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- [00:01]
Mark Dagon
I regard myself as a soldier, though.
- [00:04]
Gabrielle
A soldier of peace.
- [00:05]
Mark Dagon
Mahatma Gandhi, a perpetual sign of a man dedicated to liberation and justice for his people. He was curious, self doubting, but always questioning his place in the world. Through each struggle and every experiment with truth, Gandhi shaped a way of life that fused discipline, but also empathy. He asked hard questions about fear, hatred, what it means to be good. In the early years, Gandhi had some racial biases. He argued that Indians deserve better treatment than Africans because they had a civility to them. One of the most controversial parts of Gandhi's life was his vow of celibacy and the unusual methods that he used to test it. So did a deep dive and learned as much as I can, all the beautiful and amazing things that Gandhi did in his lifetime as a peacekeeper and an advocate, but additionally the flaws, some of the character deficits that we all carry around. So let's dive in. Mama, Papa.
- [01:14]
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- [01:30]
Mark Dagon
What's up, people? And welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Dagon and thank.
- [01:34]
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You for joining me in my tent.
- [01:35]
Mark Dagon
Where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world, from all time, throughout all of history. As always, I'm joined by one of my dear friends. Today we got the good old Gabrielle. How are you, sir? All right. Not. Not enough time for that. People in the comments are pissed off that every time there's a producer in here, they think show's all about them. You know what I mean? They just chit chat, just yap the whole time. It's not about you. It's not about me. Today this show is actually about a guy named Mahatma Gandhi. Now, to be honest with you, I didn't know much about Gandhi. You know, growing up, I heard about this guy who was a peaceful man that moved the hearts of people, not only in India and in the South Asian subcontinent, you know, the daisies around the world, but also just in the hearts of all mankind. They saw his walking and his fasting as, you know, a perpetual sign of a man dedicated to liberation and justice for his people. And as a result, everyone was moved. The end. That's kind of all I knew until today. I did a deep dive and learned as much as I can. Obviously, all the beautiful and amazing things that Gandhi did in his lifetime as a peacekeeper and an Advocate. But additionally, some of the things that, you know, make him, you know, a human being, some of the things like all people, the flaws, some of the character deficits that we all carry around, even the great people of all time do some things that are not ideal. So let me just say, you know, this is trying to paint a holistic and truthful view of all people in history, and Gandhi is no different. So for anyone that's listening, that is not Hindu, like myself, is not Indian, like myself, is not a part of the Desi diaspora. I hope you learned something today. And for anyone that is listening, that is a part of those groups that I mentioned. I'm sorry if I get anything wrong. So if I do, please don't hesitate to drop a comment and please correct me or if there's anything that I missed, drop that in there too. But please be nice. I read all the comments, YouTube, Spotify, et cetera. So let's dive in to the story of Mahatma Gandhi. Let's actually go all the way back to before he was Mahatma, when he was just Bhandas Gandhi, a young boy from the poor Bandar region of India. He was curious, you know, at times self doubting, but always questioning his place in the world. You know, he made mistakes like all of us, wrestled with contradictions and rarely saw himself as extraordinary, which is a good lesson. He walked with humility in all things. Yet through each struggle and every experiment with truth, Gandhi shaped a way of life that fused discipline but also empathy. He had a rigidity and a sort of a fervent resistance to, you know, the things of this world, but at the same time was extremely emotional and empathetic and drew people in in a miraculous way. You know, he asked hard questions, you know, about fear, hatred, what it means to be good, what it means to pursue truth, like capital T, like the absolute truth. And not just in public, but in the quiet corners of, you know, his own mind and in his own, his own journal entries. Gandhi's greatness lay not in sainthood, but in his willingness to, you know, grow and become a better person. So let's get into it. Like I said, this young man that becomes known as the great Gandhi began just as Mohan, you know, a shy child from poor bounder Gujarat. He was a, you know, sort of a. A shy kid who was terrified of the dark, slept with the lights on. His mother, Putlibai, influenced him greatly. I mean, her fasting, her vows, her deep religiosity became templates that he would ponder and return to throughout his life. But even these early influences carried some contradictions that would define his character. The home that sort of nurtured his compassion was also rigid and, you know, sort of adhered to caste rules, values that Gandhi would instinctively question, yet wrestle with throughout his entire life. And just before his 19th birthday, Gandhi sailed to London to study law, leaving behind a, you know, young bride and an infant son. And the journey itself violated cast rules requiring