Althouse: "He stopped writing and exclaimed: 'Is it five?' I replied with a guilty conscience: 'No, Bapu, it is one minute to five.'"

January 5, 2015

"He stopped writing and exclaimed: 'Is it five?' I replied with a guilty conscience: 'No, Bapu, it is one minute to five.'"

"'Well, Kanti,' he said, 'what is the use of keeping a wristwatch? You have no value of time…Again, you don't respect truth as you know it. Would it have cost more energy to say: It is one minute to five, than to say It is five o'clock?' Thus he went on rebuking me for about fifteen to twenty minutes till it was time for his evening meal."

He = Mahatma Gandhi.

44 comments:

Thorley Winston said...: Sounds like a prick who treated the people around him quite shabbily.; 1/5/15, 7:48 AM
PuertoRicoSpaceport.com said...: He was a crotchety old SOB.

As Nehru(?) said back in the day: "It cost us lots of money to keep Ghandi in poverty."

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend"

from The Man who Shot Liberty Valence

John Henry; 1/5/15, 7:49 AM
Curious George said...: Wabt to learn the truth of Ghandi?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHQkUBd8LGQ; 1/5/15, 7:55 AM
pm317 said...: Here is the context and before and after for the little Althouse excerpt which is totally misleading.

"When the two of them were on a train together, traveling third-class as was the Mahatma’s habit, Gandhi, who was busy writing letters, asked Kanti what time it was, and was told it was five. But the old man’s eyes slanted to the watch on his grandson’s wrist and saw there was still a whole minute to go before five. That was it. The casual glossing over of sixty seconds was treated as a moral lapse:

“He stopped writing and exclaimed: ‘Is it five?’ I replied with a guilty conscience: ‘No, Bapu, it is one minute to five.’ ‘Well, Kanti,’ he said, ‘what is the use of keeping a wristwatch? You have no value of time…Again, you don’t respect truth as you know it. Would it have cost more energy to say: It is one minute to five, than to say It is five o’clock?’ Thus he went on rebuking me for about fifteen to twenty minutes till it was time for his evening meal.”

As is evident from the cheerfully inexact phrase, “about fifteen to twenty minutes,” the young Kanti was unscathed by his grandfather’s critique. "; 1/5/15, 8:01 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Here is the context and before and after for the little Althouse excerpt which is totally misleading."

It wasn't misleading.

And I claim the moral high ground here: I avoided copying too much of an article and linked to the article.

I don't see what's so much more sympathetic in the extra stuff though.; 1/5/15, 8:04 AM
pm317 said...: For someone like me who grew up there steeped in its history and know more about this guy than any commenter on this board, it amuses me to see the righties go after Gandhi and I have never understood why and most of the time they have formed their perception on false narratives of this man. The "prick" single-handedly moved masses to his/their cause which was nothing less than independence from the Brits. And he did it without killing anyone and gave his life for it. That is all you need to know about him.; 1/5/15, 8:08 AM
jr565 said...: Was it one minute to five or was it 4:59:30. If he wants precision Down to the minute why not precision down to the second? Sounds like someone just iked to complain.; 1/5/15, 8:12 AM
pm317 said...: I don't see what's so much more sympathetic in the extra stuff though.

This:

"Gandhi, who was busy writing letters, asked Kanti what time it was, and was told it was five."

"I replied with a guilty conscience: ‘No, Bapu, it is one minute to five.’ ‘Well, Kanti,’ he said, ‘"

"As is evident from the cheerfully inexact phrase, “about fifteen to twenty minutes,”"

The article is about timekeeping and punctuality of Gandhi's and the author is using this event as narrated (perhaps exaggeratedly) to make the point by Kantilal.; 1/5/15, 8:15 AM
jr565 said...: Pm317 wrote:
For someone like me who grew up there steeped in its history and know more about this guy than any commenter on this board, it amuses me to see the righties go after Gandhi and I have never understood why and most of the time they have formed their perception on false narratives of this man. The "prick" single-handedly moved masses to his/their cause which was nothing less than independence from the Brits. And he did it without killing anyone and gave his life for it. That is all you need to know about him."
Most people only know about Ghandi through the movie.
This review opened my eyes about the real Ghandi. Pretty scathing.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-gandhi-nobody-knows/; 1/5/15, 8:17 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Gandhi always saw the glass of urine as half-full.

