Gandhi era um homem obstinado, convicto das suas razões, algumas delas bastante discutíveis. Por exemplo, a sua condenação das máquinas (que iriam fazer com que os indianos deixassem de praticar o crucial "trabalho manual" e ficassem sem ocupação), ou a sua participação em sessões "sacramentais" de queima de roupa importada.

"Depois de viagens por toda a India, cheguei à conclusao que a unica forma de remover a miseria de milhoes de pessoas é boicotar a roupa estrangeira."

A propria "não-violência", conceito basilar da sua filosofia, é discutivel. Só é infalivel para quem esteja disposto a morrer por ela, como notou Bertrand Russel:

"Non-violent resistance - it certainly has an important sphere: as against the british in India, Gandhi led to triumph. But it depends upon the existence of certain virtues in those against it is employed. When indians lay down on railways and challenged the autorithies to crush them under trains, the british found such cruelty intolerable."

A questao que Russel coloca é: Perante um opressor que estivesse disposto a usar de toda a crueldade para manter o seu jugo, qual seria a eficacia da nao violencia? Nenhuma, segundo Russel: toda, de acordo com Gandhi. Gandhi era extremamente religioso. Estaria disposto a sacrificar-se e a sacrificar quantos fossem precisos para fazer com que o adversário reconhecesse a sua má conduta. Por exemplo, o que faria se fosse judeu e estivesse prestes a ser massacrado pelos nazis?

"If I were a jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German might, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon... And for doing this I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in the end the rest were bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here ofered, he or they cannot be worse off than now (...) If the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary sacrifice, even the massacre I've imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving that Jeovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of a tyrant. For the God-fearing, death has no terror."

Independentemente destas questões, considero Gandhi uma das personalidades da historia da humanidade. Veja-se o que sobre ele escreveram estes escritores:

"And it was shown that very large groups of men and women could be trained to respond to the most brutal treatment with a quiet courage and equanimiry that profoundly impressed the public opinion of the hole civilized world"
Aldous Huxley

"Not since Buddha has India so reverenced any man. Centuries hence he will be remembered when of his ocntemporaries hardly a name would survive."
Will Durandt

É claro que nao foi uma figura consensual. Muitos ocidentais ficaram incomodados e perplexos com a atitude de Gandhi. Acharam-na condenável, desrespeitosa. Churchill, que era um conservador e um apologista do império britânico, pronunciou-se sobre ele quando o Vice-rei da Índia se viu obrigado a reconhecer-lhe importância e a recebê-lo como se fosse um chefe de Estado. Gandhi apresentou-se coberto com o seu habitual lençol branco.

"I'm revolted by the nauseating and humiliating spectacle os this one time Inner Temple lawyer, now seditious fakir, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceroy's palace, there to negociate and to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king emperor."



Gandhi achou elogioso o epíteto de fakir. Mais tarde, quando visitou Londres, tentou encontrar-se com Churchill, mas este não se mostrou interessado. O "Mahatma" escreveu uma espécie de estatutos do ashram, um conjunto de princípios que todos os que vivessem na comunidade deveriam respeitar. Gosto particularmente destes:

Non violence or love - Mere non-killing is not enough. The active part of non-violence is love. The rule of love requires equal consideration for all life feom the tiniest insect to the highest man. One who follows this law must not be angry even with the perpetrator of the greatest imeginable wrong, but must love him well and serve him. Althoug we must thus love the wrong doer, we must never submit to his wrong or his injustice, but must opose it and must patiently and without resentment suffer all the hardships to wich the wrong doer may subject us in punishment four our opposition.

Non Possession or Poverty - Just as one must not receive so must one not possesse anything wich does not really need. It would be a breach of principle to possess unnecessary foodstuffs, clothes or furniture. For instance, one must not keep a chair if one can do without it. In observing this principle one is lead to a progressive simplification of ones life

Equality of religions - The ashram believes that the principal faiths of the world constitute a revelation of truth but as they have all been out-lined by imperfect man they have been affected by imperfections and alloyed with untruth. One must therefore entertain the same respect for all the religious faiths os other's as one accord's to one's own. Where such attitude becames a law of life, conflict between diferent faiths becomes impossible and so does all the efforts to convert other people to one's one faith. One can only pray that the defects in the various faiths may be overcomed and that they may advance side by side towards perfection.

(continua)