Let’s start with the extreme religious nuts, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. In 2001, they put the blame for the 9/11 Islamic terrorism on “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians.” Jerry Falwell, alas, died in 2007. (The very naughty Mr Christopher Hitchens casually commented that if Falwell had been given an enema, they could have buried him in a match box.) But Robertson was at hand after the recent Haiti earthquake, and put the blame for the devastation and the awful loss of lives on some pact that Haitian slaves had made with the devil around two centuries before.

Then comes the Feb 27, 2010 quake in Chile which left half a million homeless and around 800 dead. Not as bad as the Haiti quake that killed an estimated 230,000 people, 300,000 injured, and 1,000,000 homeless.

Priyanka Chopra concluded that the cause was anthropogenic. Well, not in those words as I doubt she can spell that word. She put it across as a rhetorical question and tweeted, “400,000 people left homeless by quake in Chile..R we putting too much pressure on our planet..My prayers for the victims and their families.” I suppose the Chileans had to pay for the sins of humanity in pressuring the earth (whatever that means.) Perhaps people are overeating and the resulting obesity caused the pressure.

But who the hell knows who Priyanka Chopra is. I certainly didn’t until my friend Rajan pointed her tweet (not to be confused with twat) out to me. Her opinion and analysis of natural disasters does not amount to a hill of beans. That’s not the case with Mr Gandhi, aka Mahatma.

You recall the Bihar 8.4 magnitude earthquake of January 15, 1934? You don’t! Well, neither do I. The wiki informs me that it was one of the worst in India, and 30,000 died. Mahatma Gandhi visited Bihar and after due deliberation declared that it was divine retribution for the sins of Indians. That strikes me as one of the most perverted statements made by the man — and that’s saying something considering that he sort of specialized in that category of statements.

If A were to commit a crime, and the police were to give an entirely innocent uninvolved person B a thrashing of his life saying, “I am doing this to you because A committed a crime and I think it is right and appropriate that you be thrashed,” would you say that the police were good, holy, enlightened and bow down in front of them in deep devotion? You would not do any such thing.

Gandhi did. The god that he was devoted to by his (Gandhi’s) admission was killing Biharis for crimes committed by others.

I have always been intrigued by the idea of scapegoating — “the practice of singling out one child, employee or member of a group of peers for unmerited negative treatment or blame”, as the wiki puts it. Gandhi searched for one and found a scapegoat. Why? Because it suited his personal agenda.

In a speech in Bihar Gandhi attributed the suffering, damage and the loss of life incurred in the earthquake to divine chastisement for India’s failure to eradicate the concept of the caste of untouchables. [Source.]

As I am not a huge fan of Gandhi (which is clearly an understatement), that did not come as a huge surprise to me. Normal people would be horrified at conceiving a vengeful mean irrational stupid god but for Gandhi, it was a no-brainer. The great thinker Rabindranath Tagore, however, gave it to Gandhi good and proper.

Here’s a bit from Bidyut Chakrabarty’s “Social and political thought of Mahatma Gandhi” (2006)

. . . an interesting debate took place following Gandhi’s characterization of the Bihar earthquake in February (sic), 1934 as ‘divine chastisement’ for the great sin committed against those known as harijans. Tagore took a serious view of this by saying that ‘it has cause me painful surprise to find Mahatma Gandhi accusing those who blindly follow their own social custom of untouchability of having brought down gods’ vengeance upon certain parts of Bihar’. Coming from the most revered political leader of the country, the statement, he felt, was most devastating for its obvious impact on the interpersonal relationships between harijans and others. So it should not go ‘unchallenged’. Tagore prefaced his critique of this superstitious view of Gandhi’s by saying that ‘it is all the more unfortunate, because this kind of unscientific view of things is too readily accepted by large section of our countrymen.’ Emphasizing that ‘physical catastrophes [like earthquakes etc] have their inevitable and exclusive origin in certain combinations of physical facts’, he further argued that:

if we associate ethical principles with cosmic phenomena, we shall have to admit that human nature is morally superior to Providence that preaches its lessons in good behaviour in orgies of the worst behaviour possible . . . What is truly tragic about it is the fact that the kind of argument that Mahatmaji uses by exploiting an even of cosmic disturbance for better suits the psychollogy of his opponents . . . [He thus felt] profoundly hurt when any words from [Gandhi's] mouth may emphasise the elements of unreason . . . which is a fundamental source of all the blind powers that drive us against freedom and self-respect.

