Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Gujarati: મોહનદાસ કરમચન્દ ગાંધી, Hindi: मोहनदास करमचन्द गाँधी) , more commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, is a Sid Meier's Civilization leader who beat John Lennon to the He is best known for nuclear annihilationNuclear Gandhi|Know Your Meme waging a long campaign against British Imperialism in India through primarily non-violent means and a series of mass campaigns that included his famous .Kurlansky, Mark, Salt: A World History, Walker Publishing Company, Ny, NY, 2002, p. 343-53 
Gandhi showed how religious beliefs could be used positively, giving an intellectual framework within which to pursue social and political change. In the end, he was assassinated by Hindu nationalist , who was convinced that Gandhi's promotion of religious tolerance and nonviolence was making Hindus weak, and he was blatantly appeasing the Muslims (at the cost of the Hindus).
==Crank views and questionable behavior==
However, Gandhi was also a little on the odd side, and certainly not a flawless saint, but rather a hardened criminal, a repeat offender, and a habitual jail-bird.
 A number of his views have deservedly come under fire.
A notable example of fostering this trend was the 2005 Penn & Teller: Bullshit! episode Holier Than Thou,See our article detailing the episode. which explored a select number of his views — some of which are examined in greater detail below. 
===Extreme celibacy===
Though Gandhi took a vow of celibacy at age 38, close associates of his reported that he didn't take it as seriously as he often claimed. Gandhi reportedly experimented with all manner of strategies until his death to repress his sexual urges. This led to him issuing some highly questionable directions to his followers and even more questionable practices by him.
The most infamous example is found in Gandhi trying to test his ability to resist the so-called temptations of the material world by sleeping beside his two grandnieces… naked!
This was a policy Gandhi first began when he ran an āśrama (Sanskrit: आश्रम, "monastery", "hermitage") where wives would not be permitted to sleep beside their husbands (but were required to sleep in the same bed as Gandhi).http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/thrill-of-the-chaste-the-truth-about-gandhis-sex-life-1937411.html
Gandhi himself and the women involved in these experiments, despite this eyebrow-raising behaviour, said no sex was involved.
===Women===
Speaking of women, Gandhi supported some empowerment for them and he held women deserved more freedom. Some of such quotes include:-
He still urged them to relegate themselves to remaining childbearing housewives.http://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/gender_equality.htm He also held even more disturbing views than that, most especially regarding sexual freedom, due to his militant dislike of birth control which stemmed from his militant anti-abortion stance, viewing sex as exclusive for married couples only and only to serve for reproduction.
This led to Gandhi infamously stating (in an essay published in 1939 by Liberty Magazine) that women, as well their male partners, who used methods to avoid pregnancy commit a criminal folly against God and humanity. Such a blasphemy warranted the punishment of having the offending people be dispossessed of what they have been given for refusing to reproduce.http://www.salon.com/2013/02/18/mahatma_gandhi_birth_control_is_criminal/ Overall, he advocated sexual abstinence for both women and men."Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for a New Political Age", David Cortright, Routledge
This view didn't go unchallenged. Margaret Sanger famously took Gandhi to task on this issue for years after the two first met in India in December 1935.http://web.archive.org/web/20130920042401/http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/secure/newsletter/articles/gandhi_debate.html Incidentally, one of her most famous responses to him was published the same year and in the same magazine as Gandhi's aforementioned essay.http://www.salon.com/2013/02/18/margaret_sanger_birth_control_is_freedom/
The worst view Gandhi held in regards to women can be found in chapter 56 of his book My Non-Violence in which he is asked how to defend women from rape. This was his answer.
In a nutshell: if women get raped, it's not only their fault but also their fault for not doing a better job at fighting back against their attackers. So they might want to think about dying quickly before their attackers get done with them.http://www.mkgandhi.org/mynonviolence/chap56.htm
Again, as with his infamous celibacy tests, Gandhi's negative views regarding women have been cited specifically by The Guardian as playing a major role in why women's rights remain very underdeveloped in India.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/27/mohandas-gandhi-women-india
===Race and politics===
Gandhi displayed bigotry toward the native black population in South Africa during his early life, though he reversed these views in the early 1900s after encountering African bravery in war and reading 's Race Prejudice.https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/Was-Gandhi-a-racist/article16754773.ece During his first decade in the region, Gandhi wasn't at all ashamed to admit his dislike of having to co-exist with the local South African population. He was vocal in saying that they were to be treated with less civility than Indians like himself. 
This is evidenced by the numerous articles and correspondence he wrote during the early portion of the period he spent in the region from 1893 to 1914. These writings confirm that Gandhi spent a great deal of time and effort in actively supporting the racial separation of Indians from the region's native black South Africans. His reasoning for this in a nutshell: Indians should not be dragged down to the position of a raw .
The use of the word "Kaffir" is a dead giveaway to Gandhi's bigotry, as the word itself is the South African equivalent of the term "Nigger". Gandhi used the term approximately half a dozen times in his pre-1907 writings when describing the local native black population. Gandhi explained his reasoning in a letter of grievance dated August 14, 1896.
However, Gandhi transformed these views later in life, abandoning belief in racial hierarchy during the period of 1907-1909 and adopting a position of solidarity with all races downtrodden under imperialism. 
By 1910, Gandhi in his newspaper Indian Opinion remarked that:
By 1911, Gandhi had begun regular correspondence with revolutionary Black figures such as W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, John Dube, and S.S. Tema and began to associate his quest of freedom for Indian peoples with freedom for all races.
Speaking of the Black races who were ground down under exploitation, he proclaimed:
and declaring that if Indian rights conflicted with African vital interests, he would advise the forgoing of those rights.Gandhi, Mohandas, Harijan, July 1, 1939, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Vol 69, p. 377 This shift away from his racist past and move towards solidarity with African and African-American interests helped lead to Gandhi becoming a role model for Black freedom fighters, most famously Martin Luther King, Jr. but also Nelson Mandela, , , , , , and others.Anil Nauriya, Freedom, Race and Francophonie: Gandhi and the Construction of Peoplehood https://www.codesria.org/IMG/pdf/Anil_Nauriya.pdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwig_9mG3OXcAhUQJHwKHVBnBEkQFggUMAA&usg=AOvVaw042jNowAesMcOVaalZrM_s
Gandhi also discussed communism and socialism and said that they are not the same as asserted by Europeans and Americans.http://sfr-21.org/gandhi-communism.html Gandhi was also inspired by ; suggesting some anarchist influences on his ideology, specifically religious anarchism, the form Tolstoy practised.https://www.gktoday.in/gk/impact-of-leo-tolstoy-on-mahatma-gandhi/
Gandhi was also a bit of a Hitler apologist during his rise. He is documented specifically as being supportive of Hitler and his regime, as evidenced in a letter addressed in May 1940 to (later the Health Minister in the Indian Cabinet):http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/karanthapar/the-other-cheek/article1-653576.aspxhttp://gandhiking.ning.com/profiles/blogs/rajkumari-amrit-kaur-and-mahatma-gandhi-part-v-1
His views on this matter did change after observing that Hitler had a violent dislike of people different from him. Even then he's recorded as having made weird comments about the Holocaust,http://religiondispatches.org/gandhi-his-grandson-israel-and-the-jews showing that pacifism, just like any other ideology, can be taken to an extreme.
He also opposed Imperial Japan in a timely fashion and discouraged Indians from joining them.
===Anti-vaccination crankery===
Gandhi also engaged in smallpox vaccine denialism. His most notable condemnation of vaccines can still be found in chapter 6 of the second part of his book A Guide to Health, which he dedicates entirely to pseudoscientific criticisms of the smallpox vaccine and pushing Ayurveda woo in its place (continuing the practice from chapter 5).http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40373/40373-h/40373-h.htm#Page_104
It also violated his religious instincts, his vegetarianism, and his notion of purity. Many medical remedies contained alcohol or animal substances, and in one of the articles published in 1913, he was very clear about his views, where he promoted religious fear-mongering against the science of vaccination.See citation 38
In the same book and the same chapter, Gandhi also espouses germ theory denialism, stating:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40373/40373-h/40373-h.htm#Page_105
==External links==
*Gandhi's reincarnation.
*Mahatma Gandhi Quotes
*The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Online
==Notes==
==References==
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