Gandhi refused to let his dying wife take penicillin yet took quinine to save himself
The following is a chapter from a sampler of “50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know vol. 2” (download the 4.8Mb pdf) by Russ Kick (also here) of Disinformation fame.
One of the foibles of Gandhi Russ doesn’t mention is his sleeping with virgins to test his libido. In his later years, the great Mahatma would sleep with nubile teen girls (including his granddaughter) to prove his celibacy and to test libidinous urges. I wonder if he ever said the morning after, “Well, I tried but failed, oh well if at first you don’t succeed…”Gandhi is often ranked, directly or subtly, alongside Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King, Jr. as one of the greatest peacemakers – indeed, one of the greatest human beings – of all time. The mythology that surrounds him – which he built, leaving his followers, admirers, and hagiographers to reinforce and embellish – has almost completely smothered the many unflattering facts about him.
In such a compact book, space doesn’t permit a full exploration of Gandhi’s numerous, consequential skeletons – his racism towards blacks and whites, his betrayal of the Untouchables, his acquiescence toward the Nazis. Instead, let’s focus on something more personal and, in some ways, more upsetting.
In August 1942, Gandhi and his wife, Kasturba, among others, were imprisoned by the British in
The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi quotes him on February 19, 1944: “If God wills it, He will pull her through.” Gandhi: A Life adds this wisdom from the Mahatma: “You cannot cure your mother now, no matter what wonder drugs you may muster. She is in God’s hands now.” Three days later, Devadas was still pushing for the penicillin, but Gandhi shot back: “Why don’t you trust God?” Kasturba dies that day.
The next night, Gandhi cried out: “But how God tested my faith!” He told one of Kasturba’s doctors that the antibiotic wouldn’t have saved her and that allowing her to have it would have meant the bankruptcy of my faith.” (Emphasis mine.)
But Gandhi’s faith wasn’t much of an obstacle a short time later when it was his ass on the line. A mere six weeks after Kasturba died, Gandhi was flattened by malaria. He stuck to an all-liquid diet as his doctors tried to convince him to take quinine. But Gandhi completely refused and died of the disease, right? No, actually, after three weeks of deterioration, he took the diabolical drug and quickly recovered. That stuff about trusting God’s will and testing faith only applied when his wife’s life hung in the balance. When he needed a drug to stave off the Grim Reaper, down the hatch it went.
There you go, one of humanity’s modern heroes alas all too fallible, selfish, egocentric, dishonest, in a word, normal. Why millions require his deification*1 (or indeed deification of any human be it Gandhi, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses or Jesus) is still the malaise of the species. A case of “prophets before people” as exemplified by the recent cartoon affair will plague us for a long time yet. We await the posthuman.
*1 He is literally worshipped akin to a god by millions in
tags: lies, crap, debunk, hero, myth, biography, book
posted by kam | 10:37 AM
16 Comments:
Why do you feel it necessarry to denegrate great people like Gandhi? Who the fuck are you and what makes you so great? Cunt.
Way to miss the point. He's arguing that humans have a depressing tendency to deify people who, while great, are unworthy of unquestioning worship.
The only way to argue this point is to take someone who's universally considered an almost flawless human being, and demonstrate that they do, in fact, have flaws.
Was Ghandi a great man? Yes. Does this take away from all the good he did? No. Was Ghandi perfect, beyond reproach and therefore suitable for elevation to almost godhood? Pull your head out of your arse.
He was a human being. A great and (mostly) noble human being, but a human being nevertheless. He was cranky sometimes, hypocritical at others, and his shit smelt just as bad as yours. Stop turning him into some abstract holy glove-puppet figurehead and dignify him with proper consideration as a person.
He was a truly great person, but ultimately, he was still a person. Not a god.
But, y'know, I appreciate how nice it is to think in simple black-and-white generalities, always following the heard and vociferously defending the status-quo. After all, dropping the stereotypes and actually thinking for two seconds is so much effort...
Gandhi has humiliated (not defeated) British to leave India during independence struggle which I believe is a highly debatable strategy.
I think this just solidifies the fact that we cannot look to our own species for nobility of character. Gandhi was a person like the rest of us, and, as such, succeptible to being mentally deficient.
