Was the Mahatma Foolish? You decide

I’ll start by asking you to watch the 60 second YouTube video below. It is interesting and the person speaking is the founder of ISKON.

Calling the Mahatma a fool and a failure is sure to draw attention. In this article I would like to give my thoughts on whether the strategy adopted by the Mahatma was misguided.

I will refer you to the book The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene from which I have drawn some of my material. Chapter 32 to be exact titled – Dominate while seeming to submit – The Passive Aggression Strategy.

Link of the book is below. It seems that only the concise edition is being sold now at Amazon. I have the full version

According to Robert Greene:

Gandhi was a deceptively clever strategist whose frail, even saintly appearance constantly misled his adversaries into underestimating him …

Gandhi was educated in London and understood the English well. He judged them to be essentially liberal people who saw themselves as upholding traditions of political freedom and civilized behaviour.  This self image was deeply important to the English …

The Indians (on the other hand) had been humiliated by many years of subservience to their English overlords. They were largely unarmed and in no position to engage in an insurrection or guerilla war. …

The use of nonviolence (an ideal that Gandhi deeply valued) would exploit to perfection the English reluctance to respond with force unless absolutely necessary. … Made to feel confused and guilty the English would be paralysed by ambivalence and relinquish the strategic initiative.

Robert Greene in this chapter was discussing the Salt March of 1930.

I agree with this analysis and will add only the following comments:

1. Sun Tzu in his classic, The Art of War, said – “If you know yourself and know the enemy you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Gandhi obviously knew both and was able to come up with a strategy unique in history and was therefore very far from being the fool that the video above claims him to be.
2. Sun Tzu further adds – Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. Again this is something that Gandhi succeeded in doing.
3. At the same time it must being admitted that Gandhi succeeded because the British had certain standards that they maintained. Gandhi’s methods would have stood no chance at all had he been facing Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
4. Also it must be conceded that Sri Prabhupada had a point. Looking at the situation Gandhi was the right person at the right time. But you need to apply force in order to succeed or even survive in politics. That is the general rule. The Bhishma Parva (which is a part of the Mahabharata) says that a righteous king needs to use the Danda (the rod) in order to govern.
5. I will end by saying that according to Chinese philosophy the feminine is regarded as being stronger that the masculine. I think this concept comes from Taoism. They give the example of water which is at one and the same time the weakest and strongest of elements. It will take the shape of whatever container you put it in. But water can cut its way past the tallest mountain given the right circumstances. That is its strength.
   Another example I can think of is the saying – The pen is mightier than the sword. So given a choice try to use feminine methods when fighting your battles.  You will need time, patience and perseverance but if you succeed you will have done so by minimizing the damage to yourself and society.

Some comments from a Reader:

Interesting.
I too am not in total agreement that it was the non-violent movement that was the cause of the British leaving India
I have seen an interesting article where the British Ambassador said that the real reason for their leaving was the Naval mutiny of 1946 which was starting to spread to the Army and if it had, the British would have stood absolutely no chance to suppress another mutiny.
The article

And frankly I think the non-violence movement was successful in a very limited way…only during his lifetime.
after he died, it has pretty much gone back to what it was
(The article) is very interesting and a different perspective

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