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Young Gandhi was racist, never had Ambedkar’s respect on untouchability but won the trust of Muslims

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Young Gandhi was racist, never had Ambedkar’s respect on untouchability but won the trust of Muslims: Ramachandra Guha to Karan Thapar on his new book ‘Arguments with Gandhi’ for The Wire

Ramachandra Guha’s latest book ‘Arguments with Gandhi’ raises key questions about the Mahatma. Was the young Gandhi a racist during his days in South Africa? Why did Gandhi never win the respect of B. R. Ambedkar? Was Gandhi’s pursuit of interfaith dialogue and religious pluralism a failure? And, finally, how much of his behaviour and thinking has influenced the country we have become? Joining me to help answer these questions is Ramachandra Guha himself.

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20 Comments

@cenationofjnu 1 day ago

Poona pact is enough to reveal the attitude of Gandhi towards untouchables. Gandhi may be against untouchability but he definitely had no plan or vision for the destruction of caste system and welfare of untouchables like Ambedkar.

@sandeepbharswadkar479 22 hours ago

Great answers to great questions! It is a treat. Thank you !🙏

@SriS-f6m 13 hours ago

Excellent discourse.

@bozach99 21 hours ago

Always enjoy listening to Guha, thank you Karan.

@aeaeae53fw 1 day ago

Thank you Sir

@yogeshgogawekar5284 1 day ago

Good conversation. Thank you

@SNK1059 22 hours ago

The younger generation was misled by the tactful misleading misinformation through the social media activity of the BJP; influenced by the WhatsApp University, the youth were made to believe Gandhi as a worst human.

But the truth started prevailing and hopefully the detoxification of the misinformation will quickly get completed.

@anilnauriya9074 1 day ago

The thumbnail is a very inadequate summary of this excellent interview

@duggiralatube 1 day ago

Gandhi will never vanish until humanity exists in humans and human civilization will never forget Mahatama Gandhi

@riyazahmad1115 21 hours ago

Gandhi didn't change his mind over cast issue for the issue itself..He changed his mind for the political objective for which Support of every Group was necessary...

@SamudraDasgupta-l4m 1 day ago

When you love yourself too much it’s called ego. When you love your community too much it’s called racism. When you love your country too much it’s called nationalism (different from patriotism - which is healthy). When you love humanity too much it’s called socialism. When you love the whole creation too much it’s called mysticism (yoga is the moderate balanced version).

@TheOfficialFarmer1 1 day ago

Not at the time of Gandhi not even now spoke about dalit Karan Sir that is the truth.

@blimey1 1 hour ago

Great interview! As long as we see Gandhi as a man who was willing to make and unmake himself for the causes he believed in, we can always acknowledge his immense contribution to India and to political thought in general. He might have been flawed on some points which is only natural because he was human. But there were very few people then and there are very few people now who are willing to revise their notions about the world even when those notions are diametrically opposed to their past views. It is less important that he was racist as a young man. What is important is he struggled with his own racist ideas and found it necessary to change his views. He was never complacent about his views. And he had the courage to right the wrongs he saw in himself.

@u_sahgal 11 hours ago (edited)

Mr Guha says Gandhi said untouchability is a sin and those practicing are like Gen Dwyer. Gandhi came back from SA in 1915. Jallianwala Bagh massacre happened in 1919.

@tamilentdr.v.r.p7514 1 day ago

உண்மை

@karamlamba 1 day ago

None of the Indian politicians stopped the recruitment of 22.5 lakh Indian soldiers for Britain in WW2. Neither did Gandhi, even though his Quit India movement was on.

@mohan1997 1 day ago

Only on January 26th, 2002, the RSS hoisted the national flag at its headquarters. RSS did not consider India its nation for 50 years after India gained independence. In the same year (2002), the Godhra carnage took place, opening the gate for the BJP to come to power in the center.

@cjayaram3472 1 day ago

Cast discrimination became part and parcel of Indian culture because it was thrust on us through religion. Educated talk against cast discrimination, laws are there to prevent discrimination, yet it exists silently, spreading from generations to generations.

@swagatamukherjee4750 19 hours ago (edited)

True. And it takes immense courage for such a national political figure like Gandhi to own up to such big social and moral mistakes. Gandhi suffered failures, won great victories, committed great moral and legal mistakes (particularly the incidents with Manu where he tested his chastity by lying next to a naked women who herself was dependent on his ashram, and consent is valid only when freely given, ongoing, both parties are of age, and refusal doesn’t result in harm, including social and/or economic abandonment linked to survival; where consent is tied to survival due to social and economic dependence, as in the case of the majority of marriages throughout the world, or the reputation or well-being of a person, it is not really valid consent) and won great moral victories through his moral courage.

@girishkamat3254 1 day ago (edited)

And what is logic of Harijan when Adi Shankaracharya victory over Buddhist and other philosophies was based on Advaita, Aham Brahmasi (I am conscuous part of that infinite and eternal universe). Where is place for caste system in really enlightened Vedic philsophy which Vivekandanda and Tagore professed.