The 'Hindu' guy is the best example of the cruel caste system, which Gandhi supported.

What could have been bit more sensible(for Zizek), I believe, is perhaps endorsement of the fact that the present day Global militarism and suppression of peoples' democratic rights within and outside the US ( of course supported by the Zionist ally Israel and few state powers elsewhere) give rise to unprecedented violence world over, even of a higher order than even Hitler could imagine in his variety of fascism.

Gandhi "more violent" than Hitler?
And, hence, Hitler more peace loving, or at least less "violent", than Gandhi???

Hitler, in any case, is unparallel in modern human history. He put, racist (purity of Aryan blood etc.) and even otherwise, hatred and violence on a pedestal and then executed on a mind-boggling scale.

And Gandhi, one can very well have one's own assessment - from angel to crook, but bracketing with - nay "more violent" than, Hitler!!!.
Just to recall, he was "martyred", because he went on an indefinite fast to force the GoI release the funds due to Pakistan, the enemy state, held up on account of the Kashmir war. That was the final trigger.
Even if one forgets the legendary foot marches by this indomitable spirit through blood spewing riot torn districts - Noakhali and (in) Bihar - without any "protection" whatever. And his interventions in Calcutta and Delhi.

A mind-boggling obscenity!

Perhaps I like to brush aside Zizek's negative remark on Gandhi, which best betrays his novice in Indian affairs.
I'll rather consider more important his conclusion here, in the interview
" I am here to know more about India. I must frankly admit that
till now I ignored India. But for sometime, a storm was gathering
inside me and now it exploded and now I am here. I am reading books on
India. I started with the laws of Manu. I am here to study how the
modern and tradition co-exist together amid contradictions of
globalization. I have more hopes from India than China because in
China something very dangerous is happening. It all started in
Singapore -- capitalism with Asian values, which is actually
authoritarian capitalism. Till now, there was one good thing to say
about capitalism -- democracy. I am afraid what’s now emerging in the
Far East (we all know that Deng Xiaoping went to Singapore and said
this is the model for all of China). It’s the new capitalism. It’s
more dynamic than the western capitalism. And I don’t believe my
liberal friends who believe that in another 10 years in china there
will be another Tiananmen".

It appears ridiculous, isn't it? How can one even imagine- I think the so called intellectual would need to live in concentration camps, holocaust, gestapo, Nazi rule to appreciate freedom to ridicule Gandhi, freedom to walk away from his movement, freedom to even kill him. But other day I was reading something called Anekantvad and syadvad of Jainism, using these tools, I can perhaps begin to understand ( I am not still sure, I can) from where the philosopher is coming. Leftist believe in controlled systems, for someone trained in classical communism, probably gestapo, and concentration camps will not be so unacceptable as there are gulags and thought police in communism too. The forced dictatorship of proletariot- that is all. Hitler is familiar to closed communist systems, but Gandhi and Nehru with their espousal of the same burgeoise democracy of Britishers were not achieving anything and were feeding all energy into maintaining status quo.
For him Gandhi with his reliance on human nature and freedom- would look like horrifying Kafkasque version of reality as to us Naxzims or communism dictatorship would be.

altoghether a new perspective ,just loved it .......

the Indians have become the pariahs of the Empire, it is retributive justice meted out to us by a just God. Should we Hindus not wash our blood-stained hands before we ask the English wash theirs? ...........so long Hindus wishfully regard untouchability as a part of their religion, so long Swaraj is impossible. India is guilty, England has done nothing blacker.

Dr B.R.Ambedkar married a Brahmin girl, Dr Savita Kabir. That was after the assassination of the Mahatma. When Dr Ambedkar saw Pyare Lal standing before the present Khadi Bhandar, Connaught Place, he got down from the car, went up to him and said: ‘Had Bapu been alive, he would have blessed our marriage. We did not understand him.’

On September 6, 1954 speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Dr Ambedkar paid Mahatma Gandhi the highest tribute when he said: ‘All of us (that is, including Ambedkar himself) knew that the Dalits were the nearest and dearest to him.’

Superstition is a great enemy of man, but bigotry is worse. Why does a Christian go to church? Why is the cross holy? Why is the face turned toward the sky in prayer? Why are there so many images in the Catholic Church? Why are there so many images in the minds of Protestants when they pray? My brethren, we can no more think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing. By the law of association, the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa. This is why the Hindu uses an external symbol when he worships. He will tell you, it helps to keep his mind fixed on the Being to whom he prays. He knows as well as you do that the image is not God, is not omnipresent. After all, how much does omnipresence mean to almost the whole world? It stands merely as a word, a symbol. Has God superficial area? If not, when we repeat that word "omnipresent" we think of the extended sky or of space, that is all.

