Talk:Mahatma Gandhi/Gandhi and the Jews: Whether he was 'Racist'

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.29.3 (talk) 00:32, 23 December 2017 (UTC) 

Quote by Gandhi

“The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

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Article: Mahatma Gandhi
Current talk page: Talk:Mahatma Gandhi

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References

Gandhi on Jews & Middle-East

A Non-Violent Look at Conflict&Violence
- Article Written on November 20, 1938, published in Harijan on November 26, 1938

A Collection of Articles, Speeches, Letters and Interviews

Gandhi, The Jews And Palestine Compiled by: E. S. Reddy

Gandhi comments on hitler and jews: Why no mention??

This article appears to be mere hagiography; why are there no mentions of such Gandhi stances as "I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed." and "The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs."? --Chris Martin 01:01, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I hope that some context is offered if those quotations are added. There is a similarly embarrassing quotation about Hitler from Winston Churchhill, of all people. Before he invaded Poland, Hitler was mostly known for rescuing Germany from depression. Without context, the quotation regarding the Jews is more difficult to interpret charitably. --Goethean 02:43, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Goethean. I remember that Gandhi's above quotation was mainly meant to say that he believed that non-violent resistance from jews would be successful. (Part of a comment by --ashwatha on 02:36, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)) Remainder of comment moved from Talk:Mahatma Gandhi/Archive 1:

section on civil rights movement in South Africa: Criticism missing

That said, the section on the civil rights movement in South Africa does read a bit too much like a eulogy - it was much better a few years ago; more to the point, and also included a common std of Gandhi's were he got in in South Africa - he was (and still is) criticized for not extending his activism to native Africans and limiting his activities for Indians only. I will try to prune this section and re-add some of the missing statements. --ashwatha 02:36, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) )

Why is this a featured article?

To me it seems to be extremely POV. It is very pro-Gandhi and seems to either gloss over or ingore entirely unflattering facts from his life.
--Heathcliff 23:03, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's a wiki buddy. Feel free to add relevant information with a neutral point of view. If you have reservations about this being a featured article, you can nominate it at WP:FARC.
-- Sundar (talk · contribs) 05:03, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I was not aware of that page for nominating articles to become un-featured. However, I suspect that their are those who feel the article is just fine. I was hoping some of them would make some effort to justify that article as it is. Perhaps, I am wrong about it. But if no one offers any reasons why it should continued to be featured, I probably will nominate it for featured article removal.

As for adding to it myself. I may at some point. But I would have to do a fair amount of research first. I'm not really quaified to make substantial alterations to it otherwise.
--Heathcliff 01:37, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

negative facts glossed over: abt jews, celebacy, caste, partition,etc

For example, the article contains a quote that "Gandhi was fully sympathetic with the victims of fascist aggression." And yet Gandhi said (see Wikiquote, for example) in May 1940: "I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed." Also some would question whether this other Gandhi quote, "Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs," was truly "fully sympathetic." The article mentions his abstinence, but not his habit of sleeping with young girls in his 70s. (And Freud's suspicions about it.) Doesn't mention how he fought to prevent the British from giving the Untouchables political representation. The article implies that the British were fully responsible for partition, too.
(added by:128.253.136.126, perhaps heathcliff)

While the assertions you make seem to be factually correct, what can we make of them? Take the sleeping with young girls. Apparently it is true that he did this to test his vow of celebacy (i.e., they really were sleeping). So what does it prove? Probably not much more than the fact that he was somewhat eccentric in his later years. It doesn't seem like something that should be in an encyclopedia article. Each of these factoids has a context. To re-create the context (thus maintaining an NPOV article) would take a great deal of ink. Not worth it, IMO.
Sunray 15:26, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

That's a very weak rationalization for not dealing with it. Also you only address only one of the points that were made above (the easiest). And how do we know that he only did it to test his vow of celibacy? Because he said so? Is this confirmed somehow? Shouldn't the article simply present the facts and let the readers judge them? If the facts cannot be judged out of context then the context should be provided. If providing both facts and context is to much trouble to bother with then the whole article should just be deleted because no article at all would be prefereble to a biased fluff piece.
--Heathcliff 01:54, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

