The dissident Mahatma who never won the Nobel

With the Nobel Peace Prize presented in the absence of this year’s laureate, the imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, it might be wise to think of a man who never won the prize: Mahatma Gandhi. Despite that omission, there is no doubting Gandhiji’s worldwide significance – including for Liu.The Mahatma’s image nowfeatures in advertising campaigns for everything from Apple computers to MontBlanc pens. When the film "Gandhi" swept the Oscars in 1983, posters for thefilm proclaimed that "Gandhi’s triumph changed the world forever." But didit? The case for Gandhi-led global change rests principally on theAmerican civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, who attended a lecture onGandhi, bought a half-dozen books about the Mahatma, and adopted satyagraha asboth precept and method. In leading the struggle to break down segregation inthe southern US, King used non-violence more effectively than anyone elseoutside India. "Hate begets hate. Violence begets violence," he memorablydeclared. "We must meet the forces of hate with soul force." Kinglater avowed that "the Gandhian method of non-violent resistance...became theguiding light of our movement. Christ furnished the spirit and motivation, andGandhi furnished the method." Last month, Barack Obama told Parliament that wereit not for Gandhi, he would not be standing there as America’s president.So, yes, Gandhism helped to change America forever. But it isdifficult to find many other instances of its success. India’sindependence marked the dawn of the era of decolonization, but many nationsthrew off the yoke of empire only after bloody and violent struggles. Otherpeoples have since fallen under the boots of invading armies, been dispossessedof their lands, or terrorized into fleeing their homes. Non-violence has offeredno solutions to them. Indeed, non-violence could only work againstopponents vulnerable to a loss of moral authority – that is, governmentsresponsive to domestic and international public opinion, and thus capable ofbeing shamed into conceding defeat. In Gandhi’s own time, non-violencecould have done nothing to prevent the slaughter of Jews in Hitler’s path.The power of Gandhian non-violence rests in being able to say, "Toshow you that you are wrong, I punish myself." But that has little effect onthose who are not interested in whether they are wrong and are already seekingto punish you. Your willingness to undergo punishment merely expedites theirvictory. No wonder Nelson Mandela, who told me that Gandhi had "always been agreat source of inspiration," explicitly disavowed non-violence as ineffectivein South Africans’ struggle against apartheid. Indeed, Gandhican sound frighteningly unrealistic: "The willing sacrifice of the innocent isthe most powerful answer to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by Godor man...Neither should there be excitement in civil disobedience, which is apreparation for mute suffering." For many around the world who suffer underoppressive regimes, such a credo would sound like a prescription for sainthood– or for impotence. Mute suffering is fine as a moral principle, but onlyGandhi could use it to bring about meaningful change. The sad truthis that the staying power of organized violence is almost always greater thanthat of non-violence. Gandhi believed in "weaning an opponent from error bypatience, sympathy, and self-suffering." But, while such an approach may havewon Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi the Nobel that eluded the Mahatma himself,the violence of the Burmese state proved far stronger in preventing change thanher suffering has in fomenting it. And, as the Mumbai terror attacks of November2008 demonstrated, India today faces the threat of cross-border terrorism towhich the Mahatma’s only answer – a fast in protest – wouldhave left its perpetrators unmoved.In his internationalism, theMahatma expressed ideals that few can reject. But the decades since his deathhave confirmed that there is no escaping the conflicting sovereignties ofstates. Some 20 million lives have been lost in wars and insurrections sinceGandhi died. Outside India, as within it, Gandhian techniques have beenperverted by terrorists and bomb-throwers who declare hunger strikes whenpunished for their crimes. Gandhism without moral authority is like Marxismwithout a proletariat. Yet too few who have tried his methods worldwide have hadhis personal integrity or moral stature. None of these misguided orcynical efforts has diluted Gandhi’s greatness, or the extraordinaryresonance of his life and his message. He was that rare kind of leader who wasnot confined by his followers’ inadequacies. YetGandhi’s truth was essentially his own. He formulated its unique contentand determined its application in a specific historical context. Inevitably, fewin today’s world can measure up to his greatness or aspire to his credo.The originality of Gandhi’s thought and the example of hislife still inspire people around the world today – as Liu Xiaobo wouldreadily admit. But his triumph did not "change the world forever." I wonder ifthe Mahatma, surveying today’s world, would feel that he had triumphed atall. Shashi Tharoor is a former minister of state for externalaffairs