As we find that somehow or other, by the laws of our mental constitution, we have to associate our ideas of infinity with the image of the blue sky, or of the sea, so we naturally connect our idea of holiness with the image of a church, a mosque, or a cross. The Hindus have associated the idea of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and such other ideas with different images and forms. But with this difference that while some people devote their whole lives to their idol of a church and never rise higher, because with them religion means an intellectual assent to certain doctrines and doing good to their fellows, the whole religion of the Hindu is centred in realisation. Man is to become divine by realising the divine. Idols or temples or churches or books are only the supports, the helps, of his spiritual childhood: but on and on he must progress.
If a man can realise his divine nature with the help of an image, would it be right to call that a sin? To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. To him all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realise the Infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of these marks a stage of progress; and every soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and more strength, till it reaches the Glorious Sun.

Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recognised it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adopt them. It places before society only one coat which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike. If it does not fit John or Henry, he must go without a coat to cover his body. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realised, or thought of, or stated, through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols so many pegs to hang the spiritual ideas on. It is not that this is necessary for every one, but those that do not want it have no right to say that it is wrong. Nor is it compulsory in Hinduism.

The Hindus have their faults, they sometimes have their exceptions; but mark this, they are always for punishing their own bodies, and never for cutting the throats of their neighbours. If the Hindu fanatic burns himself on the pyre, he never lights the fire of Inquisition. And even this cannot be laid at the door of his religion any more than the burning of witches can be laid at the door of Christianity.

To the Hindu, then, the whole world of religions is only a travelling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goal. Every religion is only evolving a God out of the material man, and the same God is the inspirer of all of them. Why, then, are there so many contradictions? They are only apparent, says the Hindu. The contradictions come from the same truth adapting itself to the varying circumstances of different natures.
It is the same light coming through glasses of different colours. And these little variations are necessary for purposes of adaptation. But in the heart of everything the same truth reigns. The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as Krishna, “I am in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there” And what has been the result? I challenge the world to find, throughout the whole system of Sanskrit philosophy, any such expression as that the Hindu alone will be saved and not others. Says Vyasa, “We find perfect men even beyond the pale of our caste and creed.” One thing more. How, then, can the Hindu, whose whole fabric of thought centres in God, believe in Buddhism which is agnostic, or in Jainism which is atheistic?

A few words about the life of Krishna. There is a great deal of similarity between the lives of Jesus and Krishna. A discussion is going on as to which borrowed of the other. There was the tyrannical king in both places. Both were born in a manger. The parents were bound in both cases. Both were saved by angels. In both cases all the boys born in that year were killed. The childhood is the same. ... Again, in the end, both were killed. Krishna was killed by accident; he took the man who killed him to heaven. Christ was killed, and blessed the robber and took him to heaven. There are a great many similarities in of the New Testament and the Gita.

The Hindus worship the same God as the Christians. The Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva is merely an embodiment of God the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer. That the three are considered three instead of one, is simply a corruption due to the fact that general humanity must have its ethics made tangible. So likewise the material images of Hindu Gods are simply symbols of divine qualities.

In religion India has exerted a great influence on Christianity, as the very teachings of Christ would [could] be traced back to those of Buddha. Quotations from the works of European and American scientists raise the many points of similarity between Buddha and Christ. The latter's birth, his seclusion from the world, the number of his apostles, and the very ethics of his teachings are the same as those of Buddha, living many hundred years before him.

The same holds good with respect to sciences. India has given to antiquity the earliest scientifical physicians, and, according to Sir William Hunter, she has even contributed to modern medical science by the discovery of various chemicals and by teaching you how to reform misshapen ears and noses. Even more it has done in mathematics, for algebra, geometry, astronomy, and the triumph of modern science ??? mixed mathematics ??? were all invented in India, just so much as the ten numerals, the very cornerstone of all present civilization, were discovered in India, and are in reality, Sanskrit words.

In philosophy we are even now head and shoulders above any other nation, as Schopenhauer, the great German philosopher, has confessed. In music India gave to the world her system of notation, with the seven cardinal notes and the diatonic scale, all of which we enjoyed as early as 350 B.C., while it came to Europe only in the eleventh century. In philology, our Sanskrit language is now universally acknowledged to be the foundation of all European languages, which, in fact, are nothing but jargonized Sanskrit.