elaborate purification ceremonies upon his return. And in London, he tried desperately to become an English gentleman, right, like taking dancing and violin lessons, being deliberate and obsessive about his appearance at times. And he later wrote with, you know, this sort of characteristic self deprecation about this period, describing his attempts to fit in as foolish vanity. Yet this experience of being an outsider, of trying to fit in in this sort of foreign world that would never really fully accept him, never truly fully see him as English, would prove to be formative in ways that he couldn't have imagined. And this discomfort of being between these two worlds, kind of being an insider, outsider, he is neither fully Indian because of these caste and purifying rules, or he's not fully British either because, you know, he has maybe a funny accent or he doesn't look like a proper Englishman. These things would become central to his identity and his ability to bridge these sort of irreconcilable differences. And his time in London planted these seeds of this inclusive worldview that would later bloom into a full on philosophy of universal truth. So in 1893, a young Gandhi arrived in South Africa as this, you know, young sort of optimistic lawyer, uncertain and sort of struggling professionally at times. And this train journey from Durban to Pretoria was interrupted at Peter Moritzburg. And this was where he was thrown off for refusing to move from first class to third class despite holding a valid ticket. This became sort of an origin story of sorts. But the story behind this moment is a lot more complex than the story itself can suggest. So let's explain. In the early years, Gandhi had some racial biases that were explicit and documented. He argued that Indians deserve better treatment than Africans because, you know, they had a civility to them. And he sometimes used derogatory terms for black Africans in his writings in his speeches early on. And this wasn't merely, you know, a strategic position to get like white sympathy or try to like associate with the people that were controlling India at the time, though that was certainly, you know, a part of it. Gandhi kind of believed in this sort of racial caste idea, you know, placing Indians above Africans but below whites. And he sort of had this racialized philosophy early on. And his early activism wasn't about equality for all necessarily, but about securing sort of a middle position for Indians in South Africa's racial order. And what made Gandhi's story remarkable is not that he was free of prejudice, right? Like he wasn't necessarily a perfect person early on, but that he slowly moved beyond these biases shaped by, you know, the time that he lived in and the place that he grew up. And I think it's just an important note that, you know, people throughout all history, at certain times their life can believe awful, terrible things that are, you know, demeaning to what it actually means to be, you know, a citizen on earth and being like a good human being. But that doesn't mean that that defines you forever and that you can change, you can actually make a step to be a better person, a more inclusive person, a more open minded person, see people for who they are rather than, you know, the nation they're from or the color of their skin. And this change for Gandhi took many years and you know, in some ways was never fully complete, but it was real, right? It was an actual progress in his life. And his views began to shift through experiences like, you know, meeting African leaders such as John Doob and recognizing the shared struggle of all oppressed people around the world. And while his attitude towards, you know, Africans really improved throughout his life, you know, there were still some, you know, patronizing views which African think thinkers like, you know, Pixely Kaasem criticized even while, you know, working alongside him. And this growth, I think again shows something really important about his character. He's open to becoming a better person, to learning and willing to change his views throughout, you know, having experiences with people. And it was this ability to grow not with, you know, perfection, but it was this idea that helped him, you know, become a powerful leader and a moral example. So during his 21 years in South Africa, Gandhi developed the techniques that would define his approach and influence, you know, his philosophy and his movement worldwide. The idea around this movement, or this philosophy known as satyagraha and, or, you know, this, the truth force as it would be translated into English was built around non violent resistance and moral pressure. But even satyagraha sprang from some type of contradiction, right? Gandhi felt both the duty to serve in imperial wars and, you know, deep discomfort with the violence that came from them. You know, he organized ambulance corps during the Boer wars and the Zulu rebellion, arguing that Indians needed to prove their loyalty through service. Yet he was kind of troubled by the violence that he witnessed. And I think that's a interesting thing for just people to ponder, right? Like, if you live in America, for example, on the one hand, you're like, this is a country of, you know, laws and rules and, you know, it's a place where everyone can be equal and become the best version of themselves. But at the same time, you know, there's some bad stuff and there's a history of racism or, you know, you know, economic, you know, oppression or anything like