So, what do you propose? Sunray 05:34, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

My take is always that we present a full picture--if there are critical voices, give them space, put them in perspective. And let's treat him like a real human being. He was a father (and there are strong critiques of that out there), he was a politician (and there are strong critiques of that out there), he was a statesman and a philosopher (who, deservedly or not, has had a very far-reaching impact on the 20th Century and continues to do so)
...—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 19:40, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

My comment on the WP:FARC page:

comment - I just feel that the article as it is right now does not do justice either to the Mahatma himself or the status of being a "Featured article". It could be much wider and deeper. The article on Ayn Rand, for example, is richer in content and references.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 01:30, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Do you have sources for this information? Sunray 01:41, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

You want a source for my feeling? Huh?
—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:45, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

No. You said: "He was a father (and there are strong critiques of that out there), he was a politician (and there are strong critiques of that out there), he was a statesman and a philosopher (who, deservedly or not, has had a very far-reaching impact on the 20th Century and continues to do so)." Do you have sources for these critiques?
Sunray 04:08, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)

Last edit war

The last war was about Gandhi's (in)famous quote

Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.

I copy it to here from my personal page.

copied from User talk:62.219.175.34 :

Excuse me, but please give me a credible reference for the "facts" that you've added to Mahatma Gandhi. You've mentioned that Gandhi told Fisher in 1946. Is there a reference source for that? Because, while adding such radically different views, it is best to discuss that first in the talk page. Until then let me revert your changes. I'm not a fan of Gandhi myself, but I want to ensure that we stick to NPOV and No original research principles. -- Sundar 05:53, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

• • This is a well-known citation. See the following sources for instance:
    • wikiquote ([1]). (Are you going now to remove it also from wikiquote?)
    • beliefner ([[2]])
    • Here is the source and the analysis from Jewish point of view [[3]]
    • [[4]] - here is a part about Czechs

... there are many other sources, easily found at google. I now tried an extensive search and never found any notion that this is a hoax or urban legend.

This is not an original research at all. Neither it is a POV. I just present what Gandhi told (which is a well-known fact) and there is a well-known explanation for it (Gandhi opposed any violent resistance, and considered mass suicide of Jews or Czechs a heroic and respectable form of non-violent resistance).--62.219.175.34 06:34, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I can't find it in Wikiquotes. Perhaps someone removed it there because of lack of references. And the other sources don't seem to be disinterested. Any way, please add this discussion to Talk:Mahatma Gandhi and make the changes to the article if you want. I'll wait for other editors to comment upon these "citations". I'll not revert now. -- Sundar 06:38, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I just found it. Search the word cliffs . It in the section "On the west".

OK, then. Go ahead, but move this discussion to Talk:Mahatma Gandhi for the record. -- Sundar 06:46, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

not NPOV : gandhi racist

regarding jews, africans, lust

It's very disgusting to think that this is a featured article. It mentions nothing of Ghandi's racist remarks to native black South Africans, or his extremely offensive remarks toward the Jews. It also doesn't mention that he'd often sleep with many girls. POV tagged. Gold Stur 18:04, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

This was discussed here [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=223176 Ghandi racism discussion]
-- anonymous comment by 168.210.90.180 (talk · contribs)