Perhaps Gandhi accepted Quinine because it is not quite so artifiial or man made as penicillin. According to wikipedia quinine is "extracted from the bark of the South American cinchona tree" and thus could be considered to be more similar to the waters of the Ganges than to modern manufactured drugs. Of course, your article wouldn't have been quite so sensational had it contained this information. I don't think it unreasonable for Gandhi to mistrust a NEW man made drug derived from mold. I'm not defending Gandhi's choice, but it is not so cold or hypocrytical as you might have us believe. Moreover, I don't see how you've shown that selfishness, egocentrism, or dishonesty are demonstrated by his choice; hort-sighted and closeminded perhaps but not those other things.
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Perhaps Gandhi accepted Quinine because it is not quite so artificial or man made as penicillin. According to wikipedia quinine is "extracted from the bark of the South American cinchona tree" and thus could be considered to be more similar to the waters of the Ganges than to modern manufactured drugs. Of course, your article wouldn't have been quite so sensational had it contained this information. I don't think it unreasonable for Gandhi to mistrust a NEW man made drug derived from mold. I'm not defending Gandhi's choice, but it is not so cold or hypocritical as you might have us believe. Moreover, I don't see how you've shown that selfishness, egocentrism, or dishonesty are demonstrated by his choice; short-sighted and close-minded perhaps but not those other things. The post was a worthwhile read despite my objections.
p.s. - if this comment appears twice, blame my horrible typing/spelling skills.
He was human. A great man! and may have made a mistake....anyone knows of infallible humans? This doesn’t diminish all the great things he did.
There is no doubt that Gandhi was a great human being. And very smart too. And yet, there is no reason to say or believe that everything he said or did was good. More than anything what i did not like about him is the fact that he thinks he is the only one who is correct and does not give others the right to believe or do things in the way they want to do. This is very autocratic and non-indian way of doing things. Yet, he was smart, ahead of the leaders of his times, and made a huge contribution in the freedom of India. He is also responsible for many problems of today in India as well. Here is an interesting story.
Gandhi eldest son was very bright in studies, but those days Gandhi gave a call to the youth to give up studies and colleges run by british and join freedom struggle. But his son, very interested in studies, wanted to keep going to college. His uncle and other family members also tried to persuade Gandhi to let him continue with his life as an adult. Gandhi wanted to lead by example and told his son that if he does not comply, he will be stop having any relationship wth him and deem his as dead. His son continued his studies. Gandhi refused to see him though out his life. As an elder Hindu son, his right to lit dead fathers pyre was also removed by Gandhi. To me this is one of the most shameful thngs Gandhi did. This said, I again feel that Gandhi is still greater than most of us and we really dont really deserve a privilage to critisize him.
It really isn't every day that one gets to read that quinine is closer to water from the Ganges than penicillin, but thank you, I am grateful for the opportunity.
Sleeping with young girls? That, I'm afraid, really does detract from the man unless, of course, they volunteered.
Just for the record, penicillin is any of a large group of natural or semisynthetic antibacterial antibiotics derived directly or indirectly from strains of fungi of the genus Penicillium and other soil-inhabiting fungi. Back in the 40's only the natural sort (obtained from the Penicillium mould) was used. As far as I know, fungi are not yet in the "artificial" category and are surely not "man made".
However, I agree the discussion misses the point, to err is human and Ghandi himself was not above error. His deeds and ideas however, should not be judged through the weakness of the human. He never claimed not to be weak and he struggled all his life to go beyond his weakness. For a start it might be useful to read his autobiography www.forget-me.net/en/Gandhi/autobiography.pdf
Gandhi gave us Pakistan, Gandhi murdered Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukh Dev.
After splitting India into two, he's called " Father of the Nation "- UNACCEPTABLE.
India has only one hero and thats Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Without the bravery of his INA,
India would never have been free.
This Gandhi...whoever he is, is a fraud....lick ma ass GANDI
Raqndom thought... you can't say Ghandi toook Quinine because it's not as man made as penicilline because penicilline can be natural, such as that which grows on moldy bread (mold contains penacilline.)
finally someone who shares the same opinion of Gandhi as me. honestly, i feel that people overglorify everything. my friend WORSHIPS Gandhi and totally disagrees with me because she feels that everybody makes mistakes and that he was a good man with good intentions. well i say that's bs, because you can say the same thing with Hitler and him having good intentions for trying to redeem his country.
Take what he taught us and use it to free the world. He may have made mistakes. But we are all human and we all have limitations in a mortal body. You have sinned, just has he has. To be a strong and true person means to not differentiate between people. View them all as family. We are all one in the end
Haha. Yes, Patrick I agree with you. If he took Quinine only because it was closer to nature than penicillin, why did he refuse it so many times before? He should have taken it as soon as the doctors offered it to him, because according to you people penicillin is 'natural'. Why have doubts?
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