yes, I thought of Orwell immediately.....
In my foolish adolescence I lived a fair amount of time around some Quakers, although not one myself.
In my foolish adolescence, I actually thought there was something noble and upright about their pacifism.
It didn’t take too long for me to come to Orwell’s obvious and incontrovertible conclusion, that pacifists and all kinds of leftist “conscientious objectors” can only enjoy their tender pangs of conscience because of all those who ARE ready to risk their lives to defend freedom.
Gandhi could achieve much against the British because they were relatively civilized.... but Gandhi’s idea that non-violent resistance could do anything against Hitler is contemptible, not merely laughable.
Gandhi had little to do with India’s independence.
More than not, Gandhi was precisely whom the British needed, to prevent any violent military uprising in India. Remember, just prior to independence was a 2-3 million-strong British Indian military which had just fought on behalf of Britain in WW2 and were instrumental in the victories in many battles for them (Burma Campaign, Italy, Iraq, North Africa and France), awarded dozens of Victoria Cross medals for their efforts, and getting increasingly itchy about continued British rule. The best the British could hope for, was a relatively peaceful exit, and Gandhi provided them with a strategy to do just that.
As for “relatively civilised”, are you referring to the same Britain that was not hesitant to bomb and execute at will, as was what happened in the American Revolution?
WW2 was instrumental in Britain’s exit from the Subcontinent, much more so, than any perceived civility.
The irony was, Ghandi joined the British Army as an Ambulance corps member and aided the British fight against the Boers, a greed-oriented and morally unjustifiable war from a British perspective compared to the Second World War, in which Ghandi urged an Indian boycott of the war effort and even advised the British to let Hitler invade Britain without resistance to maintain moral superiority over the Nazis. I suppose some people don't grow wiser as the grow older...