Gandhi II

Gandhi was achieving two goals with one act. He had realized that in a nation more populous than any on earth, preaching violence to achieve independence was simply the most disastrous thing you could ever do. What kind of leaders will such preaching throw up? You instigate millions to take up arms today for a noble goal, and tomorrow, they adopt that course by nature to achieve their local and at times pithy goals. I’m not simply guessing here, but this is actually what we are seeing in some countries around the world, where the population is taking to guns so easily, that nobody but chaos actually rules in those nations. For generations, those people have been bred on violence for one reason or another. Is that what you would want for India?

Playing by the rules of violence requires great maturity of thought – something that you cannot expect to be present with equal uniformity in hundreds of millions of people of a nation. Laws of mob behavior and group action simply do not allow that. When some brave people like Bhagat Singh adopted that path, it was with great thought, maturity and purpose. I salute Bhagat Singh for that. His actions can be justified, and respected. But only because they were done by a select small group of people who were mature enough to understand what they were doing. These are not the principles to be preached to a population of hundreds of millions. Hence, when in today’s “Bhagat Singh” movies, when Gandhi is ridiculed, I feel sad that people are actually being made to believe that Gandhi was a coward to suggest non-violence as against Direct Action by some others. It is a very common, and sad misconception that violence is a short-cut to achieve political goals.

Another of Gandhi’s action which people ridicule nowadays is the Swadeshi Movement. All we learn in history books in school is that Gandhi proposed that everyone wear khadi cloth and burn British goods. With such absurd depiction of history, all we learn about that movement is the dates when they burnt stuff, and the fact that Gandhi remained half-naked all his life. What we do not see is what Gandhi achieved with Swadeshi. British law and British economy were the two pillars on which the Indian British empire stood. With satyagraha, he had started destroying the former, and with the swadeshi, he was eating away at the latter, till as he said to the viceroy: “….. you see the wisdom in leaving…” Figures indicate that Indian cloth trade made a big contribution to the British Treasury. The cloth mills of Lancashire and Manchester practically depended on Indian cloth imports. Swadeshi had actually started putting these big industries out of business.

Once again, Gandhi was showing his shrewdness in mass politics. He was making it a grossly loss making, treasury draining and face losing venture for the British government to maintain a ruling government in India. Faced with this trio of problems, the British did not even have a prayer. He made India’s independence inevitable, rather than a drawn out bloodbath.

Lastly, to conclude my article, I would just like to say that looked in this light, Gandhi’s ideas are not at all obsolete, but in fact extremely interesting and as we have seen in the case of India, South Africa and MLK’s struggle in USA, highly effective.

I remember this incident in South Africa, when in a meeting of Indians to oppose a law the British were imposing there, a young and rash Indian stood up in the crowd, and said: “I’m ready to die for my respect…….These British won’t understand like this, let us kill a few British officers before they disrespect our homes”. To this, Gandhi, himself a young man then, said “There are many causes for which I’m ready to die, but no cause for which I’m ready to kill….” He was shaking the common beliefs that violent opposition would achieve the result. He was accused of advocating passive resistance, to quote Gandhi himself, he never advocated “passive” anything, only that his idea of aggression was a lot different.

In ending, I would just like to quote two people, first, Gandhi himself, and second, Dr. Albert Einstein who met Gandhi for a few moments:

“When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Think of it. Always.”

- Gandhi

“Generations to come will scarce believe, that such a one as this, ever in flesh and blood, walked upon this earth.”

- Albert Einstein (talking about Gandhi)