Gandhi's Global Impact

- By Ambassador (Retd) Alan Nazareth*

The 20th century is history’s most blood stained one, particularly in its first half in which 90 million people, mostly civilians, were killed in two world wars, Hitler’s gas chambers, atom bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and national liberation struggles in Asia & Africa. It was also its most revolutionary one with Fascist revolutions taking place in Italy, Germany and Spain and Marxist revolutions in Russia & China in its first half. The latter two were replete with violence in keeping with Lenin’s maxim “Violence is the midwife of all old societies pregnant with new life”.

Amazingly, its second half witnessed many nonviolent Soul Force evolutions in countries as far apart as Philippines, Poland, United States, South Africa & Chile. Each has a local name but all of them are now generally called “Velvet” revolutions! Roger Markwick has written a book titled ‘From Violence to Velvet: A Century of Revolutions 1917 – 2017’.

In a 1932 BBC interview, asked about his ideology, Gandhi had responded in the following words:

“There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything, a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. Satyagraha is Soul Force pure and simple. It connotes the living Law of Life. This law will work, just as the law of gravitation will work, whether we accept it or not… In politics, its use is based on the immutable maxim that government of the people is possible only so long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to be governed”.

His subsequently enunciated praxis for Soul Force was” to put the whole force of one's soul against the will of the tyrant” and be assured that “Working under this law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire and lay the foundation for that empire's fall or regeneration”.

Gandhi’s success in non-violently plucking “the brightest jewel in the British Crown” and bringing down the most extensive empire in the world, on which “the sun never set” is the best example of the potency & efficacy of his “Soul Force” ideology & praxis.

Revolutionary changes in India and the world in the last 70 years are listed hereunder. India was transformed from a highly feudal, franchise restricted, women suppressed, caste, poverty, and famine plagued colony into a constitutional democracy based on universal adult franchise and a highly industrialised, technologically advanced state. Since Independence it has had two dalit (“untouchable”), two Muslim and two women Presidents, & a woman & a Sikh Prime Minister.

Over 100 former colonies, comprising two-third of global population and three-fourth of its land area have gained independence;

All East European Communist dictatorships have ended, the Warsaw Pact scrapped, the Berlin Wall brought down, Germany reunified, the Soviet Union dissolved and democratic regimes established in most of its former component states, many of which are now members of the European Union.

Military dictatorships have been brought down in the Philippines, Chile & Bolivia & Apartheid / Racial Oppression ended in South Africa / USA.

Philippines & Chile have had their first women presidents, Bolivia its first indigenous Aymara president, South Africa its first African president & USA its first Black President in the White House whose Oval Office now had photos of Mohandas Gandhi & Martin Luther Kimg adorning it.

These radical changes are the most sweeping democratization of national politics and international political geography in world history.

Dr. Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies at Uppsala University, in his ‘The Way is the Goal’ book, has written “Gandhi was certainly a revolutionary, much more revolutionary than he piecemeal revolutionaries of Western civilization who triggered the Bourgeois, Socialist & Feminist revolutions. Gandhi revolutionized revolution itself.”

Martin Luther King has averred “If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought, and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore him at our own risk”.

Harvard Professor Gene Sharp, in his book ‘Waging Non Violent Struggle: 20th Century Promise; 21st Century Potential’ has written “Gandhi was an experimenter in the development of “war without violence’. His pioneering work was not always adequate, but it is of major historic significance both in ethics and in politics for he always strove to find the way to act peacefully yet effectively to oppose oppression and injustice”

The six part ‘Force More Powerful’ film series produced by York Zimmerman & WETA Washington presents actual footage of Soul Force revolutions in India, USA, South Africa, Denmark (under Nazi occupation), Poland & Chile. They all begin with a two minute focus on Gandhi in a South African jail in 1907 averring “Out of these jail gates’ we shall pass from our present bondage to freedom”. The narrator, Ben Kingsley, then states this young lawyer from India inspired his fellow Indians to fight for their rights, & taught them that nonviolent refusal to cooperate with injustice was the way to end it” & concludes declaring “The power that Gandhi discovered changed the 20th century.

* Ambassador (Retd) Alan Nazareth, Author of ‘Gandhi’s Outstanding Leadership’ & ‘Gandhi :The Soul Force Warrior books. | email: panazareth@gmail.com