“Gandhi’s bold statement”–Daily Metta

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December 23:

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“Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted Nazism or Fascism.”

–Gandhi (Harijan, May 18, 1940)

Gandhi made this rather harsh remark in a discussion with an American friend on the topic of nonviolence and democracy. Gandhi was convinced that democracy could only be saved through nonviolence. Note the date, 1940, and the way that violence was being justified by appeals to that noble principle. The so-called need for Allied Forces to defend the principles of democracy though violence: Gandhi, perceptive as he was, saw right through that contradiction, and had no hesitation letting people know it, either.

Here is the full quote:

“My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should have the same opportunity as the strongest. That can never happen except through nonviolence. No country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak. The weakest, you say, go to the wall. Take your own case. Your land is owned by a few capitalist owners. [this was 1940!] The same is true of South Africa. These large holdings cannot be sustained except by violence, veiled if not open. Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted Nazism or Fascism. At its best, it is merely a cloak to hide the Nazi and Fascist tendencies of imperialism. Why is there war today, if it is not for the satisfaction of the desire to share the spoils?” (italics mine).

He goes on, citing the examples of the treatment of the blacks in America and the blacks and Indians in South Africa to say that to call such places democratic was problematic, and to wage war to save such so-called democracies? “There is something very hypocritical about it.”

The full implication of what Gandhi is telling us is that if war and violence were necessary to save those experiments, perhaps those experiments are not worth saving. The less we try to defend and justify exploitation, the closer we would come to waging a real struggle to defend real democracy.

Experiment in nonviolence:
There have been many new experiments in democracy since Gandhi made these remarks in 1940. Can you identify a country with a model that might speak to Gandhi’s vision for a nonviolent democracy?