> I mean really you list all these awful things about him and I sarcastically think well there you go, the Brits should have kept India then.

How exactly does that follow? That implication makes like zero sense. That implication is a problem, real world problem in both politics and history interpretation. That implication forces people to lie and to construct false history. It also seems like you are more interested in dividing world into goodly good and evily bad instead of being interested in historical truth. Why should it implies it is ok for Brits to continue with brutal regime that affects way more people then just Gandhi? It is not like colonial powers would kept power by being nice.

There are other consequences of hero worship. For example, I have seen multiple times people to use Gandhi as authority. Gandhi said it, therefore it should be truth and trustworthy. Now of course, in addition to good and nice thinks he said and did crazy stuff. That implies you cant just blindly trust his judgement, you need to think for yourself. And there, ugly stuff suddenly matters.

In addition, without ugly stuff you end up with history that makes little sense, that paints people who crossed Gandhi (or Churchill or Columbus) looking like complete incomprehensible idiots. How could they oppose such a great man? Well they could, because his flaws and dangers were as real as his achievements and affected lives of other people the same.

Lastly, refusal to deal with uglier aspects of larger personalies honestly amounts to ideology where once you are powerful enough or successful enough in one thing, it is whatever goes. Once you succeeded, the expectations we place on other people don't apply to you. For example, once you are good writer, it is ok to lie or mistreat other people, nobody can criticize for that. Such ideologies lead to massive power abuses in real world.

Well the original post was that Gandhi did great things and that maybe they were worthy of praise despite his bad things. You then go into his problems were really big problems and all the time not just intermittent (although focusing mainly on sex related stuff when he was really old and probably somewhat corrupted by power) and the implication seemed to be that his problems somehow colored or soiled the great things he achieved. So the great things he achieved are generally regarded as being in some way related to Indian independence. It seems to me that your argument is basically throw the baby out because I saw some really dirty bathwater in a nearby basin, and hence my facetious implication that colonialism should have been kept by that measure.

Am I interested in historical truth, sure am. Especially relevant historical truth.

For example if I am discussing Chuck Berry's effect on Rock n' Roll music - which is basically the way Chuck Berry was historically important - the information that he liked to video tape people in the toilets of his restaurant and was a fecal freak towards the end of his life at least doesn't have any relevance to the subject. In the same way if someone says Gandhi did good things and those good things are worth valuing then if you say Yes but Gandhi supported Nazi Germany against Britain that is something that detracts from the good actions because it relates historically to the good things under discussion but saying hey he was a pervert and basically a rapist doesn't really have a relevance to the great things he helped to achieve (unless our narrative is one of those 'but these victories came at a terrible cost!' ones)

As far as people who crossed Gandhi looking like complete incomprehensible idiots - I seriously doubt that any significant number of people who crossed Gandhi in relation to his great achievements did so because of his sexual habits. In his private life sure, but nobody was arguing that it was his private conduct that was admirable.

on edit: sorry about the run on sentences.

I was not talking about sex at all. I talked about hero worship and about the idea of "if Ghandi did that bad suff then Brits should have stayed" being wrong.

And of course, Chuck Berry's fecal hobbies might have relationship to culture of rock and roll (I have no idea about factual basis of either).

Ghadis sexual habits and cruelty (cause there was not just sex but quite simply abuse) are wery relevant toward how much I should take seriously his quotes anywhere near that topic.

It also opens topic of how much the non-violent thing was practical strategy and how moral issue and how victims become abusers sometimes.

The was rape, abuse or bullying become conflated with "sexual habit" in this debate is interesting too - and is nice examplease why hero worship is wrong and makes perfect situation for abuse to occure.

I believe I acknowledged that he was a rapist, so that I took all the different behaviors described and put them into the set 'sexual habits' is not actually that interesting.

I didn't know anyone actually cares what Gandhi's quotes are regarding anything but non-violence and perhaps its use as a political strategy - but it is a big world, so sure if someone were going to care about his quotes about sex this info here might cause them to reconsider.

I think it may also open topic of power corrupts.