[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 159 (Tuesday, December 13, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2508-E2509]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    RACISM OF INDIAN FOUNDER EXPOSED

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 13, 2005

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, the unveiling of a statue of Mohandas K. 
Gandhi in Johannesburg, South Africa, set off a discussion about the 
anti-black racism of the founder of India.
  When the eight-foot high Gandhi statue was unveiled, portraying him 
as a young human-rights lawyer, many leaders attacked Gandhi's anti-
black statements. ``Gandhi had no love for Africans,'' said one letter 
in The Citizen, a South African newspaper. ``To him, Africans were no 
better than the `Untouchables' of India.''
  As you may know, Mr. Speaker, the dark-skinned aborigines of the 
subcontinent, known as Dalits or ``Untouchables,'' occupy the lowest 
rung on the ladder of India's rigid and racist caste system. The caste 
system exists to protect the privileged position of the Brahmins, the 
top caste. Although it was officially banned by India's constitution in 
1950, it is still strictly practiced in Hindu India.
  Others have pointed out that Gandhi ignored the suffering of black 
people during the colonial occupation of South Africa. When he was 
arrested and forced to share a cell with black prisoners, he wrote that 
they were ``only one degree removed from the animal.'' In other words, 
Mr. Speaker, he described blacks as less than human. We condemn anyone 
who says this in our country, such as the Ku Klux Klan and others, as 
we should. Why is Gandhi venerated for such statements?
  In addition, G.B. Singh, a Gandhi biographer, has looked through many 
pictures of him and never seen one single black person. Gandhi also 
attacked white Europeans.
  Gandhi is honored as the founder of India. These statements and 
attitudes reveal the racist underpinning behind the secular, democratic 
facade of India. It explains a worldview that permits a Dalit constable 
to be stoned to death for entering the temple on a rainy day, that 
allows the murders of over 300,000 Christians in Nagaland, over 250,000 
Sikhs in Punjab, Khalistan, over 90,000 Muslims in Kashmir, tens of 
thousands of Christians and Muslims elsewhere in the country, including 
Graham Staines and his two young sons, and tens of thousands of 
Assamese, Bodos, Dalits, Manipuris, Tamils, and other minorities. It 
explains why the pro-Fascist, Hindu militant RSS is a powerful 
organization in India, in control of one of its two major political 
parties.
  India must abandon its racist attitudes and its exploitation of 
minorities. It must allow the enjoyment of full human rights by 
everyone. Until it does so, we should stop our aid and trade with 
India. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, the essence of democracy is the right 
to self-determination. India must allow self-determination for Kashmir, 
as it promised the United Nations in 1948, in Punjab, Khalistan, in 
Nagaland, and wherever the people seek to free themselves from the boot 
of Indian oppression. We should put this Congress on record in support 
of self-determination for the people of the subcontinent in the form of 
a free and fair plebiscite on the question of independence. Khalistan 
declared its independence on October 7, 1987. The people have never 
been allowed to have a simple, democratic vote on the matter. Instead, 
India continues to oppress the people there with over half a million 
troops.
  Mr. Speaker, reporter Rory Carroll of The Guardian wrote an excellent 
article on the controversy about the Gandhi statue. I would like to 
place it in the Record at this time.

                  [The Guardian, Friday Oct. 17, 2003]

     Gandhi Branded Racist as Johannesburg Honours Freedom Fighter

                           (By Rory Carroll)

       It was supposed to honour his resistance to racism in South 
     Africa, but a new statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg 
     has triggered a row over his alleged contempt for black 
     people. The 2.5 metre high (8ft) bronze statue depicting 
     Gandhi as a dashing young human rights lawyer has been 
     welcomed by Nelson Mandela, among others, for recognising the 
     Indian who launched the fight against white minority rule at 
     the turn of the last century.

[[Page E2509]]

       But critics have attacked the gesture for overlooking 
     racist statements attributed to Gandhi, which suggest he 
     viewed black people as lazy savages who were barely human.
       Newspapers continue to publish letters from indignant 
     readers: ``Gandhi had no love for Africans. To [him], 
     Africans were no better than the `Untouchables' of India,'' 
     said a correspondent to The Citizen.
       Others are harsher, claiming the civil rights icon 
     ``hated'' black people and ignored their suffering at the 
     hands of colonial masters while championing the cause of 
     Indians.
       Unveiled this month, the statue stands in Gandhi Square in 
     central Johannesburg, not far from the office from which he 
     worked during some of his 21 years in South Africa.
       The British-trained barrister was supposed to have been on 
     a brief visit in 1893 to represent an Indian company in a 
     legal action, but he stayed to fight racist laws after a 
     conductor kicked him off a train for sitting in a first-class 
     compartment reserved for whites.
       Outraged, he started defending Indians charged with failing 
     to register for passes and other political offences, founded 
     a newspaper, and formed South Africa's first organised 
     political resistance movement. His tactics of mobilising 
     people for passive resistance and mass protest inspired black 
     people to organise and some historians credit Gandhi as the 
     progenitor of the African National Congress, which formed in 
     1912, two years before he returned to India to fight British 
     colonial rule.
       However, the new statue has prompted bitter recollections 
     about some of Gandhi's writings.
       Forced to share a cell with black people, he wrote: ``Many 
     of the native prisoners are only one degree removed from the 
     animal and often created rows and fought among themselves.''
       He was quoted at a meeting in Bombay in 1896 saying that 
     Europeans sought to degrade Indians to the level of the ``raw 
     kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition 
     is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, 
     and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness''.
       The Johannesburg daily This Day said GB Singh, the author 
     of a critical book about Gandhi, had sifted through photos of 
     Gandhi in South Africa and found not one black person in his 
     vicinity.
       The Indian embassy in Pretoria declined to comment, as it 
     prepared for President Thabo Mbeki's visit to India.
       Khulekani Ntshangase, a spokesman for the ANC Youth League, 
     defended Gandhi, saying the critics missed the bigger picture 
     of his immense contribution to the liberation struggle.
       Gandhi's offending comments were made early in his life 
     when he was influenced by Indians working on the sugar 
     plantations and did not get on with the black people of 
     modern-day KwaZulu-Natal province, said Mr. Ntshangase.
       ``Later he got more enlightened.''

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