In literature, our epics and poems and dramas rank as high as those of any language; our 'Shaguntala' [Shakuntala] was summarized by Germany's greatest poet, as 'heaven and earth united'. India has given to the world the fables of Aesop, which were copied by Aesop from an old Sanskrit book; it has given the Arabian Nights, yes, even the story of Cinderella and the Bean Stalks. In manufacture, India was the first to make cotton and purple [dye], it was proficient in all works of jewelry, and the very word 'sugar', as well as the article itself, is the product of India. Lastly she has invented the game of chess and the cards and the dice. So great, in fact, was the superiority of India in every respect, that it drew to her borders the hungry cohorts of Europe, and thereby indirectly brought about the discovery of America.

And now, what has the world given to India in return for all that? Nothing but nullification [vilification] and curse and contempt. The world waded in her children's life-blood, it reduced India to poverty and her sons and daughters to slavery, and now it adds insult to injury by preaching to her a religion which can only thrive on the destruction of every other religion. But India is not afraid. It does not beg for mercy at the hands of any nation. Our only fault is that we cannot: fight to conquer; but we trust in the eternity of truth. India's message to the world is first of all, her blessing; she is returning good for the evil which is done her, and thus she puts into execution this noble idea, which had its origin in India. Lastly, India's message is, that calm goodness, patience and gentleness will ultimately triumph. For where are the Greeks, the onetime masters of the earth? They are gone. Where are the Romans, at the tramp of whose cohorts the world trembled? Passed away. Where are the Arabs, who in fifty years had carried their banners from the Atlantic to the Pacific? and where are the Spaniards, the cruel murderers of millions of men? Thanks to the morality of her children, the kinder race will never perish, and she will yet see the hour of her triumph.

Why is the Hindu going berserk? Please learn to digest some truth, even if its bitter.

Zizek is right... i agree with him 100 percent. the people who think Gandhi was a saint are wrong. But for his idiotic policies, the British would have left the country much earlier.

Well It appears to me that Salvoj do not understand meaning of Voilence. He is trying to uphold his views for physical violence but there are Mental, moral and spiritual violence which he himself is committing while using violenece in his words and thoughts!! Amazing!!
I'm not a fan of Gandhi nor of Ambedkar, neither a Buddhist or a follower who beleives that physical killing is only violence.

Sir- I deeply request you to read Indian scriptures like Vedas and Puranas first. Grasp their meaning Donot try to understand them, apply in your life and then become that potential to comment on other

zizek is one of those guys who is a bit too smart for his own good, but if it helps him make a harmless living i guess who is anybody to protest. aside from that, i think we should quit all this crap about which is better, indian culture or western culture and so on. the fact is, things are not so different in the east or west, neither is the literature, religion and, yes, even culture. we just delude ourselves into believing there is a difference. circumstances may make things look different from the outside, but that's all. no culture is so superior over the other. and if given the chance, indians would act just like the westerners and vice versa. astounding though it may seem , hard as it may be to swallow, that is the truth. accept the universality of people, and the world becomes clearer. we have a religion that says not just the world, but the whole Universe is One. But eastern culture and western culture are different? it's a myth that the east is more spiritual and the west commercial. only the circumstances are different

zizek is one of those guys who is a bit too smart for his own good, but if it helps him make a harmless living i guess who is anybody to protest. aside from that, i think we should quit all this crap about which is better, indian culture or western culture and so on. the fact is, things are not so different in the east or west, neither is the literature, religion and, yes, even culture. we just delude ourselves into believing there is a difference. circumstances may make things look different from the outside, but that's all. no culture is so superior over the other. and if given the chance, indians would act just like the westerners and vice versa. astounding though it may seem , hard as it may be to swallow, that is the truth. accept the universality of people, and the world becomes clearer. we have a religion that says not just the world, but the whole Universe is One. But eastern culture and western culture are different? it's a myth that the east is more spiritual and the west commercial. only the circumstances are different

Isshvasya Upanishad:

Purnamadah, purnamidam l
Purnat purnamudacyate l
Purnasya purnamadaya l
Purnameva avasisyate.

That is complete, this is complete;
From that completeness comes this completeness.
When completeness is taken away from completeness,
Completeness alone remains.

This is the law of conservation of energy as it is now known to scientists. It states that energy or its equivalent in mass can neither be created nor destroyed. The sum total of mass and energy remains constant. Nothing extra can be added to it nor can anything be subtracted from it. That completeness is Brahman--the ever complete Reality that exists even in the vacuum. Brahman manifests in various forms and cannot be subjected to addition or subtraction.

