Ghandi
Henry Ford said that history is bunk, while Dean Inge noted that historians
have the power denied to almighty God of altering the past. These statements are
relevant to the film Gandhi, which was mainly financed by the government of
India and which won numerous best-film, best-actor and best-director awards. It
is widely accepted as an accurate biographical portrayal of Mohandas K. Gandhi.
The film portrays the Indian political leader as a saintly figure virtually
without fault and suggests that he and his campaign of non-violent resistance to
British rule was the reason India gained independence in 1947. The portrayal of
Gandhi in the film of that name is a massive distortion. The film ignores
Gandhi's tyrannical habits, his hypocrisy, his appalling treatment of his wife
and children, his bizarre fixation on bowel functions, and his support for
violence in various wars. The film ignores Gandhi's views that sexual attraction
between men and women is unnatural and that he demanded celibacy between even
married members of his entourage. He was so fanatical about his views on sex
that he disowned his son Harilal for wishing to marry, and repeatedly tested his
own will by sleeping nude with young women. The film Gandhi ignores the
Mahatma's elitist attitudes. He is portrayed as a champion of freedom and
individual rights, but in real life he was steadfastly opposed to granting
additional rights to India's millions of Untouchables. The film's portrayal of
Gandhi as a pacifist is incorrect. He supported the British military in the Boer
War and World War I. The so-called pacifist gave his approval to men who, as he
put it, were "using violence in a normal cause." He gave his blessing to the
Nawab of Maler Kolta when he gave orders to shoot ten Moslems for every Hindu
killed in his State. Gandhi's hypocrisy and double standards (not mentioned in
the film) are also indicated by his opposition to modern medicine and his
refusal to allow his wife to receive a life-saving shot of penicillin when she
was dying of pneumonia. When he contracted malaria shortly afterwards, however,
Gandhi accepted for himself the alien medicine of quinine, and when he had
appendicitis he allowed British doctors to operate to save his life.
Perhaps the most serious distortion
of history in the Gandhi propaganda film is the total suppression of the role
played by Subhas Chandra Bose in the events leading to the independence of
India. (This subject was examined in detail by Mr. Ranjan Borra in an essay
published in the Winter 1982 issue of The Journal.) At the time that India
attained independence, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee regarded the armed
insurrection led by Bose as a far more important factor leading to independence
than Gandhi's activities. However, Bose is not even mentioned in the Gandhi
film. The eminent Indian historian, Dr. R.C. Majumdar, wrote: "There is... no
basis for the claim that the civil disobedience movement (led by Gandhi)
directly led to independence. The campaigns of Gandhi... came to an ignoble end
about fourteen years before India achieved independence."
There is ample evidence to
substantiate the fact that the armed assault on British India by Bose and his
Indian National Army (INA) during World War II was the decisive factor that
forced the British withdrawal from the Asian sub-continent. The exploits of this
army, when they became known, undermined the loyalty of the Indian soldiers, or
sepoys, of the British. These men were the mainstay of colonial rule in India.
Bose and the INA ignited the spark of a potential military revolt within the
country, which the British dreaded above all else. This forced their decision to
quit India honorably, while there was still time. As Majumdar wrote: "In
particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced
in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that
they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the sepoys for maintaining their
authority in India. This had, probably, the greatest influence upon their final
decision to quit India."
[1986] Orwell's 1984: Was Orwell Right? by John Bennett