Gandhi responded to Tagore saying, “to me, the earthquake was no caprice of God nor a result of blind forces . . . Visitations like droughts, flood, earthquake and the like, though they seem to have only physical origins, are, for me, somehow connected with man’s morals. Therefore, I instinctively felt that the earthquake was visitations for the sin of untouchability. . . [I believe] that our sins have more force to ruin the structure than any mere physical phenomenon.”

Now read that in the context of the burning of witches — which happens even today in many parts of the world. Ignorant superstitious people believe that someone is responsible for the crop failure or the drought and that they have to kill the person responsible and their problems will be solved.

Those people who burn witches are not driven by reason. They say, like Gandhi, “that to us, somehow, it seems . . .” and “we instinctively feel” and get on with setting things right by torturing confessions and burning witches.

The evidence is overwhelming that Gandhi was a superstitious person ignorant of basic scientific understanding of the world available even at the time when he did his schooling. Gandhi had a instinctive understanding of how to manipulate the superstitious illiterate ignorant masses, however, and they revered him with the devotion that they had for their other gods. Gandhi was cunning if he was anything at all. I have argued before that he blackmailed his followers, and that it was violence cloaked in the pious garb of non-violence.

I am repelled by Gandhi’s arrogant insistence that his instinctive feelings that somehow arise within him gives him the right to attribute causes to natural phenomena and dictate that to his followers.

Gandhi is revered by the masses in India. That is the most damning evidence I see of my conjecture that India is largely a nation of retards. That and the clearly related fact that these retards vote for the Gandhi-family led Congress party.

If I were an illiterate person, I would be convinced that Gandhi is goodness personified. After all, doesn’t Indian money carry his image? Isn’t he the father of the nation? And should I not vote for Gandhi’s children — Rajiv, Sonia, Rahul, whoever? And should I not vote for the party that Gandhi founded? And should I not believe everything from a person who says he is a Gandhian?

Anyway, I must admit that the Congress party of India has a winning formula and they know it. Gandhi is the biggest brand name in the world — forget Coca Cola and McDonalds. Mera Bharat Mahan!

When confronted by a human being who impresses us as truly great, should we not be moved rather than chilled by the knowledge that he might have attained his greatness only through his frailties?
— Lou Andreas-Salome – Biographer of Freud

The notion that one’s weaknesses could be the fountainhead of one’s accomplishments is certainly intriguing and counter-intuitive. At least on one occasion I have seen that up close and personal. A certain friend of mine was driven to become an over-achiever because at a deeper level he suffered from an inferiority complex.

Someone once remarked (I don’t recall who and I am too lazy to Google right now) that the greatest strength of a country is also its greatest weakness. After pondering about that for a bit, not only did I convinced myself of truth of that claim, I realized also that it is true about individuals. In the case of individuals, it was fear of one extreme that pushed one to the other extreme. And like in a circle, if one moves far enough from one’s starting point, one finds oneself back to where one began. Virtue, taken to an extreme, becomes a vice.

One of the many reasons I admire Gautama, the Buddha, was that he realized the importance of moderation, of avoiding extremes. He preached and practiced what is called the “Middle-wayed Way.” That is pure and simple genius. It is a pity that Mahatma Gandhi, the most well-known of modern Indians, never bothered to learn the lessons the Buddha had taught about 2,500 years ago. If he had, he probably would not have been the extremist he ended up being and for which India has paid a very heavy price and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

For example, Gandhi’s insistence on self-sufficiency is contrary to the basic nature of the universe. Last year, I wrote about Gandhian self-sufficiency and why I oppose it. Of course, I got some hate-mail basically saying “how dare you!” Some take idol-worshipping to an extreme. So I followed up with a post on idol-worshipping gone haywire.

I have a tentative theory why Indians appear to be so susceptible to idol-worshipping. It has to do with Hinduism. Hinduism employs idols as symbolic representation of divine ideals. But the unwashed masses end up confusing the symbol for the real thing. So instead of worshipping the ideal, they end up worshipping the idol. It is a short step from there to worshipping their political leaders. Of course, I should hasten to add that Hindu unwashed masses are not unique in this respect. Unwashed masses of all faiths worship idols, whether in the form of a black meteoritic rock or a cross. Even Buddhist u. m. worship statues of the Buddha even though he expressly denied the existence of a god and thus naturally could not be one himself. But Hindus take that to an extreme and anything from cows to rocks to corrupt politicians are fair game when it comes to idol-worshipping. Case in point, you ask? After the last general elections, a few of the unwashed masses insisted that they would commit suicide if one particular idol declined to become the prime minister of India. Would have been better if they had carried out their threat but unfortunately they chickened out in the end.