that. Or, you know, I like where America's at in the world and we're the leader in, you know, global freedoms, but at the same time, you know, we do some wars and some stuff overseas that's, you know, not ideal, but I benefit from it. Is that good? You know, I think at times we all deal with these contradictions, you know, even today. And Gandhi was no different. And the development of this idea, the satyagraha at the Phoenix Settlement and later at Tolstoy Farm represented his attempt to resolve these contradictions through community experiments. And these effectively, you know, are ashrams. And they became laboratories for his, you know, ideas about simple living, manual labor, spiritual discipline. They were these ambitious experiments, like a real effort to build small scale models of the just society that he believed could happen on Earth, where people of all different backgrounds and religions and nations could live together in equal and mutual respect. And these communities also revealed Gandhi's control and his desire to sort of, you know, architect ideas and sometimes his struggles with relationships, you know, particularly his complex dynamic with his wife, Casterba. But they demonstrated something more important, his commitment to testing his ideas in practice rather than simply just preaching them. And this willingness to experiment, to fail and to try again would become central to his method and kind of his credibility as a leader. So Gandhi's philosophical development during his South African years represented a remarkable kind of synthesis of Eastern and Western thought that drew in people from all over. You know, he tapped into the Bhagavan Gita and this concept of selfless action, the Jain principle of ahimsa or nonviolence, and the Christian ideal of turning the other cheek. But he also absorbed Thoreau's idea of civil disobedience or Tolstoy's Christian anarchism or Ruskin's technique of industrial society. He was, you know, taking all of these different ideas and philosophies and sort of fusing them, you know, using his law work, but also his religious work growing up. And this fusion is not just intellectual, it's also personal and lived and tested every single day. So Gandhi took the abstract concept of truth, or satya, and made it the foundation of political action. Gandhi saw truth and nonviolence not merely as these ideals that are noble, but as like tools. These are like precise instruments for social transformation. And by refusing to participate in systems that he considered unjust, by willingly accepting suffering rather than inflicting or causing on people, he could expose the sort of ethical or moral contradictions of his opponents and appeal to, you know, their better nature, you know, by coming at it in really good faith and openness. And the genius of satyagraha lay in its recognition that, you know, if you want change to last for a long time, it requires not just defeating your opponents, but converting them to actually change their hearts, not just to, you know, stop their thought. And this wasn't naive idealism. You know, Gandhi knew that conversion often required pressure and sometimes confrontation in some ways, just never hatred. But his method offered a way to fight injustice without being consumed by that hatred, to resist oppression without just creating more cycles of violence that, you know, perpetuate and beget each other.
- [14:00]
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Mark Dagon
Business, you can monitor the inventory in.
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Mark Dagon
Give me more free time to spend.
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Mark Dagon
This is the good news.
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Mark Dagon
Free just to try it out, see.
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- [15:30]
Mark Dagon
Let's get back to the you say.
- [15:32]
Gabrielle
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- [16:01]
Mark Dagon
So when Gandhi returned to India in 1915, he was still largely unknown beyond sort of like the kind of academic or intellectual political circles of the time. And his transformation into Mahatma the Great Soul translated was gradual and not without some resistance. Even Gandhi himself was kind of uneasy with the title, often expressing like a discomfort with the reverence it commanded and sometimes the expectation that, you know, it carried. He preferred to be seen not as like a spiritual authority but as a, a seeker in the path for truth. You know, someone that's just along the journey with everyone else. All of his followers and acolytes and his early years in India were, you know, marked by these, these careful observations and like this patience, you know. His political mentor had advised him to spend a year watching and learning just to kind of absorb what's happening in the society, what is the feeling of the people. But Gandhi's innate urgency to do something pulled him towards local struggles where he felt people needed support. So he began involving himself in some local disputes. In Champaran with indigo farmers, in Keda, with cotton farmers, in Ahmedabad with textile workers. You know, he was just putting himself into these local issues. And these campaigns revealed both Gandhi's extraordinary strength and his occasional limitations. He had this almost uncanny ability to connect with just regular common people making these complex political ideas and sort of philosophies about how government should run