I am Laslo.; 1/5/15, 8:24 AM
pm317 said...: @jr565..

Yeah, consider the source. The righties don't like him and I have never understood why. Look, he was human and whatever negative thing all his detractors throw at him (and who knows what is true and what is not) pales in comparison to what he accomplished for the country. You should read his autobiography and he was pretty religious about being truthful.; 1/5/15, 8:29 AM
RuyDiaz said...: For those who have never read it, I recommend THE GREATEST MOVIE REVIEW OF ALL TIME: The Ghandi Nobody Knows

Fairly long article but worth your time.; 1/5/15, 8:31 AM
Known Unknown said...: Thus he went on rebuking me for about fifteen to twenty minutes till it was time for his evening meal.”

Thus, irony.; 1/5/15, 8:33 AM
jr565 said...: from The Ghandi Nobody Knows:
And suddenly Gandhi began endorsing violence left, right, and center. During the fearsome rioting in Calcutta he gave his approval to men “using violence in a moral cause.” How could he tell them that violence was wrong, he asked, “unless I demonstrate that nonviolence is more effective?” He blessed the Nawab of Maler Kotla when he gave orders to shoot ten Muslims for every Hindu killed in his state. He sang the praises of Subhas Chandra Bose, who, sponsored by first the Nazis and then the Japanese, organized in Singapore an Indian National Army with which he hoped to conquer India with Japanese support, establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. Meanwhile, after independence in 1947, the armies of the India that Gandhi had created immediately marched into battle, incorporating the state of Hyderabad by force and making war in Kashmir on secessionist Pakistan. When Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist in January 1948 he was honored by the new state with a vast military funeral—in my view by no means inapposite.

_____________

But it is not widely realized (nor will this film tell you) how much violence was associated with Gandhi’s so-called “nonviolent” movement from the very beginning. India’s Nobel Prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, had sensed a strong current of nihilism in Gandhi almost from his first days, and as early as 1920 wrote of Gandhi’s “fierce joy of annihilation,” which Tagore feared would lead India into hideous orgies of devastation—which ultimately proved to be the case. Robert Payne has said that there was unquestionably an “unhealthy atmosphere” among many of Gandhi’s fanatic followers, and that Gandhi’s habit of going to the edge of violence and then suddenly retreating was fraught with danger. “In matters of conscience I am uncompromising,” proclaimed Gandhi proudly. “Nobody can make me yield.” The judgment of Tagore was categorical. Much as he might revere Gandhi as a holy man, he quite detested him as a politician and considered that his campaigns were almost always so close to violence that it was utterly disingenuous to call them nonviolent.

For every satyagraha true believer, moreover, sworn not to harm the adversary or even to lift a finger in his own defense, there were sometimes thousands of incensed freebooters and skirmishers bound by no such vow. Gandhi, to be fair, was aware of this, and nominally deplored it—but with nothing like the consistency shown in the movie. The film leads the audience to believe that Gandhi’s first “fast unto death,” for example, was in protest against an act of barbarous violence, the slaughter by an Indian crowd of a detachment of police constables. But in actual fact Gandhi reserved this “ultimate weapon” of his to interdict a 1931 British proposal to grant Untouchables a “separate electorate” in the Indian national legislature—in effect a kind of affirmative-action program for Untouchables. For reasons I have not been able to decrypt, Gandhi was dead set against the project, but I confess it is another scene I would like to have seen in the movie: Gandhi almost starving himself to death to block affirmative action for Untouchables."
Ha ha. So what's depicted as a fast in the movie to stop the violence was in reality a fast to prevent untouchables a separate electorate.
This rightie loved the movie Ghandi, but after reading this review saw that in fact is was one of the biggest cons in the history of movies.; 1/5/15, 8:37 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "The article is about timekeeping and punctuality of Gandhi's and the author is using this event as narrated (perhaps exaggeratedly) to make the point by Kantilal."

You still haven't answered my question. What's more sympathetic about the material you think is so important to add?

It's a verbosely told anecdote, and what I excluded is inferred from what I included.

Gandhi had an intense and moralistic attitude about time precision.

