review of new gandhi book in nytimes

mar 25th, 2011 CE

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/books/review/book-review-great-soul-mahatma-gandhi-and-his-struggle-with-india-by-joseph-lelyveld.html?_r=1&nl=books&emc=booksupdateema1&pagewanted=all

from the review:

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Soon after returning to India in 1915, Gandhi set forth what he called the “four pillars on which the structure of swaraj” — self-rule — “would ever rest”: an unshakable alliance between Hindus and Muslims; universal acceptance of the doctrine of nonviolence, as tenet, not tactic; the transformation of India’s approximately 650,000 villages by spinning and other self-sustaining handicrafts; and an end to the evil concept of untouchability. 

===== end quote ====

rather quaint, these pillars.  

1 is entirely laughable: unshakable alliance, my foot. 

2 is also entirely laughable; nonviolence, my other foot 

3. has some merit, although everybody in india believes as a gospel truth that moving everybody into urban slums and the 'satanic mills' of large factories is the answer. 

4. evil concept of untouchability. ok, agreed, but the biggest upholders of this in india today are a) the xtists, b) the crypto-xtist DMK

also thought it was interesting that gandhi apparently thought he was a vegetarian xtist (what, tolstoy-envy?):

==== begin quote ====

 in an early advertisement he proclaimed himself an “Agent for the Esoteric Christian Union and the London Vegetarian Society.” 

==== end quote =====

bit confused, obviously.

the man was a marketing genius; but he was also a crackpot in some areas. celibacy, my left foot.