Even with Mahatma Gandhi’s 141st birthday looming tom­o­rrow, it may be odd for a forei­gn policy column to discuss him. After all, the Mahatma left international affairs largely to his disciple Jawaharlal Nehru, focusing on his domestic preoccupations. And yet, today, there is no do­u­b­t­ing Gandhiji’s huge worldwide significance. The Mahatma’s im­a­ge dominates the globe, featuring in advertising campaigns for everything from Apple computers to Mont Blanc pens. Wh­en Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi swept the Oscars in 1983, posters for the film proclaimed that “Gandhi’s triumph changed the world forever”. But did it?
The case for Gandhiji-led global change rests principally on the US civil rights leader Martin Lu­­t­her King Jr, who attended a lecture on Gandhiji, bought half-a-do­­zen books on the Mahatma and adopted satyagraha as both pr­ecept and method. King, more than anyone else, used non-viol­ence most effectively outside In­d­­ia in breaking down segregati­on in the southern states of the US. “Hate begets hate. Violence be­­gets violence”, he memorably de­­clared. “We must meet the fo­r­­ces of hate with soul force.” Ki­ng later avowed that “the Gandh­i­an method of non-violent res­i­s­tance... became the guiding li­g­ht of our movement. Christ fu­r­n­i­­shed the spirit and motivation and Gandhi furnished the method”.
So Gandhism helped to change the American south forever. But it is difficult to find many other instances of its success. India’s independence marked the dawn of the era of decolonisation, but many nations still came to freedom only after bloody and violent struggles. Other peoples ha­ve fallen under the boots of inva­ding armies, been dispossessed of their lands or forced to flee in terror from their homes. Non-violence has offered no solutions to them. It could only work against opponents vulnerable to a loss of moral authority — governments responsive to domestic and international public opinion, capable of being shamed into conceding defeat. In Gandhiji’s own day, non-violence could have done nothing for the Jews of Hitler’s Germany, who disappeared tragically into gas-chambers far from the flashbulbs of a war-obsessed press.
The power of Gandhian non-vi­olence rests in being able to say, “To show you that you are wr­ong, I punish myself”. But that has little effect on those who are not interested in whether th­ey are wrong and are already se­eking to punish you for your disagreements with them. For them your willingness to undergo punishment is the most convenient means of victory. No wonder Nelson Mandela, who told me that Gandhiji had “always” been “a great source of inspiration”, explicitly disavowed non-violence as ineffective in his struggle against apartheid.
On this subject Gandhiji sou­n­ds frighteningly unrealistic: “The willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful answer to insolent tyranny that has yet be­en conceived by God or man. Di­sobedience to be ‘civil’ must be sincere, respectful, restrained, ne­ver defiant, and it must have no ill-will or hatred behind it. Ne­ither should there be excitement in civil disobedience, wh­i­ch is a preparation for mute suffering”.
For many smarting under inj­u­s­tice across the world, that wou­ld sound like a prescription for sainthood — or for impotence. Mute suffering is all very well as a moral principle, but only Ga­n­d­hiji could use it to bring about meaningful change. The sad tru­th is that the staying-power of or­ganised violence is almost al­w­ays greater than that of non-violence. Gandhiji believed in “we­aning an opponent from er­r­or by patience, sympathy and self-suffering”, but while such an approach might have won Au­ng San Suu Kyi in Burma the Nobel that eluded the Mahatma himself, the violence of the Bu­r­mese state proved far stronger in preventing change than her suffering has done to bring it about.
In his internationalism, the Mahatma expressed ideals few can reject. But the decades after his death have confirmed that th­e­re is no escape from the confl­i­c­ting sovereignties of states. So­me 20 million more lives have been lost in wars and insurrections since his passing. In a dismaying number of countries, in­c­luding his own, governments sp­end more for military purposes than for education and healthcare combined. The current st­ockpile of nuclear weapons represents over a million times the explosive power of the atom bo­mb whose destruction of Hiro­s­h­ima so grieved him. As 26/11 demonstrated, India faces the threat of cross-border terrorism to which Gandhiji’s only answer — a fast in protest — would have left its perpetrators unm­oved. Universal peace, which Gandhiji considered so central to Truth, seems as illusory as ever.
Outside India, as within it, Gandhian techniques have been perverted by terrorists and bomb-throwers declaring hunger-strikes when punished for their crimes. Gandhism without moral authority is like Marxism without a proletariat. Yet few who have tried his methods worldwide have his personal integrity or moral stature.
And in economics, Gandhiji’s world of the spinning-wheel, of self-reliant families in contented village republics, is even more remote today than when he first espoused it. Despite the brief popularity of intermediate technology and “small is beautiful”, there is little room for such ideas in a globalising, inter-dependent world. Self-reliance is too often a cover for protectionism and a shelter for inefficiency; India has pulled more people out of poverty by its economic reforms of the last two decades than wh­en it pursued self-reliance. To­d­ay’s successful and prosperous countries are those who are able to look beyond spinning char­khas to silicon chips — and who give their people the benefits of technological developments which free them from menial and repetitive chores and broaden the horizons of their lives.
None of this dilutes Gandhiji’s greatness, or the extraordinary resonance of his life and his message. While the world was disintegrating into fascism, violence and war, Gandhiji taught the virtues of truth, non-violence and peace. He destroyed the credibility of colonialism by opposing principle to force. And he set and attained personal standards of conviction and courage which few will ever match. He was that rare kind of leader who was not confined by the inadequacies of his followers.
Yet Gandhiji’s Truth was essentially his own. He formulated its unique content and determined its application in a specific historical context. Inevitably, few in today’s world can measure up to his greatness or aspire to his credo. The originality of his thought and the example of his life inspires people around the world today, but Gandhiji’s triumph did not “change the world forever”. I wonder if the Mahatma, looking at today’s world, would feel he had triumphed at all.

Shashi Tharoor is a member of Parliament from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram constituency