“The riots prompted the power structure to promote a Black elite. As one Black businessman observed, Unless there were people running around in the streets throwing bricks, I wouldn’t be where I am. It wasn’t until the riots that we got legislation in the Johnson administration.
It took a Rap Brown and a Stokely [Carmichael] to make [white] business look around and talk to Whitney Young. If they weren’t burning down the cities and having riots, the business environment wouldn’t have asked, “who can we talk to?”
After 1931, the aging Gandhi was more of a presence in the emerging political circles of the Congress Party—not, as I’m sure the author wishes—inspiring workers’ revolts. He appeared to see some value in shaping the political institutions that were likely to take hold. The “Quit India” movement during World War II, which both Gandhi and Khan led despite the fury of less principled elements in the independence movement, led to a massive nonviolent (though, tragically, often violent as well) popular movement that can hardly be ignored.
So, yes, we need to keep Gandhi’s legacy in perspective. He wasn’t a magic bullet. But to demonize him as a tool of evil capitalists doesn’t help much either. Khan, who lived much longer than Gandhi after independence, is probably the best example of how Gandhi would have acted in response to what was becoming of his country. Which is to say, resistance against the violence enacted by the very independent nation he helped to create. According to McLuhan, who spoke after the screening, the last time Khan went to prison was at age 95, in the mid-1980s.
]]> “Gandhi’s non-violent strategy did not drive the British out of India. His last important campaign peaked in 1931-16 years before the British left. The British clearly had Gandhi’s measure, and left for reasons of their own.
Gandhi cannot take credit for the departure of the British, but he probably can take some credit for the wretchedly unequal society that they left behind. For by ruining the popular worker/peasant upsurges of the 1919-1934 period, he guaranteed that the Indian capitalist class would remain intact to receive the reins of power from the British. They continue to wield those reins ruthlessly to this day, invoking Gandhi’s name as they go.”
https://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1167&Itemid=123
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