democracy accessible through symbols and stories and his decision to wear only India and Indian made cloth, to spin his own thread, to live a simple life. These weren't just gestures but like real, genuine attempts to bridge the gaps between political leaders and the masses that, you know, they claim that they're representing. So Gandhi's daily routines became kind of legendary, but they were more than just These personal quirks, they were integral to the philosophy and his effectiveness as a leader. He did these things every single day. He would rise before dawn for prayer, meditation, and he spent long hours, you know, spinning cotton and maintaining these extensive correspondences with supporters and also skeptics and followed strict dietary practices. And, you know, he continually adjusted through self experimentation just throughout his life. And this discipline served a bunch of different purposes. And I think there's a lot that everyone can take away from this. It demonstrated that he lived by the principles that he preached, which obviously gives a ton of authenticity to the message. And through spinning, Gandhi forged a link with India's rural masses. You know, the charkha emerging as a potent emblem of self reliance and defiance against the British and their economic control of the region. And it proved a kind of like a form of like meditation or like self control that he believed was also, you know, essential for leading a good life and being a good leader. And so the spinning wheel in particular represented Gandhi's genius for kind of transforming these mundane activities into powerful symbols for change. So by spinning his own cloth, he was rejecting British textiles that had destroyed the Indian cottage industries altogether. He was demonstrating the dignity of manual labor. He embodied this sort of like economic nationalism that everyone could get behind, you know, inviting each person to partake in the act of resistance. And he was also meditating and engaging in these meditative practices that connected him to these traditional Indian values still challenging the British rule. But even this seemingly, you know, straightforward practice was layered with some contradictions, right? Gandhi's idealization of pre industrial villages often conflicted with the aspirations of Indians that wanted, you know, to modernize, to educate and more technology and economic advancements. He had this romantic vision of, you know, village India that sometimes seemed to ignore the poverty and the occasion, you know, the ignorance or the oppression that characterized a lot of rural life. So you can see how there's a balancing act, right? Just, hey, let's just like really connect with the people and, you know, think about what the rural Indian is going through. But also recognizing that some of the things that rural people all over the world, not only India, but, you know, in India also, that they also have, you know, some things that might need to be changed in, you know, sort of non invasive ways. So the non cooperation movement of, you know, 1920 to like roughly 1922 established Gandhi as the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism, but it also revealed both the power and the limitations of his approach. So Gandhi urged like total boycotts of all British institutions, schools, courts, British honors, even as he quietly negotiated with officials behind the scenes. So he preached absolute nonviolence while his movement would occasionally turn violent, as at chirai chera in 1922, where protesters burned alive over 20 policemen. So Ghani's response to Chirai Chira calling off the entire movement at its peak shocked a lot of supporters, but also reflected his genuine horror at the violence that was done with his philosophy and sort of in his name. Right. It demonstrated his consistency, but it also kind of again, shows the tension that exists between, you know, the ideal, you know, the Platonic form of what your philosophy should do, but then also the realpolitik and the effectiveness of actually trying to make these things into reality. So to many, it felt like a betrayal of, you know, a ton of hard won momentum and a lot of people sacrifice. And it was a difficult thing, I think, for a lot of his, his followers to wrestle with. So this tension between moral purity and political pragmatism would really haunt Gandhi throughout his career as it haunts, you know, many advocates and, you know, ideologues throughout history. So his insistence on nonviolence was admirable and ultimately effective, but it sometimes really frustrated people that wanted faster change. So he had a commitment to truth, but his understanding of truth was often personal and idiosyncratic in ways that, you know, would make collective action difficult. So one of the most controversial parts of Gandhi's life was his vow of celibacy and the unusual methods that he used to test it. So in 1906, while in South Africa, he committed to Brahmacharya not just a sexual abstinence, but total control over desire and the senses as a path towards spiritual growth and sort of, you know, moral ownership. But in later years, Gandhi began to experiment to test his self control, which sometimes included, you know, sleeping naked beside, you know, women. He insisted that these were spiritual tests and described them openly in his writings. Believing truth required transparency. However, the experiments for some people caused a lot of discomfort. So leaders like Nehru and Rajago Palachari criticized him and, you