Mistakes of Mahatma Gandhi

Like all humans, Mahatma Gandhi also made many big mistakes e.g.

• During World War I, he stopped opposing Britain. In fact, he requested people to join British army. That decision delayed India’s Independence by many years, if not decades. Mahatma Gandhi was NOT street smart.
• Mahatma decided to abstain from sex a few years after marriage. He had the right to do whatever he wants with his body, but his wife was also impacted by this decision. What if his wife wanted sex? A better decision would have been not to marry or take decisions considering his wife also.
• British were about leave India. They wanted to split India and make part of it Pakistan. Everyone was looking at Mahatma Gandhi for leadership, but unfortunately Mahatma made the wrong decision. By allowing Pakistan, millions of people were died, injured, raped, robbed and dislocated. Even today both countries continue to suffer because of that one decision.
• Pakistan took a part of Kashmir by force, but Mahatma Gandhi told the Indian government to pay Pakistan 55 crore rupees (worth 18000 tons of gold at that time). Pakistan was entitled to this money, but given its aggression, it would have been normal to set the termination of its aggression, including the withdrawal of its invading troops, as a condition for the payment. Indeed, that would have been a sterling contribution to the cause of enduring peace, saving the lives of the many thousands who fell in subsequent decades because of the festering wound which Kashmir has remained under partial Pakistani occupation. This was the main reason that some pro-Hindu people murdered him.
• After Independence, Mahatma Gandhi was in a position to decide who would be the first Prime Minister of free India. He chose Jawaharlal Nehru. This one decision caused decades of poverty in India because Nehru was a socialist (one who believes in big government and suspects private industry). Mahatma Gandhi was not a smart economist to understand that Capitalism would remove poverty from India, while socialism would cause millions to remain in poverty for many decades.

Mahatma Gandhi was a poor statesman. Many people consider Gandhi to be a moral person, but people who listen to this talk will disagree.