Gandhiji and war

Gandhiji believed that non-violence could win any cause...
(The Hindu Photo Archives)

Gandhiji advocated non-violence and at the same time he recruited soldiers for war.

Gandhiji spent 21 years in South Africa fighting racism. He offered his services to the army four times: in 1899-1900 in the Boer war; in 1906 for the so-called Zulu rebellion; during his stay in London at the beginning of World War I in 1914 and in 1918 in India at the end of the war.

During the Boer war, as an "Empire loyalist" Gandhiji organised an Indian Ambulance Corps for the British army. When the Zulu rebellion broke out in 1906 at Natal, he witnessed, the killing of the natives. This made him reform the services of the volunteer corps to attend even on the wounded Zulus.

After coming to India in 1915, he launched Satyagraha campaigns in Champaran, Bihar in 1917, in Ahmedabad (mill workers' strike) and in Kheda in 1918. That year he also started a campaign to recruit soldiers for Britain.

He wanted to show his loyalty to the British, saying "such service would furnish the Indians an opportunity to prove their mettle and disprove the allegations frequently made by Europeans that they were mostly cowards".

Gandhiji had never handled a rifle and so the only alternative was to serve the wounded.

Ultimately Gandhiji shed his loyalty to the British Empire and demanded Independence for India. He always acknowledged the effectiveness of non-violent resistance on a mass scale to war.

This is the friendliest statue of Gandhiji I've seen, snapped up close and personal-like (it is a larger than life statue). It stands outside the town hall in my wife's home city of Baroda, now called Vadodara, India. The building is called Mahatma Gandhi Nagar Gruh, a venue for cultural events. Someone keeps a decent garland on Gandhiji at all times :)

Anyone know more of this statue's history and its maker?

The day I posted this, August 15 was the date in 1947 that India won its independence from the British. Gandhiji led a nonviolent revolution which founded the world's largest democracy.

He later inspired the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the struggle for civil rights in the U.S. and President Nelson Mandela in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. "Gandhi was inevitable. If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. We may ignore Gandhi at our own risk" -- MLK.

He is called "Mahatma" Gandhi, a title translated as "Gandhi the Great Soul." In India he is also called the Father of the Nation, and respectfully, affectionately he is called Gandhiji.

Popular quotes include "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" and "We must be the change we wish to see in the world," and a less popular personal favorite: "My religion is Truth, my practice is non-cooperation with evil."