know, some ashram members left and critics then and now question whether the women, you know, truly wanted this test or this experiment to happen, or even if they were ethically acceptable. And though Gandhi saw them as a part of this spiritual discipline, they remain still a massive part of his legacy and something that is still debated or contested to this day. So no better relationship, I think, illustrates Gandhi's noble intentions and some of his limitations than his conflict with BR Ambedkar over caste and untouchability. So both these Men were brilliant in their own ways, and they were both committed to justice, yet they reached fundamental, you know, sort of baseline, different conclusions about how to achieve it. So Gandhi opposed untouchability basically just as a perversion of Hinduism, this idea that, you know, some people are Dalits, that they can't be, you know, touched or spoken with or sort of, you know, fraternized with in society. And that there is just a class of people that are untouchable. And he argued passionately that true Hinduism taught the equality of all souls. And he renamed the Untouchables the Harijans, the children of God, and made their uplift a central part of his mission. He opened temples for them and lived among them and made their inclusion, you know, a real test to, you know, this moral progress. You know, his commitment was genuine and in some ways costly. He faced tons of opposition from orthodox Hindus and sometimes from his own political allies, people that he trusted. But Gandhi refused to abandon the, you know, Varna system itself. He argued that the fourfold division of society could be natural and beneficial when freed from hierarchical thinking in sort of the hereditary restrictions. So correct me, you know, if my pronunciation here is not perfect. I'm sorry, I don't speak Hindi. But these fourfold divisions would be the Brahmins, the Kistrayas, the Vaishyas and the Shudras. And he basically believed that people could follow their traditional occupations while being treated with equal dignity. So he saw it almost as a working class, but not a, you know, a moral class or a, you know, a different tier system for people to have different rights. And, you know, this gentleman we mentioned before, Ambenkar saw this as naive and, you know, hypocritical at worst. As someone born into untouchability, he experienced the daily humiliations and restrictions that Gandhi only really observed from the outside. So Ambedkar argued brilliantly that Hinduism was inherently hierarchical, that caste was integral to the structure of the religion, and that real equality required either complete fundamental reform or ultimately conversion to another religion. And this conflict came to a head during negotiations over separate electorates for untouchables in the 1930s. So when the British government granted separate political representation to untouchables, Gandhi went on a fast until death to oppose it, arguing that separate electrics electorates would fragment Hindu society and ultimately harm the untouchables. This lower caste just fundamentally. And Gandhi's fast created enormous pressure on Ambedkar and other untouchable leaders across India, people began fasting in sympathy with Gandhi. Ambedkar faced this difficult choice, right, either let Gandhi die and face the consequences of this guy that becomes a martyr or abandoned what he saw as crucial political rights, you know, within his community. So he chose compromise to prevent Gandhi's death. But he spoke bluntly of the pact as a product of sort of like ethical blackmail. And this is a wound that would, you know, affect their relationship basically forever. So by 1947, there is a partition in India which, you know, for Gandhi was not just a political defeat but a shattering personal loss. So for decades he had preached Hindu Muslim unity as fundamental to Indian civilization. The creation of Pakistan based on religious division kind of violated everything that he believed about, you know, Indian identity and nonviolence and mutual cohabitation. And Gandhi's resistance to partition stayed true to his ideals in a lot of ways, even as the world around him moved in the opposite direction. Hindu Muslim tensions had been building for years, you know, mainly fueled by colonial policies and economic competition. The rise of religious nationalism on both sides. You know, leaders like Jinnah argued that Muslims needed their own state to protect their own interests. Even Hindu leaders, while opposing partition in principle were often privately kind of relieved to see the problem kind of just pushed away or simplified. So Gandhi found himself isolated from his closest political allies. The Congress Party leadership, including Nevru and Patel, concluded that partition was inevitable and perhaps preferable to, you know, this continued sort of communal violence. They were tired of, you know, Gandhi's moral absolutism and this idea of, you know, wanting to have everyone live in harmony and maybe we can all get enlightened. They felt that it was too idealistic and they wanted to get on with governing, you know, an independent India, even if it was divided into two different countries. And this isolation took a tremendous personal toll on Gandhi. He spent his life building these bridges between different communities and religions only to see them destroyed in the final hour. And the violence and human displacement that followed, I mean, the bloodiest in India's modern history, felt to Gandhi like just