|
|
Dr. G. B. Singh's Surprising Revelations About Mahatma Gandhi |
From the Publisher:
"Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) is regarded as one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century. In addition to being hailed as the leader of India's movement toward independence from British colonial rule using the methods of nonviolent resistance (Satyagraha), his popularity crosses all the boundariesof political, religious, ethical, moral, spiritual, social, and national systems. In fact, he is seen as so ventral to human rights that various societies, both Eastern and Western, have come to view him as an icon of nonviolence, rather than as a fallible human.
M. K. Gandhi as a young lawyer
in Durban, South Africa
(from his autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth)
Societies require icons of virtuous behavior to provide an ideal toward which to strive; Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King Jr. are similar examples (the latter deriving his own philosophy from that of the Gandhi icon). However, from a historical perspective, it is important to look beyond these icons to gain an objective viewpoint of a person's life.
Only in this informed manner can we reach our own conclusions about the meaning of a person's contributions to society. Unfortunately, the body of literature about Gandhi is of such immense proportion that to wade through it to find the real Gandhi-- the man in his own words, as well as in the words of those closest to him-- is an almost impossible task.
However, Col. G. B. Singh has undertaken just such a task. His research into Gandhi's beliefs started in 1983 after the release of the film, GANDHI. Col. Singh recognized that the popular image of Gandhi is, more often than not, misrepresented and misleading. The Gandhi legend has been presented as if it were the truth and treated as an unquestioned fact. In an unending expansion of Gandhian literature, the reality behind the "mask" of divinity has been so skillfully submerged as not to allow critical evaluation. This mask both helped Gandhi in his time and has assisted those who have supported his ideology to achieve their ends without having to account for the morally ambiguous attitudes and events of his life.
Gandhi lived in South Africa from 1893 to 1914, where he designed and perfected his techniques of Satyagraha. But to date, no one has asked the critical question about the genesis of Satyagraha, and only a handful of scholars have delved into the complicated and murky areas of Gandhi's "relationship" with black people.
Similarly, only a few scholars have cast a critical eye on Gandhi's life in India from 1915 to his death in 1948. During this time he gained worldwide prestige, and yet nobody asked, What personal attitudes did his politics belie regarding the British, other whites, and India's own Untouchables? Did Gandhi truly believe in abolishing the caste system, as the rest of the world has been led to believe?
&
& Mahatma Gandhi sitting beside his spinning wheel, the symbol of India's struggle for independence. India, 1946
(Margaret Bourke-White, LIFE © Time Inc.)
GANDHI: BEHIND THE MASK OF DIVINITY is the first investigative book to analyze the Mahatma's own writings. In this highly critical, intriguing, and provocative investigation, Singh presents the personal side of Gandhi often underrepresented by the vast majority of Gandhian literature. Readers will find particularly interesting the case of William Francis Doherty, a white American whose murder at the hands of Gandhi's followers was subsequently covered up by Gandhi himself. What does this say about Gandhi the man, and what does it mean for our modern understanding of his beliefs?
Naturally, a critical analysis of Gandhi's life has implications for our understanding of modern India, a Hindu state that has already manufactured nuclear weapons and will likely produce more. Why are the followers of "nonviolent" Gandhi bent upon manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, in addition to building huge military and paramilitary forces? The whole tenor of contemporary Indian military strategy seems not to correspond to the prevalent depiction of Gandhian philosophy. The post 9/11 world is radically different, and it compels is to critically investigate India's politics, its leaders, and their brand of ideology-- starting with the ideas of the man who led India to modern statehood."
Statement by the Author:
Over the years I have discussed Gandhi with many Americans, both formally and informally.... What continues to irk me is the amount of Gandhi "propaganda material" that has flooded our libraries and bookstores. For an unsuspecting Westerner, the reading of Gandhi as he is portrayed on these shelves can bring about the intended result. That is understandable. This book is an attempt to close the gap between the popularized Gandhi and the historical Gandhi. This book will incite readers to be more open-minded and to seek to validate the "truths" presented. My hope is that it will provoke honest, healthy, and open dialogue, and foster more critical scrutiny about him.
Years of dedicated research on Gandhi convinced me that our hero was fundamentally a racist. In this book, I present the facts. The evidence presented here is not a matter of speculation or distorted interpretation. Much of the irrefutable evidence lay buried beneath a mountain of Gandhi's own writings-- in his own words, which I have uncovered-- comments that will be difficult to dispute once they are read. In this book you will read the evidence in its entirety. My primary intention is to untangle the web that Gandhi weaved-- and that his followers are still weaving-- for many years.
Only through a methodical probing can we expose Gandhi's campaign of deception: the lies, the propaganda, the misinformation, the half-truths, and the efforts to hide behind religion. Where Gandhi left off, his followers have picked up.... and they continue their own sophisticated campaigns, both in India and abroad. This book should not be looked upon as another Gandhi biography. Rather, it should provide a standard by which to weigh the Gandhian literature for accuracy and objectivity. Also this book, though narrowly focused, should stand as a guide alerting us to how thoroughly the Gandhi propagandists and others have succeeded in deceiving us.
