His "nonviolence in all circumstances" bullshit was and is morally evil, as when he condemned the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto uprising for fighting back against the Nazis.
He did a lot of good, sure, but a lot of it was done for the wrong reasons, and he did enough harm to the world that his overall moral legacy is a checkerboard at best.
Like the significantly more reprehensible Mother Theresa, however, he's got a damn good posthumous PR team. The name "Gandhi" will continue to serve as a facile stand-in for "Whatever we currently happen to believe in" for many years hence.
60 years ago, on August 15th, 1947, India declared independence from Great Britain. We've come a long way, and there are marvelous things and horrible things that have happened in our post-indpendence years. Check out the Hindustan Times feature on "India at 60" for more.
I believe that in the history of the world, there has not been a more genuinely democratic struggle for freedom than ours. I read Carlyle’s French Resolution while I was in prison, and Pandit Jawaharlal has told me something about the Russian revolution. But it is my conviction that inasmuch as these struggles were fought with the weapon of violence they failed to realize the democratic ideal. In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by non-violence, there will be equal freedom for all. Everybody will be his own master. It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today. Once you realize this you will forget the differences between the Hindus and Muslims, and think of yourselves as Indians only, engaged in the common struggle for independence.
-Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi
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He did a lot of good, sure, but a lot of it was done for the wrong reasons, and he did enough harm to the world that his overall moral legacy is a checkerboard at best.
Like the significantly more reprehensible Mother Theresa, however, he's got a damn good posthumous PR team. The name "Gandhi" will continue to serve as a facile stand-in for "Whatever we currently happen to believe in" for many years hence.