a rejection of everything that he had preached. And Gandhi's response was characteristically uncompromising. He refused to participate in independence celebrations, spending August 15, 1947 just fasting and praying in Calcutta instead of joining the festivities in Delhi. He threw himself into stopping communal violence, moving between riot torn areas, meeting with, you know, not only Hindu but, you know, also Muslim leaders and trying to sort of rebuild trust through, you know, this example that he set in his own life. His final fast in January 1948 aimed to force both the Indian government and Hindu extremists to treat Pakistan and Indian Muslims fairly. He demanded that India pay Pakistan the money owed to them from these partition settlements. And, you know, this was extremely unpopular, as you can imagine. And he insisted that mosques and Delhi be reopened and that Muslim refugees can be protected. But by the time of his final fast, Gandhi had become something he never intended to be. A living saint in some ways, who had this moral authority that exceeded his political influence. And the transformation from Mohan to Mahatma carried costs that he didn't really anticipate or ever want. People expected perfection from him in ways that, that they didn't expect from ordinary political leaders. His every word was scrutinized for some type of deeper cosmic meaning. And his every action basically was interpreted as carrying some type of major heavenly or divine significance. And it's difficult to live as a saint. There's a reason in Catholicism saints only become saints once they die. Their whole life has to be evaluated and they don't have to deal with the burden of, you know, being a saint on earth. But Gandhi, based off of his, you know, bravery and his leadership and his unity, became a saint in his life. And this created impossible expectations. Gandhi was tasked with solving problems that no one could solve that maybe there is no solution for while being blamed for the outcomes that he couldn't control. To maintain consistency in positions that needed to evolve with, you know, the changing world and to be simultaneously unworldly but also a savvy political operator, it was just impossible. The man who had spent his life insisting on his humanity found himself trapped by others and their need to see him as a superhero. And ironically, his greatest gift, the power to make politics a moral calling, became a limitation in some ways when these same idealistic principles collided with pragmatism, which is ultimately the, probably the biggest issue that Gandhi would face in his time. His insistence on being guided by inner voice and spiritual truth, while personally authentic, sometimes seemed, you know, self indulgent to these actual pragmatic, you know, realpolitik politicians dealing with communal riots and mass displacement, right? But yet even this burden revealed something really interesting about Gandhi's character. So he never fully embrace the role of Mahatma, right? Like this divine being. He never stopped insisting on his, you know, fallibility. He never claimed this divine authority for his positions. He remained to the end, someone struggling publicly with questions that most leaders would prefer to never think about or resolve in private. Yet even as he sought this unity, the country around him was fracturing in a lot of ways. I mean, the partition was disastrous for many people and the trauma of this, you know, the Refugee crisis. This growing tension left many disillusioned and just angry. And among some, Gandhi's message of peace was no longer seen as this noble cause, but in the face of all the division, it was seen almost as like betrayal. It was in this volatile atmosphere that his life would be cut short, not by a foreign enemy, but by one of his own countrymen. So on the evening of January 30, 1948, as Gandhi walked to his daily prayer meeting in the garden of Birla House in Indeli, he was approached by a man from the crowd. Mathuram Godse bowed before him, then pulled out a pistol and fired three shots at point, point, blank range. Gandhi collapsed, reportedly uttering the words, hey, Ram. As chaos erupted around him and he died moments later. That Duram Gadsa, Gandhi's assassin, was not a madman or a fanatic in the conventional sense. He was an educated, articulate member of a Hindu nationalist organization who saw Gandhi's policies as destructive to the Hindu interest. And at his trial, Godseg gave a lengthy speech explaining his motivations, arguing that Gandhi's nonviolence was just weakness and his inclusive nationalism was betrayal to what it really meant to be a Hindu, you know, Indian person. And his influence was preventing India from becoming this modernized, strong Hindu state that it needed to be. And his reasoning revealed both, you know, a misunderstanding of who Gandhi was and how Gandhi's message had been distorted by the political climate. So Gandhi's nonviolence was never passive. It required enormous courage and discipline. And it wasn't just throwing your hands up, being like, oh, whatever happens, happens. You know, he had an inclusive nationalism that wasn't weakness but just a different vision of what strength actually is, one that seeks to build unity through, you know, moral authority and all people of a country, you know, joining forces by what is truth rather than force. And Gandhi's assassination really shocked the world and, you know, not only India, but around, you know, every country. And in sort of a weird, morbid