Note on the source: All quotes in this entry are from the book Gandhi : A Life by Yogesh Chadha.

The homepage of "The Free Palestine Campaign," a part of the International Solidarity Movement, features a description of the group stating: "ISM's non-violent resistance is part of a movement among the Palestinian people to resist occupation in a non violent manner in the spirit of Gandhi and Martin Luther King."

Note that ISM considers their activities to be "a part" of the overall Palestinian struggle - part of an array of activities. While their own members take part in only the "non-violent" portions of the Palestinian Arab's war, they also "recognize the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle." In Middle East speak, "legitimate armed struggle" is code for terror, suicide bombing and the intentional targeting of innocents.

The spirit of Gandhi? Invoked to inspire the followers of a group supporting one of the most blood-thirsty struggles in the history of a blood-thirsty world?

It didn't sound right to me, perverse even, so I thought I'd take a look at a few of the episodes in Gandhi's life, and some of the things he said in order that I might gain some insight into the validity of invoking the name of the Mahatma with regard to this war.



On July 1, 1909, Sir Curzon Wyllie, a "senior official in the office of the Secretary of State for India...was shot by a young Indian at the Imperial Institute in South Kensington," London. He had been "the government's prosecutor in the cases against some terrorists in Bengal" amd the murderer was a "Punjabi engineering student in London" who "represented himself as an Indian patriot who had committed the murder to avenge the rule of terror perpetrated by the British in India."

In the parlance of today, it might be said that he was a "freedom fighter" seeking to liberate the "humiliated" Indian people from under a "brutal occupation."

As part of the assassin's final statement, he said "the only lesson required for India at present is to learn how to die, and the only way to teach it is by dying ourselves. Therefore I die, and glory in my martyrdom."

He was a suicide assassin, and managed to kill not only his target, but also an innocent as well - "a Parsi doctor who had flung himself between the assassin and the victim..."

Gandhi was disturbed by the act, and said something that was to be a sort of theme throughout his career:

"I must say that those who believe and argue that such murders may do good to India are ignorant men indeed. No act of treachery can ever profit a nation. Even should the British leave in consequence of such murderous acts, who will then rule in their place? The only answer is: the murderers...India can gain nothing from the rule of murderers - no matter whether they are black or white."

Of the struggle in South Africa, Gandhi wrote:

"There is a law of nature that a thing can be retained by the same means by which it has been acquired...A thing acquired by violence can be retained by violence alone, while one acquired by truth can be retained only by truth..."

Gandhi understood that the character of the struggle would dictate the character of the future nation - both the nature of its leaders, and the nature of the life its citizens could look forward to in perpetuity. Had the Mahatma felt that India was peopled and lead by such characters as Wyllie's assassin, would he have dedicated himself to the struggle for independence as he did? It seems doubtful.

Further, Gandhi understood the inter-connectedness of those who engaged in the armed struggle, with those who might choose another mode of fighting the battle, and that he could not be absolved of their sins, if sinners they were. On the eve of the First World War with his support of Indians fighting on the side of Britain he confessed that he was aware that "Those who confine themselves to attending to the wounded in battle cannot be absolved from the guilt of war." So Gandhi could not and would not have had his passive battle used as merely another tool in the pockets of murderers. He understood how it could not be separated from the overall struggle. Though he himself may behave non-violently, surely he could not refuse all responsibility of the actions of those engaged in the same cause but using different means.

So we see an understanding of the inter-connectedness of the actors in the struggle, and further the understanding that within the struggle, the nature of the character of Gandhi's brethren were of equal, if not paramount importance as held up against the character of the opponent.

In 1934, while embarked on his campaign in favor of the rights of the Untouchables ("Harijans"), a vocal opponent of his was struck on the head by one of Gandhi's supporters. A different type of man would have shrugged off the the event, considering the deprivations of the Harijans, a little bump on the head was surely a minor infraction? Gandhi could have shed a crocodile tear, admonished his followers, said, "Well, I don't approve of such actions, BUT..." But that wasn't Gandhi.

"Gandhi, shortly afterwards, rebuked the audience and in a statement issued to the press that day expressed his intention to embark on a seven-day penitential fast as soon as he reached Wardha. 'This is the least penance I owe to Pandit Lalnath [the victim] and those he represents,' he said. 'Let it also be a warning to those who are in, or will join, the movement that they must approach it with clean hands and hearts, free from untruth and violence in thought, word and deed.' A month later...he commenced the fast."

It appears to me that the idea that Gandhi would have jumped in and allowed himself to be used as part of one of the most violent of violent struggles is perverse.

He would have starved himself to death first.