Pod Insights Fin vs History Dev Vader | Mahatma Gandhi (Part 2/4) About this episode Randy Gandhi is back, horny & professionally annoying.
Gandhi (Part Two)
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Chapters:
00:00 - Train Scum
07:26 - No Petitions
11:01 - Me Less Fat
14:11 - FleshLightSaber
20:20 - Randy gandhi
22:46 - Send Bobs
24:40 - Tax The Huts
28:25 - This Is Your Hero?
35:37 - Gandhi’s Wet Dreams
40:31 - Charlie’s Experiment
45:56 - 1p Pint
48:13 - Professionally Annoying
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Transcript 10,102 words · 7 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorised by any candidate or candidate's committee.
0:42 Speaker 01 Welcome back to Finn vs History, together with Horatio Gould.
0:46 Speaker 02 Hello.
0:46 Speaker 01 We're going through the life of Mahatma Gandhi and this is part two. And it's Gandhi in South Africa. It's terrific stuff. 1893 to 1914.
0:57 Speaker 02 It's all the cricket countries, right?
0:58 Speaker 01 This is, Gandhi's one of the tour of the cricket countries. Now, to recap, we started off where we're in the British Raj and I had a lovely time.
1:10 Speaker 02 Halcyon days.
1:11 Speaker 01 It's the end of my recap. Gandhi has got his degree, but he can't get a job in India, which is, I guess, the past of another country, isn't it? He's bad at public speaking and he's gone to South Africa. He's got no Riz.
1:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, he hasn't had to get Riz. Rage marriages mean you don't have to get Riz. You're not put into the fucking pressure cooker. You're not out in the clubs, working it out.
1:33 Speaker 01 Not working, no, not working the clubs, not working the hammering the circuit. What?
1:38 Speaker 03 He hasn't got Riz, but he might have a friend called Riz.
1:41 Speaker 02 Riz, like Riz Ahmed?
1:42 Speaker 03 Riz Ahmed. You never know.
1:45 Speaker 02 You never know. Does Gandhi have a friend called Riz?
1:48 Speaker 01 Google it, come on, Charlie.
1:50 Speaker 02 Fingers crossed, come on.
1:52 Speaker 01 Wow. Google's gone, Google's gone nothing. Did you ever used to play that game, was it called Google Whack? Where you had to try and get nothing? You've just done that, Charlie.
2:02 Speaker 02 There's aren't many great matches for you.
2:04 Speaker 01 Google's gone, try using words that might appear. Did Gandhi have a friend called Riz?
2:11 Speaker 01 Uh, no.
2:13 Speaker 02 No.
2:14 Speaker 01 He had a friend called Herman and a friend called Charlie and his personal secretary was called Pyralal.
2:18 Speaker 02 But no Riz.
2:19 Speaker 01 What the hell, Py- how am I saying that?
2:21 Speaker 02 Pyralal, didn't his dad die of Pyralal?
2:23 Speaker 01 No, I think, um, my wife can't Pyralal Park, but anyway, um, no one called Riz.
2:28 Speaker 02 Yeah, right.
2:29 Speaker 01 But gr- but great effort, Charlie.
2:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's good one.
2:31 Speaker 01 Play and a miss, but, um.
2:33 Speaker 02 No benefit.
2:34 Speaker 01 I like, I like, I like the attitude.
2:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:36 Speaker 01 So, uh, yeah, Gandhi's dad died of some kind of explosive piles and Gandhi wasn't there to hold his hand because he was fucking his 13 year old wife who was pregnant, but that was fine because he was also 13.
2:49 Speaker 01 He'd gone to London, was he at the Ripper? We can't know. Uh, and he's now gone to South Africa, having failed to start a law firm in India. Uh, and he arrives in South Africa in April 1893. Horatio Gruhl, would you like to place April 1893 for us?
3:04 Speaker 02 1893, so I guess this is after the first Sherlock Holmes novel.
3:10 Speaker 01 Just, just double check that, please, Charlie. Uh, while he's doing that, I can say that April 1893 is Hitler's fourth birthday. Hitler's a four year old toddler at this point. Uh, his four year old birth, his four, fourth birthday party takes place in April 1893.
3:23 Speaker 02 Okay, so when was the first one? 1887, that's nice. Uh, and I guess this is before Gemma Collins's first book. Has she written a book, Gemma Collins?
3:34 Speaker 01 Gemma Collins has written a book. Well, she's written two.
3:38 Speaker 02 Two, first book.
3:39 Speaker 01 Didn't Steinbeck write like four?
3:42 Speaker 02 You're thinking of, um, J D Salinger.
3:45 Speaker 01 Salinger, that's right.
3:45 Speaker 02 Salinger wrote one, like two books, at least six.
3:50 Speaker 01 Christ, Collins is, Collins is a third of the way through. Collins is closer to J D Salinger than I am.
3:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:56 Speaker 01 Fucking hell, this country. So, April 1893, Gemma Collins's tomes have not yet been published.
4:04 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:04 Speaker 01 Uh, Arthur Conan Doyle's have been.
4:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:06 Speaker 01 Hitler's blowing out the candles on his fourth birthday cake. Brood!
4:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:10 Speaker 01 And, um, immediately, uh, Gandhi arrives in South Africa and he takes part in legal practice and activism to boost the rights of Indians in South Africa.
4:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:21 Speaker 01 Let's just get into what South Africa is like in 1893. I think it's fair to say it's quite a racist society.
4:30 Speaker 02 That's, yeah, well, I think lead the politics at the door, I'd say.
4:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, okay, fine. It's quite a, um, it's quite a separate society.
4:37 Speaker 02 It's a colourful society. And some people say that's a problem.
4:40 Speaker 01 Yes, there are colours in society. Um, it's, I suppose people are, people stick to their own, you might say.
4:45 Speaker 02 It's a rainbow coalition, as in the colours are stacked on top of each other in a defined order.
4:51 Speaker 01 Yes, it's more of a, it's more of a do look colour chart than a rainbow, isn't it? They're all separate in their own sections.
4:56 Speaker 02 Sure.
4:57 Speaker 01 And, uh, yeah, this is pre apartheid.
5:00 Speaker 02 Right.
5:01 Speaker 01 Uh, and South Africa at this point.
5:02 Speaker 02 They didn't need apartheid, because it went without saying.
5:05 Speaker 01 Exactly. Apartheid was a word they came up with later for what's already been going on.
5:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
5:11 Speaker 01 And South Africa at this point, uh, is a very, very interesting period of history for us dads. The late, latter half of the 19th century.
5:19 Speaker 02 Raukstift happened 20 years ago.
5:21 Speaker 01 Mmm.
5:23 Speaker 02 Black woman in church.
5:24 Speaker 01 A black woman in church, we hear Raukstift. Praise Jesus, praise Lord.
5:28 Speaker 02 Hallelujah.
5:29 Speaker 01 The, uh, Zulus, the Zulu Kingdom is in an uneasy truce with the, there's the British, uh, Republic of South Africa. And then there's the Boer Republics, um, the Transvaal.
5:40 Speaker 02 The Boer War must be around this time, right?
5:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, we're going to get into the Boer War in this episode. If you would like to hear our Raukstift special, that's on the Patreon, where we did that one live. Anyway, so, um, very interesting times in Africa. Gandhi arrives and he has these critical formative moments. So together with the, I can't.
6:00 Speaker 02 Busting, because my dad died.
6:02 Speaker 01 Busting over my dad's dead body, my dead body, oh, um, he gets on a train in South Africa and he had a first class ticket. And at this point, he, he's.
6:12 Speaker 02 Wearing a suit, he's fucking, he's fucking, he's brutal creamed his hair.
6:15 Speaker 01 He sees himself, you know, he's, he's had tea with William Hanson.
6:17 Speaker 02 He says he sees himself as a Briton before he's an Indian at this point. He loves the empire at this point.
6:21 Speaker 01 And South Africa will change that.
6:23 Speaker 02 Right.
6:24 Speaker 01 He goes, no, no, no, you're not British.
6:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:26 Speaker 01 So he's on a train, he's forced to sit on the floor away from the white passengers, even though he had a first class ticket.
6:32 Speaker 02 I mean, that's quite embarrassing.
6:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:34 Speaker 02 If you go on, if you've got.
6:35 Speaker 01 For who, sorry?
6:36 Speaker 02 Well, I mean, this is, when we took Charlie on First Class and we were doing the live pod tour.
