In this dream Islam became an ally. The millions of Hindu’s slaughtered by Muslims over 1000 years (100 million or more?), made no impact on the Indian prophet. Saint Gandhi was supposedly a moralist and Hindu reformer, dedicated to modesty, chastity, restraint and temperance. But in his zeal to oust the British, attain power, implement ‘Satyagraha’ (truth – force) and achieve primitive communism, the Muslims – historically the destroyers of Hindu civilization – were conscripted. A rather strange alliance to say the least.

Indeed emboldened by Gandhi, Muslims in the early 1920’s rioted, attacked Hindu and non – Muslim sites, and in good Islamic fashion murdered 10,000 – 20,000 innocents. A poignant question is why the British did not deal with Gandhi and his leadership cadre at that point and destroy Gandhi’s movement? Maybe Gandhi’s support was too deep, the message too resonant, or the consequences too grave. In any event it was a mistake not to shut down Gandhian Marxism in the early 1920’s.

Gandhi’s legacy was to constrain, if not cripple Indian development. His embrace of Islam and ignorance of its violent nature directly led to firstly Islamic demands (within his Indian congress movement) and then in 1947 – 48, to a bloody civil war upon independence, in which at least 2 million died. Islam proved itself no friend or follower of Gandhian pacifism. His disavowal of modernity led to Indian communalism and prideful, superstitions beliefs in an ‘Indian – way’. This retarded Indian political and economic development by two generations.

Gandhi was thus a myth, more than he was a man. His mystical utopianism was no more coherent or relevant than the tired Marxist dogma of Mao, Castro or Chavez. The myth of village communalism, a rejection of modernity and racist contempt for European methods, has only very recently been cast off. Indian independence was inevitable. Fifty years of destructive socialism was not. For that disaster Indians can thank their saintly prophet, Mr. Gandhi.

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