Without Truth, Nothing": Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Quit India Movement

Without truth, nothing"[edit]
Mohandas Gandhi's early life was a series of personal struggles to decipher the truth about life's
important issues and discover the true way of living. He admitted in his autobiography to hitting his
wife when he was young,[33] and indulging in carnal pleasures out of lust, jealousy and
possessiveness, not genuine love. He had eaten meat, smoked a cigarette, and almost visited a
hustler. It was only after much personal turmoil and repeated failures that Gandhi developed his
philosophy.
Gandhi disliked having a cult following, and was averse to being addressed as Mahatma, claiming
that he was not a perfect human being.
In 1942, while he had already condemned Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and the Japanese militarists,
Gandhi took on an offensive in civil resistance, called the Quit India Movement.
Gandhians[edit]
There have been Muslim Gandhians, such as Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, known as the "Frontier
Gandhi"[by whom?]; under the influence of Gandhi, he organised the Pathans of the Northwest Frontier as
early as 1919.[34] Christian Gandhians include Horace Alexander[35] and Martin Luther King Jr..
[36]
Jewish Gandhians include Gandhi's close associate Herman Kallenbach. Atheist Gandhians
include Jawaharlal Nehru.
Promotion of Gandhian ideas[edit]

Several journals have also been published to promote Gandhian ideas. One of the most well-known
is Gandhi Marg, an English-language journal published since 1957 by the Gandhi Peace
Foundation.[37]
Harold Dwight Lasswell, a political scientist and communications theorist, defined propaganda as the
management of eclectic attitudes by manipulation of significant symbols. Based on this definition of
Propaganda, Gandhi made use of significant symbols to drive his ideal of a united India free of
British rule.[38]
His ideas symbolized in propaganda stated that India was a nation capable of economic self-
sufficiency without the British, a unity transcending religion would make for a stronger nation, and
that the most effective method of protest was through passive resistance, including non-violence and
the principle of satyagraha. In the "Quit India" speeches, Gandhi says "the proposal for the
withdrawal of British power is to enable India to play its due part at the present critical juncture. It is
not a happy position for a big country like India to be merely helping with money and material
obtained willy-nilly from her while the United Nations are conducting the war. We cannot evoke the
true spirit of sacrifice and velour, so long as we are not free." On his ideas towards a unified India he
said: "Thousands of Mussalmans have told me, that if Hindu-Muslim question was to be solved
satisfactorily, it must be done in my lifetime. I should feel flattered at this; but how can I agree to
proposal which does not appeal to my reason? Hindu-Muslim unity is not a new thing. Millions of
Hindus and Mussalmans have sought after it. I consciously strove for its achievement from my
boyhood. While at school, I made it a point to cultivate the friendship of Muslims and Parsi co-
students. I believed even at that tender age that the Hindus in India, if they wished to live in peace
and amity with the other communities, should assiduously cultivate the virtue of neighbourliness. It
did not matter, I felt, if I made no special effort to cultivate the friendship with Hindus, but I must
make friends with at least a few Mussalmans. In India too I continued my efforts and left no stone
unturned to achieve that unity. It was my life-long aspiration for it that made me offer my fullest co-
operation to the Mussalmans in the Khilafat movement. Muslims throughout the country accepted
me as their true friend." [39] Gandhi's belief in the effectiveness of passive, non-violent resistance has
been quoted as being the "belief that non-violence alone will lead men to do right under all
circumstances."
These ideas were symbolized by Gandhi through the use of significant symbols, an important
proponent in the acceptance of propaganda, in his speeches and movements. On 3 November
1930, there was the speech given before the Dandi March which possibly could have been one of
Gandhi's last speeches, in which the significant symbol of the march itself demonstrates the
exclusively nonviolent struggle to empower a self-sufficient India. Beginning in Ahmedabad and
concluding in Dandi, Gujarat, the march saw Gandhi and his supporters directly disobey the Rowlatt
Act which imposed heavy taxation and enforced British monopoly on the salt market. [40] The Khadi
movement, part of the larger swadeshi movement, employed the significant symbol of the burning of
British cloth in order to manipulate attitudes towards boycotting British goods and rejecting Western
culture and urging the return to ancient, precolonial culture. Gandhi obtained a wheel and engaged
his disciples in spinning their own cloth called Khadi; this commitment to hand spinning was an
essential element to Gandhi's philosophy and politics. [41] On 1 December 1948, Gandhi dictated his
speech on the eve of the last fast. Using the fast as a form of significant symbolism, he justifies it as
"a fast which a votary of non-violence sometimes feels impelled to undertake by way of protest
against some wrong done by society, and this he does when as a votary of Ahimsa has no other
remedy left. Such an occasion has come my way." This fast was conducted in line with his idea of a
nation's communities and religions brought together. Gandhi's fast was only to end when he was
satisfied with the reunion of hearts of all the communities brought about without any outside
pressure, but from an awakened sense of duty.[42]
Criticism and controversy[edit]

See also: Partition of India and Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi's rigid ahimsa implies pacifism, and is thus a source of criticism from across the political
spectrum.
Concept of partition[edit]
Main article: Opposition to the partition of India
As a rule, Gandhi was opposed to the concept of partition as it contradicted his vision of religious
unity.[43] Of the partition of India to create Pakistan, he wrote in Harijan on 6 October 1946:
[The demand for Pakistan] as put forth by the Muslim League is un-Islamic and I have not
hesitated to call it sinful. Islam stands for unity and the brotherhood of mankind, not for
disrupting the oneness of the human family. Therefore, those who want to divide India into
possibly warring groups are enemies alike of India and Islam. They may cut me into pieces
but they cannot make me subscribe to something which I consider to be wrong [...] we must
not cease to aspire, in spite of [the] wild talk, to befriend all Muslims and hold them fast as
prisoners of our love.[44]
However, as Homer Jack notes of Gandhi's long correspondence with Jinnah on the topic of
Pakistan: "Although Gandhi was personally opposed to the partition of India, he proposed an
agreement [...] which provided that the Congress and the Muslim League would cooperate to
attain independence under a provisional government, after which the question of partition would
be decided by a plebiscite in the districts having a Muslim majority."[45]
These dual positions on the topic of the partition of India opened Gandhi up to criticism from
both Hindus and Muslims. Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his contemporary fellow-travelers
condemned Gandhi for undermining Muslim political rights. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and his
allies condemned Gandhi, accusing him of politically appeasing Muslims while turning a blind
eye to their atrocities against Hindus, and for allowing the creation of Pakistan (despite having
publicly declared that "before partitioning India, my body will have to be cut into two pieces" [46]).
His refusal to protest against the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Udham
Singh and Rajguru by the British occupation authorities was a source of condemnation and
intense anger for many Indians. [47][48] Economists, such as Jagdish Bhagwati,
have criticized Gandhi's ideas of swadeshi.
Of this criticism, Gandhi stated, "There was a time when people listened to me because I
showed them how to give fight to the British without arms when they had no arms [...] but today I
am told that my non-violence can be of no avail against the Hindu-Moslem riots and, therefore,
people should arm themselves for self-defense."[49]
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Without Truth, Nothing": Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Quit India Movement

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Without truth, nothing"[edit]

Promotion of Gandhian ideas[edit]

Criticism and controversy[edit]

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