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Comment by iwantgandhi | Hacker News Reader

"While Gandhi's philosophy sounds nice in theory, it may not always be the most practical in real-world scenarios."

You do know his philosophy worked, right?

We gained independence when it was inconvenient for the British to continue their rule over India. While his work can not be understated, you also can't deny that it took a very long time. During that long period: Indians fought under British banners and died, and Indians were systematically starved to feed frontlines of war we had nothing to do with.

Just imagine getting independence 5 years earlier by nationwide violent uprisings and non-cooperation moment together. Britain was already fighting on multiple fronts during WW2, it was a plausible path to early independence.

Sure we saved some lives that would've been lost in violent uprisings, but we lost just as many if not more from inaction.

>Indians were systematically starved to feed frontlines of war we had nothing to do with

By a cyclone, accidents, and japanese blockades, the independent states suffered more because of poor infrastructure, lastly it was only known to Britain come August '43 whereupon 150,000 tonnes of wheat were redirected from Iraq and Aus.

This is the view advanced by Churchill and his hagiographers but it's false; there is correspondence from 1942 that warned that the ramifications of policies going all the way to March of that year had been dire, and the war cabinet simply dismissed them.

Independence itself is a point in time thing. When there is a movement that results in something the movement doesn’t suddenly disappear after the success. The movement continues to influence power and how things are shaped.

If a movement of violent uprising resulted in Indias independence, the British may have packed their bags but the armies and militias would stay and given the nature of militias, will probably not suddenly turn peaceful. The British was the enemy yesterday, the other <religion, language or another faction> would the enemy today. See any African country.

What the nonviolent movement achieved in India is not just independence. Like you said there were other ways for independence, arguably faster. What the nonviolent movement achieved was long term stability and lack of civil wars /internal conflicts(for the most part).

Arguably it also led to a complete lack of change, with the civil machinery simply being renamed and now serving a different master. The military and police now work for those in power, not the people. An autocracy pretending to be a democracy.

True, happens in all other places where they achieved 'independence' from their colonial masters. Animal Farm ( by George Orwell) is a script that rulers use to govern the peasants successfully.

A movement of violent uprising resulted in the USA's independence. The standing army and state militias stayed. It was mostly peaceful, until the slave-owning faction tried to revolt. We've only had that one real civil war, so overall the violent movement seems to have worked out pretty well for us.

IDK. I prefer peaceful transitions of power over escapades like January 6.

Violence should be a last resort.

That's a total non sequitur. The USA has had less politically motivated violence than India since 1947. While the January 6 incident was appalling, only one person was killed and power was transferred peacefully as scheduled. President Biden didn't have to storm the White House at the head of his personal militia.

174 people were injured. It was a massive assault. Power was ultimately transferred, yet it certainly wasn't peaceful.

Just because other countries have had more violence doesn't make the incident any less shocking or less applicable to the argument.

The kind of organization that operates like the ANC (violent cells oriented around loyalty and survival) governs like the ANC (networks of cronies that are loyal to the country but in every other way ransack it). I think India is a lot better off for having gone into the hands of someone like Nehru, which would not have been possible if the first person to hold the reigns of power had also been the head of a nationalist terrorist organization.

It did not give him the united India he wanted, and an independent India was on the cards for other reasons, so I don't think you can conclude that.

Mandela initially followed Gandhi's example of nonviolent resistance to end apartheid but later abandoned it when it became clear it was ineffective.

Yes it did, but it was a mistake to think hitler could be talker out of what he was doing. Nazi germany was to british rule what the american psycho would be to a thief. Britishers freed india when the income stopped justifying the expenses. That's what gandhi's plan was all along (non cooperation movement). This kind of reasoning doesn't work on people who are following an ideology.

You know it worked only due to vastly different circumstances, right?

Hitler would have killed Ghandi on the spot, and continued his breakfast.

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