Interview With the Author:
SikhSpectrum.com Quarterly Issue No. 17, August 2004
by Manbir Singh Chowdhary
In post 9/11 America, where imagery of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban has sadly, for some members of American society, led to the association of turbans with Islamic fundamentalism - the onus has fallen on the Sikh community to take a more proactive role in humbly disseminating the significance of the Articles of their Faith, their belief in One Creator of humanity, and the egalitarian message of the Sikh Gurus.
Being a member of the Sikh-American community, news of a Sikh colonel in the ranks of the United States Armed Services caught me with a great sense of awe and pride. The powerful imagery of a turbaned Sikh officer, clad in a U.S. Military colonel's uniform undoubtedly serves to promote awareness about Sikhs in mainstream America, and portrays the turban in a positive light.
Colonel G. B. Singh, holds the distinction of being one of the few high ranking Sikh officers in the U.S. Military. He comes across as a man that stands defiant of the odds against him, and unafraid to speak out against commonly accepted thought and practice.
SikhSpectrum.com had the opportunity to talk to Colonel Singh about his new book, published by Prometheus Books: Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity.
Question: Col. Singh, your interest in scholarship. How did this start?
Perhaps I was born with an inquisitive mind. Once I joined the US Army, it provided me an incredible opportunity to learn and excel. One thing that handicapped me early on was my intuitive recognizing the fact that the things I learned in India were mainly false or not entirely true and had to be expunged out of me. As my interest began to grow in scholarship, it was certainly no easy task to unlearn what I had learned in India. In 1979, I was given a copy of the New Testament to read and as I began to read I recognized so many holes in the story of Jesus Christ. I think, in a formal sense, that's where my scholarship began and it diversified to so many avenues of research. Today I pursue active research into the Bible, Koran, Hindu scriptures, Buddha; their true historical values; and their political impacts.
What prompted your interest in Hinduism and Gandhi?
Born and raised in post-British India I always knew Hinduism, at least that's what I thought. In 1982, I was a political science student at the University of Oklahoma and one incident relating to a curriculum dealing with communism opened my deep held ideas of Hinduism to a careful scrutiny. That's how my formal journey in studying Hinduism started. With Gandhi, however, the story is somewhat different. Again while growing in India, Gandhi was our hero and to many others he was a god.
And in February 1983, I saw the film Gandhi which reinforced the story of Gandhi I had learned in India. In March 1983, I read the article, The Gandhi Nobody Knows by Richard Grenier. This article brought about fundamental changes in me especially dealing with asking probing questions and there I started to pay more critical attention to Gandhi while at the same time I was actively pursuing research into Hinduism.
These two areas of research eventually converged. The tragic events of 1984 in India against the Sikhs, painful that they were, were no surprise to me. Just following the attack on Golden Temple and other gurdwaras, Mrs. Indira Gandhi justified her bloody actions by invoking one of Mahatma Gandhi's teachings-that event in itself forced me to conduct a thorough research on our mahatma.
Your new book, Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity, has caused quite a stir in South Africa. What happened exactly?
Here is what happened before the book was released in April 2004. In Fall of 2002, AAH Newsletter (publication of African Americans for Humanism) published my article, "Would the Real Gandhi Please Stand Up," and this article was posted on the internet. One active black group in South Africa read this article and became sensitive to the issue of Gandhi's racism against the black people. Unknown to the Johannesburg officials, and it caught them by surprise, the issue erupted in the public arena following the unveiling of Gandhi's statue in central Johannesburg in October 2003.
Your book seeks to expose the truth relating to a man so many revere as a symbol of peace and piety in Western society. The book is filled with surprising revelations about Gandhi, calling him a racist who was pro-apartheid, and anti-black. What sources have you relied upon for such an argument?
During my research of Gandhi, I recognized that there is a huge Gandhi propaganda machine and this machine has filled our libraries with Gandhi stories that we have come to accept them as true. Once I recognized that these "histories" are essentially false, I began to look for authentic sources of information. I was more concerned with what Gandhi had done to the blacks when he lived in South Africa from 1893 to 1914. Luckily for me, I was able to lay my hands on the early authentic documents and from there on I was able to rebuild the true history. This is all explained in details in Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity.
As you know, many people in India also regard Gandhi as a god-like figure. Aren't you concerned about the backlash you might face from activist Hindu groups?
You are correct. Having acknowledged that, I also believe that we all are victims of Gandhi propaganda machine; Hindus (it may come as a surprise to them) being the biggest victims of this machine. So my book should open eyes of everyone including my Hindu brothers and sisters. The Sikhs too must open their eyes and for them in particular I have attached a few words under the heading, "What Gandhi Has Done to the Sikhs & Sikhism: A Plea for Skeptical Inquiry."
The book further states that Gandhi himself was involved in the cover-up of a murder of an American citizen, William Francis Doherty. What evidence do you have to support this assertion?