way, it kind of united India in grief. But the unity was, you know, temporary. Like, you know, these things may be. And debates about his legacy began immediately. And different groups claim different versions of Gandhi. There's a spiritual teacher, Gandhi, and then there's the political leader, Gandhi, and then there's the social reformer guy, and, you know, then there's the opponent of the untouchability and a defender for the untouchables. And then there's the defender of the rural traditionalists and, you know, the cotton spinners. And, of course, everyone wanted a piece of what they thought, what they saw as, you know, Gandhi's legacy. And long after his death, Gandhi's influence continues to exist worldwide. Martin Luther King Jr. Adopted his methods in the struggle against racial segregation. Nelson Mandela credited Gandhi's South African campaigns as foundational to nonviolent resistance. And the Dalai Lama praised his blend of ethical discipline but also courage. And across Asia and Africa, independence movements drew strength from the image of a lean man in, you know, not much, but like a, almost like a, like a loincloth or like a toga, standing peacefully against this, you know, sort of ideological, immoral empire. But like I said, his global image has not gone unchallenged. You know, critics have highlighted, you know, some of his, you know, early racial remarks in South Africa and his, you know, moral absolutism in politics and, you know, some of his, you know, sexual tests that he would put himself through and, you know, how much, you know, how consensual and, you know, how ethical these were. And feminists have, you know, questioned his reluctance to confront, you know, the patriarchy. Well, you know, Dalit's activists, influenced by Ambedkar have challenged whether Gandhi's efforts advanced or delayed the abolition of the caste system. Some African scholars claim that, you know, Gandhi's legacy was, you know, basically that he eclipsed the, you know, anti colonial leaders. And you know, in my opinion, this re examination, even when it's harsh in some ways, I think serves a vital purpose. It brings Gandhi down from the clouds, you know, a place that he never wanted to be in the first place, and asked us to engage with him as the human being that he was, as he saw himself, not as this, you know, untouchable ideal. And the contradictions people, you know, once used to sanctify or attack him now offer, I think, the moral lesson, right, that the struggle within all people is the essence of leadership. So again, Gandhi's legacy is split depending on who you may ask. You know, some Hindu nationalists have reinterpreted Gandhi through, you know, a selective lens. You know, some claiming him as a defender of Dharma, others rejecting him completely. And now in a digital age marked by, you know, instant judgment on YouTube or Instagram, Gandhi is more critiqued than at any time basically ever. His celibacy, his spiritual sort of, you know, you know, like fervor, his failures, you know, they've been spotlighted by critics who argued that, you know, a flawed man can't be a moral hero or, you know, this amazing saint on earth can't have any flaws. But the reality is, you know, all People are contradictions. And that's exactly why Gandhi remains so important. His greatness is not in the perfection, but in, you know, this public wrestling with imperfection. He's a man who changes his mind, admits mistakes, grows, learns, and allows other people to challenge him. You know, approaches problems with humility. He treated ethical growth as a real lifelong experiment, not just like this finished thing that you just get to, right? And which I think is really rooted in the Hindu idea of trying to get to moksha or mukti, that you are existing in this life, this cycle of samsara. You were trying to do your dharma, your purpose, and you never fully achieve it until you enter into the afterlife, if you attain nirvana, if you escape from the cycle. And, you know, he obviously had a massive commitment to nonviolence that wasn't convenient or successful in every case, but it was sustained when, you know, violence seemed like the easier option. His inclusive nationalism wasn't naive. You know, it was built on the belief that differences could be bridged, that people ultimately want the same things and that, you know, patience, courage, and sort of exemplary moral work can bring people together despite having different beliefs about the world. And in my opinion, Gandhi's contradictions don't weaken the authority. They ground him because, again, he grappled with failure, just like all people. And today, when leaders act like they have nothing to learn or, you know, everything to prove, Gandhi, I think, reminds us and them that integrity is not about having the answers. It's about asking the right questions and, you know, doing so, even if it comes at some type of cost. You know, he died with God's name being the last things that he said, right? Hey, Ram. Not because he was, you know, saintly or, you know, God himself, but because he died trying to live up to this higher calling. And that effort, I think, visible, vulnerable, and, you know, never being completed is what keeps him relevant to this day. You know, his story offers no easy moral, only a challenge for all people. Myself mostly to engage seriously with what it means to live ethically in a fractured, oftentimes hateful world. Not through purity and not through becoming a saint or becoming the perfect person, but just through