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Criticism and Controversies


As a rule, Gandhi was opposed to the concept of partition as it contradicted his vision of religious unity. Of the partition of India to create Pakistan, he wrote in Harijan on 06 October 1946:

[The demand for Pakistan] as put forth by the Moslem League is un-Islamic and I have not hesitated to call it sinful. Islam stands for unity and the brotherhood of mankind, not for disrupting the oneness of the human family. Therefore, those who want to divide India into possibly warring groups are enemies alike of India and Islam. They may cut me into pieces but they cannot make me subscribe to something which I consider to be wrong [...] we must not cease to aspire, in spite of [the] wild talk, to befriend all Moslems and hold them fast as prisoners of our love.

However, as Homer Jack notes of Gandhi's long correspondence with Jinnah on the topic of Pakistan: "Although Gandhi was personally opposed to the partition of India, he proposed an agreement which provided that the Congress and the Moslem League would cooperate to attain independence under a provisional government, after which the question of partition would be decided by a plebiscite in the districts having a Moslem majority."

These dual positions on the topic of the partition of India opened Gandhi up to criticism from both Hindus and Muslims. Muhammad Ali Jinnah and contemporary Pakistanis condemned Gandhi for undermining Muslim political rights. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and his allies condemned Gandhi, accusing him of politically appeasing Muslims while turning a blind eye to their atrocities against Hindus, and for allowing the creation of Pakistan (despite having publicly declared that "before partitioning India, my body will have to be cut into two pieces").

This continues to be politically contentious: some, like Pakistani-American historian Ayesha Jalal argue that Gandhi and the Congress' unwillingness to share power with the Muslim League hastened partition; others, like Hindu nationalist policician Pravin Togadia have also criticized Gandhi's leadership and actions on this topic, but indicating that excessive weakeness on his part led to the division of India.

Gandhi also expressed his dislike for the idea of partition during the late 1930s in response to the topic of the partition of Palestine. He stated in Harijan on 26 November 1938:

Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and 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 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.

Gandhi was criticized for this and responded in his follow-up articles, "Questions on the Jews", "Reply to Jewish Friends," and "Jews and Palestine."


Rejection of violent resistance
Gandhi also came under some political fire for his criticism of those who attempted to achieve independence through more violent means. His refusal to protest against the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Udham Singh and Rajguru were sources of condemnation among some parties.

Of this criticism, Gandhi stated,

"There was a time when people listened to me because I showed them how to give fight to the British without arms when they had no arms but today I am told that my non-violence can be of no avail against the [Hindu–Moslem riots] and, therefore, people should arm themselves for self-defense"

Gandhi commented upon the 1930s persecution of the Jews in Germany within the context of Satyagraha. In the November 1938 article on the Nazi persecution of the Jews quoted above, he offered non-violence as a solution:

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 any 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?"

In the same article, Gandhi continued by stating that:

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 might, 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 were 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 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.

Also, in Harijan, December 17, 1938, Gandhi asserted that Jews "so far as I know, have never practised non-violence as an article of faith or even as a deliberate policy," and alleged that Jews sought to "punish Germany for her persecution and to deliver them from oppression."

Gandhi was criticized by a number of people for these and related remarks. He responded by stating that, "friends have sent me two newspaper cuttings criticizing my appeal to the Jews. The two critics suggest that in presenting non-violence to the Jews as a remedy against the wrong done to them, I have suggested nothing new....what I have pleaded for is renunciation of violence of the heart and consequent active exercise of the force generated by the great renunciation.

Gandhi would later withdraw some of the statements that he made in an article published in Harijan on May 27, 1939.

A friend of Gandhi's Martin Buber, wrote a critical open letter to Gandhi on February 24, 1939. Buber asserted that the comparison between British treatment of Indian subjects and Nazi treatment of Jews was inapposite.


Early South African articles
Some of Gandhi's early South African articles are controversial. As reprinted in "The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi," (Vol. 8, p.120), Gandhi wrote in the "Indian Opinion" in 1908 of his time in a South African prison:

"Many of the native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves."

Also as reprinted in "The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi," (Vol. 2, p.74), Gandhi gave a speech on September 26, 1896 in which he referred to the "raw kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness".

The term "Kaffir" is considered a derogatory term today (it is worth noting, however, that during Gandhi's time, the term "Kaffir" had a different connotation than its present-day usage). Remarks such as these have led some to accuse Gandhi of racism.

Two professors of history who specialize in South Africa, Surendra Bhana and Goolam Vahed, examined this controversy in their text, The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914. (New Delhi: Manohar, 2005).

They focus in Chapter 1, "Gandhi, Africans and Indians in Colonial Natal" on the relationship between the African and Indian communities under "White rule" and policies which enforced segregation (and, they argue, inevitable conflict between these communities). Of this relationship they state that, "the young Gandhi was influenced by segregationist notions prevalent in the 1890s."

At the same time, they state, "Gandhi's experiences in jail seemed to make him more sensitive to their plight the later Gandhi mellowed; he seemed much less categorical in his expression of prejudice against Africans, and much more open to seeing points of common cause. His negative views in the Johannesburg jail were reserved for hardened African prisoners rather than Africans generally."

Former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela is a follower of Gandhi, despite efforts in 2003 on the part of Gandhi's critics to prevent the unveiling of a statue of Gandhi in Johannesburg.

Bhana and Vahed commented on the events surrounding the unveiling in the conclusion to The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914. In the section "Gandhi's Legacy to South Africa," they note that "Gandhi inspired succeeding generations of South African activists seeking to end White rule. This legacy connects him to Nelson Mandela in a sense Mandela completed what Gandhi started."They continue by referring to the controversies which arose during the unveiling of the statue of Gandhi.

In response to these two perspectives of Gandhi, Bhana and Vahed argue: "Those who seek to appropriate Gandhi for political ends in post-apartheid South Africa do not help their cause much by ignoring certain facts about him; and those who simply call him a racist are equally guilty of distortion."

Recently, Nelson Mandela took part in the 29 January – 30 January 2007 conference in New Delhi which marked the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's introduction of satyagraha in South Africa.

In addition, Mandela appeared to the audience via video clip at the South African premiere of Gandhi, My Father in July 2007. Of this clip, the film's producer Anil Kapoor said, "Nelson Mandela sent a special message for the film's opening. Mandela not only spoke about Gandhi, he spoke about me. What was heart-warming and humbling was that he thanked me for making this film, whereas I should thank him and South Africa for letting me shoot 'Gandhi My Father' in their country and allowing me to hold the world premiere there. Mandela identified deeply with the film." The current South African president, Thabo Mbeki, attended along with the rest of the South African Cabinet.


Other criticisms
Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar condemned Gandhi's use of the term Harijans to refer to the Dalit community. This term meant "Children of God";

it was interpreted by some as saying that Dalits were socially immature, and that privileged caste Indians played a paternalistic role. Ambedkar and his allies also felt Gandhi was undermining Dalit political rights. Gandhi, although born into the Vaishya caste, insisted that he was able to speak on behalf of Dalits, despite the availability of Dalit activists such as Ambedkar.

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