It is what it is.

You seem to want to make a point, but you're not expressing it intelligibly.; 1/5/15, 8:45 AM
mikee said...: Would the anecdote have any different meaning if the two people were a German grandfather and his grandson, or a US Senator and his grandson, or a poor black illiterate southerner and his grandson?

Just asking, because what I see is an old man chastising a young person for not using all the tools available to him, thus demonstrating that with privilege comes power.; 1/5/15, 9:05 AM
ganderson said...: In addition to "the Gandhi Nobody Knows"- well worth one's time, IMHO, Paul Johnson had Gandhi pretty well pegged in Modern Times-

"About the Gandhi phenomenon there was always a strong aroma of the twentieth century humbug...
...Yet he continued to play the sorcerer's apprentice while the casualty bill mounted into hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, and the risks of gigantic sectarian violence and racial accumulation exploded."

Gandhi's "nonviolence" resulted in the deaths of, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands.; 1/5/15, 9:06 AM
Paco Wové said...: Was the watch accurate enough that a one-minute difference was significant? I'm guessing probably not.; 1/5/15, 9:19 AM
jr565 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/5/15, 9:28 AM
JAORE said...: "For someone like me who grew up steeped in its history and know more about this guy than any commenter on this board..."

Don't know enough of the details to comment on Gandhi with any true insight. But I will note that close proximity is often not the most advantageous viewpoint.; 1/5/15, 9:30 AM
dbp said...: A good watch back then could be expected to be off by some large fraction of a minute, or more. So wasting 15-20 over one minute seems petty.

OTOH, if Indians of then are like the ones I know now--maybe Gandhi was railing against "Indian Standard Time".; 1/5/15, 9:30 AM
Michael K said...: ""About the Gandhi phenomenon there was always a strong aroma of the twentieth century humbug..."

And about Nehru, as well.

India is finally recovering from their premature throwing off of the British rule. It might have done them good if Chandra Rose and the Japanese had taken India. They would have shot a lot of Gandhi supporters and probably Gandhi, himself. After several years of that, they might have welcomed the British back.; 1/5/15, 9:30 AM
Fernandinande said...: what is the use of keeping a wristwatch?

Cultural appropriation.; 1/5/15, 9:35 AM
pm317 said...: You still haven't answered my question. What's more sympathetic about the material you think is so important to add?

Oh, I thought I did, with the highlighted lines from the before and after (your excerpt). Your excerpt makes Gandhi look like a 'prick' in commenters view. But with context, it shows the grandfather Gandhi 'lecturing' his grandson on the importance of accuracy. The grandson Kanti told him the time was 5 when it was actually one minute to 5 and when Gandhi realized what he had done, the grandson acknowledged it guiltily. And the lecturing going on for 10-15 minutes was an inexact phrase, exaggerated by the grandson (or the author of the article) to make the point. So it is not like Gandhi was berating some lowly peon for his stumble which is what your excerpt makes commenters think and therefore, it is misleading.; 1/5/15, 9:46 AM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: He does come off as a bit of a national socialist:

“You may not waste a grain of rice or a scrap of paper, and similarly a minute of your time,” he wrote. “It is not ours. It belongs to the nation and we are trustees for the use of it.” Consequently, any abuse of time was unethical. “One who does less than he can is a thief,” he wrote to a friend.; 1/5/15, 10:06 AM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: This also brings to mind Mussolini making the trains run on time.; 1/5/15, 10:09 AM
William said...: I understand that he liked to give under aged girls enemas......As a revolutionary leader, he didn't take his country off a cliff the way Lenin and Mao did, but it seems that many of his policies were misguided. I don't know that much about him, but he had many qualities that were quite weird. I wonder if his reputation will hold up in future generations.; 1/5/15, 10:38 AM
Anonymous said...: The "prick" single-handedly moved masses to his/their cause which was nothing less than independence from the Brits.

Which is inconsistent with being a prick... how?; 1/5/15, 10:52 AM
Hagar said...: "The Brits" provided a government for India at a period when the other option was warlord anarchy. Things could have gotten a lot worse.; 1/5/15, 10:59 AM
Hagar said...: "My name is George Nathanael Curzon,
I am a most superior person."

