see this he saw him self as the one who needed to carry out this mission. He could then be with his wife and then possibly take the vow, I’m surprised that his marriage lasted. Not seeing his like he could have and not saying ‘I love you’ in a way that only a married couple can, kind of takes away the specialty of his marriage. It’s almost looks as though he thought that his family got in the way of his higher purpose. After all he did say (and I paraphrase) “I treat my family like I do the rest of India.” shouldn’t be the other way around?

Now I’m sure you’re wondering why I made the statement that he was a “pedofile of sorts”. I say this because he would sleep naked with young Hindu girls. I was amazed when I herd this from a video from the tape of him on the Biography channel. To me this didn’t make any sense, this didn’t sound like the Gandhi I knew. But, the video said that he did this to put his Chastity vow into practice. That sounds pretty stupid to me. That’s like saying “Ok Satan hear I am, give me your best shot because I can resist any temptation you throw at me!” I don’t care who you are, to put your self in a predicament where you can, very easily, go to HELL is dumb. Putting yourself in the way of temptation is not good to teach the kids, in this sense you can say that he was corrupting the youth. I heard it said somewhere before that it would be better that those who corrupt the youth never had been born, not to give comfort to the souls in Hell but, it is better to live an eternity in Hell than should one never be born.

I personally think that Gandhi did get a bit big headed about his role in being the son of India. He made the statement that he did find it exhilarating when he would see mobs of people shouting and praising his name. Yes, it would be very hard to be humble but you still have to try. The book that I read in class told about his philosophy but no where in there did it mention about being humble. He was also against doctors for some reason I could never really understand why, but when his wife was dieing he told her to refuse medical treatment. Then later on in his life he received medical treatment himself not explaining it to the public to my knowledge. So why this contradiction? My assessment is that he found himself too important to die.

I never really liked Gandhi and know I know why. It looks although he did have good intentions though but never really succeeded. His goal for unity was lost when the Muslims went and founded Palestine and broke off from India. Why did his mission fail? With all the political stuff behind us, the reason why he failed was because he created with his philosophy a relativegod. According to him your religion didn’t matter just let people do there own thing and be at peace with each other. He does have a point and we do have to get along to the extent of no more war ect. but we must not be yielding in the area of faith. We must be willing to accept people but reject their sin. This is hard when people like to wallow in there sin and to be consumed by it by saying things like “Well it’s who I am and I can’t change that.” People like to look at themselves as their own little god, and we all know that that ends up failing. Hitler is a popular example for such things. He tried to ‘correct’ God by saying that he could make a better person. HA! Yea, we saw how well that worked out. So Gandhi in a sense did make himself a little god by promoting his new relative god. He changed the nature of a god there for he must be a god, there for he made himself a little god.    

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