Sara lee rosenberg biography of mahatma gandhi

August 15th, , marked the seventy-sixth anniversary of India’s independence and so it might be asked: what was Mohandas K. Gandhi’s vision for the vitality of a democratic India? Gandhi himself wanted no part of the “vivisection of India” when the British Raj was partitioned into Pakistan and India. He decried “my life’s work is over” when he witnessed the murder of hundreds of thousands during partition. Still, he still did not give up on peace. The fate of India was in the hands of two men whose minds could not be reconciled: Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, and Gandhi of the Indian National Congress. India might have remained one country, but that did not happen.  

Gandhi, holding to unity so dearly, was murdered by the Hindutva-inspired fanatic Nathuram Vinayak Godse. Hindutva is an ideology inspired by opponents of Indian religious unity, such as V.D. Savarkar, whose nationalism centered around Hindus while excluding Muslims. This divisive spirit of Hindutva still haunts India today, and no doubt Gandhi would be restless to challenge it.

India’s independence and Gandhi’s life were celebrated in Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi, released in  It starred Ben Kingsley as the Mahatma, who gave an Academy-Award winning performance. The film portrays much accurately, but not everything. In it, Gandhi shouts to an angry Hindutva-inspired crowd: “I am a Christian, and a Hindu, a Moslem, and a Jew.” Gandhi did indeed say these words, but it was when his biographer Louis Fischer asked him about a portrait of Christ in the wall of his home. Gandhi had a unique way of affirming all religions, that “God is Truth,” which transcended but also captured the whole family of earthly religions. We are all children of God, in Gandhi’s eyes, celebrating the divine differently. Gandhi believed that “religions are different roads converging on the same point. Wh

What did a man, who encountered both Gandhi and Hitler, say about the prospects of non-violence?  The comparison is startling, but at least one journalist covered both persons: William Shirer.  Hitler is regarded by many as the most concrete incarnation of devilry ever seen.  Dr. E. Stanley Jones said that “one of the most Christlike men in history was not called a Christian at all.”  He was Gandhi, a Hindu.  For Christians, this is an eye-popping and controversial statement, yet there emerges from this juxtaposition a serious question: what is the role of non-violence, and more specifically pacifism, in the world today?  Reinhold Niebuhr, while admiring Gandhi, was also very critically aware of the strengths and limits of non-violence.  Pacifism was even heretical, according to Niebuhr’s standards.  So, what did Shirer have to say about these two men who, in moral terms, could not be farther apart?  And how does this inform our ideas about non-violence and war?

On February 23, , William Shirer was born.  Though best known for his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, he also produced a biography of the father of modern India, Gandhi, A Memoir.  Shirer came away from meeting Gandhi deeply moved, writing that the experience taught him the comparative equality of world religions.  He also believed, however, that there might be a limitation to Gandhi’s non-violence.

There is a commonsense approach to this debate.  Just as we evaluate the weather each day, putting on a warmer coat or bringing an umbrella in response to the meteorological circumstances, we must also be able to evaluate the political climate to gauge if non-violence is practicable.  Reading weather conditions is certainly easier, but two of the most famous advocates of non-violence, Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were also aware of this question.

First, what did Gandhi sa

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