‘Racist’ Gandhi tweets explained

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Published Aug 12, 2015

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Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula has the highest respect for Mahatma Gandhi and his recent tweet that the peace icon was a transformed racist was meant to clear impressions.

This is according to his spokesman, Esethu Hasane, who spoke to POST this week.

He said the minister had recently re-tweeted a quote by Gandhi and someone had in turn questioned why he was doing this.

Photographs of Gandhi and quotes he allegedly made were posted.

One quote dated March 7, 1908, attributed to Gandhi, read: “K****** are as a rule uncivilised… the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals”.

Subsequent tweets followed. including:

“lol guys this is why we must research our ‘heroes. Ghandi (sic) was no friend of ours. He never claimed to be either.”

The minister tweeted: “Mahatma Ghandi was a racist wich transformed &reformed over time Fact (sic).”

His spokesman, Esethu Hasane, told POST: “The minister responded the way he did because he wanted to prevent people from creating the wrong impression about Gandhi. He holds Gandhi in high esteem and respects him. That is why he often quotes him.”

Gandhi’s great grandson, Satish Dhupelia, confirmed that there was a period during which the young Gandhi had made racist comments.

“However, we must take it in the context of a man who was on a journey to find himself and these comments were made in the early parts of his life when he had insufficient knowledge of life and of people. He later changed these views of his and went on to embrace all South Africans, not just Indians,” said Dhupelia.

“This is evident in his friendship with John Langalibalele Dube, the first president of the ANC, and other people of colour. John Langalibalele Dube had a farm diagonally across from Gandhi’s farm in Inanda and when Dube wanted to print the first edition of Ilanga lase Natal, Gandhi printed it for him at his International Printing Press. If he were a racist, he would not have done this.”

Dhupelia added: “When we examine Gandhi, we should not look at isolated instances in his life but rather his life in whole and see the changed person Gandhi had become, which differs vastly from his young days.”

Before Gandhi left South Africa he said the following: “It seems to me that both the Africans and the Asiatics have advanced the Empire as a whole; we can hardly think of South Africa without the African races…

“South Africa would probably be a howling wilderness without the African races… They (the African races) are still in the history of the world’s learners. Able-bodied and intelligent men as they are, they cannot but be an asset to the Empire.”

Dhupelia provided another Gandhi quote: “If we look into the future, is it not a heritage we have to leave to posterity, that all the different races commingle and produce a civilisation that perhaps the world has not yet seen?”

He said Mbalula was correct in pointing out that Gandhi had transformed.

“Who among us has not made mistakes and not done wrong in their lives? Gandhi was one of those people who in his journey of life, discovered his faults and rectified them.”

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