{"id":43002,"date":"2018-10-04T01:00:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T05:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=43002"},"modified":"2018-09-14T12:36:38","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T16:36:38","slug":"qotd-gandhi-in-world-war-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/10\/04\/qotd-gandhi-in-world-war-one\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Gandhi in World War One"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are therefore presented with the seeming anomaly of a Gandhi who, in Britain when war broke out in August 1914, instantly contacted the War Office, swore that he would stand by England in its hour of need, and created the Indian Volunteer Corps, which he might have commanded if he hadn\u2019t fallen ill with pleurisy. In 1915, back in India, he made a memorable speech in Madras in which he proclaimed, \u201cI discovered that the British empire had certain ideals with which I have fallen in love …\u201d In early 1918, as the war in Europe entered its final crisis, he wrote to the Viceroy of India, \u201cI have an idea that if I become your recruiting agent-in-chief, I might rain men upon you,\u201d and he proclaimed in a speech in Kheda that the British \u201clove justice; they have shielded men against oppression.\u201d Again, he wrote to the Viceroy, \u201cI would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to the empire at this critical moment …\u201d To some of his pacifist friends, who were horrified, Gandhi replied by appealing to the Bhagavad Gita<\/em> and to the endless wars recounted in the Hindu epics, the Ramayana<\/em> and the Mahabharata<\/em>, adding further to the pacifists\u2019 horror by declaring that Indians \u201chave always been warlike, and the finest hymn composed by Tulsidas in praise of Rama gives the first place to his ability to strike down the enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was in contradiction to the interpretation of sacred Hindu scriptures Gandhi had offered on earlier occasions (and would offer later), which was that they did not recount military struggles but spiritual struggles; but, unusual for him, he strove to find some kind of synthesis. \u201cI do not say, \u2018Let us go and kill the Germans,\u2019\u201d Gandhi explained. \u201cI say, \u2018Let us go and die for the sake of India and the empire.\u2019\u201d And yet within two years, the time having come for swaraj<\/em> (home rule), Gandhi\u2019s inner voice spoke again, and, the leader having found his cause, Gandhi proclaimed resoundingly: \u201cThe British empire today represents Satanism, and they who love God can afford to have no love for Satan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of swaraj<\/em>, originated by others, crept into Gandhi\u2019s mind gradually. With a fair amount of winding about, Gandhi, roughly, passed through three phases. First, he was entirely pro-British, and merely wanted for Indians the rights of Englishmen (as he understood them). Second, he was still pro-British, but with the belief that, having proved their loyalty to the empire, Indians would be granted some degree of swaraj<\/em>. Third, as the home-rule movement gathered momentum, it was the swaraj<\/em>, the whole swaraj<\/em>, and nothing but the swaraj<\/em>, and he turned relentlessly against the crown. The movie to the contrary, he caused the British no end of trouble in their struggles during World War II.<\/p>\n

Richard Grenier, “The Gandhi Nobody Knows”, Commentary<\/em><\/a>, 1983-03-01.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are therefore presented with the seeming anomaly of a Gandhi who, in Britain when war broke out in August 1914, instantly contacted the War Office, swore that he would stand by England in its hour of need, and created the Indian Volunteer Corps, which he might have commanded if he hadn\u2019t fallen ill with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,23,5,41,11,246],"tags":[1195,838,114],"class_list":["post-43002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-history","category-india","category-military","category-quotations","category-religion","category-ww1","tag-gandhi","tag-hinduism","tag-separatism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-bbA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43003,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43002\/revisions\/43003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}