6:40 Speaker 01 You took my ticket.
6:41 Speaker 02 And you nearly got sparked out. Uh, I think you should have probably been treated like Gandhi.
6:46 Speaker 01 Yes.
6:46 Speaker 02 Where you had to sit on the floor faced away from all the other passengers.
6:48 Speaker 03 It would have been simpler.
6:49 Speaker 01 When we threw away the race laws, we did throw out a baby with that bathwater.
6:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, which is that some passengers should have to.
6:56 Speaker 01 Irrespective of race, there should be. A place where passengers who shouldn't be in first class, even though they have a ticket, have to sit on the floor because you could not behave.
7:06 Speaker 03 I got called scum.
7:07 Speaker 01 You got called scum by a guy wearing a fucking-
7:09 Speaker 02 You were halfway through a caramel wafer bar. So while you're being bollocked, you're still trying to spot, you're still trying to maintain your light, but you're still chewing on a chalky bar.
7:20 Speaker 01 And wasn't he like a Trainspotter in like a death metal t-shirt?
7:22 Speaker 03 Yeah, he looked like shit as well, but I was just covered in chocolate.
7:26 Speaker 02 He just seemed to get on trains. He wasn't spotting them. He was just-
7:28 Speaker 03 He was a sad man. He was a sad little man.
7:30 Speaker 02 He was obsessed with the first class experience seemingly.
7:33 Speaker 01 Well, if, yeah, but if you were obsessed with the first, you would be annoyed.
7:35 Speaker 03 I think he's insecure about being there in the first place. And I'm there being like, chocolate boy. And then he got all upset about it.
7:43 Speaker 01 I mean, what does, what does first class even mean?
7:45 Speaker 03 He shouldn't have been there either.
7:46 Speaker 02 And by the way, it's the best first class in, in the UK by far.
7:50 Speaker 03 He and I should have been fighting in the toilet rather than-
7:52 Speaker 01 Yes, yes, you should have been. So anyway, so Gandhi is kicked into a gutter because he walked near a white person's house.
8:01 Speaker 02 Right.
8:02 Speaker 01 Now, there was a thing about Indians not being allowed to walk on pavements.
8:06 Speaker 02 Indians or Untouchables or?
8:08 Speaker 01 No, in South Africa. We'll get into this, but South Africa is a stratified society, obviously. Whites, black Africans, and then other, what they would say, coloured people. So that's everyone who didn't fit into either of those categories. Now, he had this formative experience.
8:28 Speaker 02 There's not a lot of positive discrimination.
8:30 Speaker 01 No, I think it's just discrimination.
8:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, right, right.
8:33 Speaker 01 It's not Kevin Peterson complaining that he can't get in the cricket team because-
8:38 Speaker 02 Is Kevin Peterson complaining why there's so many black people walking near my house?
8:42 Speaker 01 No, Kevin Peterson-
8:43 Speaker 02 I guess he does say that probably as well.
8:45 Speaker 01 Well, Kevin Peterson's origin story is that he kicked off at the quota system that was done to, you know, try and right some of these wrongs. And then he goes to England where-
8:56 Speaker 02 It's like you before you got in love with the Apollo.
8:58 Speaker 01 Excuse me?
9:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, and then he goes back and plays at The Wanderers in Johannesburg and absolutely knocks it. In fact, he gets booed, but he knocks it all over the park. And then they're going, ah shit, okay, well, maybe, maybe.
9:14 Speaker 02 Maybe that was a mistake.
9:15 Speaker 01 Maybe quota systems are bad.
9:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
9:17 Speaker 01 Anyway, he has this formative moment where he's on a train in first class with his first class ticket. And then he gets kicked off because I think there's another passenger, I mean, it's classic, another white passenger's like, um, oh, excuse me. A Karen, a sacrifican cullum. He gets kicked off this train and he has to sit in a waiting room in Peter Maritzburg Station. And supposedly while he's sitting in this station waiting room, he has a long night at the soul.
9:47 Speaker 01 You just didn't, you just fly up.
9:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, I just waited for the pause.
9:50 Speaker 01 Right, okay.
9:51 Speaker 02 I think it sets the, helps sets the scene. Go on, that's what you were saying.
9:53 Speaker 01 We are talking about the horny, holy money. And what else could he have done in that waiting room? My God. And this is where he's convinced that basically his, he was deluded. That he, you know, he had always seen himself as a Briton first and then an Indian. And that the British Empire, you know, meant that he would be treated as such in every part of it.
10:15 Speaker 02 Is it sort of like that scene in a sort of psychological thriller where near the end, someone realizes that his friend has been the bad guy all along?
10:24 Speaker 01 Hmm.
10:24 Speaker 02 And it's like they re-go over all those things.
10:26 Speaker 01 It's Hank on the toilet in Breaking Bad.
10:30 Speaker 02 But.
10:31 Speaker 01 Walter White.
10:31 Speaker 02 But then it's the most, they might be racist.
10:35 Speaker 01 Oh, I, I, I think he, he only realizes he's Indian.
10:41 Speaker 01 When he's on the toilet.
10:45 Speaker 02 He's like.
10:46 Speaker 01 I'm Indian. What?
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11:51 Speaker 01 So he then starts, now, there's in Natal, which is the, that's where
11:57 Speaker 02 That's where
11:58 Speaker 01 Rock drifts. Happens. Ha. Um, there is legislation
12:03 Speaker 02 That's Natal that happens there.
12:05 Speaker 01 Natal that happens there, lovely stuff. How are they going to get the Jamaican accent into this episode? Natal that happens there. So Natal is trying to introduce legislation to remove voting rights from Indians. And so he petitions unsuccessfully against the
12:22 Speaker 02 10,000 people sign a petition, but back then, 10,000 signatures petition, it's a lot harder to get than now.
12:27 Speaker 01 Hmm. Yes, there's not
12:28 Speaker 02 Because now it's an online thing.
12:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:29 Speaker 02 But this, you have to go
12:31 Speaker 01 Sometimes I even go to sign, I go, oh, this is a good petition. I go sign it.
12:34 Speaker 02 And they ask you one thing.
12:35 Speaker 01 And I go, fuck off, no, in the bin, in the bin.
12:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:38 Speaker 01 Jeremy Clarkson.
12:39 Speaker 02 Write your name, fuck off.
12:40 Speaker 01 No. Give us your email address, fuck off.
12:42 Speaker 02 Are you a robot? Fuck off.
12:44 Speaker 01 No.
12:44 Speaker 02 Petitions Name six motorcycles, fuck off.
12:47 Speaker 01 You've ruined it. You've lost me. I'm not signing your petition. I don't care what it's for. It has to just be easy.
12:54 Speaker 02 It has to be just bang.
12:55 Speaker 01 If it's any speed bumps at all, fuck off. No, done. No petitions. So he forms the Natal, Natal Indian Congress, which is not
13:06 Speaker 02 Well, he's very against Natal.
13:08 Speaker 01 Not, he is.
13:09 Speaker 02 He does not like people.
13:11 Speaker 01 Not the Not All Men Conference, as I run. The Natal Indian Congress in 1894. And he starts to think about this non-violent stuff. That's, this is when, this is what we'll see in this episode.
13:25 Speaker 02 It becomes radicalized.
13:27 Speaker 01 Radically non-violent.
13:28 Speaker 02 Yep. This is where his terrorism begins.
13:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, his boring terrorism begins in South Africa.
13:36 Speaker 02 In the Boar War.
13:37 Speaker 01 In the Boar War. Lovely stuff. Well, let's get into that. So in 1899, let's just dig into the Boar War because we will do, we will do a series on it. And, but again, Boar Corps, you know, plaid helmets.
13:49 Speaker 02 Come on.
13:50 Speaker 01 Boar Corps. Why isn't that on my TikTok? Raj Corps, Boar Corps.
13:54 Speaker 02 So you know how your algorithm is listening to you. I can imagine you just sitting there going, Boar Corps. Me as a man in British Raj, 1899, please now.
14:04 Speaker 01 Please. If you're listening, the Chinese person who's listening, I want to see myself as the, is this, is this working?
14:11 Speaker 02 Hello, Xi Jinping, hello.
14:15 Speaker 01 Dad trying to speak to AI. He gets caught by his wife. Me as a British soldier in Rorke's River. Hello, hello, Xi Jinping. Oh, sorry. No, hi. No, no, come in, come in, come in.
