Alright Anna Hazare is not Gandhian so was Gandhi himself one?

Anna Hazare's comments about beating up durnkards in village and his reaction to Pawar slap episode have raised many eye brows.Intellectuals ,pundits in media are writing columns questioning these "non Gandhian" methods of Hazare.

Basic question that comes to my mind is what does being a Gandhian mean? Does it mean unconditional comittment to non violence ? By this rule if a person happens to induldge in any kind of violence himself or  supporting violence then he immideatley disquallifies from being Gandhian.Every statement issued by Anna Hazare nowadays  is scrutinized against Gandhian benchmarks of absolute non violence.

Alright now lets put Gandhi himself to those stringent benchmarks of non-violence and lets see if he comes clean.

1) In South Africa Gandhi used to run  a news paper named Indian Opinion.During British offensive against native rebellions (Zulu War)  Gandhi wrote many columns in Indian Opinion urging Indians to  participate in Zulu War and he also tried to persuade  government to accept support of Indians in their war effort.Finally Gandhi had to just settle for working in ambulance corp as government rejected his overture of Indians helping in combative effort.

2) Many of you might not know but Gandhi was ardent advocate of  India and Indians supporting Britain in world war 1. He also actively recruited Indians to fight for British in world war 1. Recruited Indian soldiers were obviously not going to employ non violent means to change the heart of British foes.

 So to much of our astonishment  we find that Mr Gandhi himself was not full proof "Gandhian". If Gandhi himself was not Gandhian then its foolish to expect Anna Hazare to be one.

Anurag Choudhary.