The feasibility of nonviolent pacifism must be addressed in all debates, from the sophisticated to the second-rate. “Look at what Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were able to accomplish!” “Yes, but what about Hitler? What about the Nazis?” This retort suggests that a future Nazi-like entity is on the horizon. Reduction of Hitlerum In general, it is difficult to imagine a satisfactory pacifist answer to the problem of naked and unrelenting hatred and aggression on the scale of the Third Reich, as it has the effect of invalidating continued rational debate. Even Gandhi’s own suggestion sounds like a joke: in 1940, Adolf Hitler abandoned the plan to claim. lebensraum for the German people, and for the forced removal, enslavement, or extermination of Germany’s neighbors and undesirable nationalities. He adopted a stance of nonviolence and “universal friendship,” agreeing to withdraw German troops from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, and France, and to resolve differences through international conferences and commissions.
Hitler may have been a vegetarian, but his sympathies with Gandhi probably began and ended there. Still, the above Exactly what Mahatma Gandhi wanted from the president,in Letter dated December 24, 1940. Gandhi, who was fully engaged in the struggle for India’s independence, found himself torn apart by Britain’s entry into the war against Germany. Meanwhile, Gandhi initially felt that his enemy Germany posed a further threat to world peace and stability, and promised “nonviolent moral support” for the war. (That position would soon change if the Indian National Congress revolted and resigned) all at once rather than participating in a war). On the other hand, Gandhi did not believe that the British Empire was significantly different from the Nazis. In a letter to Hitler, whom he called a “friend” (this is “not a formality,” he wrote, “I have no enemies”): “If there is a difference, it is one of degree. One-fifth of humanity has been brought under the feet of Britain by means that do not stand up to scrutiny.”
Recognizing the absurdity of his demands, Gandhi wrote, “I am aware that your outlook on life regards such exploitation as a noble act.” Still, he makes a formidable argument that nonviolence is a force of power, not weakness, and shows how nonviolence weakened British rule. “Never before has the independence movement been so strong,” he writes, “through the right means of combating the world’s most organized violence, which British power represents.”
It remains to be seen whether Germany or Britain is better organizationally. We know what British heels mean to us and non-European races around the world. But we do not want to end British rule with German aid. In nonviolence, we have discovered a force that, when organized, can undoubtedly oppose all of the most violent forces in the world. As already mentioned, there is no such thing as defeat in nonviolent techniques. There’s no killing or harming, it’s all do or die. It can be used practically without money and obviously without the help of the science of destruction that you brought to perfection. It’s amazing to me that you don’t realize that it’s not anyone’s exclusive property. Other powers, if not the British, will surely improve your ways and defeat you with their own weapons. You have left no legacy for your people to be proud of. They cannot be proud of the recitation of cruel deeds, even if they are cleverly planned. Therefore, in the name of humanity, I appeal to you to stop war.
As an alternative to war, Gandhi proposed an “international tribunal of co-option” to determine “which party is right.” Gandhi wrote that his letter “should be taken as a joint appeal to you and Signature Mussolini. I hope that he will take this, mutatis mutandis, as addressed to himself.”
Gandhi also notes that he appealed to “all British people to embrace my method of nonviolent resistance.” That appeal took the form of an open letter he published in July of the same year.To all British people”, in which he writes:
You will invite Hitler and Mussolini to take what you want from the countries you call property. Let them occupy your beautiful island full of beautiful buildings. You give all these things, but neither soul nor spirit. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your home, you will be evicting them. If they do not give you free access, you are allowing men, women, and children alike to be slaughtered, but you are refusing allegiance to them.
When Gandhi visited Britain that year, he found the viceroy of colonial India “dumbfounded” by these demands. In his biography of Indian leaders, Stanley Wolpert writes:“Unable to speak, he even refused to call for a ride to take the increasingly depressed Gandhi home.”
Gandhi’s 1940 letter to Hitler was actually his second letter to the Nazi leader. first, A very short letter written in 1939one month before the unfortunate event occurred. Soviet non-aggression pactstrikes a conciliatory tone. Gandhi wrote that he resisted requests for letters from friends because “any letter from me would make me feel impudent,” and he urged Hitler to “prevent wars that might reduce humanity to a state of barbarism,” but concluded by saying, “If I have made a mistake in writing to you, I hope for your forgiveness.” But again, in this very short letter, Gandhi touts the “considerable success” of his nonviolent methods. “There’s no evidence.” Christian Science Monitor “This suggests that Hitler had ever responded to one of Gandhi’s letters.”
As the war inevitably escalated, Gandhi redoubled his efforts for India’s independence. “Quit India” The Open University began its movement in 1942, which “above all else united the people of India against British rule” and hastened its eventual end in 1947. While nonviolence never succeeded against the British Empire, other former colonies won independence through more traditional warlike methods. Still, Gandhi believed that nonviolent resistance could avert the horrors of World War II, but those of us without his full commitment to principles may have difficulty imagining how it could have succeeded against the Nazis, or how it could have appealed to their overall ruling ideology.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2016.
Related content:
Mahatma Gandhi’s list of seven social sins. or tips to avoid living a bad life
The exchange of letters between Tolstoy and Gandhi: The search for tenderness, humility, and love between two thinkers (1909)
Hear Gandhi’s famous speech on the existence of God (1931)
Gandhi speaks in his first filmed interview (1947)
josh jones I’m a writer and musician based in Durham, North Carolina.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
