On July 23rd 2007, one of the grandsons of Mahatma Gandhi said that INDIAN nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi would have “stood up to” the Taliban and Osama bin Laden if he were alive today. He told the BBC his grandfather would also have tried to organise “something dramatic” – perhaps a mass fast – to show how unhappy most Muslims were that their religion was being linked to terrorism. This is just a speculation that Mahatma Gandhi would have stood against the Taliban. But, even if would have, whether it would be effective or not is the thing to discuss.
Mahatma Gandhi became a national hero after he successfully led the black South Africans and Indians in South Africa against discrimination. He is remembered for his effort in the independence of India. The main power of Mahatma Gandhi was Satyagrah.
This is defined as resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, a philosophy firmly founded upon ahimsa, or total nonviolence. This tool worked very well against British. But, there are doubts that it would have worked against Taliban too.
As the tool used by Mahatma Gandhi was based upon civil disobedience, the acts of Mahatma Gandhi used to impact British Raj deeply. No government could withstand against public, and Mahatma Gandhi used public power for all his campaigns. Now, the situation with Taliban is different. Taliban is a Hanafi Islamist political Group which governed Afghanistan from 1996 until it was overthrown in late 2001. Main ideology of Taliban moved a lot around Sharia Law. Sharia is the sacred law of Islam. As it is related to religion, public support is much more with them than with the British in India. So, using civil disobedience against Taliban could not work. As the power of the mass would not be with him and without the mass of Afghanistan nothing much could have been done. Even if Muslims around the globe feel ashamed of Taliban, their cooperation could not work to dismantle Taliban. So, the main weapon of Mahatma Gandhi would have failed in this scenario.
As much we know Mahatma Gandhi, we may expect that he may have discovered some other non-violence technique to fight against Taliban. But, we can just do presumptions. But, based on the life work of Mahatma Gandhi we can conclude that He could not have withstood the Taliban.
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