smash-pacifism-zine

In response to a recent effort by US-based ‘aid’
agencies to promote the movie Gandhi (released in 1982)
as well as its message of nonviolent struggle among
Palestinians (the Gandhi Project), Ali Abunimah (editor of
the Electronic Intifida), wrote:
“While one can admire Mohandas Gandhi’s
nonviolent principles, one can
hardly point to the Indian
experience as a demonstration
of their usefulness in
overthrowing a colonial
regime. Indeed, Gandhi’s
concepts of satyagraha, or
soul power, and ahimsa, or
nonviolent struggle, played an
important role during the
Indian independence struggle,
however the anti-colonial
period in India was also
marked by extreme violence,
both between the British &
Indians and between different
Indian communal groups.
Anti-colonial Indians committed
a wide variety of
terrorist acts; the British government was responsible for
numerous massacres and other atrocities; and communal
violence before, during, and after independence claimed the
lives of millions of people. One simply cannot argue that
Indian independence was achieved in a nonviolent context.”
(“The Myth of Gandhi and the Palestinian Reality,”
retrieved April 2010:
www.countercurrents.org/paabunimah090904.htm)
If Gandhi's nonviolent doctrine didn't liberate
India, and certainly didn't achieve independence on its own
accord, and the post-Independence period has been one of
large-scale bloodshed and war, why is the Gandhi myth so
widely promoted
For Gandhi followers, the Gandhi myth proves the
superiority of pacifism, even though it is based on outright
lies and historical revision. For the imperialist rulers, it
serves to promote the idea that pacifism is successful at
achieving radical social change.
Gandhi & Lord Mountbatten having tea.
Gandhi the Collaborator
Gandhi meeting with Lord Mountbatten in 1947 prior to
Indian independence; a loyal friend of Britain to the end.
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“[The British] were sufficiently astute and
statesmanly to see the importance to Britain of bringing
civil disobedience to an end and using Gandhi as a means
to draw the Congress back from
confrontation to constitutional
action.”
(Gandhi, p. 152)
Gandhi frequently played
a co-opting and pacifying role,
including the 1907-09 campaign
against registration in S. Africa
(when he was the first to
voluntarily register), and then in
India in 1919, 1922, and 1931,
when he called off nonviolent
campaigns that had escalated to
militant resistance.
At every opportunity,
Gandhi condemned revolutionary
movements and acts of rebellion
among the people. Although he
promoted civil disobedience, Gandhi the lawyer also
advocated strict obedience to the law and loyalty to the
Empire. He urged those who participated in revolts to turn
themselves in, and others to inform on them. He agreed
with the execution of soldiers who had disobeyed orders to
fire on protesters. Not only was he not anti-imperialist or
anti-colonial, Gandhi was not even anti-capitalist:
“In India we want no political strikes... We must
gain control over all the unruly and disturbing elements or
isolate them... We seek not to destroy capital or capitalists,
but to regulate the relations between capital and labour.”
(Gandhi, quoted in India and the Raj, p. 219)
Although the Moderates are often said to have had
the same objective as the Radicals, but differences in
methods, this is not true. The Moderates goal was to gain
greater political power under the British, and to install
themselves as the ruling elite. This is why they had the
backing of the Indian middle-class and business sectors.
The Radicals sought complete independence, and many
advocated revolutionary change: the overthrow of
capitalism and the abolishing of the class system, replacing
it with communism.
For these reasons, Gandhi has been described by
some as being an asset of the British—who actively
promoted Gandhi as a legitimate leader of the people:
“Gandhi's [national] role was in part made possible
by the British. At times they were willing to risk high stakes
for his cooperation because of their reading of his public
image and his influence over his compatriots. At other
times they closed the doors to him... Their willingness or
refusal to deal with Gandhi affected his value to Indians: