explain gandhi opinion on cowardice and violence
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He writes this in the introduction: "The real Gandhi did loathe violence but loathed cowardice more than violence... If Gandhi preached simultaneously nonviolence and courage, it was believed he believed that nonviolence required more courage than violence."
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A schoolgirl poses for a picture next to a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Gujarat. (Reuters)
A different Mahatma Gandhi emerges for those who have read his collected works and that leader preferred "violence over cowardice."
"When there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advice violence," the lawyer-activist from South Africa said in 1920.
"Thus when my eldest son asked me what she should have done had he been present what I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used physical force, which he could and wanted to use, I told him it was his duty to defend me even by using violence...Hence I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence...But I believe nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence... forgiveness may be more manly than punish.
And in the coming years, as he immersed himself into the freedom struggle, Gandhi refined this belief.
Tahrir Square has been the site for numerous major protests and demonstrations over the years.
"My non-violence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected. Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice," he said in 1924. The he added that "non-violence is the summit of bravery."
Nine years later in 1935, he wrote this: "Non-violence cannot be taught to a person who fears to dice and has no power of resistance."
And this is what Gandhi said in 1939, as the struggle was peaking: "For I cannot in any case tolerate cowardice. Let no one say when I am gone that I taught the people to be cowards... I would far rather that you died bravely dealing a blow and receiving a blow than died in abject terror...fleeing from battle is cowardice and unworthy of a warrior... cowardice is worse than violence because cowards can never be non-violent."
This Gandhi, so different from our textbook perception of a pacifist saint, was brought forth by Norman G. Finkelstein, a professor-activist from America.
In his slim book - 'What Gandhi Says' - written after he saw the stamp of this Gandhian sort of brave nonviolence in the Arab Spring of 2011 and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US.
Muzaffarnagar riotPeople from both Hindu and Muslim communities were killed in the Muzaffarnagar riots in UP.
Norman writes: "In response to local leaders who solicited his advice on how to end internecine bloodletting, Gandhi counseled: "Go in the midst of rioters and prevent them from indulging in madness or get killed in the attempt. But do not come back alive to report failure. The situation calls for sacrifice on the part of top-rankers."
Norman then says: "If a criticism is to be leveled against Gandhi's nonviolence, it is that he sets the bar of courage too high for most mortals to vault."
Norman too has exposed the misdemeanors of the Jewish lobby in America through his writings despite being a Jew whose parents died in a Nazi concentration camp. And he paid the price too, though ostracisation in the academic community.
He writes this in the introduction: "The real Gandhi did loathe violence but loathed cowardice more than violence... If Gandhi preached simultaneously nonviolence and courage, it was believed he believed that nonviolence required more courage than violence."