{"id":42991,"date":"2018-06-11T01:00:33","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T05:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=42991"},"modified":"2018-05-21T11:25:59","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T15:25:59","slug":"qotd-gandhi-as-filmic-hagiography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/06\/11\/qotd-gandhi-as-filmic-hagiography\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: <em>Gandhi<\/em> as filmic hagiography"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>Gandhi<\/em>, therefore, the film, this paid political advertisement for the government of India, is organized around three axes: (1) Anti-racism \u2014 all men are equal regardless of race, color, creed, etc.; (2) anti-colonialism, which in present terms translates as support for the Third World, including, most eminently, India; (3) nonviolence, presented as an absolutist pacifism. There are other, secondary precepts and subheadings. Gandhi is portrayed as the quintessence of tolerance (\u201cI am a Hindu and a Muslim and a Christian and a Jew\u201d), of basic friendliness to Britain (\u201cThe British have been with us for a long time and when they leave we want them to leave as friends\u201d), of devotion to his wife and family. His vow of chastity is represented as something selfless and holy, rather like the celibacy of the Catholic clergy. But, above all, Gandhi\u2019s life and teachings are presented as having great import for us today. We must learn from Gandhi.<\/p>\n<p>I propose to demonstrate that the film grotesquely distorts both Gandhi\u2019s life and character to the point that it is nothing more than a pious fraud, and a fraud of the most egregious kind. Hackneyed Indian falsehoods such as that \u201cthe British keep trying to break India up\u201d (as if Britain didn\u2019t give India a unity it had never enjoyed in history), or that the British <em>created<\/em> Indian poverty (a poverty which had not only existed since time immemorial but had been considered holy), almost pass unnoticed in the tide of adulation for our fictional saint. Gandhi, admittedly, being a devout Hindu, was far more self-contradictory than most public men. Sanskrit scholars tell me that flat self-contradiction is even considered an element of \u201cSanskrit rhetoric.\u201d Perhaps it is thought to show profundity.<\/p>\n<p>Richard Grenier, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commentarymagazine.com\/articles\/the-gandhi-nobody-knows\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The Gandhi Nobody Knows&#8221;, <em>Commentary<\/em><\/a>, 1983-03-01.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gandhi, therefore, the film, this paid political advertisement for the government of India, is organized around three axes: (1) Anti-racism \u2014 all men are equal regardless of race, color, creed, etc.; (2) anti-colonialism, which in present terms translates as support for the Third World, including, most eminently, India; (3) nonviolence, presented as an absolutist pacifism. 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