daily persistence. And that, my friends, is the story of Mahatma Gandhi. I truly think it a really fascinating and remarkable person I always think about. There's a clip I saw years ago about Daryl Davis. He's a fascinating guy. This is a guy that would go to, you know, clan rallies, and he was a black dude living in the south in the United States and would go to Klan Rallies throughout, like the 70s. He was a, he was a jazz musician, really talented guy. And he would go out to these, these Klan rallies and he would talk to these KKK members. These are people that are committed to, you know, a white, you know, Christian nationalist world. You know, they, they don't like black people, you know, Jews, anyone, non white Catholics. They just want their world in their own way. And he just saw them and was like, how can you hate me if you don't know me? So literally, he would just meet these guys who were outwardly racist. They belonged to racist hate groups like the KKK and would befriend them and he would talk to them about music or sports and they would commiserate on shared interests. And over time, these guys became less racist until they were fully transformed in some way. And for a lot of them, they actually gave him their Klan robes. And so now in his house, he has dozens of these Klan robes that he got through ultimately converting people away from their hatred. And there's a really interesting clip, I gotta see if I can find it, but he's talking to Daryl Davis. This is, he's talking to members of a local BLM chapter. And this is in like 2020ish. And he's talking to these guys and he's saying, why not approach this with nonviolence? Just through talking through connecting with people and trying to bridge gaps and, you know, seeing where we're more similar than we are different. And these guys are pissed and they're annoyed and they're like, bro, we are out here fighting. We are putting ourselves into riots. We are stirring shit up and causing problems for the establishment because we ultimately want to make life better for black people in America. And from their perspective, it makes all the sense. It's like, hey, we've been doing this nice thing forever. We've been, you know, you know, playing nice with the white man and still, you know, we're getting killed by cops, we're getting frisked at higher rates than, you know, everyone else. And we're still living in this sort of fractured racial system in America that we're gonna, we're gonna cause problems. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna make it uncomfortable, we're gonna be in their face. And you really have kind of an exact thing that Gandhi is living through just in our modern time where you have, you know, the sort of idealist, this person that's like, we can all live in a better world if we can just talk and connect with each other. And then you have sort of this almost more, you know, angry, pragmatic, you know, realpolitik approach. It's like, no, we're gonna cause problems till we get what we want. And I think both, in some ways, have validity. I can understand the emotion behind both. I just. My personal approach is I kind of side with Gandhi's version of nonviolence and trying to make change through what you can control and through by bridging gaps. And I think Gandhi's effects, not only in his own life and the people that followed him, but through Martin Luther King Jr. And Nelson Mandela, I think, is really a testament to the life that he lived and the people that he inspired and the change that he made, not only in his country but around the world. And I think there's a lot to learn from that. So shout out to Gandhi. Gabe, what'd you think you learned anything in this episode? I don't know if this is embarrassing to admit, but I really didn't know much about Gandhi. I don't think it's embarrassing. I don't think we learned much about him. I mean, in America, we, you know, you learn some American history that's a little bit, you know, sort of, you know, painted in a nice way. You know, Thanksgiving. We got some natives here, and you learn some European history, and it's like, yeah, there's an Industrial Revolution. You got some Medieval Ages. But then you don't really learn anything about Asia. You learn nothing about India. You learn a little bit about, like, Central America, maybe the Aztecs. And that's basically it, you know. So I don't think, you know, as an American, that you're in the minority for, you know, not knowing much about Gandhi. But hopefully you, like many of the people watching at home, will have learned a little bit more about the great, you know, occasionally sort of conflicted man that Gandhi was. Let me know what you think. I mean, was this analysis too harsh on some of Gandhi's imperfections? Was it too shallow in analyzing his philosophy or what he thought about the world? Was it too generous in his achievements, and was I too gracious when examining all the good that he had done? Let me know what you think. Drop a comment. I would love to know your perspective. If you are obviously an Indian citizen, if you're someone that grew up in India, if you're a Hindu, if you're a, you know, foreign living desi that is, you know, a part of the diaspora that's around the world, or if you're just like a regular white boy like me. I'd love to know what you think. Please drop a comment. Like I said, I will go through all of them. As always, this has been another episode of History Camp. Thank you guys so much for being a part of it, and I'll see you next time. Peace.