Posted on 03/03/2009 5:51:39 AM PST by rellimpank
The story is history, very famous history at that.
How a solitary Indian lawyer took on British imperialism and won, gaining independence for India. Independence was at one time presumed impossible, with Mohandas K. Gandhi's strategy of nonviolent protest openly mocked and derided by the British. Yet not only did Gandhi carry the day and win his country's struggle for independence, it was the Gandhi model that was later used by an American minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. to finally end the American segregation system put in place by Democrats for a century following the Civil War.
The recent spontaneous eruption of impromptu "tea parties" -- demonstrations modeled after the Boston Tea Party of 1773 to protest against the Obama plan to socialize America -- is the first sign that Gandhi-style rebellion against the government is in the American air.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Revisionist bull. After WW2 Britain couldn't longer sustain an Empire... and the US didn't want them to either.
Other colonies and "mandates" were released without a Ghandi.
Name one post WW-2 former British colony of sub-continental size which has had its political system intact since independence.
Yeah, and look what’s happened to India since they tossed out the mean old British. Where India had had an average life expectancy of 25 years, which was boosted up to 35 years because of better diet, sanitation, commonsense, India (Mumbai slums as example) is right back where it was (I’m not talking about the upper caste).
Just for laughs, see the movie, Slumdog Millionaire to marvel at the slums (just incredible) that more than likely would not have existed under British rule.
I agree with you. Ghandi and Dr. King prevailed only because they were dealing wiht humane governments, representing people with a sense of right and wrong and or fair play.
Our tea party didn’t free us from Britain. A long, bloody war, and help from the French did that.
Interesting article, but perhaps as conservatives we may be in the minority ad infinitum... It’s hard to convince people who are receiving a free ride from the government to get up and be responsible for themselves.
The really sad thing that people that carry on about Gandhi and King is the fact they refuse to acknowledge is that if they had been dealing with anyone except for Western Civilization they would have been killed at the start. Look at the fact the the “evil Boers†didn’t kill Tutu or Mandela
—yep—non-resistance didn’t work too well for Europe’s Jews vis-a-vis the Nazis, either—but several posters are missing the point of the article—
India is the only British colony that is this huge and a sub-continent.
What does your point prove? That they have been fairly stabile (leaving out assasinations, the breakaway of Pakistan and several wars).
The protests of Ghandi did not "singlehandedly" bring down British rule. The exhaustion of WW2 and the rise of the US signaled the end of the British Empire worldwide.
But he was indeed quite successful in stitching up India into what it was in 1947, to compel the British that they could not hold it any longer.
Britain left the African colonies much, much later on. Gandhi was a major reason why the grip on India went insecure. Key word: mass movement.
Someone should have mentioned that to George Washington. The Revolutionary War was unnecessary, ay? Weren't the combatants 'Western' "Civilization"?
LOL!
Look up ‘Bengal Famine’.
So, apparently, “Western Civilization” sprung up some time in the 20th century?
No, Western Civilization HAS advanced since the 18th Century, it has not been stagnant like some other cultures
The devastation of two world wars “prodded” the progression, I suppose.
With the entire British-Indian Imperial Army comprising largely of Indian troops, the British could never have imagined pulling off a Tibet on Gandhi.
They knew the dangers of a mass-movement against Indians.
After all, Britain’s rule in India was achieved politically, through alliances with local princes, rather than the popular imagination of a war-based conquest.
It’s one of the reasons why India was not settled like other lands. It was impossible.
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