Please provide your source. --nirvana2013 21:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Alright then. As stated above me, on Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi#On_the_West) there is a quote that says "Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.", by Ghandi. Also, Penn & Teller's Bullshit! has an episode that deals with Ghandi and his flaws. This site also deals with Ghandi's racism. http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/ghandi4.htm If you still want more on Ghandi and racism, do a Google search for "Ghandi racism", "Ghandi racism against blacks", etc. And as for him sleeping with women, again, they talk about it in Bullshit!, and you can also look here.
Gold Stur 22:42, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[insertion post-archiving by 66.68.106.192 (talk · contribs): this comment never appeared on the main takpage]Yeah, right. Your 'research' is based on google searches. That's reliable! If you do a google search on "Jews racism" they will point you to every white nationalist anti-semitic website on the internet taht accuse Jewish Rabbis of conducting systematic acts of racism. The second result points to "Radio Islam", a well known hate group of Islamic terrorists dedicated to maligning the Jewish people to advance their agenda of destroying the Nation-State of Israel. A google search of "Jews" provides the first result as "www.jewwatch.com", a virulently racist website also dedicated to maligning Jews. My point is that google searches do not necessarily provide legitimate scholarly work. There are only 4 kinds of people would say the above things about the Mahatma: 1) Someone who's ignorant. 2) Someone who's already both a regular white supremacist and an anti-semite, and is trying to defame the Mahatma as a ploy to create a rift between the Hindu and Jewish communities. 3) Someone who is a radical muslim or a radical muslim sympathizer (that included some misguided and brainwashed Jews like Noam Chomsky) and is trying to endanger India-Israel military relations (which would prove disastrous to Palestinian and Kashmiri terrorists). Nice try, but Indians and Israelis are smarter than you give them credit for, and your mindless fundamentalist dialectic will not prevent us from crushing the mutual enemies of India and Israel and driving them out of our countries. --Subhash Bose, 03/27/2006

− kennyfasugbe: I am really dismayed that quality information regarding a larger than life personality, which is a creation from untruthiness has eluded me for almost thirty years. From young age, I was made to believe that Gandhi was just a little notch lower on the hierarchy of human salvation story than Jesus, whom to me is the lord. After stumbling on a youtube video, which speaks to these did i spend lots of hours doing my research, as objectively as i could. Lo and Behold, my idol has been found to be as contrary to being an hero but closely aligned with the dark representation of the worst in human leaders. So, it seems to me that all his peaceful means to gain freedom from the British were- 1) he could not see that possibility of Indians defeating the royal army. 2) he worships the white race, and his believe in the caste system will not let him pick up arm against those whom by the color of their skin were ordained by karma to lord over him. What a woozie! It is hard for me to write this, as it breaks my heart that my hero, about whom i recorded songs was actually a non-hero at all, but a politician who was as evil in his thinking as Jim Crow!

above criticisms: mentions in article: dispute resolved

I have added a section regarding Hitler under Principles/Nonviolence. On racism I have added a quote under Life/Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893 - 1914). On lust I have added a few words under Principles/Celibacy. I did not add anything regarding him being unfaithful to his wife. Need proof rather than heresay.
--nirvana2013 19:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. NPOV removed, but I do have one request; could you show me where you got the last part of the quote on Jewish mass suicide, the one about heroism?
Gold Stur 22:10, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Jerusalum Post, for example --nirvana2013 13:05, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

a reply: not racist, extreme pacifist, rather:

It should be mentioned why Gandhi said the Jews should be exterminated. He was not a racist. He was an extreme pacifist. Gandhi said that because he thought eventually Hitler would have stopped and become sympathetic to the Jews, something which I also believe in. He even said that to the Indians, that they should sacrifice their lives in order to make India independant from the British. Gandhi was sympatheitic to everybody, no matter how evil your actions were.
DaGizza ^{Chat (c)} 21:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

jews/africans among gandhi followers, abt lust: neonazi propoganda

Ok... Gandhi was a racist. Thats why Albert Einstein said "generations to come will scarcely believe that one such as this walked the earth in flesh and blood". Please note that he was Jewish. Also lets not forget how African American leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu believed in Gandhi's approach to non-violent resistance. Were they going to follow a racist figure who hated African Americans? Also about the young girls issue, a lot of it is unconfirmed and poorly documented garbage propped up by neo-nazis and other racists. It has little or no factual backing.
(Anon comment on 11/1/2006)

