No, Gandhi was not a racist

Calling Gandhi a racist is nothing but a failure to understand how he evolved from his days in South Africa as a young Indian lawyer in a hostile environment who was still learning and forming opinions about his fellow men and women — to the powerful leader of non-violent resistance against the British Raj in India.

The fact his life was ended by an assassin’s bullet who thought he was more sympathetic to the rights of the newly created state of Pakistan than India, also says something about the moral compass of Gandhi. He wanted to make sure that Pakistan was not deprived of its due, even though he was fundamentally against the partition of India, which he agreed to without joy in the end. He was not depriving India in any way either, but the assassin thought otherwise.

If Gandhi were alive today, he would likely be shocked to see his statues around the world as he lived a simple life and was against waste of resources. So, in that sense, the recent removal of his statue in the capital of Ghana would have pleased him (although it was removed for wrong reasons — he was not a racist).

Martin Luther King Jr., the Civil Rights Movement leader, held Gandhi in high regard and even visited India to pay homage. He applied the principles of non-violence in his movement with clear success.

Nelson Mandela, the great South African leader who led and won against apartheid in his country, said of Gandhi:

“His philosophy contributed in no small measure to bringing about a peaceful transformation in South Africa and in healing the destructive human divisions that had been spawned by the abhorrent practice of apartheid.”

He also referred to Gandhi as “the sacred warrior”.

Both MLK and Mandela must have known about Gandhi’s comments about Africans in his youth that is being used against him today to call him a racist. But these two great men must have also known how he evolved to be the great leader that he turned out to be by changing himself for the better.

That’s why they never called him a racist, rather they took inspiration from his acts in their own struggles.