Gandhi – the non-violent terrorist
Today is MK Gandhi’s birth anniversary. He was easily a political genius and one of the greatest communicator of his times! In my view, his legacy is mixed and a lot of what he started has ended up messing a lot of Indian value system and society.
His methods of non-violent agitation, while worthy of praise at that time, has spawned a culture of compulsive inaction that is accompanied by pride in bringing loss to the economy that feeds one’s very family!
Gandhi’s lack of leadership to stop the most insane act of humanity – the Partition – has put the entire world in unthought peril! He chose Partition over Civil War. And in my view, that was the most crucial mistake in mankind’s history. Yes, I am choosing my words with utmost care. Pakistan and the mindset that accompanied those who wanted to create a country based on religion, has created a monster of extremist mind-set that will surely devour itself but it will also hurt the world. The manner in which Pakistan went about getting the Nukes and how the leadership took the strategic decision to replace the lack of revenue from US withdrawal by selling the Nuke technology or Nukes itself to North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya etc will one day result in a war that will be the worst that humanity has seen.
Sometimes, it is important to hurt ones own self to pave way for peace. And Gandhi was presented with that option. He chose short term “Peace” and non-violence that accompanied long term mindless and terrorist violence and War over long term peace but short term violence.
If that was his personal opinion and he could simply articulate that and let people make their own decisions, that would have been fine and I would have respected him… but my frustration has been that he actually blackmailed everyone through series of dishonest hunger strikes to make sure HIS WAY was the ONLY WAY!
Gandhi’s was a terrorism of a different type. It was respected but it devastated a nation that he has sworn to bring to fruition! He never realized that his loyalty to his imagined and poorly structured principles led him to betray his greatest love – India.