Gandhi and the Jews

I think it should be mentioned that Gandhi hated Jews and it was well-known that he was a raving anti-semite. If this is not mentioned, then this article is obviously written in favor of Gandhi and should be tagged with NPOV.
68.14.84.43 00:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)EarlCampbell20

Hey dude, READ BEFORE YOU TYPE. This has already been discussed here. Gandhi was extreme pacifist not a "raving anti-semite" as you put it!

p.s Even Churchill was known for racist classification of Indians as "Brown savages"! I dont see that its being turned into much of a issue there. Probably thoughts on Jews are a litmus test to a persons "goodness" isnt it?
अमेय आरयन AMbroodEY 19:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It is well known that he hated Jews and Israel.
EarlCampbell20 19:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)EarlCampbell20

Since it is so well known, you will presumably be able to provide relevant references.
treesmill 19:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah like Israel even existed when he died! So basically according to you, greatness of a man is on the basis of his views on Zionism, isnt it? Gandhi was against the idea of Zionism but why would he hate Jews??? You draw this conclusion only from a vague statement he made in 1945 which can be translated either way!
अमेय आरयन AMbroodEY 17:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

EarlCampbell20, I have removed your personal attacks. Please discuss the topic at hand rather than any alleged traits of editors. AMbroodEY, please assume good faith. —
goethean ॐ 21:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Gandhi did not "hate" anyone, Jews or Nazis. Truth and love transcend anger and hate. As was pointed out by treesmill please provide references for this "hatred" that Gandhi is alleged to have had.
--nirvana2013 13:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

People, it has been proven multiple times Gandhi was a racist and Jew hater. You are too blinded by popular portrayal of him to see the facts yourselves. This article is biased and I would give it an NPOV tag, but a Gandhi-loving moderator would quickly dispose of it.
EarlCampbell20 04:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)EarlCampbell20

Please provide your references and source. How do you know you are not "blinded"?
--nirvana2013 11:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

above matter closed

A quick search of the web finds no obvious such 'proofs' but it easily finds http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/mideast.htm which is an article by Gandhi himself. Quote "My sympathies are all with the Jews.". He goes on to object to the imposition of the Jewish state on the previous inhabitants of Palestine, a perfectly respectable position and one not confined to 'haters of Jews'. Only someone blind to the reality of the history of the Jewish state could see this article of evidence of hate. What it clearly espouses is non-violence on both sides.
treesmill 01:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

A further search finds http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/writings_online/articles/gandhi_jews_palestine.html#Interview%20to%20The%20Daily%20Herald which gives a considerable amount of material both from the pen of Gandhi and of those who objected to a greater or lesser degree to his advocacy of non-violence in the case of the Jews under Hitler and more broadly to his misunderstanding of the situation in general. Whether one is persuaded or not by either side it is quite clear that none of Gandhi's opponents in the material presented here viewed him as fundamentally opposed to the Jews, let alone as a 'Jew hater'. Rather they believed that his attachment to the most fundamental form of non-violence had blinded him to what they believed to be the powerlessness of his programme in the face of the Nazi machine.
treesmill 01:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks treesmill, I have not seen or read many of those articles by Gandhi. Awaiting your response EarlCampbell20. If no response is received, I assume this matter is closed.
--nirvana2013 11:22, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Note on archiving

This is a topic specific subpage of the talk page of the article on Gandhi. Note for future archiving: This page was created to archive in one place recurring discussions on the issue at the main talkpage. Editors are advised not to reply to comments on this page. Do not use wikipedia talkpages as a forum to prove a point. It is an encyclopedia constantly under construction, and not anything else. If you have nothing to contribute, no suggestion/criticism to make regarding the content of the article on Gandhi, please do not revoke the above discussions. The intent of archiving is to help any editors improve the article in any way possible, and to avoid unnecessary repetition of previous discussions. Please be bold in editing the article, if you go wrong, someone will fix it alright after you. If in the future, furthur discussion on the issue occurs at the Gandhi talk page, those may be periodically shifted here as seen appropriate.-Pournami 07:16, 1 April 2006 (UTC)