Sponsors hope to gather 100,000 online signatures by March 12 to compel the White House to reassess the upper-caste Hindu leader, who President Obama has called \u201can inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGandhi spewed racism against Africans, promoted segregation in pre-apartheid South Africa, fought in a colonial British war to kill blacks, and then returned to India to spread caste division among his own people,\u201d said Arvin Valmuci, Communications Director of Organization for Minorities of India (OFMI), a group sponsoring the petition. \u201cFoundational to his anti-human philosophy was commitment to varnashrama, the system that has poisoned Indian culture with division and discrimination for thousands of years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obama has frequently adored Gandhi. In 2008, when asked with whom he would like to dine, dead or alive, he chose Gandhi. Later, he claimed Gandhi\u2019s \u201cspirit and example\u2026 extinguished apartheid in South Africa.\u201d The petition offers a completely opposite perspective, insisting Gandhi perpetrated apartheid first in South Africa and then in his home country of India.<\/p>\n
\u201cGandhi was a staunch believer in Varnashrama Dharma, the religious caste system of the Hindus,\u201d said Dr. Muni Subramani, International Human Rights Relations Advisor to OFMI. \u201cEvery action he took to oppress blacks in Africa, Dalits in India, and divide the societies of the world sprung from his love for the violence of the caste system. This system is thousands of years old, it is ten thousand times worse than segregation in America ever was, and it still stands strong. Gandhi\u2019s absurd defense of caste as \u2018scientific\u2019 was an unsurpassed evil against the most vulnerable people in South Asia, so we ask President Obama to reject Gandhi as a charlatan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Subramani and Valmuci pointed to Gandhi\u2019s own words as proof he was devoted to caste. In 1921, for instance, he declared: \u201cI am certainly against any attempt at destroying the fundamental divisions. The caste system is not based on inequality.\u201d Then, in 1920, he said: \u201cI believe that one acquires one\u2019s caste by birth. One who is born in a Brahmin family dies a Brahmin.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Gandhi\u2019s strongest statements defending caste was in 1933, when he said: \u201cThe caste system, in my opinion, has a scientific basis. Reason does not revolt against it\u2026. Caste creates a social and moral restraint \u2014 I can find no reason for their abolition. To abolish caste is to demolish Hinduism. There is nothing to fight against the Varnasharma. I don\u2019t believe the caste system to be an odious and vicious dogma\u2026. There is nothing sinful about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy defending the caste system, Gandhi practiced untouchability,\u201d said Dr. Subramani. \u201cIt is only logical. If you say there are four levels of human beings, then one level will always be at the top and one will always be at the bottom. Caste system teaches that men are born unequal and pits one group against another to create a chaotic, discriminatory society. Gandhi tried to hoodwink Indians to think you can have caste without untouchability, but the truth is one can\u2019t eat his cake and have it too. If we are too eliminate untouchability, we must first eliminate caste, and President Obama can play a part.\u201d<\/p>\n
India has 1.2 billion people and at least 20% \u2014 or 250 million \u2014 are Dalit. Known by this name which means \u201cbroken\u201d or \u201coppressed,\u201d the Dalit are the largest and most historically oppressed group in history. They reject the caste system, so Hindus consider them outside the four levels of caste. Hindus call them outcaste and treat them as untouchables.<\/p>\n
Cultural discrimination against Dalits is everywhere in India. Most live in poverty. They are forbidden to eat or drink with caste Hindus and are often abused or beaten for violating religious and cultural practices that segregate them from the rest of society. Many are enslaved or forced into prostitution. Stories of Dalit rapes and the Indian state\u2019s failure to prosecute the abusers are rampant.<\/p>\n
Explaining the modern history of caste, Valmuci said: \u201cLaws prohibiting untouchability were enshrined in India\u2019s Constitution by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the country\u2019s first Law Minister and a renowned humanitarian, but caste discrimination remains an ingrained cultural practice. Dr. Ambedkar, in his attempts to liberate the Dalit, was often undermined by Gandhi, especially at the Round Table Conference in London. Gandhi seized every opportunity to uphold caste. This is why Dr. Ambedkar said: \u2018If a man with God\u2019s name on his tongue and sword under his armpit deserved the appellation of a Mahatma, then Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a Mahatma.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe caste system creates apartheid but this apartheid has lasted 2,500 years and has not been erased at all by the outlawing of its practice,\u201d said Bhajan Singh, an OFMI director. \u201cGandhi helped foster apartheid in South Africa decades before it was officially established in 1948. After he poisoned South African culture with this lifestyle of hatred, he helped to preserve it in India.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is immeasurable psychological harm to Dalits,\u201d noted Dr. Subramani, \u201cof being treated as subhuman for countless generations. But the arrogance of Gandhi was boundless, so he told even the lowest caste not to desire any advancement. This quote was made in 1927; it is why President Obama has a moral duty to turn his back on Gandhi. If the USA followed in Gandhi\u2019s footsteps, Obama would never have been elected to any office, let alone become president.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 1927 quote, published in Young India, Gandhi said: \u201cA Shudra can\u2019t be called a Brahmin even if he possesses all the qualities of a Brahmin by inheritance. He should never claim his right other than the Varna in which he was born. This is an evidence of his being humble.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Be part in the taking down of\u00a0that racist fakir’s legend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have plenty of evidence that Mohandas Gandhi was a fraud. I highly recommend Hitch‘s take on the subject (in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83,57,149,148,151,152,147,150,97],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-christopher-hitchens","tag-india","tag-m-gandhi","tag-misogyny","tag-penn-teller","tag-petition","tag-racism","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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