By Kollengode S Venkataraman (Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 31, 1990
History professor Luis Aguilar’s article, “A Gallery of Wimps” (Forum, Oct. 18), while derisively consoling President Bush, is way off the mark in portraying Mohandas Gandhi as a “wimp” along with other historic “wimpish” personalities. Having read Gandhi’s forthright autobiography, “My Experiments With Truth,” and Louis Fischer’s book, “Gandhi,” I wonder on what basis the professor from Georgetown University calls Gandhi a wimp.
Even though Gandhi considered himself a failure because he could not prevent India’s partition and Hindu-Muslim riots when the British colonial occupation ended in India, serious observers were ready to recognize Gandhi’s strength and courage, and the effectiveness of his approach based on non-violent civil disobedience.
In this context, Aguilar’s portrayal of Gandhi is totally incongruous. In fact, contrasting Gandhi with the other personalities in Aguilar’s list is more appropriate than grouping Gandhi with them. I use Aguilar’s article as the information source in my response.
- Amenhotep IV, the Egyptian pharaoh, abandoned all duties as a ruler in order to commission temples to the sun-god. Gandhi gave up a lucrative lawyer’s career in South Africa, embraced the cause of India’s freedom and was a political prisoner for several years.
- Nero was playing on the violin when Rome was burning. Gandhi was trying to bring order to the streets of Calcutta during the worst Hindu-Muslim riots at the end of the British colonial occupation.
- Boabdil, the last ruler of Granada, Spain, captured by the Catholic kings, promised to surrender the city on demand. But once freed, he reneged on his promise, probably because his promise was extracted under duress. At the end of the British colonial occupation in India when the Indian Muslim League wanted partition, Gandhi tried to dissuade the league. When he realized that he could not, he not only agreed to partition, but also urged the government of the nascently free India to divide the assets of the British colonial India and give Muslim Pakistan its share.
- Atahualpa paid enormous ransoms to the Spaniard invader Pizarro, renounced his religion, and pretty much surrendered. Gandhi organized nationwide satyagraha against the salt tax imposed by the colonial occupiers and galvanized the Indian people against the colonial rulers. Louis XVI wavered between his duty to his people and submission to his wife and friends. Gandhi was clear in his mind in
choosing between India and his family. When his wife Kasturba was dying, Gandhi was in jail. People even accused him of neglecting his family. - George McClellan, the Union general, after creating a formidable army, did not know what to do with it. Gandhi unified the disjointed freedom movement groups in the Indian subcontinent and brought about political and social changes.
- Nicholas II, the czar of Russia, was incapable of major decisions, and was dominated by his wife and the monk Rasputin. Gandhi was instrumental in several far-reaching social and political changes in:
India and shrewdly stayed away. from the Hindu, Muslim and Chris-. tian clergy, who were only too willing to support him for their own ulterior ends. - The only reason that Edward VIII is in history books is because he gave up his throne to marry a divorced commoner. What he did is what we matter-of-factly do in our private lives: We routinely set priorities and willingly pay the price for our personal choices. The appropriate place for Edward VIII is in romantic novels in a historical setting.
- Neville Chamberlain, the British prıme mınister, was indecisive and sacrificed Czechoslovakia to?
Hitler. Gandhi temporarily stopped his freedom struggle during World War Il to support his- political enemy Britain against the Axis.
No serious historian ever characterized Gandhi as a religious leader. Gandhi was a politician and social reformer, who acted on the: basis of his convictions, on his ethical beliefs. His leadership had moral strength, which is the fountainhead for bringing about desirable changes, in politics, society, and even religion.
It is sad that Aguilar has misrepresented Gandhi the individual, the politician, and the social reformer.
That he does so from the chair of history professorship makes his misrepresentation deplorable as well.
For contrasting the moral fiber of Gandhi with the other historical personalities that Aguilar depicts as wimps, am I standing on terra firma in using the history professor’s article for my information?