JNU professor P.R. Kumaraswamy says that some of Gandhiji's writings on Israel were not brought to the public by his secretary Pyarelal.

Mahatma Gandhi was “accommodative” of violence of the Arab Palestinians, even as he advised the Jewish people to counter Germany’s ruler Adolf Hitler through non-violence, a new book has claimed.

In his book, Squaring the Circle: Mahatma Gandhi and the Jewish National Home, P.R. Kumaraswamy of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has revealed that some of the writings of the Mahatma on Israel were not brought to the public by his secretary Pyarelal, and questioned his limited understanding of Judaism.

“By embracing the Islamic claims during the Khilafat phase, he categorically ruled out non-Islamic control or sovereignty over Palestine,” said Professor Kumaraswamy, explaining Mahatma Gandhi’s tilt towards the Arab claims over Palestine. “While urging Jews to practise active non-violence even against Hitler, he was accommodative of Arab violence in Palestine, thereby raising doubts about his lifelong commitment to ahimsa,” he said.

'Narrow understanding of Mahatma’s teachings'

Professor Kumaraswamy’s claims have been challenged by Dr. Zikrur Rahman, former diplomat and director of India-Arab Cultural Centre of Jamia Milia Islamia. He said that the claims amount to a narrow understanding of Mahatma’s teachings.

“There is no writing of Mahatma Gandhi supporting violence by any group anywhere in the world. He famously wrote that Palestine belongs to the Arabs just like England belongs to the English, which can by no stretch of scholarship be interpreted as a support to violent methods by the Palestinians against the Jewish people in Israel,” said Dr. Rahman.

“Mahatma Gandhi was equally close to many Jewish figures like Hermann Kallenbach and it is not historically accurate to bring out a mono-dimensional perspective of him on a complex case like Israel-Palestinians dispute,” said Dr. Rahman.

Professor Kumaraswamy, who teaches a popular course on Israeli foreign affairs at the Centre for West Asian Studies in JNU’s School of International Studies (SIS), pointed out that Mahatma’s Gandhi’s long-term secretary Pyarelal was responsible for suppression of some crucial writings on the rights of the Jewish people to find a homeland in Palestine.

He said that on October 15, 1931, Nahaum Sokolov, president of the World Zionist Organisation, met Mahatma Gandhi in London along with another member of the organisation to discuss the issue of Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people. His research, however, showed that the details of that meeting were missing from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.

He said the Mahatma’s understanding of Judaism was limited to “ceremonies and rituals” and he had imbibed Islam and Chritianity’s “anti-Jewish prejudices”.

“...In later years, Pyarelal admitted having suppressed some of Gandhi’s thoughts and pronouncements on Israel,” Proffessor Kumaraswamy said in his book.