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• When did Ghandi profess weapons ownership?

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  Before he became a pacifist, Ghandi was quite English in his educational training and profession. He thought like an Englishman, but became disillusioned with British rule. His evolution toward pacifism was long. Am I correct on this? Mistaken?

  staggolee started this discussion 5 years ago. ( reply | permalink )

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  Badthing 

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  No Staggo, you are definitely not mistaken and this is why I am so shocked and confused by his pro-gun statement that he made in this book.
  
  Here is the quote as repeated by this person in his blog article entitled, "Gun Ownership in India" http://www.abhijeetsingh.com/arms/india/
  
  I tell you I just don't understand why the great Mahatma Gandhi who I DO respect for doing so much in the name of non-violence, couldn't have said instead, "Guns in this world can do nothing but add more violence to this world." SIGH.
  
  Perhaps you can help me to figure this whole issue out...

  posted 5 years ago. ( permalink )

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    Michael Vitsek 

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    I think you will feel less troubled when you realize there is no contradiction.
    
    The countries in the world that are most troubled with violence are those where guns are tightly restricted. The cities and states in the US that are most troubled with violence are those where guns are tightly restricted, or banned -- New York, Chicago, Washington DC, California.
    
    Gun violence seems to occur widely only where one group of people has them and another is not permitted to -- whether "another" is a religious or ethnic minority, citizens who have not the privilege of government connections, or simply law-abiding citizens who are forced to be disarmed while criminals obtain more guns than ever.
    
    Consider the example of Switzerland... widespread gun ownerships, children bringing guns to school for target practice, college coeds walking down city streets with full-auto rifles slung over their shoulders after military practice... and yet there are almost no shootings, and some of the lowest crime rates in Europe (and the world)... not to mention 700 years of democracy, tolerance between three ethnic groups that have frequently been at war elsewhere in Europe, and a high level of both economic prosperity and respect for human rights. And Switzerland was the only country in central Europe during WWII to not only retain full civil rights for its Jewish citizens, but to officially take in Jewish refugees from other countries.
    
    That is a record of tolerance and peace that I think is enviable. The only other countries in the world that approach it are those that have traditionally allowed their (non-criminal) citizens to be legally and universally armed.
    
    Guns that are LEGALLY owned and carried by citizens who have a universal right to do so, are something that help strongly to discourage violence by the ill-intentioned, and so help to preserve peace, justice and tolerance.
    
    Gandhi knew this.
    
    
    Sometime back, I blogged on this topic... the URL is http://vitsekblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/enabling-torture-rape-and-mutilation.html
    
    Yours in mutual respect for peace, justice and tolerance,
    
    MV

    posted 5 years ago. ( permalink )

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    Soda Bob (edited)

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    Yes, Mr Vitsek, you are entirely correct. Yes, the US has a gun crime problem. But consider the fact that those countries with the most restrictive gun control laws, or the least amount of gun "owners," are the countries in the most turmoil, it shows perhaps why Ghandi, a pacifist, would have written such a thing.

    It's all about balance of power. And as even Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong stated, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." This is absolutely true. So, you must ask yourself this: do you want that power in the hands of a few, or in the hands of the many? You don't want the right to vote in the hands of the few, right? So, too, should we work to keep the right to own and carry guns in the hands of the many.

    Yes, guns are powerful tools that can be used for ill. But in this day and age, they are the most effective means of keeping the general peace. This may seem like a contradiction, but it is not, it is simple human nature. If you are a bad guy, and you know the good guys are armed and ready to take action, you will be much less likely to provoke the good guys. :)

    Lastly, consider this article discussing how guns in the hands of the populace of India might have prevented or at least reduced the recent Mumbai attacks.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122877201598989093.html

    posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )

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  Peter J 

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  Do not despair. Mr. Ghandi was indeed a lifefong pacifist, but even he, at times, would become frustrated and consider other options. With regard to this 'red herring' issue raised concening his 'advocacy' of the private ownership of firearms. This is a complete fiction, and worse, is a despicable and selective alteration of the historical facts.

  Mr. Ghandi's mis-attributed quotes regarding guns (cited above) pertain NOT to private ownership of guns, but refer to the British Government's refusal to enlist Indian troops into the WW1 war effort. Nothing to do with citizen owenship of guns, eveything to do with government control of guns.

  Specifically, it was his position that India was being 'held back' in evolving its own indigenous cadre of militarily capable individuals who would learn the use of guns in uniform, as servants of the State (and, hopefully, that state would in the future be an Independent India, feed from British rule).

  These are the facts.

  TY

  posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )

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    Nicolas S. Martin (edited)

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    The quote is from Gandhi’s autobiography, so I doubt that he wrongly attributed it to himself. Perhaps you mean “misinterpreted," but you provide no evidence to counter the plain meaning of what he said. Gandhi was anti-statist in philosophy; perhaps an anarchist. He said, "The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.” Does it then seem likely that he would have wanted individuals to be unarmed and the “soulless” state, representing “violence in a concentrated and organized form," armed?

    posted 2 years ago. ( permalink )

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  fred s (edited)

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  I'm sorry Peter but, you are quite mistaken in your understanding of the situation to which gandhi was referring. He was referring to the Indian Arms Act of 1878 (which was amended several times over the ensuing decades). This Act was, in practice, a total gun ban enacted to protect the British realm from an insurgency. By banning firearm possession for all but those authorized by the Realm they were able to all but do away with both military and private arms as almost no one was ever authorized.

