A couple of days ago, I posted a comment on Gandhi’s attitude towards doctors and nutrition, which surprised me. The quote had come from a book called “Hind Swaraj” (“Indian Home Rule”) which was first compiled in 1909. It contains many rather upsetting and mind-boggling assertions of Gandhi’s, including a tirade against railways for working against natural segregation of people and thus spreading the Bubonic plague. I figured this was a decade or so before Gandhism truly took off, and the, how can I put this delicately, craziness of his words could therefore be attributed to the early unformulated thought of a subsequent wiseman.
Today, in a completely different text, I came across a quote of his from 1929 that has me truly rattled.
Just as it is the duty of the ruler to be the trustee and friend of the people, so that of the latter is not be jealous of the former. The poor man must know that to a great extent poverty is due to his own faults and shortcomings. So, while the poor man must strive to improve his condition, let him not hate the ruler and wish his destruction…He must not want rulership for himself, but remain content by earning his own wants. (Qtd. in Dominance without Hegemony, pg. 37)
Did anybody else know that Gandhi was a neocon?
2 Responses to My Continuing Disappointment with Gandhi
Did Gandhi mention anything about trickle-down economics? I knew that Martin Luther King, Jr. took his inspiration from Gandhi, but I guess Ronald Reagan, did too . . .
Sick people are sick because they’ve overindulged. Now, poor people are poor because they deserve to be? I too am extremely disappointed.
The wonder is that all the contemporary neocons haven’ts started quoting him.