14:25 Speaker 02 The torch is on.
14:28 Speaker 01 Glasses at the end of the nose. Me as a imperial soldier, me wearing a red tunic in hot country with, with coolies and punk water. Hello, hi, hi, no, hi, sorry.
14:38 Speaker 02 Less fat, me less fat, but British Raj.
14:41 Speaker 01 No, me younger, younger, muscly, younger, muscly, surrounded by brown slaves.
14:46 Speaker 02 To get that sheen.
14:47 Speaker 01 Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Hello, hi, how you doing?
14:51 Speaker 01 How do you work this thing anyway?
14:53 Speaker 01 It's like calling.
14:54 Speaker 02 God, AI is gonna ruin the world. Me as a.
14:58 Speaker 01 Me on FaceTime to my dad. It's just like that. Me as a, hello, dad, me as a British Raj, lieutenant, lieutenant in the Raj. Please, please now, wearing big shorts, telling people off, wearing big shorts.
15:09 Speaker 02 Wife respects me.
15:12 Speaker 01 Anyway, so the Boar War kicks off because there is this tension between the British in the South of Africa.
15:20 Speaker 02 White on white violence.
15:21 Speaker 01 It is, please, minute silence for all we lose in the tragic white on white violence of the Boar War. You know, the Zulu stuff, that's all a bit of fun, but this is white on white violence. This is serious.
15:33 Speaker 01 If you're listening and you've got a drink in your hand, pour some out for all the whites we lose, okay? So the boars are obviously originally Dutch. If you heat Dutch people up, they become hard as diamonds.
15:46 Speaker 02 It's true, because the Dutch are quite a cold.
15:50 Speaker 01 Frank.
15:51 Speaker 02 Frank people.
15:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:52 Speaker 02 But I guess roasted in the sun, something comes out of them.
15:56 Speaker 01 It becomes racist and rude.
15:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:58 Speaker 01 Yeah. You're not you when you're hot.
16:00 Speaker 02 Yes, sure.
16:02 Speaker 01 Dutch others.
16:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
16:03 Speaker 01 Thank you, Phoebe. Yeah.
16:04 Speaker 02 Interesting.
16:05 Speaker 01 Yes, these Dutch people had got to South Africa.
16:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:09 Speaker 01 And it was essentially like my wife putting a duvet over my head and farting. I say very racist things.
16:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:15 Speaker 01 When my wife starts having me.
16:16 Speaker 02 Sure. And Frank is out the attic because she's racist as hell.
16:21 Speaker 01 You think I'm racist now? Wait until my wife puts a duvet over me and farts. Anyway, that's essentially what happens with the boars.
16:29 Speaker 02 Right.
16:29 Speaker 01 So the boars are like, I guess it's like American West in that they're constantly trying to break free of the restraints of the British Empire, which has abolished slavery famously, and the boars hate that. Their culture is slaves.
16:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:44 Speaker 01 They're anti, anti-slavery.
16:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:46 Speaker 01 So they then try and they're constantly trying to.
16:47 Speaker 02 They're like the Confederates, right? Yeah. Sort of the same vibe.
16:49 Speaker 01 So there's like a Benny Hill thing where they're running, chasing after slaves rather than topless women, and the British are trying to chase them.
16:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:57 Speaker 01 To try and stop them from chasing after slaves.
16:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:59 Speaker 01 That's the South of Africa politics in the 18.
17:01 Speaker 02 The fly to eat, that whole thing.
17:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, the Dutch guy that made a slave and then the Brits chased the Dutch guy. Anyway. So watch, Charlie.
17:10 Speaker 03 Is there any notion of woke in South Africa now that is it like what you know how people say like you're woke?
17:14 Speaker 02 Well, I think what they deem woke, well, look.
17:16 Speaker 03 Are they behind now?
17:17 Speaker 02 Let's look at, let's look at our friend of the show, Errol Musk. Well, Michelle, she's obviously, Michelle Obama, she's obviously like.
17:24 Speaker 01 You know, it's the wokest African guy there is.
17:26 Speaker 02 He's got a nine inch long.
17:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:27 Speaker 03 Are they fuming about the whole woke thing?
17:29 Speaker 02 I think. When you look at Elon Musk, yeah, he's won't stop.
17:33 Speaker 03 Do you do the reasoning?
17:35 Speaker 01 When I, when I was there, it was like, I mean, they have got, they've got other things going on.
17:38 Speaker 02 Yeah, our idea, us talking about which bathroom, it's like, I'm trying not to get killed in the bathroom.
17:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:44 Speaker 02 It's sort of, it's a different sort of.
17:46 Speaker 01 What's a bathroom?
17:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's why woke is a, it's a sort of, it's a privileged thing, isn't it?
17:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's less, I think America, there's the madness of America is it's quite, it can be so surreal that it's quite, it's funny. There's a, it's, in Africa, it gets quite serious quite quickly.
18:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:05 Speaker 02 It's less of a laugh.
18:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, I suppose you're woke if you're not, you're not killing women regularly, maybe? I mean, that's, you know, that's the big thing is.
18:12 Speaker 02 That's the woke mind virus.
18:13 Speaker 01 Female, I think a female violence against women and girls is the big South African thing currently. So, yeah, I don't know what woke looks like in Africa. Anyway, it's, I'll tell you when it was not woke, was 1899.
18:29 Speaker 01 So, yeah, there's this constant tension between the Dutch settlers, the Boers and the British. And Rourke's drift kicks off ultimately because the British start managing the Boer republics because they're too skin. And the Zulus are nicking all their cattle and these fuckers love their farms. My God, Clarkson's Farm in the sun, these cunts.
18:47 Speaker 02 It really is, there's Clarkson, they're all Clarkson farms.
18:49 Speaker 01 They're all Clarkson farms, yeah. Anyway, so the Boer War kicks off ultimately because those tensions erupt. And Gandhi is on the scene, he's around on the ground in the Boer War. And he's passionately in favour of supporting the British because he's an empire man at this point.
19:05 Speaker 02 He is an empire man, yeah.
19:06 Speaker 01 At this point.
19:07 Speaker 02 He loves the empire.
19:07 Speaker 01 It's the great sort of Darth Vader story.
19:12 Speaker 01 In that, you know, he's.
19:14 Speaker 02 You were the chosen one, you were meant to save the empire.
19:16 Speaker 01 He's a kid with a shit haircut, right, and a kid meant to save the empire.
19:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:20 Speaker 01 And then he slowly turns.
19:23 Speaker 02 To the dark side.
19:23 Speaker 01 To the dark side. Of Indian independence.
19:26 Speaker 02 That's what Star Wars is about.
19:27 Speaker 01 I think it's about Gandhi. And I'm Luke Skywalker?
19:32 Speaker 02 The empire in Star Wars represents the anti-colonialists.
19:36 Speaker 01 Yes.
19:37 Speaker 02 The people who want to break up the empire.
19:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
19:41 Speaker 02 And the rebels are the brave colonialists trying to hold it all together.
19:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, yes, exactly. We're the Ewoks.
19:48 Speaker 02 Well, the Brits, yeah.
19:49 Speaker 01 Lord Mountbatten is the Ewok.
19:53 Speaker 01 No, and I'm aware that for our listeners who are, you know, they're Star Wars kids.
19:58 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:58 Speaker 01 Have you seen the clips of people who, um, who actually go to like lightsaber conventions and like learn lightsaber fighting?
20:05 Speaker 02 Yes.
20:05 Speaker 01 And there's different like styles, that sort of stuff, our listeners.
20:08 Speaker 02 For me, I just hear like, that's a thousand more patrons, ka-ching.
20:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly, ka-ching, yeah, yeah. I'm, um, I'm actually, I'm, I'm highly trained in, in type two, I'm a type two lightsaber swordsman.
20:18 Speaker 02 I mean, we love, but this is the empire which we built our back on, we built our back on the.
20:22 Speaker 01 We're all standing on the shoulders of monks, yeah, I know.
20:24 Speaker 02 On the slippery greasy shoulders.
20:28 Speaker 01 Yep, one dollar versus hundred thousand dollar lightsaber, who's buying a lightsaber for a hundred thousand dollars? Fucking hell, this looks good though.
20:36 Speaker 01 That's just a flamethrower, that's a flamethrower and a torch.
20:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:39 Speaker 01 I bet that's a fleshlight as well. Anyway, um, the fleshlight lightsaber, the fleshlightsaber.
20:45 Speaker 02 So you have a pussy in the bottom of it.
20:48 Speaker 01 Turn it off.
20:51 Speaker 02 No, I think, I think it's dual use at the same time.
20:53 Speaker 01 Darth Maul.
20:54 Speaker 02 You could fuck one side and then it's.
21:00 Speaker 02 Cause it means that if you get horny during a fight, you can do both.
21:06 Speaker 02 What, a deleted scene from The Phantom Menace?
21:10 Speaker 02 They walk in on, I think you'd lose a lot of aura if you walk in on Darth Maul, he's just.
21:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think we should cut that, yeah, I don't think that adds to the story, let's, let's cut that out. We'll save that for deleted scenes.
21:27 Speaker 01 Phantom Menace, I reckon, Phantom Menace, makes more sense, you know?
21:32 Speaker 01 Obi-Wan Kenobi, that's what Phoebe's written, you know, and she's vegetarian.
21:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, and she's.
21:38 Speaker 01 Her brain's only working at thirty percent.
21:41 Speaker 01 If you, if you ate pork, Phoebe.
21:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, there's a strong breeze.
21:44 Speaker 01 God knows, but you're a falafel morgue.
21:48 Speaker 01 So, uh, yes, I can't remember how we got into that, but essentially, yep, Gandhi's Darth Vader and, but at this point he's Anakin, okay? It's the Boer War and Gandhi immediately offers to help the British Army. He gathers Indian volunteers.
22:01 Speaker 02 So he's not all bad?
22:02 Speaker 01 No, he's a great guy at this point. I'm a big fan of Gandhi.
22:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, this is handy Gandhi.
22:08 Speaker 01 This is handy, Gandhi's very handy. It's handy Andy from like ground force. But it's handy Gandhi.
22:14 Speaker 02 Yeah. So there's different phases of it. Like there's Randy Gandhi when he's busting in, well, he's always Randy Gandhi.
22:20 Speaker 01 Randy Gandhi is, yeah.
22:21 Speaker 02 But there's openly Randy Gandhi.
22:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:23 Speaker 02 And now we're getting to handy Gandhi.
22:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:25 Speaker 02 So each, but we're moving.
22:27 Speaker 01 And then what's Antsy Gandhi?
22:29 Speaker 02 Was there a handstandy Gandhi moment? I don't think.
22:31 Speaker 01 Handstandy Gandhi. Well, he's doing handstands.
22:34 Speaker 02 I don't know if that part comes in.
22:36 Speaker 01 So he, he got, he forms the Indian Ambulance Corps, which is, uh, obviously he's nonviolent or he's, you know, he's, he's Jainist teachings mean he's nonviolent, but he goes, well, I can stretch, I can form a stretcher service, basically.
22:50 Speaker 02 Hmm.
22:50 Speaker 01 So, uh, 1,100 people join the Indian Ambulance Corps and they all receive war medals after the war, um, because he's, he genuinely thinks that helping the Brits would prove that they were worthy of equality.
23:03 Speaker 02 Which is a mistake that a lot of people in the colonies must make.
23:08 Speaker 01 Yep.
23:08 Speaker 02 If I, if I'm really brave and I help the Brits, when they really need us, they will then respect us when the war's over.
23:15 Speaker 01 You don't understand what colonialism is, guys. You help us because you have to.
23:20 Speaker 02 Yeah. And when we need you, we'll be like, you guys are brilliant. But the second we don't.
23:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:25 Speaker 02 Get on the floor.
23:26 Speaker 01 Back on the floor. Make me a Jain.
23:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
23:28 Speaker 01 Gandhi said of the Brits, quote, "The average Englishman believed that the Indian was a coward incapable of taking risks or looking beyond his immediate self-interest." So he's trying to prove them wrong, I suppose.
23:38 Speaker 02 So I guess the stereotype now of the send Bob Indian. That's a man who's looking for his immediate self-interest, sure, but is he a coward incapable of taking risks? I don't know.
23:47 Speaker 01 He's taking risks.
23:48 Speaker 02 I think that's a risk. You're commenting on your own account without a burner on Sydney Sweeney's pic, saying, send Bob's pretty princess.
23:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:57 Speaker 02 Your whole workplace can see that.
23:59 Speaker 01 Your wife can see that.
24:01 Speaker 02 That's not, that's not a coward.
24:02 Speaker 01 No.
24:03 Speaker 02 That's not a man incapable of taking risks. It is a man who can't look beyond his immediate self-interest.
24:07 Speaker 01 But is it a risk, I suppose? Are they taking it? Yeah, play this, Charlie. Get this playing.
24:11 Speaker 02 Get this banger.
24:12 Speaker 01 Absolute banger. Shout out, um, Hoey Benjamin.
24:18 Speaker 02 So I think this is, this was the Indian national anthem.
24:24 Speaker 01 Send Bob's.
24:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's the Indian national anthem there. That's what they play at Pakistan.
24:34 Speaker 02 Very big, I'm kiss your bobs. I'm kiss your bobs.
24:37 Speaker 01 Send me a sexy bob pic. What's your pussies doing? Let's have sexy sex. Cloth off.
24:45 Speaker 02 This is the, the world that Gandhi came into. It makes sense why he had to.
24:49 Speaker 01 This is the world Gandhi bestows.
24:51 Speaker 02 Exactly.
24:52 Speaker 01 This is Gandhi's legacy.
24:55 Speaker 01 Okay, thank you. Put my ass in your asshole. Well, look, these are men, you know, they're.
25:01 Speaker 02 But you also, you know, you can't, you cannot deny that Gandhi didn't achieve a lot in his life. Whether he's a poor or not, he got a lot done. And you realise this is why he had to be so disciplined. Because as soon as you open the lid, it's put my ass in your asshole.
25:17 Speaker 01 But think of the untapped power of India as a nation.
25:21 Speaker 02 He's the only man to do it. And look how much he got done.
25:24 Speaker 01 If even five percent.
25:24 Speaker 02 He brought an empire to its knees.
25:26 Speaker 01 If even 5% of them could stop sending requests for bobs, they would, this is what we talk about. We talk about the brick economies.
25:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:37 Speaker 01 Brazil equals horny.
25:38 Speaker 02 China, they'll be the.
25:39 Speaker 01 Too horny. Brazil, right?
25:42 Speaker 02 China, they got that shit on lock.
25:43 Speaker 01 Stop wiggling, stop wiggling your bottom in the street and fucking start a business. Okay? Brazil, right. India, my God. It is terrifying to think of the potential of India have. A billion people.
25:56 Speaker 02 So he was probably right. Scene retention is the.
25:59 Speaker 01 Again, it's about context, isn't it? Scene retention in this country seems perverted, but in India, where the air is perverted.
26:05 Speaker 02 You can unlock the potential of a nation.
26:08 Speaker 01 Lock in.
26:10 Speaker 01 In 1903, Gandhi starts a newspaper called Indian Opinion. It establishes a unified voice.
26:17 Speaker 02 Sort of like LBC but for Indians in Africa.
26:21 Speaker 01 Yeah. Nick Ferrari Masala.
26:28 Speaker 01 James Obardji.
26:33 Speaker 02 James Obardji.
26:38 Speaker 01 Oh Christ. So he writes in the newspaper, it is the duty of- Ian Dahl. Sorry?
26:45 Speaker 02 Ian Dahl, that's good.
26:46 Speaker 01 Ian Dahl's the best one. Come on. Ian Dahl. Fucking hell. It is the duty of every thoughtful Indian not to marry. In case he is helpless in regard to marriage, he should abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife. So this is where we start to get to the celibacy. He starts a, sort of like an ashram, is that what it's called? Like a kind of cult house in, it's called the Phoenix Settlement in 1904. A cooperative space for his followers to practise not busting on each other. And this is, he marks his first experiment with communal living. So he's starting to be a bit of a hippy dippy at this point.
27:27 Speaker 01 Now, in 1906, we have the Zulu Rebellion, okay? Which is, again, the fragile peace after the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 erupts again. And the Zulus kick off once more. And Gandhi immediately reforms the Indian Ambulance Corps because he is in support of the British Empire. He's still anachron at this point.
