The allegations is the central argument of G.B. Singh's Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity (2004). Singh is neither a trained historian nor an authority within the field. In short, Singh argues that Gandhi used 'tactical racism against whites' and that he played a role in the death of William Francis Doherty, who was killed in the Bombay Riot of 1921, and subsequently tried to hush it up. The evidence that Singh calls upon is a sworn statement that Doherty's widow, Annette H. Doherty, made in Los Angeles in 1929 which says:

This was during the visit of the Prince of Wales to India, when Gandhi was at the height of his popularity as a saint and political leader, and had, through his violent speeches against the British, worked his followers into a frenzy of race hatred. My husband was probably mistaken for a Britisher when he was murdered by Gandhi’s followers.

Singh applies nothing of the source criticism which we would expect out of an undergraduate student in history. He takes Doherty's account at face value, not questioning what her motives could possibly have been nor the fact that it was made eight years after the fact. While Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu, both mentioned in her statement, were present at in Bombay at the time and likely got in touch with Doherty after the death of her husband, there really isn't anything to prove that Gandhi tried to buy her or anyone else's silence. In fact, this is the only real primary source we have about this particular element in the tragic story of William Doherty. That William Doherty died in the riot is confirmed by contemporary newspaper accounts, for example, but that he would have been murdered because of Gandhi's racist rhetoric and that he would have helped covered it up is not supported by any other primary sources. Newspaper accounts, and even statements by men like Lord Northcliffe, do not mention racism, but they do blame the followers of Gandhi for the murder. Lord Northcliffe, for example, states that, "Apparently the peaceful speeches of Gandhi [...] have the direct effect of stirring up the natives to crime". The fact that the majority of who died in the riots were not white men, but Indian men is completely overlooked. In fact, as Professor Claude Van Tyne wrote, "In vain Gandhi had run wildly about the streets urging the rioters to go home. He was powerless when the mob's blood was up."

In fact, the oldest secondary source that have mentioned the case of Doherty (After Mother India by Harry H. Field, 1929) is likely where Singh is drawing his information from, since it reproduces Annette H. Doherty's statement in full and takes an equally uncritical stance towards it. In fact, comparing the two makes me think that Singh didn't do more research into the case than what Field had already done in 1929. This is typical of Singh's approach to research, in which he actively interrogates any and all sources that would question his own conclusions while paying lip-service to even the most basic of source criticism for sources that support his own statements. For example, if indeed Gandhi had "worked his fellows into a frenzy of race hatred", then what did he supposedly say? Why was the supposed racial aspects of Gandhi's discourse not reported in the contemporary press? Why doesn't Lord Northcliffe, in his 1922 statement about the murder of Doherty, mention anything about racism? Why isn't Mrs. Doherty's own racism interrogated any further?

There are many contradictions and the fact that no scholar has taken this seriously, unlike Gandhi's early racism in the 1910s, shows how little credibility there is to Singh's argument.