GANDHI : Rethinking the possibility of Non-violence
Prof. Sudhir Chandra, Centre for Social Studies
…Gandhi’s
anguish was manifold. But it centred around his tragic discovery that the
freedom struggle led by him had not been the unique non-violent struggle that
he and the whole world had believed it to have been.
The
discovery forced itself upon him when the country erupted into savage violence
on the eve of Independence. Could decades of non-violence, Gandhi wondered,
have produced such savagery? ‘No,’ was his categorical answer. Whence, then,
had the savagery come? Gandhi came up with an answer that has left academic
wisdom as well as popular memory untouched. But it is an answer that
necessitates a radical re-examination of what Gandhi is believed to have
achieved and, consequently, of his potential as a continuing historical
presence. READ FULL ARTICLE…
