Petition Tag - gandhi

The United Nations recently chose October 2nd as an "International Day of Non-
Violence."

This date is the birthday of Mohandas Gandhi, and was chosen in honor of the
man most consider an icon of nonviolence.

Gandhi was once asked by a reporter to give a message to the people. Gandhi
replied, "My life is my message." That's an ominous statement to those aware
of Gandhi's less-popularized beliefs. For the past sixty years, India has used the
mythical image of Gandhi as a pacifist hero as a vehicle to promote its agenda.

The reality is that Gandhi was a first-class racist committed to cloaking
deception and violence in pacifist terminology. It is appalling that the UN, which
was formed in part to facilitate international social progress and human rights, is
so blatantly promoting this man.

Gandhi's writing, compiled in an uncensored series of volumes by the
Government of India, is liberally sprinkled with verbal violence against the black
South African natives, who he termed "Kaffirs." His animosity towards black
people is almost tangible and his racism is undeniable. A brief but shocking
example illustrates Gandhi's racism.

He lived in South Africa prior to Apartheid, but at a time when the nation still
suffered segregation. In the city of Durban, there was a post office with two
doors - one for blacks and Indians and another for whites. Gandhi, of course,
was required to use the door for blacks and Indians. This deeply offended him,
not because of the segregation, but because he was "forced" to share a door
with blacks, which he felt was beneath him. Gandhi successfully lobbied to
correct this "problem" by building a third entrance for Indians, thus further
entrenching the South African policy of segregation.

In his Collected Works (CWMG), Vol. I, pp. 367-368, Gandhi wrote: "For the
present our efforts are concentrated towards preventing and getting repealed
fresh legislation. Before referring to that, I may further illustrate the proposition
that the Indian is put on the same level with the native in many other ways
also. Lavatories are marked 'natives and Asiatics' at the railway stations. In the
Durban Post and telegraph offices there were separate entrances for natives and
Asiatics and Europeans. We felt the indignity too much and many respectable
Indians were insulted and called all sorts of names by the clerks at the counter.
We petitioned the authorities to do away with the invidious distinction and
they have now provided three separate entrances for natives, Asiatics, and
Europeans."

When it came to pacifism, the quality for which Gandhi is most admired, he was
no better. Shortly before his assassination, as documented in his "Last Phase,"
Vol. II, p. 326, he said, "If we [India] had the atom bomb, we would have used
it against the British."

At the turn of the 20th century, during the Second Boer War, Gandhi
volunteered to raise an Indian stretcher-bearer corps for the British Army.
Considering Gandhi's fervent racism, it's no surprise he wished to help suppress
the blacks of Africa. During the war, the British were responsible for the deaths
of approximately 20,000 black Africans, many of whom starved to death in
British concentration camps while Gandhi's stretcher-bearers assisted British
troops. Gandhi unwittingly accused himself of culpability for these deaths when
he wrote in his autobiography: "He who volunteers to serve a band of dacoits
(robbers), by working as their carrier, or their watchman while they are about
their business, or their nurse when they are wounded, is as much guilty of
dacoity as the dacoits themselves. In the same way those who confine
themselves to attending to the wounded cannot be absolved from the guilt of
war."

Gandhi's pacifism was eagerly abandoned whenever expedient. Although he
once said there were "no causes that I am prepared to kill for," in 1920 he
wrote, "When my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been
present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have
run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force
which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his
duty to defend me even by using violence." (CWMG, Vol. XXI, p. 133)

Nonviolence was hardly useful in preventing Gandhi's death, so of course others
more capable of violence than himself were justified in defending him, his
unwillingness to "kill for [any cause]"be damned!

It is impossible to fully document Gandhi's abundant problems and hypocrisy in
such a short letter. Let us simply say that he never remotely epitomized
humanitarianism, social justice, or superior morality. According to G.D. Birla’s
"In The Shadow of the Mahatma," Gandhi told the British during WWII that
"Hitler is not a bad man." Should a man with such a warped moral compass be
distinguished as a symbol of nonviolence?

The Gandhian state of India is one of the most violent nations in the world
today, having overseen the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Christians,
Muslims, and Sikhs over the past 20 years. The myth of Gandhi is merely
packaged propaganda developed to benefit those in India who seek to hide their
violence by wearing his mantle of faux nonviolence.

In an age when circumstances force us to wage war against ideologies, the
world cannot afford to assist or even allow the continued propagation of the
Gandhi ideology. If we are not careful we might one day be forced to engage
Gandhism.

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When is a riot not a riot? When is a massacre not a massacre? When is a mass murderer not a mass murderer? And when is public outrage to be muted — if not entirely suspended?

When the Congress is the culprit. And when the victims are Sikhs.

That, at least, seems to be the attitude of much of our so-called secular establishment. The publication of the Nanavati report into the 1984 Delhi riots should have served to remind us of the horrors of that bloody week. It should have led us to recall how completely the administration failed and how innocent Sikhs were murdered in front of their own children.

Instead, the secular response to the report has been curiously low-key. It was a long time ago, we are told. What is the point in raking up old memories? Justice Nanavati doesn't conclusively blame anybody anyway, does he? And anyway, all secularists must unite to fight Hindu fundamentalism, so let's not get sidetracked by an old riot.

There is something sad and shameful about these responses. Listening to them yesterday, I had some sense of why secularism has fallen into such disrepute. It has become a flag of convenience for anybody who wants to oppose the BJP. And we have forgotten that all communal violence — no matter who it is directed against — is equally bad.

It wasn't always like this. Those of you with long memories will remember the horror with which most educated people reacted to the riots in 1984. Then, they became a Great Secular Issue in much the same way that the Gujarat riots later became a defining issue for a new generation of politicians.

Certainly, it was impossible not to be outraged by the massacres. They took place in the immediate aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the early violence was spontaneous, sparked off by public anger against Sikhs and by simmering Hindu resentment at the Punjab violence. Then, somebody spread a rumour that Sikhs were distributing sweets to celebrate Mrs Gandhi's death. Even though there was no substantiation to this story, small-time local Congress leaders gathered their followers and went in search of Sikh homes to burn.

What happened next is the subject of some dispute. Eyewitnesses claim that they saw senior Congress leaders — Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, H.K.L. Bhagat and Dharamdas Shastri — either leading the mobs or organising the violence. Naturally, the leaders have since declared their innocence, but there is little doubt that some of their followers were involved.

It did not help that the police force failed. The Delhi Police disappeared from the streets of the capital and Sikhs were denied the protection they needed to save their lives. The administration delayed calling in the army and, in the interim, hundreds of poor Sikhs living in the resettlement colonies on the other side of the Yamuna were murdered. In a pattern that would be repeated in Gujarat nearly two decades later, the mobs resorted to extreme cruelty: fathers were killed in front of their daughters, women were raped in full public view and, in some cases, thugs drove electric drills into the heads of defenceless Sikhs.

By the time the riot was over — actually, I don't know why we call it a riot, it was a massacre — three things were clear. One: the Congress was involved. Two: the police and the administration did nothing to protect the Sikhs. And three: there was an unforgivable delay in calling in the military.

The dispute was over other issues. What was the level of Congress involvement? Were people like Bhagat and Tytler really involved? Did the policemen run away because they were scared? Or was it because they did not want to act against workers of the party that was in power? And why did it take so long to restore order? Was it because the government was in a state of chaos following Mrs Gandhi's assassination? Or was there a more sinister design? Was it true that Arun Nehru, the Congress strong man of that era, had said, "Let Delhi burn for three days"? Had Rajiv Gandhi's administration allowed the massacres to go on because they tapped into a vote-rich Hindu backlash?

Over two decades and many commissions of inquiry later, we have some answers. Yes, senior Congress leaders were involved. There may not be enough evidence to prosecute Tytler, but Justice Nanavati suggests that he played some role. About Bhagat, the report is vague: no purpose is served in investigating him further because of his advanced age and declining health. Sajjan Kumar and Dharamdas Shastri seem to have had some involvement.

On the more substantive issue of whether the administration allowed Delhi to burn, all the commissions have been unanimous: yes, it did, but this was because of incompetence and negligence, not because of any sinister design.

If there is a parallel, it is with the 1993 Bombay riots rather than with Gujarat. In Bombay too, the police failed to protect Muslims. And the local administration failed to ask the army to restore order till it was much too late. Then too, there were political workers involved — except that they belonged to the Shiv Sena which was in opposition, and not to the ruling Congress.

I suppose it offers secularists some comfort that the riots in two of India's greatest cities — Delhi in 1984 and Bombay in 1993 — were not engineered by Congress governments. But this is little comfort to the victims and their families. We elect governments to protect us and when they fail to do so, it is hardly reassuring to be told, "At least they didn't set out to murder you."

Besides, the distinction between a party and its government is not always clear. We accept now that the central government did not intend Delhi to burn in 1984 and that it did not ask the police to let Sikhs be murdered. But nevertheless, there is no denying the Congress's role in the massacres. Even if Rajiv Gandhi and his aides did not want the violence to spiral out of control, and even if the failure to protect the Sikhs was due to the government's state of paralysis following Mrs Gandhi's assassination, it was still local Congress leaders who led the mobs, who committed the murders. And if Justice Nanavati is to be believed, it wasn't just local leaders; some national figures were also involved.

In the Eighties, nobody was afraid of saying this. But Indian politics has now become so polarised between the so-called forces of secularism (i.e. the Congress and the Left) and the so-called communal elements (the Sangh parivar), that every event is now reassessed through the prism of this polarisation. So Congress supporters and communists are willing to forget the horrors of 1984 lest they weaken the secular case against Narendra Modi and the mass murderers of Gujarat.

But the truth is that a murderer is a murderer. A massacre is a massacre. A victim is a victim — regardless of whether he is Hindu, Sikh or Muslim. When somebody comes to kill you, it does not matter whether he does so in the name of Hindu fundamentalism or Congress extremism. If we forget the murders of 1984 and allow those who committed them to get away with it, then we lose the moral right to criticise Narendra Modi or to ever speak out against communal violence.

It saddens me that the secular establishment has forgotten basic morality. Its failure to stand up for the victims of the 1984 massacres shames us all.

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We the undersigned are petitioning the Indian Government to repeal the awarding of the Indira Gandhi prize to Shridath Ramphal on Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, India Day Celebrations, January 9-11th, 2003.

We consider Mr. Ramphal to be unworthy of this prize because of the well-documented atrocities that he committed as a member of Burnham's corrupt regime. Since it was people of Indian origin who mainly suffered as a result, India should not be conferring such an honour.

We believe that by honouring such a man, India is dishounoring not only the award processes but the name of the Honourable Indira Gandhi herself.

We respectfully submit this petition.

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