Gandhi: Racist or Revolutionary? by Pieter Friedrich is a book attempting to portray Mahatma Gandhi as an individual undeserving of the epithets, he is showered with. To justify this, the author has plucked a few paragraphs from some of his writings as well as those of a few contemporaries. Given the scanty nature of the chosen letters and anecdotes from a huge collection, the author has put his point well. I mean he has shown only those references that are quite relevant to his view.
But the books available on Gandhi shows a very different man. I have had the opportunity to go through Gandhi's collected works, as well as a few biographies like the one penned by his foster son. True, I did find a few paragraphs, among many thousands dealing with a wide variety of issues, show such a narrow viewpoint. But those were quite far and few, and mostly pertaining to Mahatma's early years. Also, there are far too many places in later writings, where, what is visible is a totally different outlook, especially on issues like caste. True, he was a vehement opponent of reservation. His writing is very clear on this subject, he wanted the Hindu society to amalgamate 'Harijans'. (For this, he had also made some suggestions that was widely resented.)
The thoughts I expressed through my book, Caste - the Unexplored Territories, in fact has it's origin in Gandhi's views. Not only that nobody has understood the philosophical plane of manifestation of caste, but also all are moving away from learning the truth, by constantly pondering deeper into the 'class' aspect of caste, which effectively dismiss other aspects.
About the other indiscretions mentioned in this book, I think one can see those as some form of idiosyncrasy always associated with those who excel anywhere.
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