  Mr. Gandhi, as you correctly state, was a lifelong pacifist. But, he understood that in the extreme a society needs to have the capability to defend itself from invasion and oppressive governance. This is not contradictory. It's merely an acknowledgement of the existence of extremes. I have in person heard the Dalai Lama (another life long pacifist) state the same thing. In short, pacifists are not entirely blind to the possibility of a need to defend oneself from extraordinary violence. However, they do believe that in most cases where one man would choose to take up arms passive resistance would be the superior choice. In India that proved to be true. In the Germany of the 1940's it wasn't. However, one of the first things that Hitler did was ban all the guns.

  As far as the "Right to bear arms" crowd is concerned; this quote is far from mis-attributed.

  posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )

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    Joe N 

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    No, peter is right. Plus Hitler did not take away the guns. The guns were already taken away because of the Treaty of Versailles. He opened it up to every one, except the jews.The law was already in place prior to Hitler taking power. I don't know where people get the idea that Hitler took all the guns.

    posted 3 years ago. ( permalink )

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    Peter C 

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    I was arguing with you and not against. I think Mr. Gandhi's quote is quite well attributed by the "Second Amendment" crowd. I even take umbrage with the moniker "second amendment" crowd, as this seems to be some kind of denigration for a _right_ documented in our Bill of Rights. There is no "second amendment" crowd, there are Americans, all of whom have the right to keep and bear arms. The reason for this is to protect the republic from tyranny, and this is without question.

    posted 3 years ago. ( permalink )

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  Badthing 

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  Thank you guys for your input in this. I now understand Mr. Gandhi's views on this subject. :)

  posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )

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  Peter C 

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  Up until approximately 1978, I described myself as a Gandhi-an pacifist. As we were leaving an emergency doctor appointment with my doddering old half-blind father, I on one arm and my mother on the other at 11 pm that night, a man larger than any of us came bellowing in our direction -- "what is this!? A wedding coming down the street!!" He was obviously... something... drunk? Anyway, I had exactly two emotions at that moment. The first was apprehension. The next was a full-fledged and absolute willingness to die in the protection of my parents. I did not care for my own life _or_his_. Right or wrong, up or down, left or right, green or yellow... I was in that moment pledged to kill or be killed. As it turns out, whether he sensed my resolve, or had a moment of clarity I don't know, but he nearly instantaneously ceased in his bellowing and harrassment and went on.

  Personally, I have reviewed my personal "peace policies" and frankly, I have a much different view today than at that time. The Indians have had done to them as bad as anything Adolph Hitler is credited in doing to those unfortunate enough to occupy his internment camps. For full documentation of British barbarities, I recommend reading Mike Davis' "Late Victorian Holocausts" for the full telling. Could guns have prevented these barbarities? I do not know. I know that above the meditation place of the Dalai Lama is a gun. Like most things, the solutions are never one thing. Certainly violence is an act that must be considered in its practical context I believe.

  But "evil" seems to be a matter of the human heart, and not born of an implement per se. The implements change, but the heart of evil changes little. Change the heart and you change the implements. I pray that we learn to change our hearts by deep meditation and thus the implements that cause suffering will therefore change to implements that create peace. Meanwhile, let's stop being so idealistic in our focus upon the implements instead of the deeper causes of unnecessary violence.

  posted 3 years ago. ( permalink )

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  Ganesh K (edited)

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  When Mahatma Gandhiji said "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest" it definitely was not intended for advocating use of arms. When he said this he wanted to lay bare the British Empire who were in small numbers compared to the millions of Indian people they were ruling. Gandhiji wanted to show the mirror to the British that it was only through might of arms that the minority British were lording over the natives. He intended to mock the British that without arms they could never have ruled the nation and corollary is also true that to ensure continuation of their rule they kept the majority away from arms. Arming a discontent majority would have been disastrous for the Empire. It would have been next to impossible to enslave a nation full of armed people.

  This was a jibe intended at the British Empire and makes one ponder over the reason behind the British's decision to do so. That is exactly what Gandhiji wanted. He wanted the people to think how they were being enslaved by people far less in numbers. This is also the basis of Non-cooperation movement. He wanted to show the British that despite their might they cannot a rule a nation that refused to cooperate. Whatever said and done Gandhiji professed and practiced Non-violence.

  posted 2 years ago. ( permalink )

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    Nicolas S. Martin (edited)

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    It would only have been “next to impossible to enslave a nation of armed people” if there was a real chance that those people might use those arms. It is sophistical to suggest that Gandhi wanted the people armed but unwilling to defend themselves with their arms, and he never said anything to that effect.

    A reasonable interpretation of Gandhi’s position on violence is that he was opposed to it except as a last resort in self-defense. That is comparable to the contemporary libertarian-anarchist position.

    In his brief introduction to Gandhi’s life and opinions, Bhikhu Parekh writes:

    Gandhi was particularly disturbed by the ease with which violence had been rationalized and used in history. He appreciated that it was often born out of frustration, that many who used it hated it and resorted to it only because they saw not other way to fight entrenched injustice, and that much of the blame for its use had to be laid at the doors of morally blind and narrow-minded dominant groups. While he was therefore prepared to condone spontaneous violence under unbearable conditions or grave provocation, he was totally opposed to it as a deliberate method of social change.” (“Gandhi,” Bhikhu Parekh, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 52.

    posted 2 years ago. ( permalink )

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