In political theatre certain names are used to provide cachet, gravitas, or moral resolve. My favorites happen to be war – mongering, pro – capitalist, largely dead white European males. How banal. In the post – modern, populist, ‘I – feel – your – pain’ (please let me increase taxes and spend more because I love you) socialism, no name gets used and abused more than Gandhi. It is frankly annoying and tiring. Gandhi was anything but great.

Churchill called the careworn defender of Indian self – sufficiency a ‘half - naked fakir’. Harsh but not far off the mark. Gandhi’s recipe for India was one of immoderate nonsense. It took the Indians 50 years to cast off the shackles of Gandhian isolationism and communalism. Now India, in process of integrating itself into the global supply chain of extended trade, is finally lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, and assuming a middle power (or larger) regional role.

No thanks to Gandhi.

I have two problems with the bald, femininely built prophet. First his message and set of policies were anti – capitalist; anti – modern; and anti – progressive. Second, the Gandhian ‘model’ repudiates reality and merges mysticism and emotionalism, into a replacement for reality and practicality. Churchill was not too far wrong is his assessment but having said that, it is obvious that India would have attained independence post – World War Two. In fact it was a precondition of Indian support against Hitlerism. In any event the costs to the British of their Indian colony had by the 1920’s, outstripped profits. It was the burden of empire and the real consquential costs of controlling India, that made Indian independence inevitable. The terms of economic and political trade had turned. Expenses, political opinion, and mundane reality made Indian independence inevitable – Gandhi or no Gandhi.

Gandhi’s importance rested upon his non – violent approach to political change and self – rule. He advocated the complete rejection of all things British and western, through pacifist, non – engagement means. Gandhi’s great fortune was that he did this in a British protectorate, not a Russian, Japanese, French, Italian or Japanese colony. He would have simply been shot.

So what of Gandhi’s great plan?

According to Gandhi’s 1909 book (and his subsequent 40 year career), ‘Hind Swaraj’, Indian self – rule would repudiate western civilization and embrace ‘the village.’ British imports – law, medicine, transport, education, capital, schools, hospitals, and police – would be substituted by Indian communalism. Gandhi wanted the complete physical, mental and moral emancipation of India, from all British artifacts, including technology, the media and even advanced agricultural production.

It was to say the least, a program of Medieval proportions.

Gandhi advocated village self – sufficiency. This of course ensures poverty. Gandhi, trained in England and South Africa as a lawyer, was totally ignorant about economics, and how and why civilizations develop. Gandhi’s Marxism was untainted by the concerns of modernity. In his mystical world – view Indians would use the hand – loom to spin their own textiles’; use human labor and sharp sticks to develop their fields for agricultural output; and live in simple communal organizations untouched by western methods and devilish ideas around modernity and wealth creation.

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