“Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs…It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany… As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”
-Mahatma Ghandi, 1946
Ghandi’s militant non-violence was blind to how actual historical justice movements succeed. It turns out that you actually need both violent and nonviolent resistance for any resistance to succeed. Sure, there was the Ghandi wing throwing the British out of India, but there was also a radical militant Hindu movement trying to throw the British out at gunpoint. The existence of this radical and violent side of the movement gave space for a nonviolent ‘moderate’ like Ghandi to come in and play the role of peacemaker. Without the violent resistance, the nonviolent resistance becomes branded as terrorists, and the state can come in and arrest/kill them all. It’s only the existence of an actual violent wing that prevents the peaceful moderates from being labeled as violent extremists.
Or look at MLK. He was peaceful and nonviolent, and they still called him a terrorist. But his message resonated with middle America as it contrasted to the explicitly violent movements like the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, etc. And the powers that be still killed him for it, regardless of his nonviolence.
Sorry, I just take a really dim view to the nonviolence of Ghandi.
You’re right that successful movements often have both violent and nonviolent wings - but the nonviolent components don’t succeed because of the violent ones. They succeed despite them. The research is pretty clear on this: nonviolent campaigns are actually more likely to achieve their goals than violent ones, and they’re more likely to lead to stable democratic outcomes.
Your claim that “without violent resistance, nonviolent resistance becomes branded as terrorists” is historically backwards. Nonviolent movements get labeled as extremist precisely when they’re associated with violence, not when they’re separate from it. The Civil Rights Movement’s greatest victories came when they maintained strict nonviolent discipline - Birmingham, Selma, the March on Washington. Every time violence entered the picture, it gave opponents ammunition to dismiss the entire movement.
And about Gandhi needing violent militants to succeed - this ignores how the independence movement actually worked. The violent revolutionary groups you’re thinking of (like the Hindustan Republican Association) were largely marginalized by the time of Gandhi’s major campaigns. His mass mobilization strategies worked because they were genuinely nonviolent and drew broad participation precisely because people knew they wouldn’t be asked to commit violence.
The “good cop/bad cop” theory sounds intuitive but doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. What actually makes nonviolent resistance effective is mass participation, strategic planning, and moral leverage - not the threat of violence lurking in the background.
And Ghandi was a fucking idiot.
Well that sure is an opinion I haven’t heard before
-Mahatma Ghandi, 1946
Ghandi’s militant non-violence was blind to how actual historical justice movements succeed. It turns out that you actually need both violent and nonviolent resistance for any resistance to succeed. Sure, there was the Ghandi wing throwing the British out of India, but there was also a radical militant Hindu movement trying to throw the British out at gunpoint. The existence of this radical and violent side of the movement gave space for a nonviolent ‘moderate’ like Ghandi to come in and play the role of peacemaker. Without the violent resistance, the nonviolent resistance becomes branded as terrorists, and the state can come in and arrest/kill them all. It’s only the existence of an actual violent wing that prevents the peaceful moderates from being labeled as violent extremists.
Or look at MLK. He was peaceful and nonviolent, and they still called him a terrorist. But his message resonated with middle America as it contrasted to the explicitly violent movements like the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, etc. And the powers that be still killed him for it, regardless of his nonviolence.
Sorry, I just take a really dim view to the nonviolence of Ghandi.
You have the causality backwards.
You’re right that successful movements often have both violent and nonviolent wings - but the nonviolent components don’t succeed because of the violent ones. They succeed despite them. The research is pretty clear on this: nonviolent campaigns are actually more likely to achieve their goals than violent ones, and they’re more likely to lead to stable democratic outcomes.
Your claim that “without violent resistance, nonviolent resistance becomes branded as terrorists” is historically backwards. Nonviolent movements get labeled as extremist precisely when they’re associated with violence, not when they’re separate from it. The Civil Rights Movement’s greatest victories came when they maintained strict nonviolent discipline - Birmingham, Selma, the March on Washington. Every time violence entered the picture, it gave opponents ammunition to dismiss the entire movement.
And about Gandhi needing violent militants to succeed - this ignores how the independence movement actually worked. The violent revolutionary groups you’re thinking of (like the Hindustan Republican Association) were largely marginalized by the time of Gandhi’s major campaigns. His mass mobilization strategies worked because they were genuinely nonviolent and drew broad participation precisely because people knew they wouldn’t be asked to commit violence.
The “good cop/bad cop” theory sounds intuitive but doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. What actually makes nonviolent resistance effective is mass participation, strategic planning, and moral leverage - not the threat of violence lurking in the background.