This issue came to my attention in 1992 literally out of the blue. I was researching Katherine Mayo's Mother India (1927) and how it caused uproar among the caste Hindus. While researching that I came across a sworn deposition of Mrs. Doherty which stated Gandhi's racism against whites in India and how Gandhi's followers murdered her husband in 1921 and then how Gandhi himself tried to cover up that murder. I investigated this matter and many years later reached the conclusion that Mrs. Doherty's deposition to be correct. I have devoted a whole chapter to this murder case in Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity. Plus there is more: I asked myself if Gandhi could be involved in a cover up of one white murder, could there be more? This is all well addressed in my book-much more shocking information.
If predominant belief about Gandhi in the West is truly a misconception and false, as you say it is, what benefit would members of the American Christian clergy draw from writing about his life and promoting his ideals? Why did other American leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. adopt Gandhi's concept of 'Ahimsa' or Non-violence?
Christian clergy hold a special honor: They were the first group of people to promote Gandhi. Of course they had their own motives and I have tried to bring that into focus in my book. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., being raised in the Christian heritage, fell victim when he learned about Gandhi while enrolled at the seminary located outside Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. There is more to the story: Once Reverend King visited India in 1959, he seems to have distanced away from Gandhi. Something happened in India and his visit needs to be critically investigated rather than what the propaganda says. I believe Dr. King's concept of nonviolence has nothing to do with Gandhi. It was an historical accident for two to be connected via nonviolence and this accident has been fully exploited by the Gandhi propaganda machine.
What Gandhi Has Done to the Sikhs & Sikhism A Plea for Skeptical Inquiry Since the British annexation of Punjab and its absorption in the rest of British India in mid 1800s, two interconnected movements had far-reaching devastating impacts on the Sikhs and Sikhism. The first was the introduction of modern Hinduism in Punjab and the second was the introduction of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a focus of this paper today.
Born just about 400 years after the birth of Guru Nanak, M.K. Gandhi (1869-1948) exercised a tremendous influence on the first-half of the 20th century Sikhs and in the process hijacked them. The Sikhs in the second half of the 20th century couldn't come to grips as to what hit them and still behave as if living in Gandhi's shadows. All you have to do is witness the pathetic state of affairs of Akali Dal, SGPC, and poor leadership abilities of the Sikh "leaders." What went so wrong?
The answer lies underneath once you answer: What Gandhi has done to the Sikhs and Sikhism? To date not a single Sikh scholar has taken a skeptical look into the Gandhi literature. In 1983 circumstances brought me to probe into Gandhi and that inquiry accelerated further with the terrible events of 1984. While investigating Gandhi on the issues of racism against the black people, I couldn't help but notice his imprints on the Sikhs and Sikhism following the 1919 Jalianwallah Bagh tragedy. Sometimes in November/December 1919, Gandhi held a four-hour meeting with the "un-named" Sikhs (I believe our future leaders) inside the Golden Temple premises. From hereon Sikhs fell under his spell and he manipulated them into a series of chaos by injecting Satyagraha tactics into their psyche. Beyond that he controlled who the Sikh leaders would be. In my investigation, early on I reached an uncomfortable conclusion: Both the Akali Dal and the SGPC were formed by Gandhi. Both of these organizations are essentially Gandhian in ideology and practice the tenets of modern Hinduism. Even today, after so many Sikhs have been murdered by the Gandhian State, they haven't changed a bit nor do they have the capabilities to evaluate the matters critically.
I hope, in months to come, I can organize a small group of dedicated Sikhs and hand over to them the original documents in my possession. The purpose here is simple: To conduct a thorough skeptical inquiry into the history especially following Gandhi induction into Punjab in 1919 and the consequences thereafter. Once we have come to grips with the truth, only then can we begin to take measures to reverse the present state of affairs.
Copyright ©2004 Manbir Singh Chowdhary About the author
Print this Article Email this Article Comment on this Article
Copyright © 2004 SikhSpectrum.com. All rights reserved. Please contact webmaster@sikhspectrum.com with any questions about this site. SikhSpectrum.com is a non-profit, non-commercial e-zine run and maintained by volunteers.
About the Author:
G. B. Singh is both a medical doctor and a colonel in the United States Army Medical Department for about 26 years. He has been stationed in many parts of the U.S. and twice in Korea. Dr. Singh was featured on the "Holier Than Thou" episode of the Penn and Teller television special Bullsh*t.
About Science and Reason in Hampton Roads (SRHR):
Science and Reason in Hampton Roads (www.ScienceAndReason.org) is an organization devoted to the critical examination of dubious or extraordinary claims. It has organized haunted house investigations, Superstition Celebrations, and talks on topics from UFOs to alternative medicine. SRHR has also advised local officials when pseudoscientific equipment such as "infinite energy" machines and the "human (terrorist) heartbeat detecter" was offered for sale in the Norfolk area.
For more information, contact Larry Weinstein, Professor of Physics and SRHR President, at 757-683-5803 or at weinstei@physics.odu.edu.
