WI: Mahatma Gandhi had really been a pacifist

One of the more popular historical misconceptions is that Mohandas Gandhi opposed all war and violence throughout his adult life. Actually, he served as an ambulance driver during the Boer War, and volunteered for active military service in the British Army during the First World War. He was invalided out when he developed pleurisy. He did, indeed, oppose active violent opposition to the British Imperial authority in India, following the First World War, favoring very organized passive resistance in the form of mass strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins, instead. Frequently, passive resistance is equated to pacifism, despite the fact that passive resistance can result in a great deal of violence, indeed. There were tens of thousands of casualties in Gandhi's "non-violent" campaigns, including both attacks by the British and reprisals by his own supporters. Ask an American or British or French union leader how "non-violent" mass strikes generally are! True, Gandhi wrote extensively of "non-violence" in the last few decades of his life, espousing it as a profound philosophy of existence itself. However, it is helpful to bear in mind that Gandhi was, always, a brilliant politician, from a very long line of brilliant Indian politicians. And, in general, politicians are not entirely incapable of a certain degree of hypocrisy, to achieve their ends and objectives. A couple of pertinent quotations: 1. "It costs a lot of money to keep Gandhi living in poverty". 2. "Pacifists don't mind violence, as long as it's violent enough." -- George Orwell. Gandhi was, above all, an Indian politician determined to improve the lot of of his countrymen, by any means necessary and appropriate. In South Africa, he did precisely NOTHING for the native Africans, all of his activities benefited the immigrants from India, exclusively. His decision to advocate passive resistance to British authority following the First World War was based primarily on the obvious weakness of the British Empire, and the inevitability of Indian independence in the relatively near term. Since the British were on the decline, it no longer made sense to tie their interests to the British Empire. However, since the British were obviously quite weak, by this time, there was no practical reason for violently opposing them. Passive resistance was the simplest, and optimal political solution, and Gandhi was quite perceptive enough to see this. If Gandhi had really been opposed to all violence, he would certainly have balked at the obvious violent consequences of his campaigns of passive resistance against the British and South African governments. And, if he had really been opposed to all violence, he would never have been able to function within the British Empire, as he so skillfully did throughout most of his career. He would have failed as a politician. Indeed, if Gandhi had not been willing to advocate ANY level of violence, whatsoever, in order to achieve his political objectives, he could never have been successful as a politician. Hence, his entire philosophy, as both Churchill and Orwell recognized, was pure sham and show, pure hypocrisy to accomplish his political objectives.