As death is only disintegration of the body, and not of the soul, the law of cause and effect continues to operate beyond death--forms the crux of Hindu spirituality. The tiniest pebble thrown into water produces a ripple. The disturbance is then carried onward in ever-widening circles on the water. One ripple may cut across, add itself to, and be merged in another, increasing or reducing it, but not the tiniest movement can go for naught. Likewise also do all our acts and acts include thoughts that shape one's character and produce results. The most transient and secret thought entertained in the mind ruffles the calm of the spirit universal and the disturbance has to be worked off.

Since the Absolute cannot manifest as thought because it is pure subjectivity without any objectivity, it can only manifest itself in duality. Thus grew up a belief in the ancient civilization of India in a Triad of Gods, the highest manifestations of the Universal Spirit; BRAHMA, VISHNU and SHIVA, who together symbolize the creation, preservation, dissolution and renewal of the world. Shiva stands for reproduction as well as dissolution, for the endless series of births and deaths, so that death is the portal to new life and destruction involves renewal. Brahma having finished the work of creation is no longer an active force, subsequently, there are not half a dozen temples dedicated to him in India. Owing to the elimination of Brahma, it is Vishnu and Shiva who reign Supreme. It was the part of Vishnu as maintainer and preserver of the universe to deliver it from evil and for this purpose he revealed himself from time to time as an Avatar, or incarnation in human form, for example as Lord Ram and Lord Krishna. Since the Supreme has a dual nature, one idle and the other active, the active power is the female energy of the God, and is personified as his partner.

Perhaps in return for conquest, arrogance and
spoliation, India will teach us the tolerance and
gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the unacquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit,and a unifying, a pacifying love for all living things. India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit
the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village
community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all." Nothing should more deeply shame the modern student than the recency and
inadequacy of his acquaintance with India....This is the India that patient scholarship is now opening up like a new intellectual continent to that Western mind which only yesterday thought civilization an exclusive Western thing.
- Will Durant

The Indian teaching, through its clouds of legends, has yet a simple and grand religion, like a queenly countenance seen through a rich veil. It teaches to speak truth, love others, and to dispose trifles. The East is grand -- and makes Europe appear the land of trifles. All is soul and the soul is Vishnu ...cheerful and noble is the genius of this cosmogony. Hari is always gentle and serene - he translates to heaven the hunter who has accidentally shot him in his human form, he pursues his sport with boors and milkmaids at the cow pens; all his games are benevolent and he enters into flesh to relieve the burdens of the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no
touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climes and nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge.
- Henry David Thoreau

It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together in to a single family.
- Arnold Joseph Toynbee

When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous.
- Albert Einstein

Hinduism's main aim is achieving personal excellence in every area and stage of life. No single book, no single topic, no single person has any inalienable claim on Hinduism. It consists of spiritual teaching with its philosophy and metaphysics together with the cultural externals that are added to any such system, the whole forming the Sanatan Dharma.

The vast Hindu literature is aptly considered to be the end of all knowledge because it goes directly to the meaning and source of our very existence. You will find they talk about self-discovery, of understanding one's own self in its various complexities and arriving at the basic source of man and the universe itself.

Isha Upanishad:

Andham tamah pravisanti ye vidyam upasate ll
Tato bhuya iva te tamo ya u vidyayam ratah ll

(They who worship ignorance enter into darkness
And they who worship knowledge enter into greater darkness)

Knowledge is memory of the past. From the recent past, a split second ago, or years back. Brahman, the Ultimate Reality, is never a memory, never a thing of the past. It is the living present, the eternal, immediate present, and can never be comprehended by knowledge, which has only the past as reference.

both zizek and shobhan are retards.
gandhiji is the greatest person who ever walked on the planet.

and all those people who bring those cooked stories about the so called other face of gandhi are those looking for some cheap publicity by sensationalisation.

grow up guys.

ZIZEK IS AN OPPURTUNIST & RACIST WESTERNER WHO HAS NO INCLINATION TO LEARN ABOUT INDIA REFLECTED FROM HIS COMMENT" I IGNORED INDIA TILL RECENTLY.."& HAS THE ADAUCITY TO TALK BULL SHIT WITHOUT KNOWING ABOUT A CULTURE . IT IS THE SAME OLD STORY THAT A WESTERN MNC, WRITER, FILM PRODUCER COMING TO INDIA DUE TO MARKET PRESSURE LOOKING FOR GREEN PASTURES FOR THEIR PRODUCTS IN THIS CASE BOOKS RATHER THAN LOVE OR CURIOUSITY TO LEARN FROM NEW CULTURE.OTHERWISE WHAT ELSE HIS COMMENTS EXPLAINS . A SUPER RACIST TALKING ROT

Slavoj Zizek's philosophy offers different and interesting perpective on various global activities. I am ammused and surprised to his way of explaing Mahatma's apprach to Freedom fight. However I take his comments on Hollywood and Bollywood are interesting.

