What would Gandhi do in Ukraine

by Neera Kuckreja Sohoni

Facing another World War and nuclear incineration, it is not bizarre to recall Mahatma Gandhi, whose birth anniversary we celebrated on October 2, even as we get ready to mourn his death anniversary on January 30. Rather, it is prudent to apply his style of peaceful warfare to actively seek peace instead of passively permitting the Ukraine-Russia war to escalate.

No one denies Ukraine’s extraordinary courage or Russia’s naked aggression on and blatant annexation of parts of Ukraine. But war inevitably becomes self-defeating by shattering economies and destabilizing polities.

Even so, prolonging war is in the interest of those who profit from it, namely, the politico-military-industrial complex.

With billions worth of military hardware and financial support rendered by allied nations to shore up Ukraine, and several more billions waiting to be invested in relief and reconstruction, the stakes are high for keeping war going.

Except this time, deviating from the conventional trajectory of warfare, Putin has upped the stakes by declaring that if provoked, he will exercise the first strike nuclear option.

War always causes victims. Millions have been forced already to flee their country, while those who remained are injured, dead, or are continuing to fight. These masses are always the earth’s wretched – who have no recourse except to soldier on behalf of their country.

To keep them hooked, glory is used as bait, and warfare is garbed as principled.

With President Biden giving the clarion call, western leaders accordingly are projecting Ukraine’s seminal significance as the gateway to Europe and the guidepost of Western democracy, while presenting Putin as Hitler reincarnate. 

If justice is what we are seeking, we should be willing to come to the table to negotiate fair terms for the parties involved. 

Unfortunately, it is as natural for humans to seek profiteering from war as it is to seek revenge and retribution. That dual proclivity is what dissuades us from seeking peace.

Gandhi’s approach would be different. It committed his soldiers of peace to remain principled and eschew violence. Their weapons were not munitions, but their courageous ability to stand up to peacefully oppose oppression.

Gandhi applied and got masses of followers to use non-violence to confront and triumph over violence, mobilizing ‘Satyagraha’ (Soul-force) as their weapon. Derived from the American Thoreau and the Russian Tolstoy, Gandhi’s modality succeeded in leading India to freedom without indulging in war.

To be a good soldier of peace, one also had to be an angel of love and mercy and to equally cherish all human beings. No one in Gandhi’s dealings was less or more touchable and untouchable. We are all equal before God, and therefore before laws made by humans, he emphasized.

As a peaceful warrior, Gandhi did not accept taking of even a single adversary’s life whatever the extent of oppression, or tearing down iconic monuments and statues, or attacking places of worship and followers of different faiths – a lesson extremist groups and violent protesters can well imbibe today.

Beaten and arrested time and again along with his followers, he never surrendered to violence or retaliated with aggression.

Unfortunately, fed on the venom of hate and the power of one’s fist, today’s young see little value in Gandhi. The Woke culture, which has overtaken academia and polities globally, condemns Gandhi for his disparaging racist views of Blacks. Others pillory him for his deviant sexuality manifest in his sleeping nude with young girls.

Following George Floyd’s death in 2020, enraged Black Lives Matter’s followers ruthlessly took to rioting, burning, and desecrating and toppling statues and monuments of iconic American heroes and events. They made no exception of Gandhi when they shattered his revered statue in Washington D.C.

But as is true of all of us, there is more to Gandhi than his shortcomings or his statue.  Einstein knew better that this was ‘a Man for all Seasons’ when he wrote, 

“Generations to come will scarce believe that such a man as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon the earth.”