a half naked fakir

    '.... if we accept Gandhi as a saint .... should we redefine
    what we think of [him]? ....'

    Is there in this the implicit view, held by all right thinking
    people, that he was, sure enough, a kind of saint?

    Being constitutionally allergic to the kindly, the gentle &
    the humble, I incline more to Churchill's view:
    '....Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing
    as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half naked
    up the steps of the Vice-regal palace ....'

    There have, of course, been far too many revelations about
    his private life to take it seriously.

    Which leaves his political methods. These did, sort-of, work
    - eventually & after the disruptions of a global war - against
    the weariness of the all too decent & irresolute Brits. But we
    know what happened to the countless other 'passive resisters'
    - the ones facing Reinhard Heydrich & Joseph Stalin.

    It seems to me that Indian democracy owes more to
    the English-educated Nehrus & men of the Indian Civil Service
    than does its current, chippy, nuclear posture to the Mahatma.

    Scottie B.

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Received on Sat Aug 17 12:27:52 2002