• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    Yeah, you’re right. What did non-violent resistance ever achieve other than liberate India, give people of color in the U.S. civil rights, free the Baltic states from the Soviet Union, end one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, topple the former Ukrainian regime and other things I could probably come up with if you gave me time?

    • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      So, I’m going to suggest India was actually more complicated.

      It was non-violent, but with a strong threat that ‘you can’t keep us, China went red, Russia will help us too’.

      Gandhi’s pacifism was the face the British put on it to make it look less like they’d been beaten by communism (the congress party was vaguely socialist , but mostly in name only, far less so than other, more hindu parties, it stood for corruption more than anything really).

      Also the partition guaranteed neither country would be a major international concern for decades, as they’d be too busy dealing with each other.

      You can say a lot about the British, but they were great at IR.