Gandhi's Letter to Hitler (1940)

The degree of wisdom and truly "evolved" thinking demonstrated in this letter is deeply inspiring. Simultaneously, it conversely seems to support the idea that you can't really reason with fascists because their hunger for power (and destruction) is essentially insatiable and they won't stop because someone spoke some convincing words.

I respectfully disagree because Gandhi's approach may seem idealistic, but in reality, nature functions on the basis of survival of the fittest.

Nonviolent methods often require the possibility of violence as a backdrop to be effective. Otherwise, they might not yield the desired results.

While Gandhi's philosophy sounds nice in theory, it may not always be the most practical in real-world scenarios.

"While Gandhi's philosophy sounds nice in theory, it may not always be the most practical in real-world scenarios."

You do know his philosophy worked, right?

We gained independence when it was inconvenient for the British to continue their rule over India. While his work can not be understated, you also can't deny that it took a very long time. During that long period: Indians fought under British banners and died, and Indians were systematically starved to feed frontlines of war we had nothing to do with.

Just imagine getting independence 5 years earlier by nationwide violent uprisings and non-cooperation moment together. Britain was already fighting on multiple fronts during WW2, it was a plausible path to early independence.

Sure we saved some lives that would've been lost in violent uprisings, but we lost just as many if not more from inaction.

Independence itself is a point in time thing. When there is a movement that results in something the movement doesn’t suddenly disappear after the success. The movement continues to influence power and how things are shaped.

If a movement of violent uprising resulted in Indias independence, the British may have packed their bags but the armies and militias would stay and given the nature of militias, will probably not suddenly turn peaceful. The British was the enemy yesterday, the other <religion, language or another faction> would the enemy today. See any African country.

What the nonviolent movement achieved in India is not just independence. Like you said there were other ways for independence, arguably faster. What the nonviolent movement achieved was long term stability and lack of civil wars /internal conflicts(for the most part).

Arguably it also led to a complete lack of change, with the civil machinery simply being renamed and now serving a different master. The military and police now work for those in power, not the people. An autocracy pretending to be a democracy.