27:51 Speaker 01 This is where we also start to get a sense of one of Gandhi's big, shall we say, blind spots or boo-boos. Which is that although he is an anti-imperialist-
28:03 Speaker 02 He's a scholar and a racist.
28:04 Speaker 01 He's a scholar and a racist. Yeah. Again, he really embraces the 1890s. Yeah. He's a man of his time. And what a time it is to be a man.
28:15 Speaker 01 So he says, quote, "What is our duty in these calamitous times in the colony? It is not for me to say whether the revolt of the Kaffirs..." Now, that's a racial term for the black Africans.
28:26 Speaker 02 It's not a fermented yogurt that's good for your gut.
28:28 Speaker 01 No, that's Kaffir.
28:30 Speaker 02 Right.
28:31 Speaker 01 This is Kaffir.
28:32 Speaker 02 Right.
28:32 Speaker 01 Again, this is Gandhi's words I'm using.
28:34 Speaker 02 Sure.
28:35 Speaker 01 Which is funny to use Gandhi's words and need to distance myself. But this is not me, this is Gandhi, all right? Don't judge me by these words.
28:40 Speaker 02 I'm not racist, this is just what Gandhi says.
28:42 Speaker 01 This is what Gandhi said, right. "We are in a tal by value of British power, our very existence depends on it, it is therefore our duty to render help." Now, he loves the word Kaffir, he uses it a lot. So, the rebellion turns out to be a Zulu chief, Bambatha, who's refusing to pay a new tax. So the tax is an additional poll tax on top of the pre-existing hut tax. You've got to tax people's huts.
29:06 Speaker 02 You've got to tax the huts.
29:07 Speaker 01 Tax the huts.
29:07 Speaker 02 Is that a hut in there?
29:08 Speaker 01 And it disproportionately targets Zulus. So Gandhi, in his retrospective autobiography, changes tune and says, "No, actually, my heart was with the Zulus and we had to nurse the wounded Zulus because the white soldiers used to dissuade us from attending to the wounds, but we would do it anyway because they were being abused."
29:28 Speaker 02 J.K. Rowling saying Dumbledore's gay, sort of.
29:30 Speaker 01 Totally.
29:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
29:31 Speaker 01 Actually, in a book thirty years later, "Oh, no, I was on their team."
29:34 Speaker 02 No, dude, he's gay the whole time.
29:35 Speaker 01 No. But, so in the end, about 4,000 Zulus are killed for resisting taxation. The British tragically lose 36 men.
29:43 Speaker 02 I mean, yeah. But what's the greater crime? I mean, you cannot resist taxation.
29:46 Speaker 01 No.
29:47 Speaker 02 This is how does a state run with that?
29:48 Speaker 01 Death and taxes, those are the two things.
29:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
29:50 Speaker 01 Right. So, let's get into Gandhi's chocolate box of racism. Despite his autobiographical revisionism to the Zulus, Gandhi has a pretty tough history of anti-black racism in South Africa. Now, you know, when in Rome, etc. But...
30:10 Speaker 01 This is one of, I mean, he's a very controversial figure, we should say, in India today. He's been disowned, really.
30:15 Speaker 02 Very much so.
30:15 Speaker 01 Which we'll get into more in the next part, but it's why he's, you know, in our, in our kind of stereotypical view of him as like this holy man, this ascetic monk.
30:25 Speaker 02 There's no stereotypical, it's normally, it's rich and full bodied, I'd say.
30:29 Speaker 01 Well, our view again.
30:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, we don't have any stereotypical views on this show. This is it.
30:32 Speaker 01 Sorry, yeah. I mean, us in the West.
30:34 Speaker 02 Right, right, right.
30:35 Speaker 01 Sorry. We're scholars, we're, you know, we're scholars and racists, but I mean, for the, for the
30:40 Speaker 02 Richly drawn.
30:41 Speaker 01 For the average listener, when they've stopped fucking their lightsaber. You know, when they're thinking about Gandhi.
30:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
30:49 Speaker 01 A man who never fucked a lightsaber in his life.
30:54 Speaker 01 Right? They think of Gandhi as a holy man, an ascetic man, a monk-like figure.
30:59 Speaker 02 Sure, definitely.
31:00 Speaker 01 Who could do no wrong. A Mother Teresa, if you will.
31:02 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:03 Speaker 01 In, in South Africa, where he starts his whole activism, really, he, his basic opinion is, guys.
31:11 Speaker 02 We're not black.
31:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's his whole point, is we're Indian, we're not fucking them.
31:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, Christ.
31:18 Speaker 01 We're better than them.
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31:50 Speaker 05 He built the first planet-wide media empire.
31:53 Speaker 04 He monetized the paranoia and resentment that led to Donald Trump and Brexit.
31:58 Speaker 05 He ruined his own family in his obsessive quest for money, power and legacy.
32:02 Speaker 04 This is the story of Rupert Murdoch, the real-life succession.
32:06 Speaker 05 Join me, Dorian Linsky.
32:08 Speaker 04 And me, Ian Dunst, for season 10 of Origin Story, the show that uses the past to explain the present.
32:14 Speaker 05 That's Origin Story, kicking off with a two-part special on Rupert Murdoch on all podcast platforms now.
32:22 Speaker 01 So he's using the hierarchy to try, like Judo, he's using his opponent's weight of argument to try and...
32:28 Speaker 02 Is it not the genius of the British Empire, though? Is that you get to the point where you've got them saying, "Well, we're not them." That's what everyone's saying.
32:34 Speaker 01 And then the Brits are going, "I don't say that. That's a bit racist." "Gandhi, please."
32:39 Speaker 02 Now, get in there with them.
32:40 Speaker 01 Now, get over there with them.
32:41 Speaker 02 You fucking racist.
32:41 Speaker 01 No. No, you can't stand with the whites, but you can stand on your own. How about that? So this is what he writes in 1893. "General belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are a little better, if at all, than savages or the natives of Africa." Again, not my words. "Even the children are told to believe in that manner with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a kaffir." Again, that's a term for black Africans. "We could not, we could understand not being classed with whites, but to be placed on the same level as the natives seems too much to put up with." "They are troublesome, very dirty, and live like animals." His words.
33:18 Speaker 02 "Live like animals."
33:19 Speaker 01 Gandhi. That's your, that's your hero, is it?
33:22 Speaker 02 That's Gandhi on black people. "They live like animals."
33:24 Speaker 01 That's, that's your guy. Yeah? That's your hero?
33:28 Speaker 02 Martin Luther King's hero.
33:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, genuinely. Martin, did you read everything? Did you read his 1890s stuff? His early stuff's a bit fruity for you, Martin. And now he's on the fuck, he's on the...
33:40 Speaker 02 I prefer the earliest stuff.
33:41 Speaker 01 I prefer, I'm an early, oh yeah, I prefer Gandhi's earliest stuff.
33:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, before he went mainstream.
33:45 Speaker 01 I think the 1920s, when he goes back to India, that's like kid, eh? I'm like, "Guys, get back to the bench."
33:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:52 Speaker 01 So he also demands that Indians be allowed to use the white entrance at post offices so that they're not classed with black Africans. So he is, you know, if you're being...
34:01 Speaker 02 More so than wanting Indians to be respected by whites, he's wanting Indians not to be treated as badly as blacks.
34:07 Speaker 01 He wants, he wants the blacks to stay where they are.
34:09 Speaker 02 Right.
34:10 Speaker 01 And he wants to try and distance...
34:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:12 Speaker 01 He's fighting for a third category.
34:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:14 Speaker 01 That's better than the bottom. He's fighting for an Indian middle class.
34:17 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:18 Speaker 01 Right, in a racialised society.
34:19 Speaker 02 Which, which happens in Uganda.
34:21 Speaker 01 Yes, yes, it does.
34:22 Speaker 02 Very much so.
34:23 Speaker 01 So in 1904, during an epidemic, he demands the segregation. He demands segregation. This is your hero, really? A pro segregationist.
34:33 Speaker 02 He's demanding it as well.
34:34 Speaker 01 Demanding. I mean, I, you know, you can't do that nowadays.
34:39 Speaker 02 Apparently.
34:40 Speaker 01 Apparently, these days. You can suggest.
34:43 Speaker 02 But you can't demand.
34:43 Speaker 01 You can infer, but you cannot demand. That's crazy. He said that health officers in Johannesburg must withdraw kaffirs. In 1905, he says Indian men have no war dances, nor does he drink kaffir beer. What's that?