Well, that is about it for now.

It is more than a bit unfortunate that we have a tendency to immediately label any criticism of any person as a sign of disrespect. Any person whose image cannot withstand the harsh glare of honest criticism says something about the fragility of that image. The image takes on a aura of such holiness and awe that any hint of possible flaws is taken as sacrilegious. Taken to an extreme, this sort of idol-worshipping ends up with the worshippers lynching anyone daring to profane the sacred image.

For the record, I do believe that Gandhi was a giant of a man. But for all his greatness, he was still cut from the same cloth as you and I. The same human frailties, the same hopes and ambitions and fears. The difference between a Gandhi and one of us is one of size, not of substance. If we keep that in mind — not just about Gandhi but everyone — I do believe that we would have a useful working hypothesis. Those great big people are magnified images of ourselves. And that which magnifies the virtues, magnifies the flaws as well. An old Chinese saying says that the bigger the front-side, the larger the back-side.

I heard that Chinese saying on the radio (I think it was Fresh Air with Terry Gross.) The program was about the late Joseph Campbell. Campbell was a great big man whose work on the power of myths is legendary. I have enormous respect for the man. So I was fairly shocked to learn on that radio discussion that he was an anti-semite. The mind reeled. How could that be! A man with so much obvious humanity stooping so low? Then one of the discussants mentioned that Chinese saying and I had a sort of epiphany.

The epiphany was of the type that accompanies growing up, of maturing. I realized that all my heroes have pretty large backsides, just as much as they have front-sides. The two men I admired the most, the Buddha and Einstein, too had large backsides. That realization deepened my understanding of who they were and why I respect them. Knowing that they too have their faults did not imply that I stopped considering them worthy of respect, but only that they were more like me than I would have suspected. That is what happens, I suspect, in the case of parents and children. As children we grow up adulating our parents. At some point in our lives, we do realize that they too have their faults. Rarely do children end up losing their love and respect for the parents.

All I am trying to do here is to explain that my criticism of Gandhi does not imply that I don’t consider him worthy of respect. I do not consider anyone above criticism and that goes with a greater force for someone placed on so high a pedestal as he. Idol-worshipping, it would appear, is not limited to the religious sphere in India; it creeps into the political sphere as well. That is not to say that all other peoples are not guilty of idol-worshipping as well. Only that in India it has been taken to stratospheric levels. Mention the name “Gandhi” and people are willing to believe and do anything. A recent display of that sort of insanity was when a bunch threatened to commit suicide unless a certain Gandhi became the prime minister of India.

Here is what my position is with regards to Gandhi and Nehru. Gandhi is widely acknowledged to be the Father of the nation. OK, I am willing to grant that. Then I look around and see the nation and find it less than desirable. Therefore, I conclude that there must have been something the matter with the father if the child (the nation) is so pathetic. I am merely taking the argument to its logical conclusion. Gandhi was great; he was the father of the nation; the nation is pathetic; ergo, the father was not perfect. Now some would argue that Gandhi was great and he is the father of the nation, but it is not his fault that the nation is pathetic. My objection to that would be that you cannot have it both ways: if he was the father, then both the praise and the blame for his progeny rest at his feet. You cannot simultaneously claim that he was the father and yet assign no responsibility for the way things turned out. It is logically consistent to say that he was a great man but the nation did not follow what he preached. In that case, he was not the father of the nation.

The same goes with Nehru. It is silly to praise Nehru for all sorts of supposedly good stuff he is responsible for and to adorn each and every public institution with his or his progeny’s name and turn a blind eye to the disasters that he and his progeny have inflicted on an adoring nation. I find it bitterly ironic that educational institutions carry Indira Gandhi’s name when she was strictly opposed to education for the masses. Every time I come across the name of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, I can only marvel at the blinkered pig-ignorance that motivates the naming of educational institutions after her. I don’t think that there will ever be an institute called the “Adolf Hitler Institute for Jewish Advancement”.

My basic concern is to figure out what is the reason for what India is today. How did it get here? Is there something wrong with our national character? Is it that external forces have ruined us? Where did we go wrong? Were our policies good and if so, what explains the state of India today? If our policies were bad, who was responsible? What can we do so as to correct our mistakes? What were the mistakes and why were they made?

One cannot hope to answer those questions if there are some people and some policies that are not to be questioned. I think that unless we can critically look at the past, we may end up repeating the mistakes that were made. I suspect that most of us are fairly well off and we don’t really believe that India is badly off at all. So we are comfortably numb to the real state of affairs, because acknowledging otherwise would be to burden oneself with the unpleasant task of doing something about it. We pretend that there are no hard problems and therefore no real hard work needs to be done. And if someone turns up with bad news, we heap abuse on the messenger and when he goes away, we will continue to live happily ever after.

