January 31, 2004

• A teeth-grindingly opposing opinion.
• That Einstein quote can be taken either way. It's always hard to speculate on past events using the device of alternate histories ("this wouldn't have happened, had he not acted so&so"), but a lot of the educated middle-class people in urban India think that in the long-term, he (and Nehru, subsequently) did more harm than good. But given his standing in India, no one will dare say that in public media.
• Champions of Nonviolence
• Gyan, could you please elaborate? I've thought of Gandhi as an icon whose passive resistance teachings yielded (what I think were) positive results in the US in the HUAC debacle in late 50's/early 60's and the anti-segregation and anti-war movements which followed.
• path, It isn't as much about Gandhi's teachings (those are idealistic) as his decisions and actions in India's freedom struggle. The manipulative use of his revered status to force change or oppose undesired change by going on hunger strikes, thus inducing public guilt among the opposition, who concede because they want to avoid the backlash.
• Ah, Gyan, I hesitate to press you further, but could you give me a link or two so I could understand what you're saying? What "manipulative use,"undersired change" or "public guilt"? I'm apparently so out of it on the history of India - please educate me!
• To quote wendell, from his metafilter link (if that's not too presumptious): Funny thing, if Gandhi had lived and 'delivered his nation to its enemies' by his non-violence, then his way would be discredited by history and nobody, from Martin Luther King, Jr., on, would have emulated him, and the world would be safe for religious fundamentalist war-mongers of all religions. However, if Gandhi had lived and Muslim Pakistan failed to conquer its Hindu neighbor, imagine the historical lesson THAT would have told us. But, thanks to Godsi and his ilk (I'm sure the assassins of Sadat and Rabin talked the same way), our only lesson is "Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall get stabbed in the back in this world". I couldn't agree more.
• Gandhi in Palestine: Grandson of all battles
• ?!?
• Satyagraha 100 Years Later
• Hell is a real place, and Mahatma Gandhi is in it. So says Ted Haggard.
• Gandhi's grandson on the message of nonviolence in today's world
• Saying His Peace: Rare Recording of Speech by Gandhi Landed in Safe, if Unknowing, Hands