34:59 Speaker 02 Kaffir beer?
35:00 Speaker 01 Is that yogurt beer? That sounds disgusting.
35:02 Speaker 02 That does sound horrible.
35:03 Speaker 01 A fucking IPA, is it? Is that all that nonsense? Brew dog shit? He demands again that black people and Indians be separated in hospitals during a plague. He started, he referred to the Zulu Rebellion as the Kaffir Rebellion. This is all stuff he says before he writes his own autobiography. He goes, oh, no, no, I love them, actually. An academic argues that Gandhi's blanking of Africans, I wouldn't say he blanks them. I'd say he goes in quite hard on them, is the black hole at the heart of his saintly mythology.
35:29 Speaker 02 Sure.
35:30 Speaker 01 In all his time in South Africa, Gandhi is described as not as one of apartheid's first opponents, but as one of its first proponents.
35:37 Speaker 02 Wow.
35:38 Speaker 01 Lovely stuff.
35:39 Speaker 02 Look at that, that's brilliant.
35:39 Speaker 01 I love that.
35:40 Speaker 02 I think he had, there's a statue of him in South Africa that's recently been torn down.
35:43 Speaker 01 Really?
35:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, I believe.
35:45 Speaker 01 I mean, if South Africans are tearing your statue down, what the fuck did you do? You know, you know, I mean, you could just be a fucking farmer and the Bristolians will turn your, tear your statue down.
35:55 Speaker 02 Just have leathery skin. You definitely were an unbelievable racist back in the day.
35:58 Speaker 01 Like, you don't have to do anything for a Bristolian to tear your statue down, but for a South African? God. So he lived in the Transvaal.
36:07 Speaker 02 Transvaal.
36:07 Speaker 01 Transvaal.
36:08 Speaker 02 The Transvaal, she's done, she's got a nine inch long.
36:10 Speaker 01 She's Transvaal. She's Transvaal. No, she's Kabenology.
36:15 Speaker 01 And so we get to the Asiatic Registration Act of 1906. So this is where the colony's population in Transvaal is 74% black, less than 1% Asian and 23% white. And the Transvaal passed the act which requires all Asian residents of eight years or older to put their names on a register, as if they're sex offenders.
36:39 Speaker 02 Go door to door and say, I'm Indian.
36:40 Speaker 01 I'm Asian, sorry. I've just moved into your neighbourhood, I have to let you know that I'm an Indian. Give fingerprints and they have to, they could also, they could be stopped at any point by a policeman and say, show me your ID.
36:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:52 Speaker 01 Which tells me you're Indian. So I guess if a policeman goes, I think, are you Indian?
36:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, clearly.
36:56 Speaker 01 Just confirm that. Confirm that for me. The police would also have rights to go into your house and like turn it over and look for stuff.
37:01 Speaker 02 Hang out in there sometimes if they want, chill out.
37:03 Speaker 01 I don't think it's chilling out. I think it's, I think it's basically robbing you.
37:06 Speaker 02 They can eat anything in your fridge.
37:07 Speaker 01 Yeah. And I think this is very, to kind of socially conservative Hindus, this is deeply problematic because their home is like sacred and the wife, women shouldn't be touched.
37:19 Speaker 02 Right, right, right.
37:21 Speaker 01 So in 1906, Gandhi is part of an association that seeks to gain a British veto to the register. So anyone who's what, a British Indian should be exempt. Again, he's not, he's not saying all Indians. He's saying, well, I'm British. Let me, I mean, he's a fucking, you know, he's a snake on a ship, isn't he?
37:41 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:42 Speaker 01 He's kicking a woman out of that boat on the Titanic.
37:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:44 Speaker 01 Oh, but I'm, I'm, I've been a wingman.
37:46 Speaker 02 And he's wearing the same thing.
37:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, he is.
37:48 Speaker 02 He's, he's, he dresses like he's trying to escape the Titanic while pretending to be a woman.
37:52 Speaker 01 Look, I'm a big baby. Look, I'm a big baby. Get me on the boat. That's what he's doing. He's a rat.
37:57 Speaker 02 Well, he actually is a nationalist. He's fucking, he's Rupert Lowe, basically, for Indians.
38:03 Speaker 01 Well, you stop going on about Rupert Lowe. You're sending me all his reels. You're posting them all the time on your Instagram. Restore Britain.
38:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:09 Speaker 01 This all kicks off because of this, this register and they, he demands freedom for the Indian population and they do succeed in stopping the law from being passed. Now, what also happens in 1906 is that Gandhi takes a vow of Brahmacaraya. Brahmacaraya, it's hard to say.
38:29 Speaker 02 Sounds like one of Gaddafi's books.
38:30 Speaker 01 Brahmacaraya. And it's about as useful as one of Gaddafi's books.
38:36 Speaker 02 Why you say that?
38:37 Speaker 01 This is the vow of celibacy and semen retention.
38:41 Speaker 02 I don't think you can cast dispersions on his semen retention because you haven't seen him without semen retention. I think it's easy to say, well, that didn't help. But you don't know what he was like if he wasn't semen retention.
38:50 Speaker 01 Well, I think we do know what he was like. He was ignoring his dad because he was fucking a 15 year old.
38:53 Speaker 02 Exactly. So I think it was very effective.
38:55 Speaker 01 But see, he, this first means that he renounces sex with his wife.
39:00 Speaker 02 Did he announce him renouncing sex with his wife?
39:03 Speaker 01 Come here, come here love, come here love, I've got something to tell you. No more.
39:06 Speaker 02 No more.
39:06 Speaker 01 None of it.
39:06 Speaker 02 You're done.
39:07 Speaker 01 You're done.
39:07 Speaker 02 You're cut off.
39:08 Speaker 01 Done of it. You know that thing you keep trying to make me do? I'm not doing it anymore.
39:12 Speaker 02 Yeah, he couldn't wait to start with sex with his wife though.
39:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:15 Speaker 02 It is amazing just how he clearly just despised this woman. Absolutely despised her.
39:20 Speaker 01 I think if anyone, if anyone, you know, it's part of the manosphere now, isn't it? Seamen retention. If anyone undergoes this, takes a celibacy of semen retention, if you're their wife, you can't help but take that personally.
39:32 Speaker 01 Is it about me?
39:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
39:33 Speaker 01 Is it something I'm doing?
39:35 Speaker 02 We'll get to the, him testing his temptation.
39:39 Speaker 01 It's similar to the OJ series in this, in that every part, it gets more and more messed up.
39:43 Speaker 02 I'm fucking chomping at the bit to get some of these bits.
39:46 Speaker 03 Can you get close?
39:47 Speaker 02 Can you?
39:47 Speaker 01 Sorry, can you edge yourself?
39:49 Speaker 03 Can you, yeah, can you just before?
39:51 Speaker 01 Well, I'll defer to my scholarly, scholar on semen retention, who has read a lot of this.
39:58 Speaker 02 I have read a lot of literature. I imagine you're playing a dangerous game if you're doing that. And I imagine.
40:05 Speaker 01 Is that not the ultimate test of semen retention?
40:07 Speaker 02 I imagine the rules are the rules, so if you're not coming.
40:10 Speaker 01 What about pre semen retention, pre come retention?
40:14 Speaker 02 Well, I don't think you can control that.
40:16 Speaker 01 You can't.
40:18 Speaker 02 Well, I guess.
40:19 Speaker 01 I can.
40:19 Speaker 02 With enough meditation and holiness and you probably can get to a state of nirvana where you can stop having wet dreams.
40:26 Speaker 01 Yes, but Gandhi, now Gandhi had had wet dreams.
40:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
40:30 Speaker 01 As well, which is as well as.
40:31 Speaker 02 And he's livid at himself.
40:32 Speaker 01 He hates it as well as.
40:33 Speaker 02 Are you saying that his cloak wasn't originally white?
40:37 Speaker 02 It was a brown cloak.
40:38 Speaker 01 It was a brown cloak. Every night he'd wake up and he's like, fucking hell.
40:45 Speaker 01 Like a.
40:46 Speaker 02 Like a garden hose.
40:46 Speaker 01 Like garden hose, yeah, yeah. Turn that hose off. Yeah. Immediate hosepipe ban.
40:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
40:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think I could control pre come, pre come retention.
40:58 Speaker 02 Do you?
40:59 Speaker 01 I think if I, if I communed.
41:00 Speaker 02 You're an incredibly arrogant man.
41:04 Speaker 01 Wow, wow.
41:07 Speaker 01 I'm a holy man. I'm a holy holy man. Wouldn't it be funny to make an argument that it turns out that all a man's-
41:13 Speaker 02 You're not God, Finn. You're a mere mortal, you should know that.
41:18 Speaker 01 No, I'm a deity. Wouldn't it be funny to argue that all a man's strength comes from his pre-cum?
41:24 Speaker 02 Right.
41:25 Speaker 01 And that pre-cums actually-
41:26 Speaker 02 I want to hear you explain why you, if you hadn't masturbated for 15 years, how you would also be able to control pre-cum. Do you just think you'd have the mental toughness?
41:37 Speaker 01 It's all in there, it's test cricket.
41:38 Speaker 02 Right.
41:39 Speaker 01 I'm playing test cricket.
41:42 Speaker 01 Pre-cum's the openers.
41:43 Speaker 02 Sure.
41:43 Speaker 01 I've got good openers. Right? Some men there having sex.
41:47 Speaker 02 He probably-
41:48 Speaker 01 They've got Rory Burns down there, who's just fucking first ball, Mitchell Stark, pre-cum over.
41:52 Speaker 02 Do you know, I think Gandhi's strength is whenever he felt he thought he was going to bust, he just thought of his awful wife he hates.
41:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:59 Speaker 02 That's just, he uses that.
42:00 Speaker 01 No, if you marry that, if you marry a woman you hate, then I guess-
42:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's like, he's always got something there.
42:04 Speaker 01 Can we have a look at the, can we have a look at the rabbit, please, Charlie? Can we let, can we see Gandhi's wife?
42:08 Speaker 02 Let the dog see the rabbit, what? I think, can we have a look at the rabbit?
42:13 Speaker 02 Can we have a look at the rabbit?
42:14 Speaker 01 We're not dogs, though, are we?
42:18 Speaker 02 Let's get a young catsterber.
42:20 Speaker 01 Catsterber Gandhi, not, not, older than when he marries her, please, because they did marry at 13.
42:26 Speaker 02 So they had four kids before 20. Yeah, she's always about, but he's fucking, you can just tell, look at that photo.
42:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, he's just fucking-
42:32 Speaker 02 Fuck me, she's telling a story again.
42:35 Speaker 01 She looks, she just, she looks quite nice.
42:38 Speaker 02 She was for him.
42:39 Speaker 01 Not for him.
42:40 Speaker 02 Well, it is suspicious that as soon as she turned like 19, he's like, I will never have sex with you again.
42:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:47 Speaker 02 You're cut off.
42:49 Speaker 01 That's crazy.
42:50 Speaker 02 Literally as soon as she stopped being a teenager, he was like, I'm not interested.
42:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:54 Speaker 02 Get out of my sight.
42:55 Speaker 01 I'm not having sex ever again.
42:59 Speaker 01 If you're 19 now, that's disgusting.
43:00 Speaker 02 Disgusting.
43:01 Speaker 01 I've gone off all women.
43:04 Speaker 01 So he thinks that one who conserves his vital fluid acquires unfailing power.
43:11 Speaker 02 I mean, this is pre semen retention. This is what all these Manosphere guys are talking about.
43:14 Speaker 01 It's really incel stuff, isn't it?
43:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, but is he the innovator of this? Is it a long history of semen retention? I don't know.
43:22 Speaker 01 What's he building on? Is he building on a Hindu thing? Is there a...
43:26 Speaker 02 I'm sure there's something about, there's a lot about like sexual, I guess like Catholics, you're not meant to masturbate and stuff like that before marriage, right?
43:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, but they're fucking slipping it in goats' fucking faves and doing anal. You know, it's not exactly retention, is it? When has an Italian ever retained anything?
43:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's true.
43:43 Speaker 01 You know, semen retention conserves vitality, is essential for physical, mental and spiritual health. I mean, I disagree hard on this. Mental health, retaining semen?
43:54 Speaker 02 Hmm.
43:55 Speaker 01 Nah.
43:55 Speaker 02 What do you think, Charlie? Do you think, do you find yourself sharper if you have resisted the urge for a while? Because I mean, I do, you know, I have a lot of friends who are...
44:08 Speaker 01 So many friends?
44:09 Speaker 02 Well, they're comedians who I'm deciding not to name.
44:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, fine.
44:15 Speaker 02 Who find that, I've got a friend who's on a diet of semen retention. He says it's changed his life.
44:20 Speaker 01 A diet?
44:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
44:21 Speaker 01 Right, okay.
44:21 Speaker 02 A strict diet. He still has sex, but he says masturbating, he said he's masturbating every day of his licence. He was 14 and now he's stopped and he says it's like, it's changed his life. The energy he's got, like, he's got a new lust for life.
44:35 Speaker 01 Maybe that's not watching porn.
44:37 Speaker 02 No.
44:38 Speaker 01 But is the lack of porn actually the benefit rather than...
44:41 Speaker 02 Porn obviously is bad.
44:43 Speaker 01 I think porn is the reason why it's harder now.
44:46 Speaker 02 It's definitely not good for you, but the interesting question is if you can withhold, does that give you an extra bit of bite in your day? That's what I sometimes think about.
44:56 Speaker 01 No.
44:57 Speaker 02 You don't think so?
44:58 Speaker 01 No, I think it's just something that's looming over you. Like, I'm gonna have to do that at some point, so I may as well do it right now.
45:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, but you're someone who's never resisted the urge. You've masturbated in these offices before, so you've never resisted the urge.
45:08 Speaker 01 Not in the office. You've never resisted the urge for anything?
45:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
45:12 Speaker 01 Eating, drinking, having a cigarette?
45:14 Speaker 02 So you're like maybe the least semen retentive man ever?
45:16 Speaker 01 No.
45:17 Speaker 02 And I don't know how much...
45:18 Speaker 01 I don't think that's fair.
45:20 Speaker 02 Oh, sorry Charlie.
45:20 Speaker 03 I think that's, I think that's on.
45:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think it really hurt your feelings.
45:23 Speaker 01 I mean, you wanted to poo, you just pooed in your hand, threw it in the toilet. The urge, the urge to sit in the toilet like a human, rather than just sort of hurling it around.
45:31 Speaker 02 If the edit's taking too long, just pop, pop off to the toilet.
45:33 Speaker 03 But that's how I get the edit done. He's like, go and, go and do that.
45:36 Speaker 02 But you think, if you took, would you be able to maybe do a experiment for us? Would you be able to take a week off, um, would you be able to see me attempt for a week?
45:44 Speaker 01 I don't really wanna be across that experiment, if I'm honest.
45:48 Speaker 03 I'm happy to do that.
45:48 Speaker 02 I wanna see if there's any changes. He could, he could come, he's, he's in a suit, he's, he's got a wife and kids.
45:54 Speaker 01 Why next week when we record?
45:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'm happy to try.
45:57 Speaker 01 Father, father of three, he's got to drive a fucking Volvo.
46:03 Speaker 01 Right.
46:03 Speaker 02 I'd like you to be an experiment to go in if you wouldn't.
46:05 Speaker 03 Sure, yeah, yeah.
46:06 Speaker 02 I'd, I'd actually be fascinated.
46:07 Speaker 03 I don't think there's any benefit other than not watching porn. I don't think, unless you're wanking, like, unless you're one of those guys that wanks like every, I don't wank every day.
46:13 Speaker 02 Okay.
46:14 Speaker 03 You'd be surprised to hear. I just, when I do it, I really do it.
46:17 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:18 Speaker 01 You're a binge wanker.
46:19 Speaker 03 I'm a binge wanker.
46:21 Speaker 02 Wake up four days later, where the fuck am I?
46:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:23 Speaker 02 Shit in your pants, right?
46:25 Speaker 01 So, following the Zulu Rebellion and the Asiatic Registration, Gandhi starts to articulate his key philosophies and its founding pillar, Satya Garaja. A combination of the Sanskrit words Satya and Agara, so truth and force, the force of truth. Uh, this is his conceptualization of nonviolent resistance. So he believes that if you confront evil with nonviolent refusal, you, it's an act of moral truth and you're always gonna have the upper hand. I wanna put a pin in this argument for when we get to the 40s. It's very, very, very, very funny. Anyway. So the teaching, uh, is Jainist teachings.