"A seditious Temple lawyer, made up to resemble a Hindoo fakir of a type common in the East."; 1/5/15, 11:13 AM
pm317 said...: "The Brits" provided a government for India at a period when the other option was warlord anarchy. Things could have gotten a lot worse.

Yeah, by the same token the black slaves brought to the US should be happy. Things could have gotten a lot worse.

The Brits were not doing any charity work giving India a govt. They plundered the wealth and enslaved the rightful owners. There is nothing good about colonization.; 1/5/15, 11:35 AM
Known Unknown said...: "The Brits were not doing any charity work giving India a govt. They plundered the wealth and enslaved the rightful owners. There is nothing good about colonization."

A very strange cognitive dissonance came to me while standing behind an Indian couple in line to see the crown jewels at the Tower of London.; 1/5/15, 11:55 AM
Hagar said...: To some extent, yes.

The black slaves (come to think of it, why this limitation to "black slaves"? What about those of other colors?) could be relieved that at least they did not get delivered to the Caribbean or Brazil. And note that there never has been any enthusiasm among "American Blacks" for being repatriated to Africa. This has always been largely a "White" notion.

And, yes, if you are going to be colonized by somebody, and you have a choice, choose the Brits.
And if you can't get the Brits, try for the Americans.; 1/5/15, 12:06 PM
Michael K said...: "There is nothing good about colonization."

You might ask a few citizens of Zimbabwe before getting too sure about that. Of course, the excuse is always that the colonialists left a mess. No mention of what was there before they came.; 1/5/15, 1:10 PM
Diamondhead said...: "About the Gandhi phenomenon there was always a strong aroma of the twentieth century humbug...
...Yet he continued to play the sorcerer's apprentice while the casualty bill mounted into hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, and the risks of gigantic sectarian violence and racial accumulation exploded."

That's a plus for leftists. You might have better luck telling them about his racism.; 1/5/15, 1:54 PM
ken in tx said...: The partition of India and Pakistan resulted in the deaths of lots of people, and it is a direct result of Gandhi's efforts.; 1/5/15, 2:24 PM
Hagar said...: As near as I can find out the European - not just British - population in India (including todays Pakistan and Bangladesh, etc.?) at most amounted to 1 per ~2,000 "native" inhabitants, and there never was any substantial superiority of weaponry involved.

I do not see that this is could have been possible otherwise than that the local people felt that however much they disliked the Brits, they were still preferable to the alternatives.

At that, the predecessor empire on the Indian sub-continent was the Mughal Empire - resulting from a mixed Mongol-Afghani military conquest in the 16th century. That is who "India" should belong to?; 1/5/15, 2:46 PM
Hagar said...: Judging from what I see on "Prime Minister's Questions," I would guess that the present Indian/Pakistani population in the British Isles is substantially higher than 1 : 2000.; 1/5/15, 4:37 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Your excerpt makes Gandhi look like a 'prick' in commenters view."

In your head.

That's your issue, not mine.; 1/5/15, 5:23 PM
pm317 said...: In your head.

That's your issue, not mine.

Haha.. you plucked that one sentence to come back at me. Did you even read the rest of my comment? Don't you see the logic in why I call your excerpt misleading given the context? Sometimes, you act like just any other social media nutcase instead of a professor. When you do it with others I am generally surprised but getting the taste of it now myself.; 1/5/15, 6:03 PM
Anonymous said...: Sometimes, you act like just any other social media nutcase instead of a professor.

"sometimes"?

Are you TOTALLY new to this blog?; 1/5/15, 6:53 PM
Skyler said...: So Gandhi was a pedantic, neurotic, national socialist. Who knew? Well, everyone who paid attention. What's odd is that the author of this article was obviously trying to paint him as endearing, but to the non brain-washed reader he clearly is a jerk. And a dictator wannabe.; 1/6/15, 4:07 AM
Sigivald said...: Gandhi was an asshole.

This is no secret, if one pays attention to anything but hagiography.; 1/6/15, 12:32 PM
Sigivald said...: There is nothing good about colonization

Except for, you know, crippling the caste system, abolishing suttee, and all that.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

("Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

- attributed to Sir Charles Napier); 1/6/15, 12:36 PM