[dotnet00]

Invoking Gandhi's satyagrahas should always come with all the caveats that made the movement successful. It wasn't merely the act of peaceful protest that won India's independence, but the fact that it happened in the backdrop of WW2. Britain had to be much more careful to not risk escalating things into a full-blown revolt. Then, at the end of the war, they needed to focus their resources towards rebuilding.

[FollowingTheDao]

Agree, but he started his work in South Africa with great success. I was just revealing that there are different ways to protest that entail people sacrificing now a little so they do not have to sacrifice a lot in the future.

But I will also argue, imagine if he did nothing?

[dotnet00]

My intent wasn't to say that Gandhi and satyagraha had no contribution, and I agree that there are better ways to protest than harassing people trying to survive and throwing beans on paintings. I just wanted to emphasize that part of the reason satyagraha remained mainly peaceful was that even the people being protested against couldn't risk it turning violent.

> But I will also argue, imagine if he did nothing?

I think that India would still have gotten independence a few years later, since either way, I don't think post-WW2 Britain had the capacity to hold on to India. However, I do believe that Gandhi's efforts ended up playing a significant role in creating a more unified national identity and helped to foster values that have allowed India to be a mostly stable democracy, in stark contrast to many of its neighbors. So, if he had done nothing, I figure that India might've fragmented into smaller countries with too much conflict to amount to much on the global stage.