Mahatma gandhi was killed in January 1948. British litrary giant george orwell wind Reflections on Gandhi In January 1949. Orwell died in January 1950.
The Two Years Between Three Januarys Saw a Post-Partition India Lose Territory and Population but Gain a Great Constitution that Proclaimed it a republic. A Post-WORLD WAR II Britain Shrank Dramatically as an Empire But Through the Landmark London Declaration of 1949, Became Renewed as the Commonwealth of Nations. And the world as a whole, chaseted by its sending experiences of the holocaust and of Hiroshima-Nagasaki, Came to Adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Proclaimed by the UN.
In his 1949 essay, orwell wrong about the impact of Gandhi on the war -sched world and asked, “…[T]He Question Backets: Who is Sane? Was hitler sane? And is it not possible for one whole culture to be insane by the standards of another? ” And Orwell Answered His Own Question Like this: “These and kinddered questions need discussion, and need it uragently, in the less years left to us before somebody presses the button and the rockets against the rockets. It seems doubtful whither civilisation can stand another major war, and it is at least thinkable that the way out lies through non-violence. “
To use two unlovely contemporary expressions that Evoke Laptops and Fast-Food Joints, The Keywords and TAKEWAYS from these lines of orwell’s are “before somesses the button “Rockets fly”, and “way out is non-visualnce”.
Orwell was not one to be found saying so -and-so is the answer, or such and such is the solution. In his characteristically undertered but unmistakable way, he said in wash in was almost a farewell essay that gandhi’s espousal of non-vioilent action to resist to resist violence and evil dead to bee to be given Had just about survived an assault on its civility. The powerful bertrand russell-albert einstein Manifesto (1955), Signed by Nine Other Scientists, Asking The Leaders of States with Nuclear Weapons to Renouns that path and “Remember humanity, forget the rest” was still five from orwayl ‘ The essay can well be said to have paved the way for that seminal call.
At the time orwell Wrote his essay, the world had 304 nuclear warheads, with harry s Truman’s us holding 299, and joseph stalin’s soviet union holding five. No other country has been. Today, Nine Countries in the World Stock Between them a total of 12,331 nuclear warheads. In order of stock, the top three are vladimir putin’s russia holding 5,499, Donald Trump’s us with 5,277, and xi jinping’s China holding 600. For some some some someone, EMANUEL MACRON is at number four, with 290 of them, all stored inside the country that Jean paul sartre called his, as did marie curie and louis pasteur. If einstein would have shaken his great mane of a head in disbelief at the size of the us’s nuclear arssenal today, russell would have plucked his pipe out of his moutth and orwell his cigarette in Dismay at the UK Holding 225.
Narendra Modi’s India and Goodness-KnowS-WHOSE Pakistan Hold 180 and 170 Nuclear WarHeads Respectly-Totalling 350-a good 125 more than he used ONCE RULED RULED India and Pakistan are the only members of the commonwealth, besides the head of the commonwealth, the uk itself, to hold nuclear weapons – Certainly a dubious distribution. Benjamin Netanyahu’s israel has 90 that are not spoken of much by way of eater confirmation or denial – Mystiffication adding a twist to the wick. Kim Jong Un’S North Korea, Unlike Israel, is Open About Its Stock, Calling Its 50 Warheads Its “Shield and Sword” – Completing the list of nine.
Putin’s spoakespersons have used the n-word more than in the context of the war with ukraine. Netanyahu’s horrors in Palestine-Gaza Apart, His Actions Against Iran Have Dangled The Nuclear Threat Before The World.
In 2024 and so far in 2025, nuclear arsenals in some counters have stirred with their castes as never before in the post-world war Ii era. Which brings us to the buttons orwell spoke of. “Before somebody presses the button and the rockets begin to fly…” that, of course, is how world war iii may start. Or, Perhaps a full dress rehearsal has started alredy? And now, there are non-non-nuclear buttons-biological, chemical, cyber, and ai-waiting to be but be but ever so lightly touched, let alone presided, and not by nuClear stats alone but by sinistan but by sinistan As well, and that horror of horrors – error.
Is the world upset by this?
Gandhi’s Truth would say, no it is not. It is going about its preoccupations with old festivals and new carnivals as if the planet has an eternity of joys ahead.
That truth also Destroy the body.
By whom? By us.
Government Leaders Snapping at One Another Are Are Backed By Community Leaders Snapping in Chorus, Stoking Fires that Can Detonate Explosives That Burn, Spew Acids that Scar For Life.
Orwell ends his essay on gandhi with these honest words: “One may feel, as I do, a sort of aesthetic distaste for gandhi, one may reject the claims of Sainthood Made on His Behalf Such Claim Himself, by the way)… but regarded simply as a politics, and compared with the other leading political Figures of our time, how clean a smell he has managed to leave before! ” He does not say “fragrance” – that would be for Gandhiians to say. He says “smell” – that honest word. But the key word there is “clean”.
Return, clean and lean you! It will not be a happy return for you, I know. But by God and by orwell, do return as some other person, an ai geek perhaps, an ai einstein or russell. Teach us how to say no to all old and new ways of decision and decision, Including that that that ai will invent. Pause your canons of Celibacy, Nature Cure, Salt-Free Food and Homespun But Teach Us to Stop Telling Lies and Save Us from Orselves. Before the buttons of hatred are posted and the rockets of falsehood fly.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a student of modern Indian history and the author of the undering light: a personal history of independent India. The views expressed are personal
