Gandhi's truth was subjective and selective

Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography ' My Experiments with Truth' is unique in more ways than one. It was originally written in his mother tongue Gujarati, an honest narration of events that shaped his life and influenced successive generations till date. But the events chosen by him and not only subjective but even selective. He wrote it in 1920s after settling down in India and its affairs on his decade and a half sojourn in South Africa. He successfully replicated what her learnt in South Africa. There are few such examples of a London-trained Asian barrister landing in the white dominated black continent and accomplishing an extraordinary feat against racial discrimination.

South Africa was inhabited by three kinds of communities. The Dutch colonizers called Afrikaans, the original blacks and the Indian migrants largely from Gujarat. Gandhi had been invited by a Gujarati businessmen for legal aid. Gandhi understood the problem faced by Gujarati businessmen but willfully ignored the discrimination faced  by the local blacks. It was Gandhi's first selective choice. He became a mute witness to the unfair treatment meted out to the blacks. His argument was that he had come for Indians and shouldn't interfere in the black affairs. It was his subjective choice but didn't fit into his pronounced experiments with truth.

On his return, to India after 16 years Gandhi toured the whole of India at the advice of his political guru Gopal Krishan Gokhale because he was a stranger to Indian domination by the British. However, he had seen the similar discrimination in South Africa, he didn't take it long to understand and chalk out his strategy. He chose for non-cooperation with the British but in a non-violent manner. He didn't endorse the militant agitation against the British. It was his subjective and selective decision. The first crisis when some militant burnt some railways compartments at Chori Chaura in Uttar Pradesh. Gandhi immediately called off his campaign. It demoralized the freedom fighters.

 It divided the country in the soft and hard liners. It continued till India got Independence.

The acid test for Gandhi came when Bhagat Singh shot down a British armed officer and chose gallows. The country was highly agitated and people expected Gandhi to intervene. Gandhi did meet the then viceroy but didn't ask for a lenient view on Bhagat Singh. It again divided the country emotionally and strategically. It is highly debatable that even non-violent non-cooperation is a form of violence or not. It forced the British to use force, put leaders behind the bar and created tension. But Gandhi stuck to his subjective and selective choices.

Lastly, when it was clear that India would be partitioned because of the diffident Jinnah and Hindus and Muslims will migrate from both sides, Gandhi kept on appeasing Muslims led by Jinnah but didn't for see that a holocaust was in the offing which resulted in the genocide of five million people. That was the nail in his coffin an he paid it through his life. His last subjective and selective decision.