Was Gandhi a Racist?

Was Gandhi a Racist? Lecture delivered on behalf of the Gandhi Peace Festival in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on 17 October 2020. In this lecture, I consider the allegation, made specifically with reference to Gandhi's life and career in South Africa, that he was a racist. The charges are fundamentally two, namely that he used derogatory language against Black South Africans, referring to them as "kaffirs" and "savages", and that, secondly, he did not involve them in the least in the struggle against injustice. The authors of a recent and widely cited critical study of his South African years have added other charges, such as the fact that Gandhi remained throughout loyal to the British empire, and that he did not fight for the rights of indentured Indians laborers as much as he did for the rights of the wealthy Indians. As I argue, Gandhi stands indicted of these charges; and, yet, as I argue even forcefully, the charges are not merely mistaken, but indeed reflect what can be described as the limited moral compass of his accusers. The idea is not to mount a defense of Gandhi, but rather to suggest that the entire enterprise of finding him "guilty" is without much moral, political, or even practical purpose. Besides, there is enough in Gandhi's own writings to indict him; he furnishes the very tools we need to critique him, and the recent attempts to show him as a moral hypocrite who was a "racist" can only be viewed as unfortunate and ill-advised.