Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the
countries you call your possessions ... If these gentlemen
choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they
do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves,
man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will
refuse to owe allegiance to them.”
And whilst recognising the Holocaust as “the greatest
crime of our time” Gandhi’s belief was that the Jews of
Germany should have consciously and freely offered
themselves to their persecutors, even knowing their vile
aims, rather than being rounded up. For this “... would
have aroused the world and the people of Germany... As it
is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”
Above all, Gandhi demonstrated in action both the
effectiveness of non-violence and the courage it demands –
in contrast to which resorting to violence can be seen as the
most passive form of cowardice and blind surrender to
impulse or authority. In this way Gandhi both expressed
and embodied a radically new understanding of the relation
between Hinduism, heroism and Ahimsa. For Heroic tales
and hero worship are a part of Hindu religious culture and
mythology, as is the elevation of a military leader or clan
hero to the status of a god – and in the case of Krishna to
the position of supreme god that he assumes in the
Bhagavadgita.