This messenger is here to stay for a bit longer.

Occupying moral high ground is well and good if that is one’s objective. But one could be very dead at the end of the day — on high ground but still dead.

Those tools elevate the user in the user’s estimation at least. But the sad fact of this world is that it does not work in those cases where you most desperately want it to work. One needs an effective tool against mass murderers more urgently than against robbers. The former could not care less whether you have an elevated opinion of your own moral standing. Hitler, for instance, would have slaughtered without compunction those who responded to his aggression with non-violence; it would have eased the realization of his megalomanical dreams of world domination.

I must hasten to add that satyagraha and non-violence is a “first-best” tool. And that is precisely the trouble, ironically. First-best tools work in “first-best” worlds. A bit of reflection will convince most people that the world we live in is a “second-best” world.

Second best worlds are not perfect and indeed have multiple distortions. Employing tools that are meant for first best worlds could lead one to make a situation worse. And that is what most well-meaning but misguided moral busybodies end up doing — making a bad situation worse. Their enthusiasm to do good often outstrips their ability to comprehend the nature of the world. “Let me save you from drowning,” said the monkey to the fish, as he put the fish up on a tree.

Mere good intentions are not sufficient; often they pave the road to hell. In my considered opinion, it was Gandhi’s good intentions that have paved the way India’s descent into hell. My contention is that the ‘Gandhian Revolution’ is what has condemned hundreds of millions (if not more than a billion) people to lead inhuman lives.

By ‘Gandhian revolution’ I mean the notion of ‘Gandhian self-sufficiency’ and Gandhian economics. And here in a nutshell is the problem: in a world that is mutually interdependent, it is insanity to insist upon self-sufficiency at any level — whether it is the level of the nation, the city, the village, the family, or the individual. Mutual dependencies exist at all levels down to the gut level where we depend on bacteria for our lives.

A goal that seeks self-sufficiency (at any level of analysis) is a prescription for poverty — not just of the body but also of the mind. We are deeply and inalienably connected with all others, however one defines the ‘other.’

My criticism of Gandhi is that he did not comprehend the interconnectedness of the world we live in. But that is not surprising considering that he was perhaps one of the world’s greatest egotists. His ego was sufficiently large that he sometimes eschewed the use of reasoned argument for persuading others and instead blackmailed others into complying with his demands by threatening to starve himself to death. The public, like doting parents scared stiff that the child may indeed hold his breath till he turns blue, gave in to blackmail repeatedly. But that is par for the course for the unreasoning masses of India — they go for this kind of pathetic uncritical hero-worship. However noble the cause, blackmail is blackmail. And the larger the canvas upon which the ransom note is written, the more egregious the crime committed.

I claim that he was the greatest egotist around because to him, only his wishes counted. Sure, it was all dressed up in saintly rhetoric but in the end it was what he wanted that mattered. He wanted to be celibate; so the heck with Kasturba. He could make do with little if needed; therefore every Indian must make do with little. His needs could be satisfied with simple handmade goods, so every person must also aim for that. The spinning wheel and self-sufficient village economy and small scale enterprises were prescribed. He failed to see that in a world which is second-best, he was using a prescription that suited him best. Being an egotist, he could not comprehend that others’ preferences may be different.

Being an egotist is not against any laws, however. At worst, in the case of the average human, it is a handicap not much worse than extreme body odor. But it does have the unfortunate consequence of the person feeling a sense of being above others, not really connected to others. In the case of a ‘mahatma’, that sense of self-reliance translates into xenophobic isolation for the entire nation.

That is the Gandhian revolution that I am against.

The Gandhian revolution has been an unmitigated disaster. It ranks up there with communism as ideologies that have wreaked havoc on human societies. The Chinese suffered under communism and only in the past few years have they started up the road to development once they realized their mistake.

India has to look very critically at the burden we bear of the legacy of Gandhi. We must choose to free ourselves from a blind uncritical acceptance of a defunct ideology. Until we do that, I am afraid that we are condemning large masses of humans to needless misery.

Communism fails because it is a first-best recommendation (behave like saints) in a second-best world (where people are selfish and there is not enough to go around.) Similarly for the Gandhian revolution; it would have ushered in a heaven on earth had the nation been a collection of selfless ascetics. Instead Indians are average humans and therefore the same prescription has given the majority of us a living hell.

“It must remain to the wise to undo the damage that is done by the merely good.”