47:02 Speaker 02 Jainist.
47:02 Speaker 01 Jainist. Um, the, as we said last time, ahamsa, ahamsa, ahamsa, no! Is the nonviolence towards, uh, anyone and, um, brahmacharya is the commitment to spiritual growth through sexual abstinence and other self-discipline. So let's go through the nine pillars of Satya Garaja. So this is, uh, Gandhi's nine pillars. Nonviolence, truth, not stealing, uh, non-possession.
47:29 Speaker 01 Body labour or bread labour, which is the moral obligation to perform physical work to earn a daily meal.
47:35 Speaker 02 Okay.
47:36 Speaker 01 Control of desires, fearlessness, equal respect for all religions and economic strategies such as boycotts of imported goods.
47:44 Speaker 02 Well, that's a, it feels like everything was pretty spiritual to that last one.
47:47 Speaker 01 You feel like he needed seven.
47:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
47:49 Speaker 01 He needed nine.
47:49 Speaker 02 That's right. He had a deadline and he.
47:52 Speaker 01 He was trying to get, he was trying to get to 10 and he's like, ah, fuck.
47:55 Speaker 02 That really like, that took me out of the sort of more holiness of it.
47:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:58 Speaker 02 Talking about imported goods.
48:00 Speaker 01 Boycotting imported goods.
48:03 Speaker 01 So this is where like, now he's meant to be in South Africa for a year and he ends up being there for 20, 23 years.
48:09 Speaker 02 This is the worst place ever. I love it.
48:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'll stay, I think. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So he establishes the Tolstoy Farm in 1910, which is where he begins to practise Satyagarah and politically organise. And above all, it's a sort of safe space for Indians in South Africa. A safe space away from all the black Africans that Gandhi hates. So inmates at the farm, inmates is a big word, are vegetarians, ascetics and they embrace egalitarian politics. So Gandhi's movement is supported by Sonia Schleschlein, who Gandhi labels as having led the movement single-handed in his absence, blah, blah, boring, boring, boring. Right. Now let's get to Gandhi and the miners. Wait.
48:55 Speaker 02 Gandhi and the miners is coming later.
48:56 Speaker 01 Not those miners, that's coming in part four. Gandhi's most notable political action in South Africa is the 1913 miners' strike.
49:05 Speaker 02 Well, he does do a miners' strike.
49:06 Speaker 01 He also does a miners' strike, but again, we'll get to that later. This is the first time that his actual philosophy gets applied on an industrial scale.
49:14 Speaker 02 Someone else's philosophy gets applied on industrial scale, quite near to here, right? That's another link he has with Hitler. Is this is an age where philosophies could be done on an industrial scale for the first time.
49:25 Speaker 01 Yes. Oh, to be alive at a time where your philosophies could be implemented on scale.
49:31 Speaker 02 So this is Gandhi's Holocaust gone. You were saying, Fintana.
49:36 Speaker 01 Sorry, I'm a Gandhi Holocaust denier.
49:38 Speaker 02 Yep.
49:39 Speaker 01 The strike is triggered by two specific insulting laws. An annual three pound tax on former Indian labourers who chose to stay after their contracts had expired, which is about six months, three pounds is six months' salary. God, that'd fucking clean up there.
49:56 Speaker 02 Yeah. I don't know what pints cost there.
49:59 Speaker 01 God, I mean, I do think we, you know.
50:01 Speaker 02 The one p pint?
50:02 Speaker 01 In many ways, when you're talking about my generation having lived through like, you know, financial crash, Brexit, Covid, or the, as you could become an adult. I did miss out on the fucking housing days of exchange rates.
50:15 Speaker 02 What do you mean?
50:15 Speaker 01 Well, I could just fucking go to like.
50:17 Speaker 02 Go somewhere else and then just.
50:18 Speaker 01 Just fucking buy the place.
50:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:20 Speaker 01 You know?
50:21 Speaker 02 You can still that a little bit, I guess, but yeah.
50:24 Speaker 01 Where am I hoovering up that's not a complete hole?
50:27 Speaker 02 Guess it's Vietnam, quite cheap, or I guess it's got all touristy.
50:31 Speaker 01 You know, do I have to go to fucking Burundi?
50:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, probably.
50:34 Speaker 01 To clean up, but then I was like, what is there to clean up?
50:37 Speaker 02 A lot.
50:37 Speaker 01 Well, yeah, there's a lot of work to do. I don't want it to be like a charity thing. I want, I want, I want fucking 10 p pints or whatever.
50:45 Speaker 01 Anyway, so the Cape Supreme Court ruling of 1913 had invalidated all non-Christian marriages, which made Indian wives, concubines and children illegitimate in the eyes of the law. So a miners' strike begins in Natal, in Newcastle, so it's about 100 years before the, no, about 80 years before the miners' strikes in Britain. And I guess Gandhi's like Arthur Skargill.
51:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:13 Speaker 01 At this point.
51:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:15 Speaker 01 Gandhi organises the Great March, where 2,000 people cross the border into the Transphal, which is an illegal act of civil disobedience.
51:24 Speaker 02 The rules, the rules.
51:25 Speaker 01 And the goal is to get, if you get arrested en masse, then you will paralise the colonial administration who have to deal with you. So he gets arrested three times during the march. He's released unexpectedly after the strike gains international attention. And the British government in India is horrified. And the UK government pressures the South African leader, Jan Smuts, friend of the pod, to find a resolution. So the strike is a total victory.
51:49 Speaker 01 Which leads to the Indian Relief Act of 1914, which abolishes the tax, validates the marriages and ends the system of indentured labour. And so it's a major achievement that Gandhi has proved that civil disobedience, i.e. being professionally annoying, being a wanker.
52:08 Speaker 02 Two thousand Asbos.
52:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, basically. It's the first time, and this, you know, he's actually also, it should be said, he's quite inspired by what the suffragettes are doing. He's inspired, and he thinks the suffragettes are very good up until they start getting violent.
52:24 Speaker 02 Well, it's interesting with Gandhi because in modern India, a lot of the turn away from Gandhi by the current Modi government is because they're a bit more manosphere, the world's getting more masculine. And Gandhi is sort of like, he looks kind of non-binary, he's quite like effeminate.
52:39 Speaker 01 He's like a baby.
52:39 Speaker 02 And it's like, as effective as he was, this is chick shit.
52:43 Speaker 01 Yes, it is. Yeah, it is. It's suffragette shit.
52:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's girl shit.
52:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm not eating. Eat! Drink out, drink water!
52:52 Speaker 02 I'm not eating till you-
52:53 Speaker 01 I know you like horses, but you can't just go, oh, fucking hell.
52:56 Speaker 02 Until you agree with me, I won't eat. You know? It's chick shit.
53:00 Speaker 01 It is. And Modi's a bro.
53:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is. So it's just like, we're not, we're not all pussies like Gandhi is what everyone's trying to say now.
53:08 Speaker 01 No. So it proves that Satyagraha can successfully defeat rigid colonial government laws. And as we end this part and go into part three, Gandhi will return to India and he will really start to make his name as the Gandhi, the Mahatma that we now know him for, and he will become Darth Vader.
53:29 Speaker 02 Yep. He turns to the dark side.
53:33 Speaker 01 That's him trying to hold, that's him trying to hold in his cup.
53:35 Speaker 02 That's him edging.
53:41 Speaker 02 Bet Gani's toes were like this all the time, just.
53:45 Speaker 01 He sat down like this.
53:48 Speaker 01 Next time, we'll be dealing with Gani's return to India where he becomes Darth Vader. Though, the next two episodes, where he starts writing letters to a friend of the pod.
53:57 Speaker 02 The Gan job takes new levels.
53:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was already on the Patreon where for £3 a month, you too can join an army of people who fuck their lightsabers. We are also doing Patreon specials on the history of Hinduism, where we review the Kama Sutra, which I know our listeners will be fascinated to learn. But if not, we will see you on Monday as we get, as Mahatma returns to India, full of cum, brimming with cum.
54:23 Speaker 02 Mano Fatma, Gani.
54:24 Speaker 01 And what's gonna happen, we'll see you next time.
54:27 Speaker 02 Goodbye.
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Previous No Nut Falafelmaxxing | Mahatma Gandhi (Part 1/4) Next Hindu Mussolini’s Vulva Envy | Mahatma Gandhi (Part 3/4) Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated