Controversies surrounding Mahatma Gandhi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mahatma Gandhi, known for employing nonviolent resistance to lead the Indian independence movement,[1] held a range of views that have drawn historical criticism. His writings and public statements—many drawn from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, published by the Indian government—document his positions on race, caste, gender, and colonialism that have been the topic of controversy.
Views on Jewish people and the Holocaust
Opposition to a Jewish homeland
Gandhi opposed the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.[2] In November 1938 he wrote: "The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me... Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home."[3][4] He further wrote that every country was the Jews' home, "including Palestine, not by aggression, but by loving service."[4]
Response to Nazi persecution
Gandhi's prescribed response to Nazi persecution was non-violent submission.[5][6] In 1938 he wrote that Jews "who claim to be the chosen race" should "prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth."[3][7] Following the Holocaust, Gandhi stated in a 1947 interview with Louis Fischer: "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 in the sea from cliffs... It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions."[7][8]
Assessment of Hitler
In December 1940 Gandhi stated: "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."[9][10] In a direct letter to Hitler, Gandhi stated he did not believe him to be "the monster described by your opponents."[11][12] The letter addressed Nazi aggression against Czechoslovakia, Poland and Denmark without mentioning the persecution of Jews once.[11]
Contemporary Jewish responses
Gandhi's positions drew direct rebukes from prominent Jewish thinkers.[7] Martin Buber responded in 1939: "An effective stand in the form of non-violence may be taken against unfeeling human beings in the hope of gradually bringing them to their senses; but a diabolic universal steamroller cannot thus be withstood."[7][13] Rabbi Judah Magnes similarly challenged Gandhi directly: "How can Jews in Germany offer civil resistance? The slightest sign of resistance means killing or concentration camps."[14][7]
Late acknowledgment
In 1946 Gandhi acknowledged that "the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world." When asked shortly before his assassination about a solution to the Palestinian problem, he said it had "become a problem which seems almost insoluble."[15][16]
Views on Black Africans
Racial hierarchy and separatism
During his years in South Africa, Gandhi consistently sought to distance Indians from Black Africans within the colonial racial order.[17]In 1894 he complained that Indians were being dragged down "to the position of a raw Kaffir."[18][19] In 1896 he wrote that Indians faced "a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness."[18][20] In 1903 he stated explicitly: "We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do… We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race."[20]
Use of racial slurs and derogatory characterisations
Gandhi's writings from South Africa repeatedly used the racial slur "Kaffir" and characterised Black Africans in derogatory terms.[21][22] In 1908 he wrote that the British rulers assumed that "like the Kaffirs who can be pleased with toys and pins, we can also be fobbed off with trinkets."[23][21] That same year, following imprisonment, he wrote: "Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised – the convicts even more so…. The reader can easily imagine the plight of the poor Indian thrown into such company!"[23][21] He further described many native prisoners as "only one degree removed from the animal."[23]
Segregationist campaigns
Gandhi actively campaigned for racial segregation in shared civic spaces.[24][18] About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians, I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population."[25] In 1905 he opposed the opening of a school to all coloured children, describing it as "unjust to the Indian community."[26] In 1908 he expressed outrage at being housed at the same level as Black prisoners, stating that "to be placed on the same level with the Natives seemed too much to put up with."[23] In 1909 he wrote: "I have resolved in my mind on an agitation to ensure that Indian prisoners are not lodged with Kaffirs…. I observed with regret that some Indians were happy to sleep in the same room as the Kaffirs…. This is a matter of shame to us.[23]" He also lobbied the Governor directly for separate lavatories, telling him that "Indian prisoners should never be lodged with Kaffirs."[23]
Warnings against social contact
In 1910 Gandhi warned Indians against contact with Black women, writing: "Some Indians do have contacts with Kaffir women. I think such contacts are fraught with grave danger. Indians would do well to avoid them altogether."[23][21][18]
Some of his supporters say that Gandhi in his later age had evolved past his racial views and ceased using racial slurs towards Africans.[27]
Views on white colonial authority
Support for British imperial structures
Gandhi for much of his early political life operated within and expressed loyalty to British imperial frameworks.[28] He strongly believed that the British Empire was for the welfare of the entire world and maintained this view for a long time. In WWI he recruited Indian soldiers for the British army to express loyalty to the Empire.[29][30] He remained loyal to the ideals of the British Empire, to, in his own words, its "spiritual foundations."[31]
Views on women and sexuality
Celibacy experiments
Gandhi believed that true brahmacharya meant one could "lie naked with women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner sexually excited."[32][33] He invited young women to share his bed in what he Described as spiritual experiments or experiments in brahmacharya.[34][32]Among those women was his own grandniece Manu Gandhi.[32] When Vallabhbhai Patel wrote to Gandhi telling him the practice was immoral, Gandhi responded: "For me Manu sleeping with me is a matter of dharma."[34] He further stated: "If I don't let Manu sleep with me, though I regard it as essential that she should, wouldn't that be a sign of weakness in me?"[34][35]
Views on menstruation and contraception
Gandhi viewed menstruation as the "manifestation of the distortion of a woman's soul by her sexuality."[36]He also believed the use of contraceptives was a sign of whoredom.[37]
Views on rape and female resistance
In 1920 Gandhi wrote that if a woman could not defend herself from an assailant, "her purity will give her the strength to die before he succeeds in violating her". [38]
Views on caste and Dalit rights
Defence of the varna system
Gandhi's position for decades was that the reform of untouchability within the caste structure, not the abolition of caste itself.[39][40] Even within his vision of a Gandhian utopia, the Shudras were to continue as a servile class, and Dalits were to be integrated into the Shudra varna rather than liberated from the caste order entirely.[39][41]
Response to Dalit school segregation
When Dalits in Kavitha village demanded their children attend the same school as caste Hindus and faced a boycott in 1935, Gandhi's response was: "There is no help like self-help. God helps those who help themselves. If the Harijans concerned will carry out their reported resolve to wipe the dust of Kavitha off their feet, they will not only be happy themselves but they will pave the way for others similarly treated".[39][42]
Protests and statue removals
South Africa
One of the earliest documented protests occurred in 2003 in South Africa, where campaigners branded Gandhi a racist.[43] In April 2015, a statue of Gandhi in Johannesburg—believed to be the only one in the world depicting him as a young lawyer in court robes—was vandalised by a group who threw white paint on it and its surrounding plaques, carrying placards reading "Racist Gandhi Must Fall."[44][45] The hashtag #GandhiMustFall circulated widely on South African social media in connection with the incident, borrowing language from the concurrent Rhodes Must Fall movement at the University of Cape Town.[46][44] One man, Molese Maile, 21, was arrested and charged with malicious damage to property.[47][44] The ANC condemned the vandalism while distancing itself from the protesters.[44]
Ghana
In June 2016, a statue of Gandhi was unveiled at the University of Ghana in Accra by then-Indian President Pranab Mukherjee as a symbol of ties between the two countries.[48][49] Within four months, academics at the university launched a petition calling for its removal, citing Gandhi's repeated use of racial slurs and his characterisation of Black Africans as inferior to Indians.[50][51] The petition also noted the absence of statues of African heroes on campus.[48] It gathered over 2,000 signatures. In December 2018, the statue was removed in the middle of the night. Ghana's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was following the controversy with "deep concern."[48]
Canada
In 2018, Kenneth Aliu, president of the Institute of African Studies Student Association at Carleton University in Ottawa, launched a campaign to remove a Gandhi statue from campus, accusing Gandhi of "antiblack racism" and arguing he had used anti-Black prejudice as a bargaining tool with the British.[52][53] The university administration declined to remove the statue.[54]
United Kingdom
During Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020, Gandhi's statue in Parliament Square, London, had the word "racist" written near its plinth.[55]In 2020, over 5,000 people signed a petition against the Gandhi statue in Leicester, accusing him of being a fascist, racist, and sexual predator.[56] In September 2025, Gandhi's statue at Tavistock Square in London—unveiled in 1968—was vandalised with graffiti reading "Gandhi, Modi and Hindustani Terrorists."[57][58]The Indian High Commission condemned the act and the Metropolitan Police opened an investigation treating it as racially aggravated criminal damage[59][58]
Australia
In November 2021, a life-sized bronze Gandhi statue gifted by India was vandalised with a power tool in Melbourne just hours after then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison inaugurated it. Morrison condemned the act as "disgraceful."[57][60]
Malawi
An online petition emerged under the #GandhiMustFall movement against plans to erect a Gandhi statue in Blantyre, Malawi's commercial capital, with 3000 young activists on the cause.[61][62]