Gandhi and Non-Violence

Mohandas Gandhi is often hailed as a hero who achieved independence for his country through the use of purely non-violent resistance. He is also famous around the world for his philosophy of non-violence. Unfortunately there are a couple problems with this picture of Gandhi. First, India's independence was not achieved through non-violence alone, despite the common myth. Second, Gandhi's positions on non-violence require complete submission to evil. They would have led to the loss of World War II, a greater genocide of the Jewish people, and many other terrible events. Gandhi was certainly a noble man, with noble goals and many powerful ideas, but is important to understand his true role in history so that we do not learn false lessons. After all, we can only learn from history if we have accurate historical facts.

Independence from Britain

During the late nineteenth century, there were many revolts and rebellions against British rule in India. This struggle would continue to grow and by the early twentieth century, a strong nationalist movement was taking shape. Gandhi returned to India in 1915, after having lived in South Africa for more than twenty years. He did not yet appear fully committed to his philosophy of non-violence. In fact, near the end of World War I, Gandhi was actively engaged in recruiting Indian troops for the British. While he privately stated that he would not personally kill or injure anyone, he published the following in a leaflet called "Appeal for Enlistment":

To bring about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them...If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army.

While many other Indian leaders did not see Gandhi's idea of civil disobedience as practical, his personal acts of non-violent resistance inspired many, and helped to bring millions into the nationalist movement, which also helped to make it more of a popular movement. This growth in numbers meant it was possible for widespread strikes to take place, putting real pressure on the British. The British responded in 1919 with the Amritsar Massacre, where they locked a group of 5000 unsuspecting men, women and children into a courtyard, then maintained continuous fire into the crowd for more than ten minutes, killing hundreds.

During the twenties, the nationalist movement grew, and Gandhi continue to push for non-violent resistance. Despite his views, however, many groups within the movement took up armed resistance and actively fought and killed British troops and police. Gandhi often denounced this, yet regardless of whether or not he supported such action, that action gave his threats of non-violent resistance teeth and to some degree provided protection for him and his supporters. British authorities knew that ignoring Gandhi's demands, or actively hurting him and his supporters, could be met with a violent response. If this threat did not exist, many more of Gandhi's supporters may have been killed, and indeed Gandhi may have been executed himself.

By the end of the decade, the nationalist movement had finally reached a consensus on total and complete independence as their goal. The British continued to crack down by imprisoning tens of thousands and they killed hundreds of unarmed protestors in another massacre. During the thirties, non-violent protests were on and off as Gandhi tried to negotiate various deals with the British. At the same time, armed resistance continue to escalate. Arms and ammunition were raided, communications sabotaged, and assassinations attempted.

There were many factors which led to the British finally leaving India. The second World War had crippled the country, and weakened its military. Armed resistance continued to wear the British down in India. And, of course, Gandhi's non-violent movement also made a large impact. All of these factors were important. But it is clear that the non-violent movement was not the only force, and almost certainly would not have been successful in isolation. Gandhi's role is rightly viewed as just and heroic, but claims that India won its independence through non-violence alone are disingenuous, and unfair to the millions of others who also struggled and sacrificed for this goal.

Philosophy of Non-Violence

Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence is often praised, but few people understand just what he was proposing. Everyone remembers the popular quote "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." But people either forget, or are unaware of, many more controversial statements he made. In early 1940 a German invasion of Britain was imminent, and at the time it appeared almost certain to succeed. Gandhi gave the following advice to the British people:

I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions...If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.

It is almost impossible to overstate the degree of repugnance elicited by such a statement. Indeed, anyone making a statement even half as inflammatory as this within the UK, at the time, would have been summarily executed for sedition. Gandhi is seriously proposing that the British people voluntarily ethnically cleanse themselves from their home, and failing that, give themselves up to the slaughter. But he goes even further than this. In 1946, after the horror of the Holocaust had become known, he said this:

Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs… It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany… As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.

Again, one cannot help but to respond to such an idea with disgust and disbelief. Statements like these, and others, are an insult to every Jew, and to every man, woman and child who fought and died fighting the evil of Fascism. There was a group within Germany that believed in non-violent resistance to the Nazis. They were a tiny group called The White Rose. They distributed leaflets protesting the Hitler regime. They gained no support, accomplished nothing, and were all executed. Instead we look to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as a more fitting inspiration and example.

Conclusion

Gandhi had many noble goals. He wanted India to be free from colonialism. He wanted to end the cruelty of the caste system and the suffering of the "untouchables". He wanted to improve women's rights, end poverty and increase peace and cooperation between different religious groups. He struggled long and hard to help make some of these a reality. For this, he deserves our thanks and respect.

However, India did not achieve independence solely through non-violence. Armed resistance was a vital component, and a legitimate one, in this struggle. We should honour all those who sacrificed through their civil disobedience, but we must also honour all the others who fought and died, and not dismiss or forget them. Gandhi also had some nice ideas in his philosophy of non-violence. But this was a facile and idealistic philosophy, cruelly disconnected from reality. No one should casually uphold it without understanding it what it truly means.