Idiotic writing... sorry to say this...

Gandhi's play was started only by 1915 when he returned from South Africa...

Before that, it had been a hundreds of years India failed to unite.. with Gandhi it happened in 32 years...

btw.. He is a great human.. and his philosophy is going to be admired for ever....

Ghandi was very adament and he never even bothered to listen to his wife and sons. When he can not guid his family, what we can expect from hios teachnings. Leave our family to suffer? For his pewrsonal fame, he screwed up the nation. He is more cruel in heart than Hitler. He punished Hindus for no reason.

Why are we talking about Mr:Gandhi now after 63 years of partition? To me the Qaid-e-Azam M Ali Jnnah and Mohandass Gandhi were 2 great leaders. You can critize as u want but I beleive we need to move forward along with ground realities.

TOI IS ALWAYS ANTI HINDUS & ALWAYS SURRENDERS BEFORE WHO ACTS AGAINST HINDUISM.THE REPORTING OF TOI ALWAYS FAVOUR PAKISTAN,SEPATISTS OF JK, THE SAID INTERVIEWER REPRESENTS THE SAME ANTI HINDU IDEOLOGY,PLEASE IGNORE SUCH INTERVIEWS.BUT I HAVE A VIEW THAT A PART OF HINDUS MUST ADOPT SOME AGGRESIVE ATTITUDE.THE SAME INTERVIEWER WILL RUN AFTER THEM TO PUBLISH THEIR STORY.BUT THE DEPARTURE OF GANDHI WAS TOO LATE AS FAR AS THE INTERESTS OF HINDUS ARE CONCERNED.- A NON TOLERANT HINDU.

TOI IS ALWAYS ANTI HINDUS & ALWAYS SURRENDERS BEFORE WHO ACTS AGAINST HINDUISM.THE REPORTING OF TOI ALWAYS FAVOUR PAKISTAN,SEPATISTS OF JK, THE SAID INTERVIEWER REPRESENTS THE SAME ANTI HINDU IDEOLOGY,PLEASE IGNORE SUCH INTERVIEWS.BUT I HAVE A VIEW THAT A PART OF HINDUS MUST ADOPT SOME AGGRESIVE ATTITUDE.THE SAME INTERVIEWER WILL RUN AFTER THEM TO PUBLISH THEIR STORY.BUT THE DEPARTURE OF GANDHI WAS TOO LATE AS FAR AS THE INTERESTS OF HINDUS ARE CONCERNED.- A NON TOLERANT HINDU.

The title to the Blog was hit, but sadly not the contents, just like most blogs and articles these days. Let me first say that everyone has right to speak and therefore, there is no issue in expressing what Mr. Zizek said and you supported by finding it ".....not easy to disagree". However, what is not easy to understand is that if Mr. Zizek has these views, he did not give enough logic to support his views. In fact his belief "Gandhi didn’t do anything to stop the functioning of the British empire or the way it functioned here" gives an impression that an acclaimed author needs to go back to histroy and check for various non-co-operation movements, famous Dandi March to protest against salt tax and campaign to use Khadi cloth in place of clothes manufactured in Manchester.
It seems more like a biased assessment of Gandhi (perhaps to gain publicity since he was at the book launch of his own) then an intellectual. After all, I read this blog influenced by the provocative title.

The title to the Blog was hit, but sadly not the contents, just like most blogs and articles these days. Let me first say that everyone has right to speak and therefore, there is no issue in expressing what Mr. Zizek said and you supported by finding it ".....not easy to disagree". However, what is not easy to understand is that if Mr. Zizek has these views, he did not give enough logic to support his views. In fact his belief "Gandhi didn’t do anything to stop the functioning of the British empire or the way it functioned here" gives an impression that an acclaimed author needs to go back to histroy and check for various non-co-operation movements, famous Dandi March to protest against salt tax and campaign to use Khadi cloth in place of clothes manufactured in Manchester.
It seems more like a biased assessment of Gandhi (perhaps to gain publicity since he was at the book launch of his own) then an intellectual. After all, I read this blog influenced by the provocative title.

What an intriguing interview..particularly his view about Gandhi. Never saw it that way before. I like seeing all sorts of angles to an established 'fact' however absurd some of them are. Makes me wonder about life and the triumph of the human spighit. Thank you for highlighting it! ^^