I still wonder how India won the Independence waging a non-violent movement. First time in the history such a movement was ever launched. No one would have ever imagined such an idea and its feasability. With inital experiments in South Africa, non-violence was mastered in India. Gandhi with the same influence he had over the people of the country, had he started a violent movement instead, I believe we could have still driven the British out or may be not? We can always debate the possible outcomes of such events. Why did the masses favour Ahimsa? Whether it was a Non-violent demonstration or a violent attack, the British responded with the same bullets and batons. No one received any special treatement. One set of people were unarmed when they faced the British and others were armed. And still the most popular by all means was the non-violent movement.
If we tweak the history a little bit and see what if had the rulers been someone else other than British. Say Japs or Germans. Then Gandhi would have chosen the gun instead. Or there will be no Gandhi at all to talk about. Japs or Germans might have killed him or imprisoned him the day he raised his voice against them. The situation might have looked like this - No newspapers, public meetings or demonstrations, shoot at sight orders all day, all night. Remember the "Rape of Nanking"? Japan made China surrender by rape and massacre during the second world war. Or the Ghettos and Gas chambers of Germans? British were angels infront these evils. By saying this in no way I support the British rule or other crimes they committed. But when put in comparison to what happened at the same time in history around the globe, we see the better side of the British rule.
The worldwide media attention received by Gandhi, and his movement was the biggest factor in its success. For example, NYT covered the Dandi March from start to end. Journalists came from worldover to meet Gandhi in his ashram. During the same time elsewhere in the world, Jews were trying to find cover whereever they can to avoid being killed. There was no movement of any sort against the Nazi Germany either inside or outside till the World war. Japanese ruled part of China and Korea with impunity. During the early part of the war Japanese had a policy of taking no POWs. They beheaded the enemy soldiers. Our freedom struggle sounds all but one of the biggest miracles in the history. It was later used in South Africa. But the biggest coincidence, it was against the British and British dominated govt. A pill which the British could not swallow is this Ahimsa movement. May be, had Northern Ireland followed this instead, there would have been a different outcome to their struggle.
3 comments:
The reason Ahimsa was so popular is that it enabled everyone to be a part of the protest. Many people argue that a more directly aggresive approach would have been better .. but then not everybody gets involved in it. This is what Gandhiji achieved thru non-violet means .. he provided the ordinary, oppressed Indian a means to protest against the British rule.
Lol for the N. Ireland comment though ..
- anya http://www.animaha.com/blog
Strange that you mention "The Rape of Nanking" and same day the author of the book is found dead.
- anya
I agree that ahimsa gave everybody a chance to participate. But I too, like maverick, think that its a miracle. How could have all these people had such faith in one mad man, trying to tell them to do something that has never been done. When you are in an armed revolution you have been told to kill, but in this version of freedom struggle you have been told to get killed.
Now that we know it is a success, we can see why so many people followed it, but at that time it was just blind faith, blind faith of the whole country. This is nothing less than a miracle.
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